Category Archives: Worship

John Calvin’s Views on Worship

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Original source here.

A review of a lecture by Dr. Robert Godfrey

In Taylors, South Carolina on March 11, 2OO3, at the Greenville Seminary Conference on Worship, Robert Godfrey, President of Westminster Theological Seminary in California, discussed John Calvin’s views on worship. Dr. Godfrey, who is also a church history professor as well as a minister in the United Reformed Churches of North America, began by reading Psalm 2 and by addressing common misapprehensions regarding Calvin. People think of him, stated Dr. Godfrey, as a “joyless killjoy, ruining people’s lives in Geneva.” People have had this sort of negative reaction to Calvin since the l6th century when, ‘His enemies circulated the rumour that his wife had died of boredom”

Nearly as many misapprehensions abound about Calvin among Calvinists because we think of him as more of a theologian than as a pastor. We must not, Dr. Godfrey said, divorce Calvin the theologian from Calvin the pastor, one concerned not only with the truth but with the application and ministration of that truth.

The great danger the church faces today is the separation of our theology from our practice or the viewing of the Bible as somehow separate from theology. Calvin believed that there was no theology that did not come out of the Bible, but that out of the Bible came a theology of coherence. It is distressing, President Godfrey said, when people dismiss the theology of the Reformation as being not adequately Biblical. Concerned with being “mean spirited” in his reply, Godfrey responded that most people today who would make such a charge do not know one tenth as much about the Bible as John Calvin or Martin Luther did.

Calvin did not separate his theology from the Bible or from his pastoring. He was an extraordinary preacher, a devoted pastor, a catechist who wrote his own catechism, a visitor of the sick, a counsellor, and one deeply concerned about missions, ecumenism, church polity, and church discipline.

He was, according to the seminary president, a pastor in every area of life, and he was a pastor in the matter of the careful thought he gave to worship.

In his treatise, “On the Necessity of Reforming the Church,” a document to be presented by the leaders of the Protestant movement to the Emperor Charles V, Calvin wrote.

“If it be inquired, then, by what things chiefly; the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity, viz., a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained.”

The speaker stated that Calvin’s ranking worship as first in importance over salvation is due to one very important fact, namely that salvation is a means to an end, with worship being the end itself: We are saved, Dr. Godfrey said to worship God, now and eternally, with our public worship being a foretaste of the heavenly worship that awaits us. So, worship was not peripheral to John Calvin but fundamental. Continue reading →

The Church’s Worship

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The Life of the Church Series: Sermon Three

(Transcription of audio file started at 05:18 and stopped at 26:40. Headings added by Christian Library.)

Original source here.

Reading of Hebrews 2:10-18; Hebrews 8:1-2; Hebrews 12:18-24.

If you go into a room full of Christians today and the conversation turns to the particular church that you attend, one of the almost inevitable questions you will be asked is: What is the worship style in your church? And it may not be long in the conversation before what the journals and the magazines today call “worship wars” break out. Christians today have developed an entire vocabulary to describe the way they worship God.

And the fact of the matter is that the worship wars of the 21st century are not the first worship wars the Christian Church has ever faced or endured. Indeed, in a sense, for the very souls and Christian lives of these early Christians to whom the letter to the Hebrews was first written, in their souls there was a kind of worship war going on. They found themselves embattled. Many of them had very literally been disinherited. Some of them had been imprisoned for the sake of the gospel. And because it looks as though their background was a Jewish background – with the worship of the temple, the great ritual of the temple occasions, the great feasts, the thronging crowds – one of the things that tempted them to go back was the glory days of worshipping together in the temple. Now they were worshipping together in one another’s homes in the biggest room they could find, or perhaps somewhere down by the riverside. And there were voices that said, “Oh, if you would just come back to the glory days of the worship style that you used to have!”

And one of the things the author of the letter to the Hebrews says over and over and over again to these Hebrew Christians is this: “Do not be mistaken by appearances. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, because the one glory and the one Person that was absent from the Jerusalem temple, with all its ritual and all its splendour and all the different ways in which it pointed forwards to the future, was the One who transforms Christian worship – the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.” Continue reading →

The Slow Killing of Congregational Singing

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“Worship is deformed when it becomes vicarious performance rather than congregational and participational.” – Sinclair Ferguson

The following article is by Mike Raiter, Director of the Centre for Biblical Preaching in Melbourne. He was formerly Head of Missions at Moore College and, more recently, Principal of Melbourne School of Theology. Mike spent 11 years working in Pakistan, largely in theological education. He is married to Sarah and they have 4 children (Joel, Nate, Pippa and Lauren). He is the author of over 35 books and articles, most notably the 2004 Australian Christian Book of the Year, Stirring of the Soul. (original source here)

Here is a great historical irony. Fifty years ago choirs ruled the church. Usually, they were supported by a very loud organ. To be frank, many choir members were performers, and when the choir was large they drowned out the singing of the congregation. So, sadly, the very people appointed to help the congregation sing actually smothered congregational singing. Bit by bit, choirs disappeared. I think most churches didn’t mourn the loss.

Here’s the irony: we then replaced the choirs with song leaders (or, what we inaccurately call ‘worship leaders’). Over time the number of song leaders grew and grew until they became as big as a choir. Then we gave the song leaders full-volume microphones and electrical instruments, and many became performers. When the music team was large and the microphones were turned up they drowned out the congregation. So, sadly, the very people appointed to help the congregation sing actually smothered congregational singing.

A few years ago I wrote an article entitled, ‘The Slow Death of Congregational Singing’ (The Briefing, April 2nd, 2008). I now believe my title was too generous. In fact, what we are witnessing in our churches is ‘The Slow Killing of Congregational Singing’.

I’ve just returned from another National Christian conference. Never have so many people complained to me about the singing. So, I am motivated to write again. Or, to use a more appropriate metaphor, to bang the same drum—but louder.

Paul tells us in Ephesians that we should be, “speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs…” (5:19). Similarly, in Colossians we are exhorted to, “teach and admonish one another with all wisdom with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” (3:16). Singing is a corporate activity with a dual focus. We sing “to one another” and we sing “to God”. But now in many (most?) churches we are sung to by the musicians.

In the past I’ve been reluctant to accuse our worship teams of being primarily performers. I now believe I was wrong. Evidence suggests that most are performers, and the needs of the congregation they are meant to be ministering to are forgotten. Why do I say this?

Signs of Trouble
First, they don’t look at the congregation they’re meant to be leading. The musicians can, perhaps, be excused here but not the song leaders. I tell preachers I mentor there is nothing more important in delivery than eye contact. People must know that you are talking to them, and you must be able to see that they are attentive to your words. This is also true for the song leaders. Indeed, they need both eye and ear contact. Are people singing the songs they’re leading? In most cases I observe that it’s irrelevant to the song leaders whether the people are singing or not. Why? I conclude because the singing event is primarily about them.

Second, they sing new songs but don’t teach the new songs. At this conference it was announced that the next song would be a new one. At that point, the role of the song leader is to teach this song to the people. Mind you, I wonder if any of those leading singing are trained to teach new songs? This is important because a number of new songs are difficult to sing. But we were not taught the song. The band just began to play. If we were able to eventually pick it up, all well and good. If not (and in this case it seemed that many didn’t), no problem. Why? I conclude: because it’s not about the singing of the congregation it’s about the performance of the band. Continue reading →