The Complete Worship Service

Creating a Taste of Heaven on Earth

by: Kevin J. Navarro

• Format

  E-Book

  ISBN

  9781441203922

  Pub. Date

  Oct 2005

  SRP

  $15.00

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About

People want a taste of heaven. Here's how your church can satisfy this longing.

In The Complete Worship Service, experienced worship leader and pastor Kevin Navarro shows you how to create a complete worship service by implementing a four-part pattern of worship: longing for, preparing for, experiencing, and talking about a taste of heaven. Recognizing worship as a form of hospitality, Navarro shares practical considerations and ideas to help you make all the elements work together, from greeting guests to using music to teaching the Word. The Complete Worship Service can help you build a church that experiences God's presence and welcomes others to the celebration.

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Endorsements

"When I closed this book, I felt a tremendous mixture of hope, excitement, affirmation, and renewed devotion to the work of crafting weekly worship services. Kevin Navarro ennobles the entire effort of preparing the Sunday "dress rehearsals" for our ultimate worship experience in heaven. I'm grateful for the hard-won lessons, practical advice, and inspiring vision offered in these pages. Let our weekly celebrations resound with greater joy, profound hope, and a taste of eternity whenever we gather together!"--Nancy Beach, teaching pastor and creative director, Willow Creek Community Church

"Are worship services at your church flat? Predictable? Not really connecting people with God? Then get ready to fiesta in the Complete Worship Service! In this encouraging and challenging book, Kevin Navarro invites us to move past the "worship = music" myth and into a fuller approach to worship: a creative, corporate feast of praise, prayer, the Word of God, and the Lord's Supper. And he shows us how to practice hospitality that encourages members and guests to engage with God in worship. Weekly worship can be much more than a dreary duty; as Navarro ably demonstrates, the "Complete Worship Service" can be the appetizer course at your church for the heavenly banquet to come. Navarro writes with the heart of a worshiper, a pastor, and a jazz musician. The Complete Worship Service is filled with biblical insight and practical application. Pastors and lay leaders alike will benefit from Navarro's field-tested recommendations for practicing welcoming hospitality and designing meaningful worship services. I can't think of a better book to stimulate and inform conversations in your church about worship that engages the whole people and the whole person."--Dr. Robb Redman, author, The Great Worship Awakening

"Here's a book on worship to be read by every church musician, pastor, leader and worshipper."--Leith Anderson, author, Jesus: An Intimate Portrait of the Man, His Land, and His People

"Here is a book that anyone dissatisfied with the quality, Christ- and Scripture-centered nature, or impact of their worship services must read. While some may feel that Navarro's goals of excellence at times lie beyond their reach, no one can doubt his heart for seeing people brought to Christ and brought up in him through worship. His track record, moreover, first as a worship pastor and then as a senior pastor, at a church where I once served as an interim, speaks for itself-steady growth, qualitatively and quantitatively, in a congregation that dearly loves this infectiously upbeat leader who also models integrity and humility in everything he does."--Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary

"The desire to worship is rooted in our hunger for heaven. Our coming together for worship is a foretaste of heaven. In his book that is both spiritual and intensely practical at the same time, Kevin Navarro explores this vital connection between our fragmented experience in the here and now and the hope we all share for the time that certainly will come when heaven will come for us."--Michael Card, award-winning musician; author, A Sacred Sorrow

"When it comes to worship, nothing matters if the only One worthy of worship is just a footnote beneath worship glitz. Kevin Navarro prods our hearts back to Jesus and to worship services that give life, not just lessons; a foretaste of heaven, not just so many factoids to get through another week. The Complete Worship Service is a timely, passionate antidote to the worship humanism saturating contemporary services."--Sally Morgenthaler, author, Worship Evangelism; founder, Sacramentis.com

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Reviews

"Navarro offers some great insight to the biblical purpose of the worship service and how we can experience a little heaven on earth. This is a must for every worship leaders library as well as those who desire a closer worship walk and experience here on earth."--ExperiencingWorship.com