"We recall the words of the author of Hebrews that we are
surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1). Later, he declares that
in church worship we have come to Mount Zion, to the spirits of just men made
perfect (Heb. 12:18-25). We remember also the teaching of Revelation that when
the church gathers for worship it joins the angels and the church triumphant in
heaven around the throne of the living God and of the Lamb. We are not alone.
The church is not a lecture room; we are gathered with saints present and past –
and the angels too (see 1 Peter 1:10-12) – as we meet around the throne of God
in heaven. We have access to the worship of the renewed created order, the
church centrally included. We are with the saints and the angels, the apostles,
prophets and martyrs – and above all with the Lamb of God once slain, now risen,
and with the holy and undivided trinty.” (p156)
Through Western Eyes:
Eastern Orthodoxy: A Reformed Perspective (Fearn,
Mentor Christian Focus, 2007)
Our gathering for worship is an exercise in covenant renewal, a weekly celebration of the resurrection, and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet to come.
Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck stolen from blog of dan
Here's some possible text for the handout for the meeting we're having about Church Music on Saturday. It gives some issues to think about and discuss.
Introduction / some biblical considerations
Eph 4:15 – (1) Speak the truth (2) in love!
Worship in the Bible: (1) all of life – Rom 12:1-2 (2) special corporate gathered Lord’s Day public worship
Music in the Bible – Psalms e.g. 33:1-3; 47:1, 7; 98; 150
(1) Worship God - Heb 12:28; 1 Cor 14:40
(2) Mutual edification / building up / encouragement – 1 Cor 14:26
Ps 103-104
Col 3:12-15; Phil 2:2-4
Eph 5:19-20; Col 3:16
Some questions / issues to discuss…
How can our music better serve the Biblical purposes of worship and conform to what the Bible says about congregational music?
In the light of what the Bible says, what would we ideally like the music to be like?
What might we pray / plan for?
What are (a) the strengths and (b) the weaknesses of what we currently do?
How does our music affect the mood / atmosphere / feel / emotions of the service? Is that what we want?
What next steps might we take?
How could we make our music more attractive to newcomers?
Are there any skills, gifts, resources, people we are not currently using?
What do you think of the current choice of songs? Mix of old and new? Range? Repetition? Content? Music?
Is the music the right speed?
Amount of music in services?
Incidental / background music (before, after, during, communion etc.)?
Are the music practices helpful?
Singers?
Congregational singing? Clear when to come in?
Instruments? Organ? Keyboard? (Alone or together?) Guitars? Drums? Other?
Does the sound system serve the music? Sound check? Volumes / levels / mix?
Music for children and young people?
Use of CDs / MP3s?
Morning Service?
Evening Service?
Family Services? (Harvest, Christmas, Easter, Holiday Club, Summer)
Special services / events?
How could you serve / help?
Do you have particular songs to recommend?
Any song books / CDs / websites etc. to recommend?
Here are some jottings towards the Church Music Meeting we're having on Saturday.
Thank you to all those who already give generously of their time, effort and talents in the music ministry of the church.
We appreciate what you do and we’re grateful for it.
What we’re about today:
Not about taking decisions at this meeting.
I’m going to give a little bit of input at the beginning, but basically this is a chance to hear what people have to say.
A listening exercise.
So speak up!
The Vicar and I will talk about this some time, maybe with the rest of the staff meeting, PCC, musicians and singers or whatever seems appropriate.
General or specific points welcome – request a particular song.
I have some thoughts and ideas about the music, but I’m going to try to hold back and facilitate!
Everyone is entitled to their point of view, even if they’re wrong!
We might ask people to expand on what they’re saying or explain why they think that, but we don’t want to necessarily have a big argument about every point.
Let’s hear what people think, even if we disagree with it.
It may be that we’re already doing the best we can.
Talk about the ideal – dreams, visions, aspirations – inform our prayers.
Next steps – where can we realistically go from here with the people, time, energy, equipment we’ve got.
Eph 4:15 - Speak the truth in love!
(1) Speak the truth – be honest, open, frank, speak your mind, say your piece, feel free to say things that are negative or appropriately critical if need be, let’s not pretend
(2) in love – listen, respect one another’s’ opinions, be kind and gracious, gentle, avoid blame, be positive and constructive, let’s not impute wicked motives to one another unless there’s very good evidence!
The purpose of sung worship in the Bible:
(1) Worship God
We worship God with our whole lives, every day, not just with our lips on a Sunday.
Romans 12:1-2 – “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual {Or reasonable} act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
But we do meet on a the Lord’s Day for special corporate gathered public worship.
Hebrews 12:28 – “let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe”
What does the Bible say about music?
Lots of music in the Bible!
