Deus Misereatur

The official gathering of God’s people in worship, that peculiar Lord’s Day assembly, is meant to be a place that divides. As Paul declares in 1 Cor. 14, it is the place where believers in Jesus are built up and edified, and unbelievers are convicted as the secrets of their hearts are revealed, and so fall on their faces crying out “God is truly among you.” The children’s First Catechism makes this clear when it answers the question, “Why did Christ appoint these sacraments?“ The answer is counterintuitive: “To distinguish his people from the world, and to comfort and strengthen them.” There are at least three reasons for this. The first is that the Church’s worship is unearthly. It is for those who are already citizens of the city of the living God. The writer of Hebrews says that in our worship, …you (2nd person plural) have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of th...

There is a shrewd, virile strain running in the blood stream of most North American Christians. It’s a very self-reliant bug, one that thinks worship is something that boils up from my own rugged individualism. “I worship how ever I want, and God has just gotta be mighty pleased I have even given Him the time of day. I’ve got the good old American know how, and I’ve got the power!” But the Bible is clear: It’s God who works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil. 2.13); It’s the gift of the Spirit by which we can even cry out, “Abba, Father” and pray (Rom. 8.15, 26-27); It’s Christ Jesus who takes away the veil over our hearts so that we can finally hear and receive the Word of the Lord (2 Cor. 3.14-16); and even real Christian preaching is only accomplished by God working in the preacher, as the Apostle Paul says, “Christ we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labo...

“Contemporary worship” sounds really hip and cool, especially when a person throws it up against the dusty, dry, wrinkly “traditional worship” style. Yet, there are several problems here. What most folks think of as “traditional” is only yesterday’s “contemporary” style. Even Willow Creek Church’s hip style that grew out of the 70s and 80s is now being called “traditional” by the teens & 20-somethings. And what the middle-agers disparage as “Traditional” is really a format that erupted after World War II, when returning soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines spurred on an explosion of new churches all across the nation. Nothing wrong with that, in-and-of-itself. But it did galvanize a specific mode of worship that was quite contemporary in its day. A style that most of our grandparents and great grandparents were comfortable with. Therefore, when I hear people whine about “traditional worship” being old and stodgy, they’re usually referring to the very contemporary-to-the-1940s form...

Since the supreme ambition of a congregation (and all it’s educational, evangelistic, missional activities) is to draw all into the worship of Almighty God, then what do we do with those who can’t read? This may appear a strange question at first. Yet almost every church service I’ve been in, whether Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, etc requires some hefty amounts of reading. Whether it’s reading the hymns, or the Scriptures, or responsive prayers, or confessions of faith. If a congregation is doing what it’s supposed to do, then the assembly will have to include non-reading children, illiterate adults, and aging older people whose eyes have gotten to a place where reading is a serious challenge. Are these, Christ’s vulnerable ones, to be marginalized, removed from the great assembly, left to be silent while the readers verbally worship? It’s really not so strange a question after all. There are several ways congregations have attempted to remedy this, some be excluding the non-re...

Scripture is clear: the supreme ambition of the Church is not edification, not missions, not evangelism, not nickels and noses. The supreme ambition of the Church (what a congregation treasures above all, and relishes) is the worship of God. In fact you should be able to say that about everything a congregation does. The supreme ambition of Sunday School, catechizing, mercy ministry, missions, evangelizing: is to draw children, teens, adults (and ultimately all creation) into the worship of God, through Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit. If you’re asking, “Where does Scripture make this clear?” then here is a small sampling. “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD (Psalm 150.6)!” This concluding verse of the final Psalm charges all creatures and creation to worship God. “Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; come into His presence with singing” (Psalm 100.1-2). This Psalm begins with an edict for “all lands” that they “serve” the Lo...

A couple of things have been said to me in the last few months that truly sadden me. They are related, in that they grow out of the same kind of thinking that is infecting our churches. Here are two examples. Just the other day someone very close to me was telling me that her church has begun to cater to the young folks, in worship songs specifically. She bemoaned the fact that her church almost never sings hymns any longer, but primarily the more contemporary songs. Then she sadly said, “Well, I guess that’s ok, because the younger folks are the church’s future.” A second event was a phone call about 2 months ago. An elderly man (80ish) called after reading the article in the paper about our recent purchase of the church building. He asked several questions about our church, and then toward the end of our phone conversation he asked, apprehensively, mournfully, “You accept old people, don’t you?” I almost cried. After the shock wore off, I did tell him "Yes." Though bo...

I find it interesting that when the most strident anti-Calvinists pray, they pray like Calvinists. I have been reading a work by a Russian Orthodox monk, Archimandrite Sophrony. He wrote a few pieces on prayer and the one I'm reading is, "His Life is Mine." In this book he makes his pointed jabs against predestination (though he doesn't define what he means by it), and against God "coercing" or "compelling" any person. Yet in chapter 6 of his book he printed a prayer he prayed daily. Interestingly, I do believe any good Calvinist could pray this prayer. Maybe this puts the truth to the assertion J.I Packer once made, that a Christian on his knees prays like a Calvinist ("Evangelism and the Soverienty of God"). Or maybe to say it another way will help, Calvinism is the theology of the praying man. Here is the prayer: Prayer at Daybreak "O Lord Eternal and Creator of all things, Who of Your inscrutable goodness did call me to thi...