Nine things I ponder about the Church

I spent a lot of years despising the church and wishing she would just leave me alone. Now, I am an elder in Christ’s Church and do my best to serve the people God has placed under my care. Nevertheless, there are some things I wonder about the Church. Here are nine of the things I wonder about the Church. These are things I genuinely wonder about and some of these questions really do cause me to lose sleep. I’m not trying to be snarky so please don’t take offense.

9. What psychological triggers are at work that cause the overwhelming majority of people to raise their hands during “Awesome God” but not during “And Can It Be”?

8. When highly theological Reformed Presbyterian churches baptize their infants and then withhold the covenant meal for years and years until a “credible profession of faith” is made, aren’t they really setting children up to doubt rather than believe?

7. When two self-proclaimed infallible entities–let’s say Rome and Constantinople–both claim that they are the “true church” and that the other one is all wet, how can an individual determine which one is correct without the whole thing coming down to which liturgy, smells, bells, and iconography comport best with one’s personal preferences?

6. Singing words all together in worship is hunky dory. Saying words all together in worship is weird and cult-like. Why?

5. I wonder if anyone feels like I do when I say, “I have lots of other things that satisfy my warm fuzzy needs. I attend church weekly to satisfy other needs and experience other things.”

4. Evangelicals complain about Roman Catholic services where “the people up front do most of the work while the congregation observes.” Then evangelicals design worship services where the people up front do most of the work while the congregation observes. Why?

3. Why is it when a pastor talks about himself all of the time in the pulpit he is automatically seen as “humble” and “vulnerable” while the pastor who says “Thus says the Lord” is automatically seen as arrogant and hard-hearted?

2. If some modern praise & worship is an example of “the devil not having all the good music,” then I think the devil must have had lousy musical taste to begin with.

1. I have heard scads of sermons preaching about what 1 Peter 3:21 doesn’t mean. I have never heard one about what it does mean. Why?

Sports liturgy verses church liturgy

When it comes to life inside the church the word “liturgy” gets a bum rap. “Liturgy” is dusty and dead. “Liturgical” describes the 8:30 a.m. service that is only sparsely attended by those 65 and older. “Liturgy” doesn’t leave room for spontaneity. “Liturgy” quenches the Holy Spirit.

Move outside of the church’s worship service and into the sports stadium and people become highly liturgical. Liturgy abounds at the average sporting event. There is the singing of the national anthem before the game. NASCAR has the “Gentlemen, start your engines” announcement. Baseball has a 7th inning stretch. Tennis and golf fans are exhorted to remain quiet during play. Football and basketball fans are exhorted by the home team to make as much noise as possible in hopes of disrupting the visiting team. The same songs are played over and over again in sports stadiums.  The Masters golf tournament has so many liturgical elements for broadcasters that it borders on absurd. And don’t forget the ever-popular Gatorade dump over the head of the coach following a decisive football win. These liturgical elements are non-negotiable and the true sports fan feels gypped if they don’t happen.

What do sports fans realize that church leaders do not? They realize the power of repeated elements and shared traditions. In other words, they understand the power of liturgy. Church leaders mistakenly assume that the Holy Spirit couldn’t possibly be pleased with something memorized, something written out in advance, or something repeated week after week for the purpose of driving a truth deep into the marrow-bone of the worshiper. No! The previous week’s service must have very little or no connection to the previous week’s service. The elements of worship must be like so many ping-pong balls in a Powerball lottery machine. The worshiper must show up and be surprised every week because spontaneity is the only thing that can produce “genuine worship.” And “genuine worship” can only happen in an atmosphere of spontaneity and freedom.

Sports fans find meaning and fulfillment at a sporting event through shared experiences that they all realize are coming. The chanting of Rock Chalk or singing “Na na na na, hey hey hey, GOOD-BYE!” is powerful because the participant has been looking forward to it all week and is ready to perform it in unison with close friends and with tremendous gusto. Chanting of an ecumenical creed or saying a congregational prayer in unison is weird because, ummmmm, well it just is.

If we give this a few moments of thought we realize a startling truth. There are set liturgies for sporting events, family meals, job interviews, courtship, lovemaking, driving, business meetings, weddings, funerals, bedtime, political speeches, classical music concerts, and on and on. All of life is liturgical…except for the average evangelical worship service.

And we wonder why men are leaving Western churches in droves.

Questions: What goes through your mind when you hear the word “liturgy”? What place does “spontaneity” play in worship at your church?

