Losing Old Church Buildings

I’m hearing that the court case against the Virginia CANA churches may not go well. Truro, Falls Church and others may be forced to leave their historic buildings. I’ve never been a fan of the “defend the property” strategy, but this is still very sad news. Turning these buildings over to heretics is akin to the North African Church falling to Islam a long time ago.

With that said, it occurred to me today that one reason that it is such a blow to lose these venerable buildings is because there is so little chance of replacing them in our lifetime. Our theology of architecture is so impoverished, and the buildings that we typically build as Protestant churches are generally so awful, that losing these old buildings is a great tragedy.

Most new church buildings are ephemeral, not durable. They are ugly, functional, “multi-purpose” facilities where people worship in the gym. There is generally no art, no stained glass windows and nothing that would really differentiate these buildings from the prison-like school buildings that we build today. On the other hand, places like Truro have a simple elegance and exude a sense of tranquility and “churchiness” that is lacking in most modern Protestant facilities. It seems that Catholics have kept their senses and are producing some great buildings even today. I live down the street from one and I’ve seen many others, such as the gorgeous Holy Apostles in Meridian, Idaho.

So if we are going to continue to think that buildings don’t matter or that we need to build the cheapest, ugliest thing we can get away with and call it good, then losing the old places like Truro (and the many, many United Methodist parishes in Virginia that are gorgeous and given over to heresy) is a very sad event indeed.

Are Hymns Old or Preaching New?

Jared Wilson suggests that hymns aren’t outdated as much as the progression of preaching that has morphed into something that makes hymns sounds weird (link). The point being that preaching is no longer as Gospel-saturated as it once was, which provided the fitting response of the hymn because the emotions were engaged within the context of Biblical preaching. Lot’s of people say that hymns are too doctrinal and too God-centered. This explains why many newer songs lack any doctrinal precision and are filled with repetitions of how God loves us and how we love Him, as if love is the lone attribute of God toward us and us toward Him.

Music Review, “Ascend the Hill – Take the World, But Give me Jesus”

There’s a resurgence of old hymns right now. The Mars Hill guys are pouring out lots of them through the Re:Sound label, and now Come&Live‘s band, Ascend the Hill, release their second album on the label called Take the World, But Give me Jesus. It might seem like a strange move, early in their career, to cover a bunch of ancient songs, but when considering the heart of this band it makes perfect sense. They aren’t interested in building their own kingdom, they just want to make Jesus famous and will draw from wells new and old to achieve that end.

Opening with “The Love of God“, it is clear from the outset that though not straying far from the sound that they created on their debut release, they have honed and perfected it, and though they open with the declaration, “The love of God is greater far/Than tongue or pen can ever tell,” these boys are going to give it their best shot to tell of that love. This is an album of dynamics, more so than their first album was. The first two numbers clip along, and then comes the stripped down and intimate “Rock of Ages” and the haunting titular track of the album. What is so astounding is how fresh these hymns sound. It isn’t outlandish what they have done with these treasures of church liturgy, but somehow they have contextualized these expressions of worship and truth, making sense of them in our current musical climes, yet retaining the original phraseology.

About a Song that’s Stuck in a Little Head

You know when you get a song stuck in your head and it’s all you can sing for days, maybe even weeks on end?  My 4 yr. old Lexi has had “I want to Know You, In the Secret” by Sonicflood stuck in her head for weeks now, it has become her default song.  I guess if there was any song to get stuck in her head, it’s a good one to dwell on.

The Lyrics:

In the secret, in the quiet place

In the stillness you are there

In the secret, in the quiet hour I wait

Only for you

Cause I want to know you more!

(chorus)  I want to know You, I want to hear Your face.  I want to know you more.  I want to touch You. I want to see Your face.  I want to know you more.  (Then she says: “one more!” and repeats. How sweet the sound of a little worshiping voice.)

Kira’s been singing “I am not skilled to understand, what God has willed what God has planned. I only know at His right hand, stands one who is my Savior. … My Savior loves, my Savior lives, my Savior’s always there for me.  My God He was, my God He is, my God He’s always gonna be…”   (My Savior, My God by Aaron Shust)

And Cody (16) soaks himself in Christian rap namely “holy hip hop”, thanks to my husband’s keen eye for music.  Cody loves to just recreate in his room, listening to his music.

