{"product_id":"2940011874369","title":"Congregational Worship","description":"The question has been seriously resting on the author’s mind for a long time, whether it is not possible to secure a more general participation of the people in our Lord’s-day worship. This question has been suggested by various facts, such as the non-attendance of the great majority of the children and young people of the Sunday school upon the services of the church; the tendency on the part of some to fall into churches which use a liturgy, simply on the ground that they enjoy taking part in the services; and, most of all, the almost total lack in many of our churches of anything that can be properly called worship on the part of the people\u003cbr\u003eWith not the slightest sympathy with ritualism, and yet with a strong conviction that we have been tending entirely in that direction in allowing our praise to be rendered vicariously by quartet choirs, and our praying to be done so largely for us by the minister, instead of joining in it ourselves, we have asked what scriptural and reasonable methods could be found to popularizes our worship, and save it from this tendency to exclusiveness. The sermons\u003cbr\u003econtained in this volume are an attempt towards answering this question. It is not claimed that they\u003cbr\u003efurnish an exhaustive answer, but that they simply indicate a few desirable reforms. Nor does the book profess to be in any sense a treatise on the subject of worship. It is simply a series of five practical discourses preached on the successive Sunday afternoons to a Baptist congregation, and now, in answer to many requests, printed substantially as they were delivered.\u003cbr\u003eIf, with the extreme reluctance which many cherish to admit changes into our traditional form of worship, some may look with suspicion upon the one or two of the reforms here proposed, lest they should seem to tend to formalism, the author only asks a candid attention to what he has written, assured that the reader will be convinced that his aim is to check precisely this tendency by pointing out some ways through which the people may come into larger cooperation in the Sabbath worship, and so render it more popular and congregational, and less ministerial and exclusive.\u003cbr\u003eIf in any degree this little volume shall conduce to the honor of God, by encouraging his people to a more hearty and unanimous participation in his praise, the end of its publication will have been answered.\u003cbr\u003eBoston, Dec. 15, 1874.","brand":"Gordon Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078616137968,"sku":"2940011874369","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940011874369_p0.jpg?v=1763550784","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940011874369","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}