The Fuel of Missions

“Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth!

Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!

For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.

For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens.” (Psalm 96:1-5)

“You can’t summon the nations to sing if you aren’t singing. Our job in missions is, first, to sing.”

–John Piper (sermon: “Declare His Glory among the Nations”)

Nothing New

All the ‘new songs’ in heaven are about old things.

–John Piper (sermon: “Declare His Glory among the Nations”)

On Form and Freedom

A Church of Scotland minister was visiting his Anglican friend in north of England during the 19th century. As they were getting ready to leave the vestry to enter the sanctuary where the Pres-byterian minister was going to give the message, the Anglican said to him, ‘Your vestments are right there.’

‘Oh, do I have to wear them?’

‘No.’

‘Well good, then I will.’

–source unknown

No Excuse

The clergy’s eagerness not to panic the Shepherd’s sheep must never become an excuse to represent the crassest kind of schmoozing, the kitschiest sort of art, and the limpest displays of intellect as worthy offerings in worship.

–Daniel Frankforter, Stones for Bread: A Critique of Contemporary Worship, 71

Singing and Being Filled with the Spirit

Most of Ephesians 4 and all of Ephesians 5 address what it means to live as children of light, or  more conventionally, what it means to live holy lives.  Paul gives many commands and  instructions, but ultimately men and women are made holy by the Spirit who is called Holy.   Therefore Paul’s command in Eph. 5:18—“Be filled with the Holy Spirit”—is the culmination of  these chapters, both rhetorically and theologically.  The passive imperative—“be filled”—is  followed by four subordinate participial clauses:  (1) speaking to one another in songs, hymns,  and spiritual songs; (2) singing and making music in your hearts; (3) giving thanks to the Lord;  (4) submitting to one another. These participles are grammatically dependent upon the verb,  and they give substance and content to the command to be filled with the Spirit. And  remarkably, two of the four clauses—three of the five participles—have to do with making  music.

–Stephen R. Guthrie, “Singing, in the Body and in the Spirit,”  Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 46/4 (December 2003),  639.

The Need to Sing

Finally, it is at the climax of these warnings and exhortations [in Ephesians 4 and 5] that Paul writes: “Be filled with the
Spirit.  Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord” (5:18‐19).  In other words, to a Christian community surrounded by
ignorance and immorality; to a people who themselves were prone to the blindness and
indulgence of their former way of life; at the conclusion of a passage warning against
irrationality and sins of the flesh—Paul urges singing and music making. . . . Paul shares the
same broad concerns as Augustine and Calvin, but the recommendation emerging from those
concerns is entirely different.  To put it very crudely, Augustine says: “Irrationality is bad.
Sensuality is bad.  Therefore, be careful about music.”  Paul on the other hand says, “Foolishness
is bad.  Sensuality is bad.  Therefore, you had better sing.”]

–Stephen R. Guthrie, “Singing, in the Body and in the Spirit,”  Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 46/4 (December 2003), 638.

The Words We Sing

All devotion, all attention should be concentrated upon the Word in the hymn. . . . [We] do not
hum a melody; we sing words of praise to God, words of thanksgiving, confession and prayer.
Thus the music is completely the servant of the Word.

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 43

On Making Music

A few words as to how God looks at our music making. . . . Music making is an offering to God; . . as musically magnificent as the offering might be, it has no special merit; and . . the condition of the offerer’s faith takes precedence over the time, circumstance, and quality of the art. There is only one way to God, through Jesus Christ, author and finisher. All sacrifices, living and inanimate, are saved to the uttermost when they come to God through Christ. This means that God sees and hears all of our offerings, perfected. God sees and hears as no human being can, all because our offerings have been perfected by the giver. The out-of-tune singing of an ordinary believer, the hymnic chant of the aborigine, the dance of a Barishnikov, the open frankness of a primitive art piece, the nearly transcendent “Kyrie” of Bach’s B Minor Mass, the praise choruses of the charismatic, the drum praise of the Cameroonian—everything from the widow’s mite to the poured-out ointment of artistic action—are at once humbled and exalted by the strong saving work of Christ. While the believer offers, Christ perfects. It is all of Christ and it is all by faith.

–Harold Best, Music Through the Eyes of Faith, 155-56

A Prayer

Thou God of all grace,

Thou hast given me a Saviour,
produce in me a faith to live by him,
to make him all my desire,
all my hope,
all my glory.

May I enter him as my refuge,
build on him as my foundation,
walk in him as my way,
follow him as my guide,
conform to him as my example,
receive his instructions as my prophet,
rely on his intercession as my high priest,
obey him as my king.

May thy dear Son preserve me from this present evil world,
so that its smiles never allure,
nor its frowns terrify,
nor its vices defile,
nor its errors delude me.

May I feel that I am a stranger and a pilgrim on earth,
declaring plainly that I seek a country,
my title to it becoming daily more clear,
my meetness for it more perfect,
my foretastes of it more abundant;
and whatsoever I do may it be done
in the Saviour’s name.