Psalms - Loudness, joy, variety of instruments.
We want what we do to be honouring to God – orderly, reverence, awe, greatness and majesty of God, minds and hearts engaged, joy, wholehearted, passionately, intelligently, sincerely.
God-centred songs, objective truth about what God has done.
Music has the ability to engage our emotions for good or ill.
We want songs that express and encourage appropriate responses to what God has done and said.
Song lyrics can be very memorable.
We want to stock our minds with good biblical stuff.
We want substantial biblical content to what we sing.
Biblical songs can help us to have the words of Christ dwell in us richly. (Col 3:16)
Songs that preach to ourselves / to one another. (Ps 103-104)
1 Corinthians 14:40 – “But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.”
(2) Mutual edification / building up / encouragement
God alone is the object and recipient of our worship.
We worship the audience of one!
We’re not performing.
The congregation is not the audience.
But we are to be concerned for others in our worship.
1 Cor 14:26 – “Let all things be done for building up.”
We need to ask what will edify, encourage and strengthen others?
This is after all our corporate public worship.
We are worshiping together as a body.
Sunday worship is not just about me and Jesus – we can do what we like in the privacy of our own homes with a CD player and headphones!
We worship and serve God by serving one another.
Song: Servant King - “Each others’ needs to prefer, for it is Christ we’re serving”
You can’t please all the people all the time!
Some things are matters of taste and we’ll differ on them, that’s fine.
Let’s think not only of our personal preferences.
Bear with one another (Col 3:13)
Philippians 2:3 - “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”
Our Sunday services are something of a shop front.
We need to consider not only our existing congregation but those who don’t yet come to church.
Music and singing can be very important in setting a mood and atmosphere.
If people come to church and they don’t like the music, they may not come back.
There are more important things to a church than the music, but it does really matter.
Especially in a place where there are other conservative Evangelical churches with good Bible teaching to choose from, attractive music could determine someone’s choice of church.
You might not think it should be that way, but I reckon it probably is.
We neglect the command to sing Psalms (Col 3:16). We rarely use the faultless hymnbook that God has given us.
Eph 5:19-20 – “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord,always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Colossians 3:16 – “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”
I just don't understand why we, the conservative Evangelical, really Bible-believing Christians, don't sing the Psalms (Col 3:16). It might be hard and difficult and unpopular, but we would usually say that we don't want to give up on the Bible and go for the easy popular sold out to our culture approach.
I know there are lots of lovely excellent hymns and songs out there, and I'm all for singing them, but what about the 150 God-breathed perfect songs we have in the Scriptures? Shouldn't we prioritise them? Or at least give them a regular place?
How many Psalms do you know by heart? And how many hymns or contemporary worship songs do you know? Is that good and right and helpful? Wouldn't singing the Psalms be an great way to have the Word of Christ dwell in us richly?
D.v. on Saturday morning I'm leading a meeting at church about our music. Here are a few resources (not all of which I've looked at in any detail). Anything else to recommend?
Don Carson, Worship by the Book (Zondervan)
John M. Frame, ‘A Fresh Look at the Regulative Principle’
How would you support that practice of putting your hands together and closing your eyes in prayer from the Bible? Are there any biblical examples of it?
I can see a common sense argument that such things may help us to avoid fidgeting and distraction. Which is one of the things that reminds us we don't want a very rigid (caricatured?) view of the Regulative Principle of Public Worship as if "everything that is not [explicitly?] commanded [in the Bible / NT] is forbidden" in worship. Surely no one thinks closing your eyes to pray is always and necessarily wrong? (See John Frame's questions and thoughts about the Regulative Principle).
I'm all for reverence for God, of course, and so bowing down in prayer seems appropriate, but personally I also like to look up to pray from time to time - it feels more elevating, expansive, joyful, hopeful, expectant, open, almost, somehow.
On a rainy day, I'm sure a Bible study on postures for prayer (kneeling, standing, bowing, hand-raising) would be rewarding. But at the moment the sun is shinning (ish) and there's more pressing things for me to be doing...
Granted we are not under the Old Covenant, Rev'd Dr Peter Leithart rightly identifies a very important question: how, if at all, may the ceremonial, ritual and cultic aspects of the Old Covenant be used to govern the practices of New Covenant worship?
The Reformed would generally assume some continuity between the covenants while recognising differences: e.g. they circumcised their children, we baptise ours.
If you assume NT only worship you may end up in a rather different place than if you are willing to learn from the OT: e.g. you might ban musical instruments (which many Reformed people have), which you'd never do if you thought the Psalms taught New Testament believers the practicalities of how to worship.
