**Author:** [[3. Resources/Authors/Brian Croft, Jason Adkins|Brian Croft, Jason Adkins]] # Book Overview ![[Gather God's People Visual.excalidraw]] ## About the Author Brian Croft is the senior pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church and has spent over two decades planning and leading corporate worship across settings ranging from small rural churches to large youth gatherings to blended megachurch services. Jason Adkins serves as Croft's pastoral assistant, responsible for regularly planning and leading music in their worship gatherings. Together, they bring a practitioner perspective -- Croft from pastoral conviction shaped by diverse ministry experience, Adkins from the weekly work of crafting services that support the preached word. The book is part of Zondervan's Practical Shepherding series. ## Central Thesis Corporate worship isn't a matter of preference, cultural style, or creative expression. It's a matter of biblical obedience. Croft and Adkins argue that the Old Testament shows God cares deeply how he's worshiped, and the New Testament gives explicit instructions on how to worship him. Those two principles together produce the regulative principle: what Scripture commands for worship should be the substance and sum of congregational gatherings. The five elements God has ordained -- preaching the word, reading the word, praying the word, singing the word, and seeing the word (ordinances) -- aren't suggestions or starting points. They're the framework. The book applies this conviction across three movements: understanding what worship is theologically, planning worship services with intentionality, and leading those services with competence. The sermon drives everything. Scripture readings, songs, and prayers all take their cue from the upcoming message, so the congregation leaves with a unified, word-derived charge for the week. ## Why This Book Matters Most worship planning resources focus on style -- contemporary vs. traditional, production quality, musical excellence. This book reframes the conversation around substance. It asks whether what happens in your Sunday gathering is shaped by Scripture or by cultural expectation, and it provides a practical method for making sure the answer is Scripture. For pastors and worship leaders who feel the weight of weekly planning but lack a systematic approach, this book offers a coherent workflow: identify sermon themes, select readings and songs that reinforce those themes, plan prayers that respond to those themes, and lead every element with clarity and pastoral care. The approach is transferable across church sizes and styles. --- # Chapter Summaries ## Foreword (Bob Kauflin) Kauflin frames the book's value against three common approaches to worship planning: the business marketing model (success through communication skills and numerical growth), the experiential model (facilitating personal encounters through options like painting or candle-lighting), and the tradition model (connecting people to historic practices). He commends Croft and Adkins for a fourth approach: trusting that God's word is sufficient to guide what happens when the church gathers, without needing to scour the internet for more interesting or innovative elements. ## Introduction Croft recounts his diverse worship background -- rural hymn-only churches, smoke-machine megachurch services, thousands of teenagers gathered for youth events. That range of experience didn't produce confusion. It solidified his convictions about what Scripture actually prescribes for corporate worship. Adkins joined the work five years prior and brought fresh perspective to Croft's existing framework. Both authors emphasize that their recommendations reflect one church's faithful attempt to apply Scripture in its context, not a universal mandate. ## Chapter 1: Biblical Theology of Worship The theological foundation. In the Old Testament, God's regard for his own glory drives everything -- creation, exodus, exile, worship regulations, and penalties for violating those regulations. Nadab and Abihu die for offering worship outside God's guidelines. The severity communicates how much God cares about worship conforming to his standards. In the New Testament, Jesus redefines worship as spiritual and truthful (John 4:23-24). Paul makes worship purposeful (engaging mind and spirit, 1 Corinthians 14:15), congregational (the whole church gathering together, Acts 2:42), and explicitly commanded (Hebrews 10:25, Ephesians 5:18-21). The chapter concludes with the regulative principle: what Scripture commands for gathered worship should be the substance and sum of it. ## Chapter 2: Elements of Worship The practical outworking of the regulative principle, organized around five elements: preach the word, read the word, pray the word, sing the word, and see the word. Each element gets biblical grounding and practical guidance. Preaching is the highlight of the gathering, and all other elements should support the sermon. Scripture readings should vary by genre and testament. Corporate prayer draws its charge and content from Scripture. Congregational singing has a dual audience -- vertical (to God) and horizontal (to one another) -- and should include psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with biblical content. The ordinances (baptism and Lord's Supper) are the visual depictions God has ordained. The chapter includes a full sample service order showing how all elements connect to a sermon on 1 Corinthians 9:1-18. ## Chapter 3: Spirituality of Worship Worship planning should account for the full range of biblical emotions, not just joy. The psalms model exuberance, exasperation, confession, and confidence -- and worship services should reflect that