All of Life Worship? Err…Maybe Not

Some neo-Calvinists or neo-Kuyperians have stressed “all of life as worship” which, they say, is an outworking of Kuyper’s “every square inch” dictum.  They say you can worship God while fishing, “twittering,” eating an almond pastry, or sitting in the pew at church.

John Bolt isn’t so sure that this is a logical outworking of Kuyper’s thought.  He writes as much in an essay found in the back of Kuyper’s Our Worship (p. 321-329).  In this essay, “All of Life is Worship? Abraham Kuyper and the Neo-Kuyperians,” Bolt takes issue “with the tendency to blur the distinction between Christian vocation and the corporate liturgical activity of God’s people by way of a promiscuous use of the word ‘worship.’  While I understand and appreciate the motivation behind such usage, I judge it to be a confusing error that has had a baneful effect on the Reformed Christian community.  Furthermore, I believe Father Abraham [Kuyper] himself would emphatically disapprove” (p. 322).

Bolt continues by noting that while many neo-Calvinists have written volumes on social, cultural, and political matters, none of them have written on corporate worship as Kuyper himself did.  Bolt also goes on to develop a case (an excellent one in my view) for restricting the use of the word “worship” to the public, corporate gathering of God’s people (p. 324).

Here are a few of the principles he sets forth and explains.  “1) The important Reformed emphasis on Christian vocation in all spheres of life should not be used to undermine or diminish the central importance of corporate worship of God’s people on the Lord’s Day.  2)  Christian worship is distinguished from the daily life of service to God by the liturgy of God’s called-out and assembled people in which they practice a storied communion with God that loosens their ties with and involvement in the world’s counterstories.”   He does list two more, but you’ll have to get the book to read them.

As a pastor, I often hear what Bolt is reacting to (from neo-Kuyperians and others): “I can worship just as well in my car as I can at church.”   Of course, you have to cut out a wee bit of the Apostle’s Creed if you want to say that (I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints).  Furthermore, as Bolt well explains, the proper definition of worship implies a called out gathering of people.  I think Bolt’s point here is right on.  Two thumbs up.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

The Pastor and the Church: Abraham Kuyper

I just finished Our Worship (Onze Eredienst; 1911) [ed.  Harry Boonstra, trans. Boonstra, et. al (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009)] by Abraham Kuyper.  The book is a series of published articles on public worship and liturgy which Kuyper penned around the turn of the 20th century in a Dutch Reformed  “magazine,” De Heraut.  The topics include liturgy, the assembly, the meeting, the prayers, song, preaching, elders, deacons, and so forth – 316 pages of such discussion.

I enjoyed the first chapters quite a bit.  Here’s a golden section from the first chapter, “Revival of Liturgical Awareness.”

“In a genuine church…the gathering of believers” originates in “a historical past that goes back all the way to Pentecost in Jerusalem.  Such a church is rooted in a past of eighteen centuries, in which a temporary minister serves for only a set number of years to accomplish his holy service, and then that same service continues under the ministry of his successor.  That means that it is not the minister who created the church, but that the church existed long before him.  He was born in the church, he served in it, and therefore had to honor the traditions that developed within the church over the centuries.” (p. 7; emphasis mine).

That’s great: Kuyper is reacting to the “free-reining spirit” common in America (yes, even back in c. 1900) where a minister starts his own church, gets some followers and goes from there.  Kuyper said that such a conglomeration is “nothing other than a circle gathering around a talented speaker” (Ibid.).  Kuyper’s response is classic: the minister is a very tiny part of a much greater thing.  He does not have the liberty to do what he wants with the church.  He’s an important servant in some sense, but he must remember that the church existed before him and will be there long after his tongue no longer speaks.  He’s a tool in the hands of Christ, used for a time to build something much more significant than himself: the body of Christ.   This is a great note for me as a pastor to remember: “The church has authority over the minister and not the minister over the church” (Ibid., 6).

The minister serves Christ and his church – not the other way around.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Don’t Come to the Garden Alone!

I’m sure many of you have heard the hymn “In the Garden” by C. Austin Miles (d. 1946).  The song has always given me the creeps.  Here are a few lyrics.

“I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses…he speaks, the sound of his voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing…  and the melody that he gave to me within my heart is ringing.  …and the joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known.”

That gives me the creeps – roses, sweet voices, intimacy like “none other has ever known”  – these just scream to me the notes of enlightenment deism, rationalism, and mysticism, not to mention the fact that a Mormon could sing this song with a clear conscience.  Here’s another solid reason why the hymn just plain scares me: Miles’ account of how he penned the hymn.  I have to summarize it a bit, but I’ll include a few quotes, so pay attention to those.