These are the normal songs sung in our home.  Quality, godly lyrics are a great reminder of why we sing, why we breathe- namely to bring God glory.  As Christians, we should not cease to “want to know” Him more.  I pray for all my children that their light would never grow dim, that their burning to “know” and “love” God never ceases, just as relentless as the songs that get stuck in our heads haunt us (sometimes for the good).  Oh that we would cling on for dear life, as that is exactly what’s at stake.   His mercy endures forever.

David Neff on the Restfulness of Liturgy

David Neff responds to an essay from The Anglican Planet by Julie Lane-Gay called “The Liturgy That Gives Rest.”  Lane-Gay writes that: “Instead of feeling that I had to conjure up enthusiasm, I felt like someone had handed me an antique pillow to cradle my weary mind and soul. I didn’t have to think what to say.”

Neff’s response is interesting and discusses liturgy in a way that I’m not used to thinking about it.  I grew up in, and still attend, a church that is fairly liturgical by modern American evangelical standards (at least in our two traditional services), but we don’t talk about the order of service in the way that Neff does:

My own experience was different. I wouldn’t have compared the liturgy to a pillow. But I felt the same relief that I didn’t have “to conjure up enthusiasm.” Conjuring up enthusiasm—and godly grief and glorious rapture and even stillness—all of that was part of what I had been exhorted to do in the religion of my youth, a religion that owed much to American revivalism.

That side of revivalism placed the accent in worship on my feelings. Revivalism fed off of a cycle of duress and release, and it required that I feel the right emotions as we approached the transactional moments of worship. When it came time to (re)dedicate myself to Jesus, the moment was validated or invalidated by my feelings.

The liturgy taught me that there was instead one great transaction. It happened on Calvary. In the liturgy, we celebrate and memorialize that transaction together—together as a local congregation and together with Christians around the globe, together with Christians throughout history and together with those who have gone on to glory. Fortunately, that celebration continues in spite of whatever feelings I may have because the great transaction was completed before I ever experienced my first emotion.

He concludes:

The liturgy must be seen as part of God’s mercy. It is not the words that do “the work for me.” God acts toward me in the liturgy. That is why in Morning Prayer we often say a paraphrase of Psalm 51:15: “O Lord, open thou our lips, and our mouth shall show forth thy praise.” Without God’s help, we can’t even start praising.

When worship loses its bigness, the sense of God’s mercy also contracts. But when we join our voices with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we also know instinctively that the quality of God’s mercy is not strained.

Neff links to the original essay by Lane-Gay.  It’s short and worth reading too.  Here is her description of her experience in an Anglican church in New England:

Our rector, Sam Abbott, in his early fifties, receding dark hair, thick eyebrows and heavy glasses, as rooted in New England as the Pilgrims, read the liturgy with clarity, gravity and grace. Sunday after Sunday he bestowed something precious. He spoke the truth in love with a seriousness that could not be ignored. His delivery was like the reading of a miraculous will, as we heard of the riches of Christ, as we were told of God’s passion for us.

As I’ve studied church history and become more aware of liturgical traditions, I’ve become more interested in the meaning of liturgy.  It’s still something like visiting a foreign country for me, though.  These articles helped me to understand the language a bit better.

The Church as Cushion

Kevin DeYoung considers how churches can become cushions, focusing on comfort rather than on challenging their congregations to truly encounter God and be changed by him:

“No one enters the ministry to further the status quo. Every evangelical pastor, every enthusiastic young Christian for that matter, wants to see conversions, spiritual growth, and biblical reformation where it is needed. But youthful zeal wanes. Life crashes in. Pastors get tired. Congregations fall back into old patterns.Here’s Richard Lovelace’s explanation:

Pastors gradually settle down and lose interest in being change agents in the church. An unconscious conspiracy arises between their flesh and that of their congregations. It becomes tacitly understood that the laity will give pastors special honor in the exercise of their gifts, if the pastors will agree to leave their congregations’ pre-Christian lifestyles undisturbed and do not call for the mobilization of lay gifts for the work of the kingdom. Pastors are permitted to become ministerial superstars. Their pride is fed and their congregations are permitted to remain herds of sheep in which each has cheerfully turned to his own way (quoted in C. John Miller, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church, p. 19).