range. Croft and Adkins recount a devastating week when their church lost a connected pastor and his wife in a car accident, followed days later by the death of one of their own deacons. Starting the next Sunday with celebratory songs would have failed the congregation. They revised plans to begin with grief and comfort before transitioning to hope. The chapter argues that worship planners should intentionally consider which emotional responses fit the sermon content, and plan accordingly -- confession services, somber Advent services, mournful pre-Easter gatherings, and triumphant celebrations each have their place. ## Chapter 4: Planning the Reading of the Word A detailed guide to selecting Scripture readings. Their typical service has three readings: a call to worship (usually a psalm), a mid-service reading (from the testament not being preached), and a benediction. Selection criteria include coherence with the sermon, diversity of genre and testament, and suitability for transition moments in the service. Practical advice covers reading length, content accessibility, and the value of concordance searches for keyword connections. The chapter includes extended examples showing how they selected readings for sermons on 1 Corinthians 10:23-33 and 2 Samuel 23:8-39, walking through the thematic rationale for each choice. They recommend tracking selections on a spreadsheet to avoid repetition within a quarter. ## Chapter 5: Planning the Praying of the Word Corporate prayer takes several forms in their church: pastoral prayers addressing congregational needs, prayers of confession addressing specific sins, and thematic prayers for missionaries, the persecuted church, the unconverted, and civil authorities. The mid-service prayer varies weekly and takes its direction from the sermon themes filtered through New Testament prayer commands. Planning criteria include compatibility with the sermon, the congregation's current needs, and the frequency of different prayer emphases. The chapter emphasizes that varying prayer types teaches the congregation to pray more broadly in their private lives. ## Chapter 6: Planning the Singing of the Word Song selection follows the same sermon-serving principle. They search for songs by theme and keyword, drawing from classic hymns, modern songs, and psalm paraphrases set to familiar tunes. Mandatory criteria include doctrinal soundness, gospel articulation, and congregational accessibility -- considering vocabulary, melody complexity, and vocal range. The chapter advocates a blended approach that respects the traditional hymnody of the congregation while patiently adding high-quality contemporary songs. Practical resources include hymnal topical indexes, Hymnary.org for keyword searches, and tune indexes for discovering "new songs/old tunes" -- unfamiliar texts set to melodies the congregation already knows. Modern hymnists they commend include Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, Sovereign Grace Music, Indelible Grace, and Sandra McCracken. ## Chapter 7: Leading Readings and Prayers Execution of the planned elements. A designated service leader (usually a pastor) handles readings and prayers for each gathering. For readings: project your voice, review passages beforehand, maintain deliberate pacing, and use short introductions that connect the reading to the service's themes. For prayers: prepare at least an outline, avoid filler phrases, incorporate Scripture directly, and use silence intentionally. The chapter provides specific Scripture references to shape prayers for health concerns, expecting mothers, grieving members, confession of sin, and legal matters. It recommends The Valley of Vision as a secondary resource for doctrinally anchored prayer language. ## Chapter 8: Leading Singing The congregational nature of worship should reshape how music is led. The person introducing songs and directing the congregation should be an ordained leader with congregational authority. Amplification should prioritize vocals over instruments so the congregation can hear each other sing -- a direct application of the "addressing one another" principle from Ephesians 5:19. Song introductions are brief moments of spiritual leadership, not mini-sermons, and should explicitly connect songs to other service elements. The chapter advocates for a cappella arrangements on select stanzas, transposing songs to comfortable keys, consistent musical arrangements, and using offertory time for psalm performances that prepare the congregation for the sermon. ## Chapter 9: Leading the Ordinances Baptism and the Lord's Supper should be administered by ordained ministers within the regular worship gathering, not relegated to special events or private settings. For baptism: introduce the candidate, have them share their testimony, read an appropriate Scripture, and give brief remarks on the meaning of the ordinance. For the Lord's Supper: explain the elements, detail the gospel truths of Christ's death and resurrection, and "fence the table" by clearly communicating who should participate. The chapter recommends monthly communion at minimum and integrating baptisms into the normal service flow rather than scheduling them quarterly. ## Conclusion: The Next Steps Three parting admonishments. Exercise patience -- don't implement everything next Sunday. Bear with one another -- don't replace your congregation's beloved songs with your new preferences. Remember what's at stake -- this is for God's glory, not yours. ## Appendix 1: Reintroducing Psalm Singing The book's most passionate section. Psalm singing is commanded (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16), significant (you're singing God's own inspired words), and beneficial (the psalms articulate