In April, 1912, Miles was sitting in his dark room – a photography room with his organ inside it.  He was reading John 20 there, the text where the risen Christ meets the weeping Mary.  Miles wrote, “I seemed to be part of the scene.  I became a silent witness to that dramatic moment in Mary’s life….  My hands were resting on the Bible while I stared at the light blue wall.  As the light faded, I seemed to be standing at the entrance of a garden, looking down a gently winding path, shaded by olive branches.”  Miles then recounts the scene unfold as he saw it, somewhat similar to John 20.

Miles continues: Mary’s word “Rabboni!” ends the vision.  “I awakened in sun light, gripping the Bible, with muscles tense and nerves vibrating.  Under the inspiration of this vision I wrote, as quickly as the words could be formed, the poem exactly as it has since appeared.  That same evening I wrote the music.”

There are 100 things I could say about this, but I’ll have to save it for later posts on a closed canon, the regulative principle of worship, mysticism, rationalism, deism, revivalism, and so on.

Almost forgot: I got the above quote from Kenneth W. Osbeck, Amazing Grace: 365 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2002), 113.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Vanhoozer on the Church’s Drama

Sort of on the same lines as the last few posts on worship, here’s Vanhoozer on the church’s drama (he’s not talking about movies or skits!).

“It is an unfathomable, if not unpardonable, sin to drain the drama out of the biblical story of redemption.  Dedramatization happens in one of two ways: either one dilutes the action to a moral or a message (i.e. by principlizing) or one fails to draw the audience into the action.  To be sure, the material is pure gold; yet the church all too often manages to turn the drama of redemption into cultural dross.  The church becomes deadly theater when it loses its prophetic edge or when its members become passive spectators who feel no call to become participants.  The church must hallow, not hollow, God’s name.”

Or, in Sayers’ terms, “It is the neglect of dogma that makes for the dullness.”  Vanhoozer continues: “Doctrine provides direction for doing the truth of Jesus Christ” (emphasis his).  …The church does not have to stage revolutionary performances; it is revolutionary theater.  For everything the church says and does in its liturgy and its corporate life continues the theo-drama, and hence is subversive of mere worldly powers and structure.”

These quotes are taken from chapter 12 of The Drama of Doctrine (Louisville: WJK, 2005).  If you lose, water down, or replace the dramatic doctrine of Scripture with warm fuzzies, chicken soup for the soul, or moralism, the church sort of implodes, explodes, or just becomes another talking building in town.  However, if the dramatic doctrines of Scripture are embodied in the liturgy and lives of the saints, the church is a counter cultural drama of what God has done in Christ.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Reforming Worship: According to the Word

This is a great book.  I’m sorry I put off reading it for a few years!  Phil Ryken, Derek Thomas, and Ligon Duncan edited Give Praise to God together as a festschrift for J. M. Boice, as sort of a tribute to Boice’s emphasis on worship according to the Word.  The structure of the book is 4-fold:  1) The Bible and Worship, 2) Elements of Biblical Worship, 3) Preparing for Biblical Worship, and 4) Worship, History, and Culture.

I especially liked Duncan’s first two chapters, which is basically a two part essay on the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW).  Here’s Duncan: “True Christian worship is by the book.  It is according to Scripture.  The Bible alone ultimately directs the form and content of Christian worship” (p. 20).

He goes on.  “The key benefit of the regulative principle is that it helps to assure that God – not man – is the supreme authority for how corporate worship is to be conducted, by assuring that the Bible, God’s own special revelation (and not our opinions, tastes, likes, and theories), is the prime factor in our conduct of and approach to corporate worship” (p. 24).  Duncan explains the RPW from the OT and NT in the last part of this (his first) essay.

He also has a penetrating discussion of idolatry and the RPW.  You’ll have to read the full essay, especially the golden calf section (cf. Ex 32), but here’s where he goes:  “…there are two ways to commit idolatry: worship something other than the true God or worship the true God in the wrong way.

I’ll stop here, and post more about this essay (and Duncan’s other one), as well as a few parts of the fine essays by Ryken and Thomas as well as Terry Johnson.  I may not blog on it for awhile, but to increase your curiosity, Robert Godfrey has a great article on worship and the emotions, Nick Needham has a good one on the church’s worship through the ages, and Mike Horton closes the book with a great discussion of modernism and postmoderism (“Challenges and Opportunities for Ministry Today”).

You’ll want this book if you need more “training” on the whats and hows of worship according to the Word.  Also, for our RR friends not in the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition, I’m pretty confident it would wrestle you around as you consider what God-honoring worship is all about.  Enjoy!

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Ames on the RPW

In Reformed/Presbyterian confessionalism, the regulative principle of worship (RPW) is right there in the fiber of the discussions on worship (HC Q/A 96, WLC Q/A 108-9, etc).

William Ames (d. 1633) defines it this way: “God must be worshipped only for the reason and by the means by which he has personally prescribed that he is to be worshipped in his Word.”

