All too often, books about worship merely offer some variation of this advice: "You just have to really really really really really love God a lot." Thankfully, this new book by Fry is not one of them; it is refreshingly thoughtful, richly practical and engaging on many levels. Fry, an author (I Am; Safe in the Father's Arms) and recording artist (We Are Called), speaks to worshippers and worship leaders who are feeling dry and distant from God, and are merely going through the motions. The ultimate priority for all Christians, argues Fry, is to cultivate intimacy with God ("bridal passion"). This grace-filled process starts not with our trying extra hard, or with own desire for God, but with God's desire for us ("Jesus ever woos and pursues us, and the pull of His love is so much stronger than our intransigence"). Fry often shows lovely flashes of a poet's or preacher's rhetorical sensibilities, and, though he sometimes lapses into the youth minister's tendency to tell too many stories about himself, these stories and songs often work. Best of all, he combines them easily with plentiful insights from Scripture and a surprisingly eclectic collection of experts (from Dallas Willard to Bernard of Clairvaux) to teach about prayer, praise, meditation, listening—in short, a devotional and worship life characterized by a burning closeness to God. (Mar.)