See further Peter Leithart, 'Sacramental Hermeneutics' in Greg Strawbridge (ed.), The Case for Covenant Communion (Athanasius Press, 2006)
I understand that under the Lincoln judgement it is illegal for a Church of England minister to make the sign of the cross while conducting public worship?
According to Ex 20:4 we are not to make an idol in the form of anything “in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” This language of heaven, earth and sea echos the categories of Gen 1:26 and covers all of the creation. We not to worship the creation rather than the Creator. Why would God image bearers want to worship anything else in creation? Man was created to rule the creation under God, not worship it, not to be ruled by it. Idolatry is an inversion of the created order of God-Man-Creation. It demeans men. It is foolish to exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles (Rom 1:23) and to exchange the truth of God for a lie, worshiping and serving created things rather than the Creator – who is for ever praised (Rom 1:25).
Professor John Frame defends the legitimacy of pictures of Jesus in The Doctrine of the Christian Life (P&R, 2008) p484ff, which is just as well as it means we wont have to smash our stained glass windows after Sunday morning's sermon on the second commandment.
Of course pictures of Jesus are not to be worshiped, nor indeed somehow used as a means of worshiping Jesus, as some may have claimed the Golden Calf was a means of worshiping Yahweh.
Pictures of Jesus might help us to hold on to his true humanity
-->. At least, if all the other characters are depicted in your Children's Bible and Jesus is not, there is a danger of some kind of wierd docetism. There is little danger that our kids will worship their picture books. Jesus was a genuine, visible, touchable, flesh and blood human being, God come in the flesh, and therefore pictures of him are appropriate.
Of course, pictures of Jesus are necessarily somewhat speculative. We can assume he looked like a semitic man (not blonde-haired and blue-eyed), but we don't know in detail what he looked like. The same is true of all the other characters in your Children's Picture Bible and most of those on our stained glass windows too.
Frame points his readers to: -->Jeffrey J. Meyers, “Vere Homo: The Case for Pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Niceville, FL: Biblical Horizons, 1993). The link he gives seems to be broken. A PDF file can be found at:http://ruberad.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/vere_homo.pdf (link updated Aug 2014)
It’s interesting to find a Reformed professor making statements like this from John Frame:
Most everything in Lutheran and Anglican worship, even things Presbyterians most object to, such as vestments, processionals, and incense, arise from theological reflection, including a biblical rationale.
The Doctrine of the Christian Life (P&R, 2008), p465
Someone recommended RESOUNDworship.org as an exciting free resource for churches. Their stated aim is to provide local churches with fresh worship songs containing strong, Biblical lyrics supported by singable, contemporary music.
One of my fellow ministers explained to me that in her church, once a year they have a "commentated mass" where they explain the order and symbolism of all the elements.
You might think evangelical worship already has too much pointless commentary ("... now we are going to sing another hymn...") but if we had good stuff to say about what we do and why, I think this would be a very useful exercise.
It would also be good to have some written material always available explaining the liturgy and its covenant renewal structure for the newcomer or the curious.
(1) The Lord Jesus Christ gave his body to be the bread of life once for all on the cross.
(2) We are continually offered the crucified and living Christ as spiritual bread in the gospel and we receive Christ with all his benefits in by faith in the Word of God.
(3) The gospel is sealed to us in the Lord’s Supper when we receive bread as an outward sign of Jesus body broken for us and his life given to us as spiritual food. We again receive Christ and all his benefits spiritually by faith.
Here is Calvin saying similar things:
It remains for all this [the saving work of Christ] to be applied to us. That is done through the gospel but more clearly through the Sacred Supper, where he offers himself with all his benefits to us, and we receive him by faith. Therefore, the Sacrament does not cause Christ to begin to be the bread of life; but when it reminds us that he was made the bread of life, which we continually eat, and which gives us a relish and a savor of that bread, it causes us to feel the power of that bread…. it [Christ’s body] is offered to us to eat, when it makes us sharers in him by faith. Once for all, therefore, he gave us his body to be made bread when he yielded himself to be crucified for the redemption of the world; daily he gives it when by the word of the gospel he offers it for us to partake, in as much as it was crucified, when he seals such giving of himself by the sacred mystery of the Supper, and when he inwardly fulfils what he outwardly designates. (Institutes 4.17.5, Ford Battles edition p1364)
The Supper might seem unnecessary and dispensable since it communicates to us the same Jesus we already had by believing the Word of the gospel. But the outward signs are important. They are adapted to the fact that we are bodily creatures. The Supper is a ritual enactment of the gospel by which the promises of the gospel are dramatically offered to us. We make a conscious public declaration that we are appropriating Christ. We cast ourselves for all to see as Jesus hungry beneficiaries. Our faith is strengthened and we are assured that God gives us what he signifies to us in the Supper. The Supper is a formal communal affirmation of our union with Christ and with one another in the gospel.
