Customer Reviews

To Know You More: Cultivating the Heart of the Worship Leader

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Among the many books out there on worship, this is one of the best. Andy Park is a mature, bright, theologically-solid, and experienced worship leader. He shares with the reader the fruits of many years of faithful and inspired worship leading and song writing.

Perhaps one of the most engaging aspects of this book is Park's personal openness. As you read, you won't feel like some expert is preaching down at you, but like a wise friend has come alongside to help you become a more effective leader, for God's glory.

Park's church experience is largely in the Vineyard. His writing reflects this experience (naturally), but is also relevant to those of us who are not part of Vineyard (or Vineyard-like) churches. Park's wisdom transcends his particular denomination.

I learned many things from this book and it also touched my heart. I have been encouraged to be a stronger worship leader and, indeed, a more faithful worshiper of God.

Now that I have read this book, I am ordering several copies for friends who lead worship. They will profit richly from this book, and so will you.

This book has a pretty limited target audience, which makes it exceptionally useful for people in that group - people who lead worship in protestant churches. And with 17 years of experience, Andy Park is an appropriate person to write this book. We sing some of Andy's songs at my church, and I figured that anyone who wrote worship choruses that are so widely known must have something to say that's worth hearing. "To Know You More" provides a great mix of history, philosophy, and practical suggestions related to leading worship.

Throughout the book, Andy shares openly about the challenges he's faced in leading worship. These stories make this book inviting and helpful. I see that many of my insecurities and second-guesses are not so unique. Page after page, I found myself saying, "Yeah, I've been there. That's exactly how I felt." There's comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one to wonder if I'm really up to the task of trying to create an environment that enables people to have an encounter with God.

I appreciated the history of song styles that have been used in worship. I didn't realize that hymns were just as ground-breaking and controversial in their day as contemporary worship songs are in some churches today. In short, today's style of worship is culturally relevant and legitimate, even though there is and will continue to be resistance. In 50 years, church-goers may have an entirely different style, and may have the same opinions about today's worship choruses that we have about traditional hymns. That won't diminish the value of either style.

Andy writes about how to pick songs, rehearse, develop other worship leaders, and part ways when it just isn't working. He also writes about the various roles of worship leaders and song writers, who serve to varying degrees as priests, prophets, healers, teachers, and evangelists. To me, this was the best part of the book. Many people think the worship leader is like a choir director for the congregation, but there's so much more to it than that. Park defines the complete picture of what a worship leader is.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in being a worship leader. I have found it to be very informative. It is an awesome book.

If you are looking to find a book that has everything you need to know about worship, and how to worship, then this book is for you. Andy Park may not be as popular as Redman or Tomlin when it comes to worship in music but that is different when it comes to worship in words. He knows how to put "worship" into a book filled with information that we, worship leaders need to know.

Believe me, every since I lent this book to my friends, it was hard to get it back. Even if you didn't learn anything from this book, you got 240 back-to-back pages of information for reference. The only down side to this book is that it's not compact, or too big to fit my guitar case. With this book, you get more than what you pay for.

Though it was for a cheap price here, I honestly wish I would have just saved my money. I feel that Park is so focused on himself, rather than the focus of our worship, our Father! I might not be getting what he meant to write, though, so I won't completely condemn it. There are some good pointers in there concerning preparation, bands, etc. , but if somebody wanted to buy it, I would sincerely advise them to first borrow it from a friend or a library, if possible.

The book, written by Andy Park, a worship leader and recording artist from within the Vineyard Movement was incredibly helpful in bringing clarity to ideas my wife and I had talked about pertaining to how to lead a worship service and worship team but didn't know if we were on the right track. Granted, different styles of worship leading exist, so for some, this book may discuss a worship style too free of structure but with my Assemblies of God upbringing, I found this book to be insightful and encouraging.

What I most appreciated was that Parks discusses that the job of the worship team isn't to manipulate the church into worshiping in a set way through soaring songs and long pauses, but to simply worship themselves on the stage, in front of everyone. The worship team's authentic worship to God becomes the invitation for others to join. A skeptical generation has watched too many worship teams try to create an atmosphere of worship and have detected the lack of true connection the worship team has with God. Moreover, this understanding of the role of the worship team precludes what I have observed as a new trend of allowing non-Christians on the team because their musical skill is desired. For how can a non-Christian truly worship a God to whom he or she has not committed.

Another valuable piece of this book it is immensely practical. It has chapters on working with the lead pastor, selecting and working with the worship team, preparing and delivering a worship set, leading a worship team, developing new worship leaders, and even how to go about song writing.

If you are on a worship team in a church or work with worship leaders, I would strongly recommend this book.

This book comes from a nondenominational view in my opinion. The writer and his writings seem to come from the Jesus Movement of the 60/70's (of which I was a part). It has a much needed approach in that it starts with looking at yourself as a Worship Leader first. That's refreshing.

I have been a worship leader for quite a few years now and I still found some of the ideas and tips in this book most helpful. Andy Park gives some truly helpful tips for leading worship bands of all sizes. It's not just biblical ideas and the stand-by types worship leadership teaching either. It's very grounded and human. Expect to be able to relate to this book.