Bob Kauflin Quotes

#1. Ultimately, the fruit of faithful leadership is knowing we've pleased the audience of One.

Bob Kauflin

#2. Our great privilege as worship leaders is to help people see through the eyes of faith how great God has actually revealed himself to be. He doesn't change. We do.

Bob Kauflin

#3. None of us can claim credit for our abilities.

Bob Kauflin

#4. But being moved emotionally is different from being changed spiritually.

Bob Kauflin

#5. Want to know what heaven is going to be like? Go to church.

Bob Kauflin

#6. Whatever standards others might use to judge our ministry, God is concerned that we be faithful.

Bob Kauflin

#7. Gary smiled. "If you were really hopeless, you'd stop trusting in yourself and what you can do and start trusting in what Jesus accomplished for you at the cross.

Bob Kauflin

#8. The better (i.e., the more accurately) we know God through his Word, the more genuine our worship will be. In fact, the moment we veer from what is true about God, we're engaging in idolatry. Regardless of what we think or feel, there is no authentic worship of God without a right knowledge of God.

Bob Kauflin

#9. Worship is about what we love. What we live for. It's about who we are before God.

Bob Kauflin

#10. I was striving to gain the approval of those whose approval was of no eternal significance. I'd failed to see that the only approval that matters--God's--is impossible to earn but is offered as a gift through the gospel.

Bob Kauflin

#11. Leading people to praise God involves energy, intentionality, and thoughtfulness.

Bob Kauflin

#12. But if we could grasp God completely, he wouldn't be much of a god. We should anticipate that our minds will be stretched to their limits as we seek to take in God's revelation of himself and his universe.

Bob Kauflin

#13. A faithful worship leader magnifies the greatness of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit by skillfully combining God's Word with music, thereby motivating the gathered church to proclaim the gospel, to cherish God's presence, and to live for God's glory.

Bob Kauflin

#14. And remember, the goal of practice isn't doing something until you get it right. It's doing it until you can't get it wrong.

Bob Kauflin

#15. raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with."1

Bob Kauflin

#16. Faithful leadership doesn't always result in being commended, applauded, or appreciated.

Bob Kauflin

#17. Remember, God can use us, but he doesn't need us.

Bob Kauflin

#18. While it's simplistic to say that worship is love, it's a fact that what we love most will determine what we genuinely worship.

Bob Kauflin

#19. While God can work through us in spite of our mistakes, incompetence, and lack of preparation, he commends skill and uses it for his glory.

Bob Kauflin

#20. Every church or individual Christian who claims to be Spirit-led must be Word-fed. If we want to know more of the Spirit's power in our lives, we would be wise to fill ourselves with the riches of his

Bob Kauflin

#21. And when it becomes a matter of infinite importance to us, we're beginning to grasp the heart of leading worship.

Bob Kauflin

#22. A divine perspective on skill will both motivate us to develop skill and protect us from exalting it.

Bob Kauflin

#23. But we can't love anything in the right way unless we love God more.

Bob Kauflin

#24. Good theologians are increasingly humbled and amazed by the God they study.

Bob Kauflin

#25. God wants us to realize that the point of our practice isn't to receive the praise of others. It's to bring him glory.

Bob Kauflin

#26. Good theology helps us keep music in its proper place. We learn that music isn't an end in itself but rather a means of expressing the worship already present in our hearts through the new life we've received in Jesus Christ.

Bob Kauflin

#27. We attempt to worship God apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. We trust in our own wisdom, plans, creativity, and skill. We forget that worship of the triune God includes the Holy Spirit.

Bob Kauflin

#28. Your greatest challenge is what you yourself bring to the platform each and every Sunday.

Bob Kauflin

#29. Trying to lead worship without electrical power can be a humbling experience. Trying to lead without spiritual power is far more serious. But normally not as obvious.

Bob Kauflin

#30. God isn't looking for something brilliant; he's looking for something broken.

Bob Kauflin

#31. In Music Through the Eyes of Faith, Harold Best defines excellence as "the process of becoming better than I once was.

Bob Kauflin