“The result of this compromise, argued Jack Miller, is “the church as religious cushion.” The body of Christ becomes less a living, breathing, growing, healthy organism and more a coping club, a society of mutual reinforcement, nothing but a cushion against the pains of life. Miller explains:

The religious cushioning may take a number of forms. In its liberal variety, its primary concern is to comfort suburbanites with a vision of a God who is too decent to send nice people like them to hell. In its sacerdotal form, its purpose is to tranquilize the guilt-ridden person with the religious warmth of its liturgy. Among conservatives and evangelicals, its primary mission all too often is to function as a preaching station where Christians gather to hear the gospel preached to the unconverted, to be reassured that liberals are mistaken about God and hell, and renew one’s sense of well-being without have a serious encounter with the living God (p. 26).

How does the church avoid being nothing but a religious cushion? Good preaching. Strong leadership. Earnest repentance. Heartfelt prayer. Biblical integrity. All of these are essential. And in and through them must be an awareness of sin and a delight in the Savior.”

Why Young Folks Are Turning to Reformed Worship

This is a brief quote from the article, “Young, Restless, and Reformed” (link).

“If there’s an appeal to students, it’s that we’re not playing around,” Hughes said. “We’re not entertaining them. This is life and death. My sense is that’s what they’re interested in, even from an old man.”

I know this article and quote are old, but just came across it in some recent reading and thought it relevant. Unfortunately so many worship services in America exude with triviality and over-casualness. I spoke to some college students that chose to attend our church after visiting some of the local churches and asked them why they settled here. Their response was essentially that the other churches felt too much like a “production”. In an attempt to be relevant, many are becoming overly-relevant and thus not relevant at all.

I would describe our worship service as being semi-liturgical, with a core emphasis on God and approaching Him with reverence. I preach as a dying man to dying men. Their is a gravity to worship and preaching in “Calvinism” which reaches deep down into the soul and meets our greatest need. It is my prayer that more young people will realize they need Jesus before loud, rocking U2 wannabees, a pastor guru who “shares” his thoughts on living for Jesus, and freebies.

I pray that they would hunger for Biblical preaching over a multimedia experience,

that they would hunger for the Lord’s Supper more than lunch following service,

that they would long for fellowship with the elderly and handicapped more than merely their niche peer group.

 

Principles for Worship

Multnomah University professors Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger discuss principles for worship, based on John D. Witvliet’s Worship Seeking Understanding.  The one that spoke most to me was their third principle:

Integrating liturgy and culture requires us to be critical of our own cultural context. Worship leaders need to critique the culturally generated worship forms they use, asking whether each form enhances or degrades authentic worship. Contemporary forms must be examined to see not only if they engage the church through commonly understandable symbols, but also if they are able to represent God and the gospel with integrity.

Few people, perhaps, would question that popular cultural worship forms can engage a broad spectrum of people. People who already identify with contemporary music and computer graphics will find themselves easily drawn into the worship experience when such forms are used. But thoughtful worship leaders and theologians have recognized that there can be a downside as well. As theologian Donald Bloesch has written,

“Worship is not a means to tap into the creative powers within us rather than an occasion to bring before God our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. Hymns that retell the story of salvation as delineated in the Bible are being supplanted by praise choruses that are designed to transport the soul into a higher dimension of reality.”

Worship is not about a search for meaning or experience, but an acknowledgment that meaning and salvation are found in God’s incomparable act of redemption in Christ. Methodist pastor Craig Rice agrees: “As long as the church continues to confuse the hunger for God, extant in every human heart, with the same yearnings that drive a market culture and a consumerist society, its worship will remain irrelevant at best and an outright impediment at worst.”

