Customer Reviews

A Royal Waste of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is very helpful in understanding and interpreting our postmodern culture as it impacts worship. The author describes God as our "Infinite Center", and worship as "immersed participation in all the fullness of God's splendor." She emphasizes the need to "be Church" to our culture. The author also deals candidly with many of the music issues affecting worship today, especially the "traditional" versus "contemporary" struggles, and worship and evangelism issues. While many authors offer practical suggestions for "what works," she gets to deeper levels, reminding us that worship is not a matter of taste, that evangelism itself should not "drive" what happens in worship, that we cannot sacrifice substance for style. Throughout the book, she reminds the reader that she is not seeking to provide answers for "being church" in our culture, but she invites us to ask better questions about the meaning and purposes of worship in postmodern times, and how our worship practices form us to be God's people. Reading this book is definitely not a waste of time!

Those who have read anything by Marva Dawn will love "A Royal 'Waste' of Time." Those who aren't familiar with her work are in for a book that is very compelling and challenging. This book isn't merely about worship singing; it is about being a church community centered on the worship of an Infinite God. The book articulates a missional ecclesiology focused on biblical worship that engages the world.

In my opinion, this book hits the mark, and Marva Dawn has a prophetic view of contemporary culture. Much of the church, in order to attract members, has succumbed to the idea of competing within the popular consumer marketplace, using worship as a tool for evangelism, and creating worship to appeal to various tastes, even within individual churhes. Dawn makes her points with numerous citations from other sources. This book will be affirming for some, and challenging to many cherished pre-conceptions.

Marva Dawn is an awesome author who has pin pointed the problems afflicting much of the Western church. Her book describes why we need to worship God and not ourselves and she warns churches that they should not succumb to the narcissism of the age in an attempt to draw people in.

Marva Dawn has some great ideas and insights on worship: we need to think theologically about how we go about setting up a worship environment rather than being stuck in traditionalism or blindly following the latest trends of church-marketing strategists; worship should be about God, not about evangelism; et cetera. I agree with these statements, and while she does give a bit of practical advice on how we should go about doing this, I felt like I gained most of what I needed to from the book merely by reading the back cover. I found her writing to be distracting and unprofessional...(is it really a common practice to cite yourself that often? or to complain about your visual impairments several times in a book? or to spend so much time defending your previous work against criticisms?), and probably at least half of the book is merely revisions of work she has published elsewhere. This leads to a very hodge-podge feel, what with the addition of her own sermons interspersed throughout the book. I might also mention the fact that although she claims to be impartial, her writing comes across as very slanted toward "traditional" worship style. If you attend a church that uses contemporary worship styles or doesn't have an organ, prepare to be somewhat offended, or at least feel like you're not the audience she's writing to. Again, I think she does have some great ideas, but overall this is not a book that I would recommend. If I didn't have to read this book for a class I'm taking, I would have put it down a long time ago.

As a Catholic, I have enjoyed reading Marva J. Dawn's book "Reaching out without Dumbing Down" as well as this book. Her theology is close to ours in so many ways.

A Royal Waste of Time is another character sketch on "how to do" Worship. Although, highly insightful on Corporate Worship, Dawn misses the mark on true Biblical Worship. She is blur of many authors today who are trying to "fix" Worship instead of doing Worship - just another slant on how to create a corporate worship environment.