All about worship

A series of short talks given during Sunday services

1.  What are we doing?

Why are we here in church worshipping the Lord together?  Because he has invited us.  As sinners none of us has a right to be in the presence of a Holy God, nor do we naturally have any desire to worship him.  The Lord calls us to worship him; he has provided Jesus as a sacrifice for our sin so that we may draw near to him. The Lord has given us new hearts that have a desire to praise him, to confess our sins, to submit to his Word, to pray for his world, to have fellowship with him.  The initiative is all from the Lord.

So the first question we must ask when we think about public worship is not, What kind of service would I like? What would my children like to come to? What has been the tradition of this church? What would appeal to visitors? What will feel most familiar to those who live in today’s culture?  Rather we ask, What pleases the Lord who calls us, What does the Lord require of us?  We can only answer that from the Bible, as the Spirit opens God’s Word to us – we have no other access to the mind of God. 

Many discussions about Christian worship begin with the New Testament but God had been training his people to worship him long before Jesus arrived.  Jesus transforms Old Testament worship but he doesn’t erase it from the Bible – the OT is still God’s Word to us, to be understood in the light of the words of Jesus and his apostles.  And so the worship of the Old Testament, which focused on the sacrifices offered at the tabernacle/temple, gives us an ongoing pattern for Christian worship.  We are not free to begin with a blank sheet of paper or to arrange the elements of worship in any order we choose.

Leviticus 9 (esp v22) and 2 Chronicles 29 gives us the pattern for OT sacrifices which were in this order – sin offering, ascension offering, fellowship offering.  This gives us the three main parts of Christian worship – Confession of sin, Consecration (God’s Word reshapes us so that we are useful to him) and Communion (a fellowship meal with the Lord).  Topping and tailing that with a Call and a Commission gives this:

Call		Call to worship, Greeting, Prayer of Preparation
Confession	Sin offering	Confession and absolution
Consecration	Ascension/Burnt offering	Bible Readings, creed, sermon, offering, prayers
Communion	Peace/Fellowship offering	Communion
Commission		Blessing, Charge, Prayer

Some Christians have called this pattern ‘Covenant Renewal Worship’ (not that the Covenant is broken and needs fixing; rather God repeats to us his covenant commitment to us, his promise to forgive our sins, to recreate us in the image of his Son, to fellowship with us and to send us out into his world as his servants.)

Most Christian churches down the centuries have followed this pattern and the services of the Church of England are just one example of this.  

2. Psalms

You may have noticed that we sing Psalms regularly in our churches.  Quite often our hymns are introduced by saying “This is a version of a Psalm”, ie someone has taken one of the Psalms and rewritten it with regular length lines so that we can sing it to a well-known hymn tune.  These are called ‘Metrical Psalms’.

But Psalms are not always easy to understand, they may not seem relevant to our Christian life and relationship with Jesus, they speak of judgment on God’s enemies, and other subjects that we don’t normally sing about.  Why sing Psalms when there are so many other good hymns and songs? 

The Psalms were clearly intended to be a hymn book for the congregation in the Old Testament.  You can see that they were used that way by looking at the headings (eg the notes to ‘the director of music’) and the content.  We know that they were used in the worship of the temple and the synagogue.

Jesus would have grown up singing psalms; the apostles also.  Both Jesus and his apostles quote from the Psalms regularly to explain what was happening in their day.  It is fairly clear that the early church continued to sing Psalms as God’s people had always done.  There is nothing in the New Testament to tell them to stop doing that.  The New Testament describes the use of psalms in worship in Ephesians 5:18-19 and Colossians 3:16.

Of all people, why would the Christians stop using Psalms?  They now knew what these ancient songs were really about – Jesus had taught them that ALL Scripture spoke of him, including the Psalms.  These are songs about Jesus, or songs that Jesus, more than any man, could have sung.  Christians are the ones who have the key that unlocks the meaning of these songs.

If we find that we cannot relate to their content and have no desire to sing about the themes that the Psalms contain then we ought to wonder why.