There is no question that authentic worship will meet people’s needs. The problem occurs when worship forms are focused on meeting people’s felt needs. Each week, the church is filled with people whose felt needs have been defined for them by a consumer culture that generally urges them to focus on self-fulfillment. The role of the church in worship is not to meet felt needs but to show people that their real needs go deeper.

Can contemporary worship forms address people’s real needs? Certainly. But in choosing only forms that are comfortable and familiar, there is always the tendency to cater to what people want to hear and feel, rather than confronting them with God, whose presence is not always so comfortable. And a God made comfortable by market-driven worship is unlikely to confront sinners with their need for repentance or a gospel that is fundamentally about self-denial rather than self-fulfillment. Quoting Martin Marty, theologian Marva Dawn remarks that when worship is driven by the market, it “draws crowds, but it is so fully adapted to the not-yet-born-again ‘that worship becomes measured by the aesthetics and experience of those who don’t yet know why we should shudder.’”

I largely agree with the quote from Donald Bloesch about praise choruses, although I know that many people find them meaningful and that I have different preferences from many of my friends.  I don’t wish to denigrate the newer music without trying to understand more about its appeal.  But, to me, the real value of their discussion comes with their contrast between the common perception and the real meaning of worship: “Worship is not about a search for meaning or experience, but an acknowledgment that meaning and salvation are found in God’s incomparable act of redemption in Christ.”

I’d recommend checking out the whole thing.

ESV BCP Daily Lectionary

How’s that for acronyms? The English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible has a fantastic tool for performing the daily office of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). The ESV compiles the daily Bible readings: Psalms, OT, NT, Gospel – click this link. Not only that, if you use an RSS reader of some kind (I use Google Reader), you can subscribe to the RSS feed for this service and have it automatically show up every day! And that’s still not all! In Google Reader, the audio for the feed also shows up automatically, so I can click play and listen to the all of the day’s readings. I think this is way cool and I suggest it to you as a tool. The ESV site also has other reading plans if you’re not down with the BCP.

Why do Christians Sing?

This coming Sunday I will be preaching on worship…especially in song. As I have done research and preparation for the message, it has been difficult because there is so much I want to convey and I need to redact my material. Anyhow, song is powerful.

Creation was birthed in song, Song accompanied pivotal moments in redemptive history (Exodus, Incarnation, Last Supper), Song preceded victory in warfare, Song opened up the prison doors for Paul and Silas, Song is everywhere in Revelation. God inhabits the praises of His people and in fact sings over us Himself.

All of this is truly amazing!!!!

Here is a quote from C.S. Lewis that sums up why we sing:

“But the most obvious fact about praise-whether of God or anything-strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise…. The world rings with praise-lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game….My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation”

New Testament Worship II

     Worship in the book of Revelation is Temple worship. This should not be surprising, because the Tabernacle instructions given to Moses on Mount Sinai were “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” (Hebrews 8.5) God told Moses to make everything according to the pattern shown to him on the mountain. 

      We get glimpses of what that pattern must have been when we read Revelation. In chapter 6 there is an altar and in chapter 8 that altar shows up again. Indeed, in chapter 7 we see a great multitude who have made their robes white in the blood of the lamb and now “serve him day and night in his temple.” Listen to what the Revelator says:

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.

     In this heavenly Temple there is silence, angels sounding trumpets, an altar, a censer full of incense, and prayers being offered. All of this was mirrored in Israel’s Tabernacle and Temple. Trumpets show up in Numbers 10.8 where the priests were to blow them. There are various times in the Old Testament where we are told to be silent before the Lord, such as Zechariah 2.13. In Leviticus the High Priest is told to “take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he does not die.” Ordered prayers were of course recited in the Temple, we have an entire book of prayers that we call the Psalms.

     Temple worship was structured. In addition to the instructions that God gave through Moses, David is seen setting in order the Levites, Priests and musicians in I Chronicles 23-25. They didn’t just show up at the Temple and freelance! When we move into New Covenant times, we see that the Apostles were keeping the liturgical hours of prayer when in Acts 3 Peter and John “were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.”

