Now to Him

This stirring book will give worshippers and worship leaders much food for thought. Neil Bennetts a songwriter and New Wine worship leader, and Simon Ponsonby a gifted author and speaker much in demand and St.Aldates-Oxford-based theologian, collaborate in expressing concern over ‘hedonistic, introspective, self-satisfying influences’ on church life and worship. They recognise that worship is more than just what we do in church, for Romans 12.1 indicates ‘worship is a way of life’ (Simon’s words). But, as Neil writes, ‘Gathered worship is the first priority of the church. The most important thing for a church to be doing is the thing that will cause it to fall apart the most quickly if it is stopped. Sounds like worship to me.’ The two men call for worship that is ‘grace-filled and cross-centred’, for which a ‘template’ is found in Colossians 1.10-15, which Simon explores - worship that is genuinely ‘to God’ (‘Worship is not about us, it’s about God. Not for our benefit, but God’s’, as he puts it) - worship that replaces the emphasis on ‘I’ with an emphasis on ‘You’. That’s absolutely true, of course. But I do miss, as I usually do in contemporary books on leading worship, any reference to Confession or Intercession. It’s not just Praise, is it? And you may struggle with Neil’s assertion that passionate, undignified worship is infectious. There are other ways to lead worship, and a useful book in a different style is At Heaven’s Gate, by Richard Giles (Canterbury Press, 2010). But there is a lot to learn from Bennetts’ and Ponsonby’s passion for worship.

Written with passion and drawing on a vast range of sources and references.

'A deeply insightful book on why we are called to worship. Neil and Simon weave together deep theological understanding with pastoral experience that underline the enormity of God's grace and the excitment of the life we are called into.'