Pastoral Position Paper - Dave Hatcher

Because we are pragmatists, because we love our gadgets, and because we are obsessed with novelty, the worship service of the Modern Evangelical Church of America continues to become stranger and stranger. Based on man-centered doctrines of autonomous, free choice, these churches seek to follow the paths of the marketing guru's of the day. "Do this," or "Do that," and they will come. "Well, if that's what it takes," says the pastor after attending the latest church-growth seminar, "let's do it and bring them in." The most dangerous thing about the church-growth strategies is not that they don't work, but that they do. However, just because a church is growing, does not mean that God is necessarily blessing it.

It is pretty obvious as soon as you come to CEF that we are not following in the stream of modern evangelicalism when it comes to the worship service. It is important to understand, though, that we are not simply reacting to the weird stuff going on in today's contemporary church service. Rather, we are following in the footsteps of the Reformers, who not only were committed to reforming the doctrine of the church, but were just as passionate about reforming the worship of God as well.

We must understand that theological concepts, not pragmatic considerations, ultimately shape the order of a worship service. The modern evangelical church thinks that it is just acting pragmatically, meeting the felt-needs of the consumer in order to get them into the store and shop at their church. Their intentions in this are not all bad - they truly want to see their friends and neighbors converted. And, they are reacting to generations of reformed traditions that were practiced in dry and dead churches, where the Spirit left years ago. The problem is that they are blaming it on the 'old liturgy' and not on the 'old man'.

Here is a brief outline of the order of service, as it looks in 1999, at Christ Church. The elders understand that there is more reforming to be done here, and claim no final authority in each element, the order, or many of the particulars. At the same time, we believe that we are doing what we are doing, not simply out of personal preferences, but with a zeal to keep the commands of God.

The Call to Worship begins with a Scripture reading, a prayer of praise and an exhortation. How we enter and begin is important. Notice that we are not hallowing the place or any of the objects in this room. This is directly a result of the reformation. There are no ceremonies related to entering, no superstitions. But that is not to say that you should not self-consciously be thinking about the fact that you are coming into an assembly on the Lord's appointed day to worship Him according to His desires and designs. Lack of ceremony is no excuse for not developing a habitual sense of awe, wonder, expectation, humility, as we gather together before our God and King, our Savior and our Lord. Psalm 122 calls the people together in this way - "Let us go to the house of the Lord." The gathering together is a display of order, beauty and fellowship.

Included in the Call to Worship is our time of Confession of Sin. This stands in opposition to the teachings of the more 'seeker-friendly' churches, where there is less and less talk about sin. Because the Bible teaches us to do so, we begin by acknowledging that every one of us has sinned before God in various ways, in heart, word, and deed. 1 John 1:5-10 teaches us that confession is not only to be individual, but corporate as well. Life in the body of Christ is never simply just 'Me 'n' my Bible'.

This is followed by a time of singing. We sing because we are commanded. But we sing also, because we cannot help but sing. Eph 5:18-19 teaches that if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, one of the natural manifestations of this will be singing to the Lord - from your heart! It will also be natural for us to use the music of the church to teach and admonish one another.

During the Reformation, congregational singing was returned to the church, and there was a flurry of new music written. But there are several differences with what was happening then and what is happening in our current whirlwind of contemporary Christian songwriting. The first is that it was set in the context of a reformation, so the lyrics reflected the deep truths being recovered in the church. Secondly, the music being written came out of a culture where aesthetics were still being driven by the church and a Christian worldview. Today's music is driven by the commercial music industry, whose values are relativism and pragmatism. They are not looking at their Bibles; they are looking at the bottom line. In this mindset it doesn't matter if the tune is so trite that it is thrown away in six months - most everything else in the music world is. Beauty in poetry and music is considered to be in the eye of the beholder, so if 'they like it', we sing it. Lyrics are often poorly written poetry (but who's to say), or small snippets of Scripture repeated over and over, mantra-fashion.