     Now you might think that all of that Temple structure passed away with the advent of Jesus, but then what would you do with Revelation? The last book of the Bible is filled with structured, Temple worship. Sometimes we feel like sitting around a living room in our sandals for a small group meeting and playing guitar is true New Testament worship, but Revelation forces us to think again. Silence, set prayers and structure confront us in Revelation, which is probably one reason that the church for 2,000 years has worshiped in a structured, liturgical, way.

New Testament Worship

 

     Revelation is a battleground book. Many camps divide over interpreting the book 

and in the recent past entire denominations have formed over particular views of the 

last days. I’d like to look at the book through a different lens – that of worship. Many 

folks claim to want to worship like ‘the New Testament church’ worshiped, which 

generally seems to entail reading Acts, I Corinthians, and some other Epistles. But we 

seldom see these folks look to Revelation for any guidance on what ‘New Testament 

Christianity’ looked like. 

What’s a Pulpit Worth???

John Piper encourages pastors and hearers to protect the pulpit from trivialities and instead delight in God through the ministry of preaching in the Church.

15 Ways My Pentecostal Upbringing Has Shaped Me…for the good

John Piper recently posted on his blog some reflections on Fundamentalists and why he doesn’t despise them (http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1251_20_reasons_i_dont_take_potshots_at_fundamentalists/). I was inspired by such to reflect on my own spiritual and theological journey in Pentecostalism. Here are 15 reasons why I am grateful for my Pentecostal heritage:

15. I learned that prayer was not merely a monologue in which we throw up our petition and thanksgiving, say “Amen”, and be on our way…but rather a dialogue that may be accompanied by fasting, “pressing in”, shouting; and then silence as we await God’s response to our hearts.

- I pray expectantly and quiet my soul before God, eager for His reply.

 

14. Worship was more than extolling God’s transcendence, awesome though that is, but was also a participation in His eminence and nearness. The nearness of the Triune God would be manifested in our worship as the Spirit would minister to our hearts.

- I not only look up in worship to the throne of God, where Jesus is seated, but also hold out my hands in eager anticipation of His Spirit’s presence.

 

13. The Pentecostal Pulpit didn’t depend upon humor, life stories, contrived emotions, or polished intellect, BUT manifested what Paul stated to the Corinthian Church:

1Co 2:1-5

(1)  And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

(2)  For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

(3)  And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,

(4)  and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

(5)  that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

- I not only do exegesis in the text of Scripture in sermon preparation, but also fall on my face in prayer, seeking the Spirit’s approval and validating power over the preaching of the sermon.

 

12. Child-Like faith was preferred over a knowledge that “puffs” up. This doesn’t mean that growth in Scripture was avoided, but rather speaks of the disposition of one’s heart when coming to Scripture.

- I come to Scripture, not seeking some knowledge that will elevate me over my peers, but rather to be shaped, humbled, and broken from adult pride and made like a child. If my Bible reading doesn’t lead to doxology and praise, then I have read it no differently than Satan himself.

 

11. We supported missionaries who were risking their lives to save people form hell and their stories inspired me to also share the Gospel among the lost around me. My youth group not only played games and had “fun”, but also fasted and raised money for missionaries abroad.

- I love missionaries to this day and consider them my heroes in the faith.

 

10. If the Biblical Hymnal, the Psalms, speak repeatedly of lifting hands, clapping hands, bowing down, and crying…then such expressions are proper, fitting, and exhort us to worship God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

- I worship with all of my being because He is supremely deserving and delights in the sacrifice of my body in worship…the yielding of my bodily members to the praise of His name.

 

“Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound that Saved a Wretch Like Me” vs. “Prevenient Grace, How Fair the Sound, that calls all Sinners Equally”

I don’t want to be totally obnoxious…but I was thinking about the beloved Hymn “Amazing Grace” and was wondering how a theological Arminian could really sing it.

Traditional Arminian theology believes in “prevenient grace”…essentially meaning that God exerts a measure of grace towards all sinners. Some would even say that God works equally in His grace towards all. Such a view understands that God has done all that he can do to save sinners and it is entirely left up to sinners on how they will respond. Generally, an Arminian would not admit that God does more to save one sinner over another because it would be unfair.