In the second commandment, he says, “it is taught…that under the names of images, every will-worship introduced by people is condemned, so that no one may approve anything other than what God personally has prescribed.  Also it appears to hint at this doctrine in the phrase, ‘You shall not make for yourself’ – that is, by your own decision (arbitrio) – and you will introduce no worship by your own pleasure.”

Ames goes on and gives reasons:

1) God alone knows what is pleasing and suitable to his nature.

2) The blessing and fruit of all our worship that we owe to God depends on God himself.  It is also not for us to prescribe to God the means by which it might be performed and he might be blessed by us.

3) The worship that has not been prescribed does not have in itself the rationale of obedience.  Moreover, God wishes what pertains to his honor, so that by obeying we may worship him and by worshipping him we may obey him.

4) Such is the vanity and futility of the human imaginations in divine things, that if it were left to us to choose for ourselves the means of divine worship, that our entire worship would be converted into ridiculous and inane observances, just as experience teaches that the devil has in this way led humans to inane superstitions throughout almost the whole world.”

Outstanding.  Don’t just skim that, read it well!  It is packed with theological rationale for the RPW.  On the same topic, I’m finally reading through Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship – a sort of festschrift for J. M. Boice – which has several chapters about the RPW.  I’ll post those later…stay tuned.

Quotes above taken from Ames’ A Sketch of the Christian’s Catechism trans. Todd Rester (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), 161-2.  NOTE: right now, you can get this book and Ames’ Marrow of Theology from RHB for a total of $40!

shane lems

sunnyside wa

The Sabbath and the Small Church

Here’s some more great stuff from Preaching and Worship in the Small Church by Willimon and Wilson (Nashville: Abigdon, 1980).  This time the authors write about the primary activity of the small church: Sunday worship.

The authors lament the fact that a hundred other things have taken the place of Sunday worship in American churches.  Sunday school, Wednesday night prayer services, youth groups, ladies’ groups, mens’ groups, singles’ groups, college groups, endless committee meetings, social-action programs, and so forth threaten the “centrality of Sunday” (p. 39).  “Sunday worship became the victim of the ‘full-program church’ mentality.”  Long ago, a defining part of the definition of being a Christian was: “he goes to church on Sunday.”  Now that person is “quickly informed that that was only a small part of the Christian life.  ‘What you do outside the church is more important than what you do inside the church,’ was how the slogan went.”  All the other programs and events and meetings and groups “conspired to convince people that worship was only one small part of the full program.”

“Such thinking had an undeniable appeal to the pragmatic, utilitarian, work-oriented society, such as we have in the United States.  Time spent in worship tends to be thought of as idle time – unused time.  We are a nation of doers and achievers.  How can ‘acts’ of worship compete in importance alongside activities such as Christian education, counseling, youth programs, board meetings, Bible study groups, and charitable work?  The ‘active’ church with its doors always open, meetings in progress every night of the week, newsletters recruiting participants for a host of activities, insuring that every person is kept busy throughout the week (provided that person truly wishes to be an ‘active’ church member) has become the paradigm for any church that aspires to greatness” (p. 40).  “Even the worship services of those [busy] churches frequently have a breathless, hurried, distracted quality” (p. 42).

The authors continue the discussion by explaining the fact that doesn’t seem obvious: small churches don’t (can’t!) usually have those programs, events, committees, and so forth, but that is good news.  Because they lack these programs, the authors argue, “small churches celebrate Sunday in a fashion that puts many of their larger sister churches to shame” (p. 41).   “Congregational worship is a reliable barometer of the life of the small church.  Here the church family will celebrate its victories, lament its defeats, act out its deepest needs.  The small church will often express an intense sense of ownership of its Sunday worship practices.”  Often, Willimon and Wilson note, many small church parishioners will violently react to radical change in Sunday service.   They say well that this should be viewed as a positive thing: it shows that the saints there value the Divine service above other church “stuff.”

This is a great word for those of us who are members of smaller churches (quite a few of us I’m guessing!).  It is tempting to emulate the mega-church down the street and literally “get busy” as a church.  The problem with this is, as the above notes reflect well, that the busyness swallows the Divine service on Sunday.  The church gets spread out so thinly that it is like a beehive with the saints all buzzing past each other.  The only time they actually stop doing something is during the pastor’s prayer and brief sermon on Sunday morning, around 30 minutes total.  The rest of the service is filled with activity, swirled in with the activity during the week.  The 30 minutes of “rest” or quietness becomes a footnote in the life of the saint: every second of the rest of the week has a full calendar screaming out to get to work!