No logic, no order, no movement

A great quote from Robert S. Rayburn about liturgy. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Part of the reason why so many Christian worship services have no logic, no order, no movement, is because those who superintend those services of worship have not paid attention to the Bible’s main instruction in the formation of a worship service because that instruction is found in the Old Testament…. It is this disregard for the importance of what is done in the worship of God and the order or logic with which it is done that has lead to the common pejorative use of the words ‘liturgy’ and ‘liturgical’ in many evangelical and even Reformed circles. This is a mistake in more ways than one. Every church service is a liturgy, if it has various elements in some arrangement. That is what liturgy is. Liturgical churches are churches that have thought about those elements and their proper order. Non-liturgical churches are those which have not. It is no compliment to say that a church is a non-liturgical church. It is the same thing as saying it is a church that gives little thought to how it worships God. (Robert S. Rayburn, “Worship From the Whole Bible,” in The Second Annual Conference on Worship: The Theology and Music of Reformed Worship, February 23-25, 1996 [Nashville, TN: Covenant Presbyterian Church, 1996], pp. 22-23).

The Semi-Pelagian Narrower Catechism

An oldie but a goodie. Not sure who to credit (or blame) for creating this but I think it is absolutely hilarious.

1. Q: What is the chief end of each individual Christian?
A: Each individual Christian’s chief end is to get saved. This is the first and great commandment.

2. Q: And what is the second great commandment?
A: The second, which is like unto it, is to get as many others saved as he can.

3. Q: What one work is required of thee for thy salvation?
A: It is required of me for my salvation that I make a Decision for Christ, which meaneth to accept Him into my heart to be my personal lord’n’saviour

4. Q: At what time must thou perform this work?
A: I must perform this work at such time as I have reached the Age of Accountability.

5. Q: At what time wilt thou have reached this Age?
A: That is a trick question. In order to determine this time, my mind must needs be sharper than any two-edged sword, able to pierce even to the division of bone and marrow; for, alas, the Age of Accountability is different for each individual, and is thus unknowable.

6. Q: By what means is a Decision for Christ made?
A: A Decision for Christ is made, not according to His own purpose and grace which was given to me in Christ Jesus before the world began, but according to the exercise of my own Free Will in saying the Sinner’s Prayer in my own words.

7. Q: If it be true then that man is responsible for this Decision, how then can God be sovereign?
A: He cannot be. God sovereignly chose not to be sovereign, and is therefore dependent upon me to come to Him for salvation. He standeth outside the door of my heart, forlornly knocking, until such time as I Decide to let Him in.

8. Q: How then can we make such a Decision, seeing that the Scripture saith, we are dead in our trespasses and sins?
A: By this the Scripture meaneth, not that we are dead, but only that we are sick or injured in them.

9. Q: What is the assurance of thy salvation?
A: The assurance of thy salvation is, that I know the date on which I prayed the Sinner’s Prayer, and have duly written this date on an official Decision card.

10. Q: What is thy story? What is thy song?
A: Praising my Savior all the day long.

11. Q: You ask me how I know he lives?
A: He lives within my heart.

12. Q: And what else hast thou got in thine heart?
A: I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.

13. Q: Where??
A: Down in my heart!

14. Q: Where???
A: Down in my heart!!

15. Q: What witness aid hath been given us as a technique by which we may win souls?
A: The tract known commonly as the Four Spiritual Laws, is the chief aid whereby we may win souls.

16. Q: What doth this tract principally teach?
A: The Four Spiritual Laws principally teach, that God’s entire plan for history and the universe centereth on me, and that I am powerful enough to thwart His divine purpose if I refuse to let Him pursue His Wonderful Plan for my life.

17. Q: What supplementary technique is given by which we may win souls?
A: The technique of giving our own Personal Testimony, in the which we must always be ready to give an answer concerning the years we spent in vanity and pride, and the wretched vices in which we wallowed all our lives until
the day we got saved.

18. Q: I’m so happy, what’s the reason why?
A: Jesus took my burden all away!

19. Q: What are the means given whereby we may save large crowds of souls in a spectacular manner?
A: Such a spectacle is accomplished by means of well-publicized Crusades and Revivals which (in order that none may be loath to attend) are best conducted anywhere else but in a Church.

20. Q: Am I a soldier of the Cross?
A: I am a soldier of the Cross if I join Campus Crusade, Boys’ Brigade, the Salvation Army, or the Wheaton Crusaders; of if I put on the helmet of Dispensationalism, the breastplate of Pietism, the shield of Tribulationism, and the sword of Zionism, having my feet shod with the gospel of Arminianism.

