The Temple and the Tabernacle: A Study of God’s Dwelling Places from Genesis to Revelation, J. Daniel Hays. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016. $19.99. “The temple and the tabernacle serve as the dwelling place of God himself, and this ‘tabernacling’ presence of God among his people, relating to them in his gracious covenant love, is, without doubt, one of the…

The Music Architect: Blueprints for Engaging Worshipers in Song, by Constance M. Cherry. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016. 272 pp. $22.99. Constance M. Cherry is a professor of worship and pastoral ministry at Wesleyan University and holds a Master of Music degree from Bowling Green State University and a Doctor of Ministry in Christian Worship from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.…

Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do, by Paul David Tripp. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015. 198 pp. $14.27. “No matter how hard I try, I just cannot seem to get it right!” Many people hear this phrase in common, everyday life. If one were to quickly discern the issue and was also a believer, he or…

Creating Missional Worship: Fusing Context and Tradition, Tim Lomax. London: Publisher’s Church House Publishing, 2015. 192 pp. $22.70. “God is not found exclusively in the church—he is out there” (102). With his strong conviction on the importance of creating missional worship, Tim Lomax, a member of the Liturgical Commission of the Church of England and Chair of its Evangelical Worship…

Worship Wars: What the Bible Says about Worship Music, by Robert Bakss. Port Orchard, WA: Ark House Press, 2015. 271 pp. $19.99. Do “worship wars” still exist in evangelical churches? The answer is yes. While many would argue that the “worship wars” of the late 1900s solved this issue, Robert Bakss argues that “worship wars” have occurred over many centuries…

Rhythms of Worship: The Planning and Purpose of Liturgy, by Michael Waschevski and John G. Stevens. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014. 92 pp. $15.00. Michael Waschevski is currently an associate pastor of programming and pastoral care at First Presbyterian Church in Fort Worth, Texas, and has served Presbyterian churches in Michigan and Texas since 1999. Co-author John Stevens…

Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and Theological Perspective, by Andrew B. McGowan. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014. 262 pp. $29.99. The phrase “Rome was not built in a day” is also fitting to describe early Christian worship, as it too was not established in one day. In Andrew B. McGowan’s Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices…

Seeking the Face of God: Evangelical Worship Reconceived, by J. Daniel Day. Macon, GA: Nurturing Faith, 2013. 287 pp. $18.00. Daniel Day, longtime Baptist pastor and former Professor of Christian Preaching and Worship at Campbell University Divinity School, draws upon church history, experience teaching college-level worship classes, and decades of personal biblical study and pastoring to remind evangelicals that worship…

Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament, by John D. Currid. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books. 2013. 141 pp. $17.99. Over the last two centuries, archaeological discoveries in the Near East have uncovered a multitude of similarities between Hebrew culture and the surrounding pagan cultures. Surprisingly, many religious parallels have also been uncovered, leading many scholars and theologians…

Music, Modernity, and God: Essays in Listening, by Jeremy Begbie. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. 261 pp. $55.00. “[Your] efforts were doomed to failure from the start, since music and theology were fundamentally incommensurable: one deals with the affective and connotational, the other with the conceptual” (206). This quote is an extemporaneous comment by an attendee at an occasion…