–The Valley of Vision

Worship and the Seminary

Every now and then I dream about a hypothetical theological curriculum in which students would come on the first day of seminary not to the classroom but to the chapel. There they would participate in a rich, full, and well-planned service of worship. The rest of the three-year curriculum would be an exegesis of that act of worship. Who is the God who was both cause and object of that worship? Why were ancient Scriptures read and how did they function? Why these Scriptures and not others? What kind of ethical life is implied in this act of worship and why? What kind of community is required to engage in this act of worship, and what resources of care and education do they need to sustain their life together? A thousand questions could be asked; and to answer them the full array of disciplines and courses present in the theological school would required.

But of course my dream curriculum is not hypothetical at all. The act of worship which serves as its unity and focus occurs in congregations every week. It is in the church that everything comes together.

–Thomas G. Long, “The Essential Untidiness of Ministry,” in From Midterms to Ministry: Practical Theologians on Pastoral Beginnings, ed. Allan Hugh Cole, Jr., [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008], 7

The Bible in Worship

If we really believe, as we profess, that scripture is central to the Christian life, then it ought also to be central in our worship life. That Sunday bulletin is an important statement of faith. If the bulletin makes it clear that scripture is an important part of Christian worship, then we can be sure people will get the message that the Bible is crucial in shaping their lives as Christians. But, when the role of scripture in worship is negligible, when scripture is used only to launch a sermon, what is communicated is that the Bible is marginal in Christian life, too.

–James F. White, “Making Our Worship More Biblical,” Perkins Journal 34 (Fall 1980): 38

Real Bible Reading

The Bible reads me.

–Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 130.

Calvin on Worship

We do exhort men to worship God neither in a frigid nor a careless manner; and while we point out the mode, we neither lose sight of the end, nor omit any thing which bears upon the point. We proclaim the glory of God in terms far loftier than it was wont to be proclaimed before, and we earnestly labor to make the perfections in which His glory shines better and better known. His benefits towards ourselves we extol as eloquently as we can, while we call upon others 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.

–John Calvin, “On the Necessity of Reforming the Church” (http://www.lgmarshall.org/Calvin/calvin_necessityreform.html)

Every Church Has a Liturgy

When I use the term ‘liturgy,’ I mean ‘whatever happens at church when everyone shows up’!

–John Witvliet, “Grounding Corporate Worship in Scriptural Wisdom: Prospects of Recent Evangelical Scholarship” (paper presented to Biblical Worship Consultation at ETS Annual Meeting, November 2008), 1

The Wonder of the Incarnation

He it is by whom all things were made,
And who was made One of all things.

Who is the Revealer of the Father,
The Creator of the mother.

The Son of God by the Father without a mother,
The Son of man by the mother without a father;

The Word who is God before all time,
The Word made flesh at a fitting time;

Ordering all the ages from the bosom of the Father,
Hallowing a day of today from the womb of the mother;

Remaining in the Father,
Coming forth from the mother;

Author of the heaven and the earth;
Sprung under the heaven out of the earth;

Unutterably wise,
In his wisdom a babe without utterance;

Filling the world,
Lying in a Manger.

–Augustine

Much and Little

The purpose of a worship service is to do as much as necessary and as little as possible in order to help authentic worship take place in every heart of all who have gathered.

–Bruce Leafblad

Worship is . . .

Worship.
It’s a lifestyle.
It’s how we live each moment of every day–captivated by the awareness of God’s presence.
It’s making choices to bring Him pleasure and honor.
It’s refusing to allow the struggles in life to consume us, but rather to seek contentment in every situation.
It’s kneeling before a holy God to praise Him,
For it is only there that we forget ourselves and find rest in His loving arms.

–Deborah Lee Lucero

Lucado on Worship

Worship is when you’re aware that what you’ve been given is far greater than what you can give. Worship is the awareness that were it not for his touch, you’d still be hobbling and hurting, bitter and broken. Worship is the half-glazed expression on the parched face of a desert pilgrim as he discovers that the oasis is not a mirage.

Worship is the “thank you” that refuses to be silenced.

We have tried to make a science out of worship. We can’t do that. We can’t do that any more than we can “sell love” or “negotiate peace.”

Worship is a voluntary act of gratitude offered by the saved to the Savior, by the healed to the Healer, and by the delivered to the Deliverer.

–Max Lucado, In the Eye of the Storm (Word Publishing, 1991)

A Family Meal

The Lord’s Supper by definition is a corporate activity. We can pray alone,
study the Bible alone, even sing along; but Communion is something we
partake in together. It is a defining act of the body of Christ (see Acts
2:42). As Gordon Smith puts it in his little book entitled A Holy Meal: The
Lord’s Supper in the Life of the Church:

“We can so easily come to feel that we need no one. Our social context
encourages us to make our own choices, live our own lives, and engage with
others only when we think they have something to offer us. This is not a
Christian spirituality. Further, it is an approach to life that does not
foster true engagement with God or truly enable us to experience the full
grace of being a Christian. . . . Nothing so effectively mitigates against
the propensity toward individual autonomy within our culture and within
Western Christianity as the Lord’s Supper.  This meal is a means by which we
see, feel, and taste that we are in this together. We need one another. We
depend on one another.  Together we will know God and grow in faith, hope,
and love.” (10-11)

Worship as Sacrifice

“O Lord and heavenly Father we thy humble servants entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving… And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice unto thee… And although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service.”

–from the Prayer of Oblation (1662)