21. Q: Who is your boss?
A: My boss is a Jewish carpenter.

22. Q: Hath God predestined vessels of wrath to Hell?
A: God hath never performed such an omnipotent act, for any such thing would not reflect His primary attribute, which is Niceness.

23. Q: What is sanctification?
A: Sanctification is the work of my free Will, whereby I am renewed by having my Daily Quiet Time.

24. Q: What rule hath God for our direction in prayer?
A: The rule that we must bow our hands, close our heads, and fold our eyes.

25. Q: What doth the Lord’s Prayer teach us?
A: The Lord’s Prayer teacheth us that we must never memorize a prayer, or use one that hath been written down.

26. Q: What’s the book for thee?
A: The B-I-B-L-E.

27. Q: Which are among the first books which a Christian should read to his soul’s health?
A: Among the first books which a Christian should read are the books of Daniel and Revelation, and The Late Great Planet Earth.

28. Q: Who is on the Lord’s side?
A: He who doth support whatsoever is done by the nation of Israel, and who doth renounce the world, the flesh, and the Catholic Church.

29. Q: What are the seven deadly sins?
A: The seven deadly sins are smoking, drinking, dancing, card-playing, movie-going, baptizing babies, and having any creed but Christ.

30. Q: What is a sacrament?
A: A sacrament is an insidious invention devised by the Catholic Church whereby men are drawn into idolatry.

31. Q: What is the Lord’s Supper?
A: The Lord’s Supper is a dispensing of saltines and grape juice, in the which we remember Christ’s command to pretend that they are His body and blood.

32. Q: What is baptism?
A: Baptism is the act whereby, by the performance of something that seems quite silly in front of everyone, I prove that I really, really mean it.

33. Q: What is the Church?
A: The Church is the tiny minority of individuals living at this time who have Jesus in their hearts, and who come together once a week for a sermon, fellowship and donuts.

34. Q: What is the office of the keys?
A: The office of the keys is that office held by the custodian.

35. Q: What meaneth “The Priesthood Of All Believers”?
A: The Priesthood Of All Believers meaneth that there exists no authority in the Church, as that falsely thought to be held by elders, presbyters, deacons, and bishops, but that each individual Christian acts as his own authority in all matters pertaining to the faith.

36. Q: Who is the Holy Spirit?
A: The Holy Spirit is a gentleman who would never barge in.

37. Q: How long hath the Holy Spirit been at work?
A: The Holy Spirit hath been at work for more than a century: expressly, since the nineteenth-century Revitalization brought about by traveling Evangelists carrying tents across America.

38. Q: When will be the “Last Days” of which the Bible speaketh?
A: The “Last Days” are these days in which we are now living, in which the Antichrist, the Beast, and the Thief in the Night shall most certainly appear.

39. Q: What is the name of the event by which Christians will escape these dreadful entities?
A: The event commonly known as the Rapture, in the which it is our Blessed Hope that all cars driven by Christians will suddenly have no drivers.

40. Q: When is Jesus coming again?
A: Maybe morning, maybe noon, maybe evening, and maybe soon.

41. Q: When the roll, roll, roll, is called up yonder, where will you be?
A: There.

42. Q: Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah!
A: Praise ye the Lord!

43. Q: Praise ye the Lord!
A: Hallelujah!

44. Q: Where will we meet again?
A: Here, there, or in the air.

45. Q: Can I hear an Ay-men?
A: Ay-men.

Regulating worship

I find it interesting that the Old Testament is never allowed to regulate modern worship unless it is used to justify an almost “anything goes” approach to worship.

For example, if a protestant wants to argue for a high-church sort of liturgy that takes into account the patterns of feasts in the OT, the laws surrounding sacrifice, the possibility of Yahweh being displeased with worship based on the passages involving Cain, Uzzah, and the Children of Israel in Exodus 32, those things are brushed aside and a sweeping, “That was the Old Testament. We’re under ‘grace’ not ‘law.’”

But when that same naysayer tries to make their case for what is acceptable in worship what is one of the first passages they invoke? 2 Samuel 6:14: “And David danced before the Yahweh with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod.” “See,” they say, “That passage allows something as uninhibited as dancing in worship.” The only problem is that 2 Samuel is (of course) an Old Testament passage. The same Old Testament that was verboten a few minutes ago is now right back in play.

And around and around we go…