While most Christians today value worship and regard it as a vital part of the church's life and witness, there is also a wistful yearning that contemporary worship be vastly improved and given a more satisfying rationale. Believing that the agenda of worship “needs a serious overhaul in our churches,” well-known theologian Ralph P. Martin here reexamines the concept of worship, “recasting its meaning in such a way as will relate its practice to the concerns, interests, and needs of men and women in our world.” / Martin discusses the various elements of worship — praise, prayer, hymns, the offering, the creeds and confessions, the sermon, baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the role of the Holy Spirit — while considering the theological rationale for the practice of each element in the light of Scripture and history. A final chapter summarizes the author's definition of worship and diagrams a model service that involves all the aspects of worship he has discussed. / A compact guide to the main themes of the worship of God, this book will benefit ministers, theological students, and lay leaders seeking to define the form and content of worship in today's church.

Distinguished scholar in Residence at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California; Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California; and Logos Evangelical Seminary in El Monte, California.