the full range of human emotion). Practical guidance covers resources (Trinity Hymnal, Trinity Psalter), reintroduction strategy (patience, vision-casting, exposure before congregational singing), and addressing concerns about paraphrasing and contemporary worship settings. --- # Key Themes and Highlights ## The Regulative Principle as Worship Framework The book's organizing conviction. God hasn't left worship design to human creativity. The New Testament commands five elements for gathered worship -- preaching, reading, praying, singing, and ordinances -- and those commands should constitute the substance of what happens on Sunday. This isn't legalism; it's trust that God, who cares deeply about his own glory, wouldn't leave essentials for worship unrevealed. ## Sermon-Centric Service Planning Every element in the service takes its cue from the sermon. Scripture readings, songs, prayers, and even the emotional arc of the gathering all point toward and reinforce the preached word. The planning process starts with the sermon text and outline, then builds outward. This produces a unified experience where the congregation leaves with a clear sense of the pastor's word-derived counsel for the week. ## Dual-Audience Worship Paul identifies two audiences for congregational singing: vertical (to God) and horizontal (to one another). This corrects the common notion that worship has a single audience. Christians address each other in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, making mutual edification a purpose of singing alongside praise to God. This principle has practical implications for amplification (the congregation should hear each other), song selection (content that encourages fellow believers), and leading (facilitating corporate participation rather than individual experience). ## Emotional Range in Worship The psalms model exuberance, exasperation, confession, and confidence. Worship services that only express joy fail to lead God's people through the full range of biblical spirituality. Planning should intentionally match emotional tone to sermon content -- confession services for sermons on obedience, somber elements for passages on suffering, triumphant celebrations for gospel texts. ## Recovery of Psalm Singing One of the book's most distinctive emphases. The authors argue that singing the psalms is commanded, significant (you're singing inspired and infallible words), and beneficial (the psalms express emotions that modern worship songs often avoid). Their practical method is setting psalm paraphrases to familiar hymn tunes, lowering the learning curve for congregations unaccustomed to psalmody. --- # Analytical Reading ## Main Arguments 1. The Old Testament demonstrates that God cares deeply how he's worshiped; the New Testament gives explicit instructions on how to worship him. 2. The regulative principle -- what Scripture commands for gathered worship should be the substance and sum of it -- is the proper framework for service planning. 3. Five elements constitute biblical corporate worship: preaching, reading, praying, singing, and the ordinances. 4. The sermon should drive all other elements of the service, creating a unified, word-saturated gathering. 5. Congregational singing has a dual audience (God and one another), which should reshape amplification, song selection, and worship leadership. 6. Worship should reflect the full emotional range of biblical spirituality, not just joy. 7. The psalms deserve recovery as a regular part of congregational singing. 8. Worship leadership requires deliberate preparation, not improvisation -- from Scripture reading pacing to prayer outlines to song introductions. 9. Patience and charity are essential when implementing changes in a congregation's worship practices. ## Methodology The book is pastoral literature grounded in biblical exposition. Croft and Adkins build their case through exegesis of key worship texts (Ephesians 5:18-21, Colossians 3:15-16, 1 Corinthians 14, John 4:23-24), Old Testament narratives demonstrating God's regard for worship (Nadab and Abihu, exodus, exile), and extended examples from their own weekly planning practice at Auburndale Baptist Church. The persuasive method is theological conviction applied through practical demonstration -- here's what Scripture says, here's what that looks like in our planning meeting, and here's an annotated service order showing the result. ## Strengths The book's greatest strength is its integration of theology and practice. Most worship books are either theological treatises that leave pastors wondering what to do on Monday, or practical guides that assume theological commitments without defending them. Croft and Adkins do both in a compact format. The annotated service orders -- showing exactly which readings, songs, and prayers were selected for specific sermon passages and why -- are genuinely useful. The dual-audience principle is well argued and has immediate practical implications. The psalm singing material fills a gap that few evangelical worship resources address. The tone throughout is charitable -- they consistently acknowledge that faithful churches will implement these principles differently. ## Limitations The book's examples are drawn entirely from one Baptist church with a traditional-leaning blended style. The planning process assumes a hymnal-based repertoire and a preacher-planner partnership that doesn't map to every church structure. The regulative principle, while carefully argued, is presented as more settled than the ongoing Reformed debate around it would suggest. The treatment of worship leadership and gender roles (restricting song-introduction responsibilities to men) reflects a specific complementarian reading that some readers