To say that we don’t receive Christ in the Supper since we always receive him by faith is a bit like saying we don’t go to church to worship since we worship all the time with our whole lives not just when we sing. There are things about formal, public, special, corporate / communal / gathered worship that are important and distinctive. Receiving the Lord’s Supper isn’t exactly the same as reading the Bible and listening to a sermon (though both offer Christ to us) and nor is reciting the creed together in church on a Sunday the same as a silent prayer on the bus or witnessing to your neighbour (though all are worship). We need to receive the Supper to feed on Christ just as much as we need to “go to church” to worship, though we can receive Jesus without the Supper and we can worship without Sunday services.
The handout for my sermon today on Psalm 95 (which is here as a Word document) would have looked something like this, if the church office computer hadn't decided it was junk (mail)!
Famous Anglican Texts (2): Psalm 95 (page 602)
O Come, Let Us Sing To The Lord
(1) An Invitation / Command: Worship With Joy
What to do: vv2-3, v6
Joyfully sing & shout humble, confident, thanksgiving & praise to God
Why to do it: vv3-5, v7a
Because God is our supreme great LORD, Rock, Saviour, King, Creator, controller, Shepherd
(2) A Warning / Command: Obey God’s Voice Today
What not to do: v7b-8
Don’t harden your heart to God’s Word
Why not to do it: vv9-11
Because God’s angry judgement against his people could cut you off from his rest
It is interesting to note that Exodus 28 repeatedly points out that the priestly garments are given "for glory and for beauty" and are to be skillfully made in a variety of spelendid colours.
Granted that the Lord Jesus Christ is our supreme and final High Priest and that the Old Covenant is fulfilled and the ceremonial law radically changed, how do the OT cultic laws regulate New Testament worship today?
Of course there is great glory and beauty to the New Covenant and all of it is fulfilled in Christ (2 Cor 3 springs to mind), but what are the implications for our church buildings, our clothing and our collective public worship today? Is it still appropriate to look for glory, beauty and skill on a Sunday morning?
Surely such things are not necessarily Judaizing returns to the Old Covenant shadow-lands? The Book of Revelation would suggest such symbolism in heaven and in the New Creation too. So why not a little foretaste of heaven coming on earth too?
It feels quasi-Marcionite to say that the OT no longer regulates public worship and semi-Gnostic to say that simple invisible spiritual worship is best.
Ritual, buildings and clothes would seem inevitable. Neutrality would seem impossible.
So what should it look and sound and feel and smell like?
Here's a helpful little memo from John, our vicar, with some pointers on how to lead the intercessions in Sunday services.
First of all, a big thank you for contributing to this important ministry.
I would like to share with you 4 guidelines, which I trust will enable this ministry to be even more effective.
Intercessions should be intercessions – i.e. prayers for the church and the world, not meditations or mini sermons!
They should last no more than 5 minutes.Time yourself beforehand, saying the prayers in an unhurried fashion – not gabbling through them at a rate of knots, in order to keep within the time limit!
If asked to pray at a Family Service, with children present – make sure the intercessions are even briefer – i.e. less than 5 minutes.Also make them simple and child-friendly, not using long words that would be unintelligible to small children.
Getto the lectern during the previous item (creed / Lord’s Prayer), so that you are ready to pray immediately, without a hiatus in the service.
“… certainly we exhort men to worship God in neither a frigid nor a careless manner; and while we point out the way, we neither lose sight of the end, nor omit anything which is relevant to the matter. We proclaim the glory of God in terms far loftier than it was wont to be proclaimed before; and we earnestly labour to make the perfections in which his glory shines better and better known. His benefits towards us we extol as eloquently as we can. Thus men are incited to reverence his majesty, render due homage to his greatness, feel due gratitude for his mercies, and unite in showing forth his praise. In this way there is infused into their hearts that solid confidence which afterwards gives birth to prayer. In this way too each one is trained in genuine self-denial, so that his will being brought into obedience to God, he bids farewell to his own desires. In short, as God requires us to worship him in a spiritual manner, so we with all zeal urge men to all spiritual sacrifices which he commends.”
(LCC Calvin’s Theological Treatises, ‘The Necessity of Reforming the Church’, p187)
Warmth, care, preaching, the glory of God, relevance, eloquence, reverence, homage, gratitude, praise, confidence, prayer, self-denial, training, obedience, transformed desires, spiritual worship and sacrifices. What could be better?
I am a Bible believing Christian, husband to Mrs Lloyd, father to four children.
I am the Rector of Warbleton, Bodle Street Green & Dallington and Rural Dean of Dallington, Diocese of Chichester. I also edit the book reviews for The Global Anglican.
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