Most histories of Christian worship are written as if nothing significant in liturgical history ever happened in North America, as if cultural diversities were insignificant in the development of worship, and as if most of what mattered were words the priest or minister addressed to God. This book is a revisionist work, attempting to give new direction to liturgical history by treating the experience of worship of the people in the pews as the primary liturgical document. It means liturgical history written facing the other way--that is, looking into the chancel rather than out of it. Relishing the liturgical diversity of recent centuries as firm evidence of Chritianity's ability to adapt to a wide variety of peoples and places, Professor White shows that this tendency has been apparent in Chrisitian worship since its inception in the New Testament churches. Instead of imposing one tradition's criteria on worship, he tries to give a balanced and comprehensive approach to the development of the dozen or more traditions surviving in the modern world.

Early Christian Worship is a straightforward, readable introduction to worship in the first four centuries of the church's existence. How did early Christians see and understand their own worship? How did this interact with early Christian beliefs? The book has been brought up-to-date and revised, with some chapters rewritten and an updated bibliography.

Paul F. Bradshaw is professor of liturgy at the University of Notre Dame, and priest-vicar of Westminster Abbey and a member of the Church of England Liturgical Commission. He is the author or editor of several major books (The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship, Eucharistic Origins, Reconstructing Early Christian Worship, The Study of Liturgy, A Companion to Common Worship, volumes 1 and 2).

Do you struggle to provide enjoyable, meaningful and spiritual times of family devotions? Do you avoid the whole subject but have the nagging thought that you should be doing something?

Let Terry & Family Worship equip you for leading your family in worship with the help of some key questions: What is family worship? What have other people done? Why Should I do it? How can I start? A Valuable resource which you will not exhaust in years.

Worship is crucial to the Christian life. Yet fewer and fewer people are in our buildings worshiping. Why? Perhaps we aren't meeting their needs, aren't speaking their language, and, therefore, aren't relevant or meaningful. In trying to respond to the needs of the community, "worship wars" sometimes erupt, and rarely does anyone win. Styles are only tactics, says Jeff Patton, and, apart from a sense of God's transformational presence, empty at best.

Transformational worship occurs when worship is indigenous, speaking to the whole person in a particular culture at a specific time regardless of style. Patton describes four aspects of life (the Holy, the void, the lived world, and the self) and sees in these four aspects a "divine intersection" where the Holy invades our reality and brings us to a deeper, transformational experience of God's love, presence, and purpose.