There’s been a bit of a debate over whether it’s wise to quote heretics or not. But you can’t really argue with NTW’s historical take on the place of the psalms:

Well, it surprises me that one need make a case for the Psalms, but in a great many contemporary churches, something very odd has happened….they often simply forget the Psalms. You can go to many churches where if you attend week after week after week you will never ever sing or read the Psalms.

There’s something very peculiar about that because in pretty well every branch of the Christian tradition for 2,000 years, the Psalms have been the backbone of Christian worship. Certainly in all traditional denominations, but in many non-traditional ones, as well, it’s assumed that the Psalms are the heart of worship.

One of the staplines that the publisher has been using is “what would Jesus sing?” which I really like, because the Psalms were the prayer book that Jesus Himself used, and we can see in the Gospels and in the New Testament how Jesus and the early Christians used them, and it seems to me extraordinary that we would ignore that resource in our own worship.

And here’s one on why our culture is so quick to give up Bible reading and relationships:

Part of the problem in our culture today is that people don’t like working at anything. That’s why relationships are so difficult. People think either it’s perfect or it’s rubbish, so as soon as it stops being perfect “oh, it must be rubbish,” so we throw it away. Most things that are worthwhile in human life, you actually have to work at them and only then does the real fruit come.