Van-guard (văn’gärd), noun: “The foremost or leading position in a trend or movement.”
the journey forward... exploring the emerging church... navigating spiritual formation... seeking to transform the world... ...through Christ
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Van-guard (văn’gärd), noun: “The foremost or leading position in a trend or movement.” the journey forward... exploring the emerging church... navigating spiritual formation... seeking to transform the world... ...through Christ |
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Vanguard Church A Philosophy of Worship (continued) What Does Worship Look Like on Sunday? When we discuss worship, we are talking about more than the music we sing. The worship event on Sundays has several elements that are essential to what we are supposed to be doing. With reference to Acts 2:42, John Calvin wrote, “Luke relates in the Acts that this was the practice of the apostolic church, when he says that the believers ‘continued in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and in prayers.’ Thus, it became the unvarying rule that no meeting of the church should take place without the Word, prayers, partaking of the supper, and almsgiving.” I find it interesting that the singing of songs is not even mentioned. Yet, that is the first thing we think of when we discuss the worship service. Music was, however, a major part of worship, both in the Old and the New Testament. The psalms wouldn’t exist if singing praises to God were not of utmost importance. Therefore, when we think of the worship event on Sunday, there are several key components: The reading and preaching of the Word, the administering of the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism, prayer, a time to give our treasures back to God, and singing praises to God. Let’s look at each of these in particular, with special emphasis at the end of this paper given to the music of the church. Worship through the Word. The Evangelical Free Church believes that the first leading indicator of a healthy church is the centrality of God’s word. The proclamation of God’s word needs to be clear, theologically sound and relevant, so that our people will be eager to please God by applying His Word to every area of life. Along with expository preaching, we will read scripture together in our worship service: we may read the Ten Commandments together, or a psalm of praise, or the Lord’s Prayer, or the Shema of Deuteronomy 6. We may read the “high water mark” texts of Scripture, so that we will make these texts an ingrained part of our consciences. It is my hope that in doing so, certain verses will end up being memorized and applied to the lives of believers. It is my conviction that the aim of preaching is God-exulting worship. The sermon should have a purpose: to engage the minds and hearts of the hearers so as to move them into the presence and glory of God. The task of preaching, then is to display the all-satisfying glories of God in such a way that the power of all competing pleasures is broken and that God himself becomes the center of the Christian’s world. Each week, the sermon should bring into focus a fresh picture of why God is the all-satisfying treasure of our lives. Praying to their Lord, our congregation should leave our worship services echoing Psalm 16:11, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Worship through the
Ordinances. Many in the evangelical church prefer to call these the
“sacraments.” They are called ordinances because they are the only two physical acts that Jesus ordained for us to do. He felt that these were that important! It is to the shame of the modern church that we do not give the sacraments the central importance that our Lord himself gave them. Baptism is also worship, in that it is a time of celebration for the salvation of another soul, a proclamation of God’s cleansing grace. We should bring the sacraments back into their proper place of importance. We should do them often—not necessarily every week, but often enough to experience their tremendous benefits. Worship through Prayer. Worship includes times of prayer, interspersed throughout our time together. We need to model what it means to “pray without ceasing.” A useful acrostic for prayer is P.R.A.Y. to delineate the components of prayer that need to be experienced in corporate worship. Praise: We should have time to praise God. Repent: In the Sunday worship event, the worship leaders need to give the congregation a time in which they can confess their sins to God, ask for forgiveness and cleansing, and to repent of their sin. Ask: We should lift up to the Lord the prayer requests of our congregation: corporate prayers (i.e. prayers for our effectiveness as a church, for a need for the church as a whole), and individual prayers (i.e., prayers for the sick and the grieving). Yield: We need a time of recommitment to the Lordship of God. Maybe this would be following the sermon, where a time of prayer would be appropriate to purpose to yield to what God is calling us to do from His