CEF has turned back to the older hymns not because they were perfect, but they were on the right track. We return to them, hoping one day to build upon them. We sing the Psalter because we are commanded to, and in singing them we see why. There is great freshness to be found in singing through the psalms because you end up singing about things you never sung about before. It doesn't take long before you realize how potent they are. It is truly the work of the enemy to keep these songs out of the church.

The service is also to include the public reading of the Scriptures. Historically, the church has understood 1 Tim 5:13 as not simply preaching from a text, but the regular reading of the Scriptures to the people in the assembly. CEF has been applying this command presently through reading a portion of the Old Testament, followed by a New Testament citation of the same passage. By doing so, we are emphasizing the continuity of the Old covenant with the New, something the modern church tends to deny. But Christ is found throughout the Old Testament, and the constant quotation of the Old in the New not only proves this, but also provides us with an inspired commentary on those passages.

Throughout the Scriptures we can find multiple passages exhorting us to prayers of all kinds (i.e. 1 Tim 2:1-4, Matt 9:36-38; Eph 6:18). When a man prays in the service, he is coming before the Lord on behalf of the whole body. Because of this awesome responsibility, he must be prepared, which means for some to write their prayers out beforehand. This does not stifle spontaneity as much as it protects us from meaningless repetitions and false doctrines in the prayers. As we lift up these requests for one another, we show our love of God manifested in our love for one another, we practice our faith in the sovereignty of God in all things, and we seal our corporate prayer with a hearty Amen from all.

There is to be a time for the preaching of the Word. 2 Tim 4:2 tells us what to do, when to do it, and what it should look like. He instructs us to "Preach the Word"; that would be the Word of God - not anything else. We are to be Word-oriented in all that we do. Too often, the Word is laid aside for modern psychology, therapeutic self-esteem, and self-help, twelve-step models. We must repent of our lack of confidence in the Word of God proclaimed, and trust God for it to be the instrument of grace by which the Holy Spirit draws men to Jesus, and feeds His people.

Paul tells Timothy to preach 'in season and out of season'. When it seems the right thing to do - preach. When it doesn't seem like the right thing to do - preach. And what should preaching look like? - "convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching." Preaching is to be apologetic - it is to be used to make the case for Christ and Christianity. It is to be a time of hard words, rebuking, in order that the Spirit might make soft hearts. It is to be a time of exhorting and encouraging to love and good deeds. The attitude of the preacher is to be pastoral. He should be one who loves the flock and has the patience of God for His people. And he must display competent teaching.

1 Cor 1:21 show us that this is just what Paul did, even when the 'experts' of the day thought that preaching was 'out of style'. I don't know how many times I have heard the 'church growth experts' and the cultural guru's tell us that preaching is outdated. Well, they were saying that in Paul's day - but Paul knew that the 'foolishness' of preaching and the preached Word were effective to accomplish God's purposes.

Many church services include some kind of 'altar call', or a commitment of some kind after the message, and the time is filled with sentimental testimonies, motivational songs, arm-twisting exhortations, and long-winded prayers that seem more directed to the people than to God. We must avoid a 'camptown meeting' revivalism mentality after a sermon. We instead turn the penitent, along with those who are being comforted and those in need of comfort, to the Lord. The Doxology does this without any man-made pressure by simply turning us to give glory to the Lord.

The final Benediction is not a prayer as much as it is a final blessing that the grace that was given during the service might remain upon the body of Christ, and in each individual, as God does His good work in us. Benedictions are found throughout Scripture, and Paul seems to follow this pattern with his greetings of 'Grace to you…' and his conclusions of 'Grace be with you'.

Following the same patterns of worship week after week, like a well-disciplined army, displays order, strength, loyalty, and fear in the eyes of the enemy. At the same time, as one becomes familiar with the steps, then, like a well-rehearsed dance, it displays beauty and splendor, devotion and love.

Today, we are a disheveled army, an ugly dance-troop, so no one watches. Churches are springing up all over America, but they are impotent in changing the culture. Returning to the patterns of worship, laid out for us in the Scriptures for those with eyes to see, is necessary in our ongoing prayers and efforts of reformation and revival. At CEF, the firstfruits have been glorious. But we long for more.