I’ve noticed the benefit of worship in a small church.  Sunday is different.  We stop.  We think.  We laugh.  We cry.  We rest.  We sit still and be quiet, learning how to receive from God as passive listeners to his word.  We are fed by Jesus.  We teach our kids to quit fussing around (which we ironically do all week!), we practice the cycle of God’s time.  This goes against the grain of our nature and culture, but as Willimon and Wilson say, this is a great way for a small church to recover their own unique sense of mission and restore their positive self-image.  When we in small churches “boldly claim the fundamental significance of Sunday for [our] congregational life” we will be a great light of rest to the darkness of the busy world around us.  And above that, we’ll be reminded that we’re pilgrims who depend on God’s word to live each week of our lives.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Problem With Kids in Worship?

This is one of those Willimon quotes worth a grand.

“Some churches tried to solve the problem of children in worship by concocting ‘children’s sermons,’ ‘children’s church’ and other devices to interest the children.  I feel that most of these efforts are misguided.  Many so-called children’s sermons are neither sermons nor are they for children.  They are usually petty, unscriptural, moralistic object lessons that children find difficult to follow because they cannot make the connection between the object and the lesson.  The children’s sermon is often for the parents – the preacher telling the children what Mommy and Daddy believe the children ought to hear.  Younger children cannot understand the moralisms put forth in the children’s sermon, and older children refuse to come forward for  the children’s sermon because they feel that they are being put on display and made to look foolish – which they often are.  By having a children’s sermon the church says, in effect, ‘Children, you are incapable of worshiping with the church.  The service is incomprehensible or irrelevant to you.”

William H. Willimon, A Guide to Preaching and Leading Worship (Louisville: WJK, 2008), 11-12.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

A Diagnosis for/of Reformed Churches

  What is a Reformed church?  What do Presbyterian and Reformed churches look like – in their theology, worship, and piety?  Scott Clark contends “that the word [Reformed] denotes a confession, a theology, piety, and practice that are well known and well defined and summarized in ecclesiastically sanctioned and binding documents” [the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity] (p. 3).  In my words, that means a church is not Reformed simply because of a certain cultural and traditional background, or a “world and life view” that is broadly Christian.  In Clark’s terms, “Reformed” is not just believing in predestination, or psalm-singing, or holding to a 6/24 creation view (p. 4).  To be Reformed means to be theologically, doctrinally, and liturgically Reformed, including piety in a confessional way. 

This book, Recovering the Reformed Confession, is a surgeon’s scalpel, a knife cutting through the fog of broad evangelicalism that was [re]born in the revivalistic American culture of the 19th century.  Clark says that one of the big problems in Reformed churches is the quest for illegitimate religious experience (QIRE) – which was at the heart of revivalistic evangelicalism.  The QIRE “is the pursuit of the immediate experience of God without the means of grace (i.e., the preaching of the gospel and the sacraments).  It is the attempt to experience him in a way that he has not ordained, and more specifically, to experience him in a way that we do not confess” (p. 5).  Or, in Luther’s terms, it is trying to find deus nudus, God in the nude, apart from cross and suffering; finding God climbing all kinds of man-built ladders.  The QIRE is as old as the fall.

I’ll come back to this book later here, but for now let me say I highly recommend this book to our readers who want to be confessionally Reformed.  Give this book to your deacons, elders, and pastors and read it with them to discuss it.  Or, if you’re not Reformed and want a window into the Reformed “church world,” I suggest you grab this book as well, to see what a confessional Reformed church looks like.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Liturgy, Order, and Chaos

When considering liturgy, order is good. To be sure, are many excellent biblical arguments that advocate an orderly worship service. Walter Brueggemann opens our eyes to yet one more reason why order is good in worship.

“In such an arena of disorder [in which Israel/we live], which may indeed be large and deep and ominous, it is not surprising that one should look to Yahweh, the Creator of heaven and earth, to counter the chaos with a powerful ordering and continual reordering of creation. More specifically, it is plausible that the ordering activity of Yahweh, in the face of such a threat, should be activated in public worship, where life may be experienced in order, symmetry, coherence, and propriety.”

He emphasizes: “The enactment of such worship serves as a powerful counter-act to the threat of disorder. Thus much of the ‘command of order’ is given as an instrument to the priests, so that the priests can wisely and rightly order worship space, time, and activity, whereby worship becomes an environment for a God-given order available nowhere else. We may imagine that the depth, intensity, and specificity of order authorized in the text are commensurate to experienced disorder, even to a degree that we might regard as punctilious. It is crucial that the authorized enactment of order should fully match – or perhaps overmatch – the concrete threat of disorder.”

In other words, as a minister stands and calls the people of God to worship, he is reminding them that though the earth be moved, God is the ordered ruler yet. Or, still in other words, the Christian lives a whirlwind week, full of chaos, disorder, unexpected disturbances, and little rest. On Sunday, however, in the liturgy that same disoriented Christian is reordered, reoriented, and reminded that God calms the whirlwind and the chaos. Why would we want worship that reflects our busy & chaotic weekday lives?

Quotes taken from Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 191.

shane lems

sunnyside wa