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1. Who Do We Worship?
To worship is “to honor or revere as a divine being or supernatural power” and “to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.”[1] A.W. Tozer uses the ideas of awe, wonder, and humility in his definition of worship. Worship, he states, is “a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder.”[2] He continues, “man who has not been humbled in the presence of God will never be a worshiper of God at all.”[3] Harold Best, dean of the Conservato


2. Why Do We Worship?
“To be human is to worship.”[1] This statement is supported in the Scriptures; it is declared in our creeds and is evident throughout history. Worship, in fact, has been the primary purpose of all humanity as made clear from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation.[2] Above all, we worship God because God created us to worship Him. Worship is at the center of our existence and at the heart of our reason for being. “God created us to be His image—an image that would


3. How Do We Worship?
According to John 4:24, “God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” We cannot simply approach worship on our own terms. Both individual and corporate worship must be biblical and should conform to the will of God rather than to the whims of fallen humanity. Scripture makes evident that acceptable worship means approaching God on His terms and in the manner that He makes possible.[1] “Even if every aspect of our worship is as close to the bibli


4. Historical Survey of Worship
Worship involves the assembling of God’s people. In fact, believers are commanded, through Scripture, to “not give up meeting together” (Heb. 10:25). There is a direct correlation between how a congregation understands itself to be a church and how they worship as a church. When churches gather corporately through a biblical understanding of worship, it transforms how they engage in the process and with each other. Corporate worship involves communion with Christ by His Spiri


5. Reformed Worship
The Protestant Reformation began with Martin Luther amid his protests against abuses within the church. Being fundamentally conservative, he felt the need for the church to revisit and refurbish genuine Christian beginnings. He was unwilling to and disputed any notion to disturb the faithful with new radical innovations.[1] Luther himself composed a liturgy, German Mass and Order of Divine Service, that broke with the practice of using Latin. He altered the canon to exclude a


6. Application of the Regulative Principle in the Contemporary Church
Certain theological words gain such defined meaning in the history of theology that to affirm that one holds to them is equal to affirming their historical meaning. The Regulative Principle holds to this standard, so affirming the Regulative Principle of worship and yet holding different views is simply misleading to one’s theological convictions. The foundational premise of the Regulative Principle is the idea of sola scriptura. Once the Reformation churches affirmed sola
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