Word. Worship through Giving. The time to give our offerings to the purposes of God is a time of worship. What we do with our money (or desire to do with it) can make or break our joy in worship. The Bible is clear concerning money: “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction” (1 Tim. 6:9). There needs to be a time when we give sacrificially to God that which is rightfully his. Christian giving is not act of charity such as a humanist group might engage in. It is an act of worship; that is why we do this on Sundays. It is a response to who God is and to what He has done for us! Giving is done in recognition that everything the believer has belongs to God. “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Kent Hughes writes, “God can have our money and not our hearts, but He cannot have our hearts without having our money.” Jesus tells us, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21), and “You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24). Everything comes from God, and when we give our tithes and offerings, we only give Him what comes from His hand. (1 Chronicles 29:14). We are commanded to give because of God’s grace (2 Cor.8:1). We receive God’s grace when we give (2 Cor. 8:6-7), and it’s difficult to grow in grace without committing one’s giving to the Lord. Worship through Music. Our Sunday morning worship service is a place where believers come to experience God, AND where they bring their unchurched/unbelieving friends to experience God as well. Our primary task as a church is to reach a new generation with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This task must be reflected in the music we select to sing on Sunday mornings. I have told people that I want to be "Evangelical" in our teaching, and "charismatic" in worship. This statement can be easily misunderstood. I do not mean that I want to have any of the excesses of the modern charismatic movement (i.e., uninterpreted tongues in public services and the flagrant attempt to create an emotional hysteria in the congregation). What I mean is this: The charismatic movement has rediscovered the goal of worship: to draw us near to God. The charismatic interest in experiencing God authentically and emotionally has created a whole new way of expressing worship that harkens back to what God expressed he wanted in Scripture. This authentic experience of God has had a dramatic impact on the Church's evangelistic effort. More conservative "evangelical" churches are discovering this as well. Worship is expressing our love to God as the one true object of our affection. That means that only believers can worship God, since unbelievers cannot express a love relationship that does not exist. However, worship is a powerful witness to unbelievers if God’s presence is felt through the worship event. Worship and evangelism go hand-in-hand. It is the goal of evangelism to produce true worshippers (John 4:23). True worship that is understandable is a powerful witness to unbelievers in our midst who can be moved toward faith by seeing believers joyfully singing love songs to their Father. Worship also motivates believers toward evangelism, since it produces a greater desire to share the love of God with others. As Rick Warren writes in The Purpose Driven Church, “In true worship, God’s presence is felt, God’s pardon is offered, God’s purposes revealed, and God’s power is displayed. That sounds like an ideal context for evangelism!” Vanguard Church's worship will invite people (both believers and unbelievers) into the worship process. Each individual member, whether gifted musically or not, is invited to praise God. These individuals in the congregation, therefore, make up the ‘choir,’ so to speak, with God as the audience. In the 21st century, we will more easily praise God by singing songs that reflect the type of music that we are most familiar with. While many long-time Christians are familiar with the hymns, most non-Christians are not. Therefore, most of our music should reflect the music of our time. Martin Luther took tunes of the great drinking songs of his day and turned them into hymns. Charles Wesley used several popular tunes from the taverns and opera houses in his day. John Calvin hired two secular song writers of his day to put his theology to music. D. L. Moody’s worship leader, Ira Sankey, wrote songs that reflected the musical tastes of his day. We intend to follow suit, taking advantage of our generation’s love for music and using it in a way that praises God. Rick Warren writes, "It takes unselfish, mature believers to offer a seeker-sensitive service. In 1 Corinthians 14:19-20. Paul says that when we think only of our needs in worship we are being childish and immature. Members demonstrate incredible spiritual maturity when they are considerate of the needs, fears, and hang-ups of unbelievers and are willing to place those needs before their own in service. In every church there is a constant tension between ‘service’ and ‘serve-us.’ Most churches end up tipping the scales toward meeting the members needs because the members pay the bills. Offering a seeker service means intentionally tipping the scales in the opposite direction, toward unbelievers. It requires members who are willing to create a safe environment for unbelievers at the expense of their own preferences, traditions, and comfort. Enormous spiritual maturity is required to voluntarily move out of a comfort zone.” We need to be willing to bend on some of our Christianized tastes in worship music for the sake of reaching a new generation of nonbelievers. This does not mean sacrificing the ancient hymns of the faith; this means we incorporate those hymns in with a very contemporary worship service. There is no such thing as Christian music. There are only Christian lyrics. We will therefore “sing a new song to the Lord” (Ps. 96:1, 98:1, 144:9). We will “sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in our hearts to God” (Col. 3:16). Therefore, there should be no need to be apologetic about our desire to have a very contemporary sound to our worship. Contemporary worship enables a new group a people to draw near to God’s presence. This is not to put down hymns. The hymns are rich in doctrine and have sustained the church for centuries. Contemporary worship songs need not replace the classic hymns of the faith, but complement them. I hope to be able to develop new musical arrangements of the classic hymns for the modern worshiper's ear. The hymns are so important, that we will attempt to sing at least one every Sunday. When we sing hymns, we learn as well as worship. Therefore, we will have a “both/and,” not an “either/or” approach to our music: an eclectic mix of songs that reflects the varied influences of an ancient-yet-future faith. We will sing songs that are very contemporary, and songs that reach back to the classic ancient tradition of the church. This is what some are calling an “ancient/future worship experience.” Vanguard Church is a 21st Century church that is seeking to reach a new generation with the ancient message of Christ. This means that many of our methods must reflect our 21st Century culture--including the music! "Vanguard" means being the forefront by being tied to the ancient and authentic faith, while very clearly reaching forward into the 21st century. An excellent book that the Vanguard Worship Team read together to help us form our philosophy of worship was Worship Evangelism, Inviting Unbelievers Into The Presence of God, by Sally Morgenthaler (Zondervan, 1999). This thoroughly biblical approach to worship helped us understand that our church's worship can be marvelously evangelistic. She writes, "I would be the first to argue that non-Christians need to be exposed to a bit of classic Christian terminology and that music of a more 'religious' style should be a part of any worship music palette. Yet subcultural worship music cannot be the bulk of what we sing if we hope to offer a welcoming, inclusive worship experience, one that the unchurched/unbeliever will understand and enjoy. If we want our worship to witness, we need to draw much of our worship material from an entirely new genre of worship music, music that is meaningful and engaging to Christian and non-Christian alike. We need cross-cultural worship music, music in a variety of popular styles that is attractive to both Seeker Bob and Saintly Bill." Morgenthaler recommends choosing cross-cultural music that has four identifiable characteristics. Songs that we sing must "PASS" this song selection test:
She continues, "When a church puts forth the time and effort to become fluent in current musical styles, it communicates to Seeker Bob: 'We care so much about you that we have decided to speak your language.' A person's language ranks behind only one's face or name when it comes to identity. Consequently, it is a great honor when you go out of your way to speak it. Singing Seeker Bob's song may not be what we are used to doing, but then, singing worship songs to barroom melodies are not exactly what Reformation Germany was used to doing! I have a feeling that if Martin Luther were the head of a worship music company today, one of his top priorities would be to 'resource' the church so that it can once again 'sing Bob's song.' To those of you who are committed to reaching Seeker Bob through worship, may your passion to communicate the Gospel in his language grow stronger each week, and may you continue to give God the glory for any cross-cultural success!" Sally Morgenthaler's thoughts line right up with our philosophy of ministry here at Vanguard Church. This is the kind of church that we feel needs to be started in the 21st Century.
Vanguard Church's worship is a work-in-progress, and we hope that our worship style will be as distinctive as the rest of our ministries. We want to create a worship style that is in the vanguard! We want to be a church for the 21st Century, reaching people in today's culture with the ancient faith of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! For His glory Alone!
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