will find either too prescriptive or insufficiently defended. The book gives limited attention to churches with contemporary-only repertoires, church plants without established traditions, or multisite churches with centralized planning. The ordinances chapter acknowledges denominational differences but can only offer guidance from the authors' Baptist perspective. --- # Personal Reflection ## Key Takeaways The most transferable idea in this book is the sermon-serving planning method. Instead of selecting songs, readings, and prayers based on what "feels right" or what's overdue for rotation, you start with the sermon text and build the entire service as a unified experience around the word about to be preached. This is simple in concept but requires the discipline of weekly planning sessions, advance sermon outlines, and a indexed repertoire of songs and readings. The payoff is a gathering where everything points in the same direction. The dual-audience concept changes how you think about amplification. If singing is meant to address one another, and the congregation can't hear itself over the band, something is structurally wrong. That's not a style preference -- it's a theological principle applied to a soundboard. The emotional range argument is a needed corrective. Planning services that are relentlessly upbeat fails to shepherd a congregation through grief, conviction, or longing. The psalms are the antidote, modeling emotions that most modern worship repertoires don't touch. ## Questions Raised - How does the sermon-serving model work in churches with team-based or rotating preaching where the sermon text isn't known far in advance? - The regulative principle limits worship elements to what Scripture commands. But where exactly is the line between a commanded element and an application of a commanded element? Is a video testimony the same as a live one? - How would this planning method adapt to churches with multiple services or venues where the same service plan meets different congregational cultures? - The book assumes a weekly planning meeting between the preacher and a worship planner. What happens in solo-pastor churches where one person does everything? - How do you maintain planning discipline when sermon preparation is running behind, and the worship planner doesn't have an outline to work from midweek? ## Connections to Other Works - [[Worship by the Book]] by D.A. Carson -- Carson's multi-author treatment of worship theology from Reformed, charismatic, and Anglican perspectives provides the broader theological conversation that Croft and Adkins apply to weekly practice. - [[The Deliberate Church]] by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander -- Dever and Alexander's treatment of the regulative principle and church polity provides the ecclesiological framework underlying this book. Croft and Adkins cite it directly. - [[Give Praise to God]] edited by Ryken, Thomas, and Duncan -- Another key cited resource, particularly Ligon Duncan's essays on the regulative principle and Terry Johnson's essay on restoring psalm singing. - [[Desiring God]] by John Piper -- Piper's argument that God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him connects to Croft and Adkins' insistence that worship must engage both mind and affections. - [[Corporate Worship]] by Matt Merker -- Merker covers similar ground on congregational singing and the horizontal dimension of worship, with a 9Marks perspective. --- # Reading Notes - The Nadab and Abihu passage (Leviticus 10:1-2) is the book's sharpest illustration of God's regard for worship. They offered worship outside God's guidelines and died for it. The severity communicates the stakes. - The sample service order for 1 Corinthians 9:1-18 is the most practically useful page in the book. It shows the complete planning output -- every reading, song, and prayer choice annotated with its thematic rationale. - The dual-audience principle from Ephesians 5:19 reframes the "worship wars" as a failure to read the text carefully. If singing addresses both God and one another, neither traditional nor contemporary partisans who only consider their own preferences have grasped the passage. - The grief anecdote in chapter 3 -- losing a connected pastor and a church deacon in the same week, then having to plan a worship service -- is the book's most pastorally affecting moment. Starting with Psalm 23 and "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need" instead of the planned Advent celebration was the right call. - The "new songs/old tunes" concept from the hymnal tune indexes is a clever resource hack. Find unfamiliar texts set to melodies your congregation already knows, and you expand your repertoire without the learning-curve friction. - Hymnary.org with hymnal codes for keyword searches is a practical tool worth bookmarking. Search "bh1991 wisdom" and get sixteen results from your own hymnal. - The book's insistence on tracking selections via spreadsheet to avoid repetition within a quarter is the kind of operational discipline that separates intentional planning from habitual rotation. - The Valley of Vision recommendation for prayer preparation is the most useful secondary resource mentioned. Doctrinally anchored, emotionally vibrant prayer language from Christians of the past. - The a cappella advocacy makes a strong case: hearing the full congregation sing without instruments maximizes the edification function of corporate worship. Best applied to very familiar songs in comfortable keys. - The conclusion's admonition to exercise patience is well placed. The most common failure mode for pastors who read a book like this is implementing everything next Sunday and creating conflict where none was necessary.