However, it’s one thing to believe in the principle: The Psalms are a songbook from God for his church in all ages.  It’s quite another thing to work out how Christians who are not used to these songs can learn to sing them and love them.  A metrical psalm (that is, a paraphrase to fit a hymn tune) is a good start but it would be better to sing the actual words of the Psalms.  That would involve chanting them (as Anglicans have done in the past) or singing ‘through composed’ versions where a tune has been written for the whole Psalm to fit all the words, rather than rewriting words to fit a tune.  I am convinced that a maturing church will keep working hard to find ways to sing these ancient songs from the heart in the ups and downs of 21st Century life and in praise of our glorious Saviour Jesus.

3.  Liturgy

‘Liturgy’ means a set form of public worship – the order in which things happen as we gather for worship, and the words that are used by the service leader or the congregation – including, for example, the Lord’s Prayer, Creeds, Confessions, Collects, Sentences and Responses.

Some people divide churches into two groups; the ‘liturgical’ and the ‘non-liturgical’.  But the reality is that all churches have a liturgy – it’s just that some have their liturgies written down and others do not.  Even in those churches that don’t want to be constrained by a written liturgy there will still be many assumptions about what will happen each week and a surprising consistency in the order of the service and the words used.  Informal church services can be very rigid.

What are some good things about written liturgy?

Instead of the minister or leader doing all the speaking the whole congregation has things to say, to pray and to affirm.  When we repeat words and actions they become part of who we are.  Children especially are formed by the things that they regularly say and do.

Written liturgy sets the boundaries (our understanding from the Bible of the overall shape that Christian worship should have) but, at its best, leaves lots of space for variety and the choice of words and music that are appropriate for particular weeks of the year.

The best of the Church of England liturgy was created by people whose grasp of Christian truth was deep and whose love of the Lord Jesus was evident .  They understood the danger of false teaching and they crammed their services with Bible texts and allusions.  (Because we don’t know our Bibles well we may not realise this.)

But there is still a problem.  In today’s culture many people assume that things written down and regularly said cannot be genuine heart-worship.  Of course we may be just mindlessly repeating words, but the answer to that is to say the words with conviction and enthusiasm. 

But the suspicion still remains that because we are reading words from a service sheet or screen we ‘don’t really mean it’.  Perhaps three examples will help:

• At a wedding do the bride and groom ‘not really mean’ the words just because every couple says the same vows?
• Is a cockpit pre-flight check with the first officer asking set questions and the pilot replying with set answers about the state of the plane just ‘a meaningless ritual’?
• When the ‘All Blacks’ bellow their Haka at the opposition before the start of each rugby match do they ‘not really mean it’?

4. Reformation

The list of vicars on the wall of St James’ Burton-in-Kendal begins in 1180 with ‘Adam’, not that Adam of course.  By 31st October 1517 when Martin Luther lit the touch-paper that become the Reformation by posting his 95 theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Burton was on its 18th vicar.  And those 18 had all been part of a church that, like all others in medieval Europe, was under the authority of the Pope, worshipped in Latin, was devoted to Mary, and taught that the bread and wine at Communion became the actual body and blood of Christ.  Churches everywhere taught that the huge burden of guilt for sin should be paid off with acts of prayer and penance, and that any outstanding sins could be dealt with after death in purgatory – an imagined place of suffering that was still preferable to the eternal torments of hell.

The list of vicars on our church wall continues through the 16th and 17th centuries without any hint of the revolution that occurred in the life and worship of the church.  We all know that King Henry VIII rejected the authority of the Pope and made himself the Supreme Head of the Church in England but Henry would have been happy for the worship and teaching of the church to have stayed as it was.

It was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, with others, who saw the opportunity for a thorough Reformation of the church, such as was happening in mainland Europe.  He was the main author of the Book of Common Prayer and what became the Thirty-nine Articles which are to this day the doctrinal basis of the Church of England.  In these, Scripture is foundational.  Article 6 says, ‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation’

By 1539 Cranmer had persuaded Henry VIII to order that the Great Bible, a Bible in English, must be placed and read aloud in every church in England.  But it was under Henry’s son, Edward VI, that the most far-reaching changes were brought in.  The new Prayer Book (with services in English) was published and every parish was visited to be sure they were using it for worship.  This returned the church to a Biblical understanding of salvation, only by faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross for sin, while rejecting prayers to Mary, prayers for the dead in purgatory, and the transubstantiation of bread and wine at communion.  Stone altars were exchanged for wooden Communion Tables, statues and images were removed and, instead, words of Scripture were painted on walls.

I don’t know whether Richard Broune, Richard Pachet, and other vicars (incumbents) here in Burton, welcomed the reformation of their church enthusiastically, or reluctantly, or whether they fought against the changes, but long before I arrived this had become a church that was grateful for the Reformed foundations of our denomination, anchored to the Word of God and its true and dependable revelation of Jesus Christ.  Long may we continue to rejoice in this, because the foundations of the Church of England are under attack as never before.

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!"

5. Singing

We must sing!  God’s people sing, from the days of the Exodus to the Psalms to Jesus to Paul to the book of Revelation.  In our singing we must aim to please the Lord – not this song to please group A, and that song to please group B, etc.  We don’t set out to delight in the music – “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps 37:4) is true in our singing too.  We ask God to help us and our families to enjoy what he enjoys.

We should sing with reverence (not the same thing as ‘quiet and slow’); with joyful fear we come before the living God and remember that he is present - he sees and hears and knows.   

Hebrews 12:28-29  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire."

We should sing from the heart, whole-heartedly.  With faith and obedience and zeal.

Isaiah 29:13  The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

We should sing loudly.  John Wesley said, “Sing lustily and with a good courage.  Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength.  Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.”  (‘Directions for Singing’ from Select Hymns of 1761)

We should sing what God has revealed to be true – Bible-faithful, Bible-saturated songs, that express a deep understanding of the richness of Scripture and the glory of the Gospel.

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.

We should sing as a congregation, all raising our voices and blending them into one clear sound.  We are not here to listen to a concert from the choir or an amplified soloist.

Revelation 5:13  Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!"

Our music should be as good as we can manage using whatever gifts we’ve been given.  And it must be appropriate.  Some music can be good to dance to, or good for listening to in the car, some is good for singing in the pub, or as a film track.  Some can be used in a children’s party or in Sunday School.  But not all of these are necessarily fitting for the public worship of the church gathered on a Sunday to worship our awesome God.  God says that not all worship is acceptable worship.

Hebrews 12:28  …so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.

6  Bible Reading

There has been a strange irony at work in many evangelical churches.   Although we claim that the Bible is very important to us, many of us have been removing the Bible from our worship services.  We've done that by removing Bible-soaked liturgy and the singing of Psalms.  Out have gone Canticles (songs from the Bible that were regularly sung in church like ‘The Magnificat’).  And many evangelical churches now have just one Bible reading – the passage that the expository sermon will unfold and apply. 

Scott Newling has pointed out that in many ‘Bible-believing churches’ there is now just one Bible reading each week consisting of about 15 verses and lasting no more than 3 to 4 minutes.*  3 or 4 minutes reading the Bible in a service of 70 or 80 minutes!  The notices often take longer than that!  At 15 verses a week it would be 40 years before a regular church-goer had heard the whole Bible read publicly!  This is a world away from the pattern given to us by Cranmer in the Book of Common Prayer and by the other Reformers in whose footsteps we claim to walk. 

Of course, having more of the Bible read while our ears and hearts are closed will be of no benefit to us.  But why not pray for the Holy Spirit to open ears and hearts, rather than chop the Bible readings?

Paul told Timothy to devote himself “to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.” (1 Timothy 4:13).  Preaching is important, but so too is “the public reading of Scripture”.  We must not devalue God’s Word by suggesting that it only has power when it is preached.  The public reading of Scripture by itself is, by God’s grace, powerful too.

We have two readings each Sunday, normally one from each testament, a total of about 30 - 50 verses.  That is still just 5 - 10 minutes or so of public Scripture reading in a week of 10,000 minutes.  We often sing a Psalm too (see the section above on singing psalms).

What can we do if we find this relatively small amount of reading difficult?  Firstly, recognise that former generations would be amazed at us, and ask God to help us!

Secondly, prepare.  Find out from the notice sheet or the eNotices what Sunday’s readings will be.  Read them and think about them.  At Sunday breakfast it’s a great idea if families remind themselves of the ‘story so far’ and parents can raise expectations about what will be heard that morning by posing a question that will be answered in the reading or suggesting something to listen out for.

“So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand.  He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.” (Nehemiah 8:2-3)

 * http://matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2010/11/are-we-devoted-to-the-public-reading-of-scripture-part-1-a-mirror-held-up-before-our-eyes/