Biblical Worship

I recently finished a new book by Dr. Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis.  Gaines book, When God Comes to Church: Experiencing the Fullness of His Presence offers a number of excellent insights about planning and leading worship.  I like this quote from C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) that Gaines uses to emphasize the need of Christ-centered worship services.  In the quote Spurgeon is addressing young preachers when he states:

“Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the Gospel.  As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and His cross, for I know nothing else, and long ago, like the Apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified [a reference to I Cor. 2:2] . . . . Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in your sermon . . . . We preach Jesus Christ to those who want Him, and we also preach Him to those who do not want Him, and we keep on preaching Christ until we make them feel that they do want Him, and cannot do without Him.”  (Gaines, p. 42-43)

I agree with Spurgeon and Gaines.  Our services should focus on Christ.  There should be a Gospel, cross-centered theme in our corporate worship services each time we gather.  How often have I attended a Christian worship service where Christ or His cross were not mentioned the whole service?  More than I want to remember.  Our songs, our prayers, our testimonies and our sermons should point to Christ. 

When a Christian tells his pastor he does not need to hear the Gospel story any more because he has matured beyond that point, we are in dangerous territory.  Christ is our Savior and Lord, our Great High Priest before the Throne, the Lamb of God.  We must preach Christ. 

Gaines closes his chapter stating that “a worship service without the awareness of Jesus’ obvious presence is a waste of time.  He is the One who deserves the spotlight.  He is the focus for every part of geniune worship.” (44).

Worship Leader - is your service full of Christ and His cross?  As David Prior once said: “We never move on from the cross of Christ, only into a more profound understanding of the cross.”

When God Comes to Church, Steve Gaines, Broadman and Holman, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-8054-4398-1.

Years ago I served with a dear pastor who enjoyed the Christmas season, but was quite ready for it to be over after a couple of weeks.  He thought that people are so distracted by the trappings of the holiday season that they are not spiritually focused and not moving forward in their Christian walk.  In our worship planning we would agree to only use Christmas music on certain Sundays which usually ended up being the first 3 Sundays of December - not before or after.  He believed that much of the Christmas music used in worship only led to sentimental reflections of Christmas seasons gone by with little real focus on Christ.

We must admit much of what happens at Christmas often has little to do with the real reason for the celebration - Jesus.  How can a worship leader select music for worship during this season that helps to keep the proper perspective on Christmas?  Here are some suggestions:

1. Avoid songs that over sentimentalize the season such as songs that focus on the “most wonderful time of the year.”  Are we in love with the season or with Christ?

2. Avoid songs that are strictly secular in their association.  Some churches choose to do several of these type songs at the beginning of their musicals at Christmas to either “entertain” or “attract non-believers.”  I believe these type songs have no place in a worship service especially when it is intended to be evangelistic.  What’s evangelistic about singing secular songs?  I think sometimes we can be so entertainment focused that we can be in danger of entertaining them to hell.  Point your people to Christ.

3.  Choose songs that correctly describe the Christmas story according to Scripture.  Many of our songs really do not portray the story very well.  Look for songs that are clear in communicating the story.

4.  Choose songs that tell the whole Gospel Story- Jesus birth, his ministry, his death on a cross and his resurrection.  The problem with many Christmas songs is that they leave Jesus in the manger.  Christians and non-Christians need to hear the whole Gospel at Christmas.  Look for songs that go beyond the manger.  He came to be our Savior. 

5.  Choose Christmas songs that your congregation can sing.  Many songs of this season (old and new) are difficult to sing in a congregational setting.  Consider the key of the song and the rhythmic structure.

Do all Christmas songs have to fit every criteria listed above? No, but a good group of your songs should.  Let’s help our people keep Christ in their Christmas season by using great songs that lead us to the Messiah - Our Savior and Lord. 

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir to God.

Galatians 4:4-7 (ESV)

 In the book The Story of Christian Music (Fortress Press, 1992, ISBN 0-8006-3474-8), author Andrew Wilson-Dickson shares an eyewitness account written by deacon Paul Gerhardt, of a Christmas morning worship service at the Nikolaikirke (St. Nicholas Church) in Berlin in 1659.  The Nikolaikirke is one of Berlin’s oldest churches dating back to the thirteenth century.  Here’s a glimpse into a worship service from three hundred years ago:

The church is cold. Candles are being lighted. The people are coming and taking their places.  A group of schoolboys is at one side of the gallery and a choir of mixed voices at the other side.  Below the pulpit we see a Collegium Musicum, a voluntary musical society composed of tradesmen and craftsmen, who perform on violins and woodwind instruments, gathered around a small moveable organ.  Then there is a male quartet, also a military band with trumpets, kettledrums and drums.

After the organ prelude a chorale [Lutheran Hymn] is sung . . . Now three clergymen with white clergymen’s bands and black robes have appeared at the altar.  The entire liturgy is sung in Latin [the use of Latin or German varied from place to place]  by the choirs and the schoolchildren.  Next a college student, dressed as an angel with large white wings, sings from the pulpit an Old Testament prophecy, accompanied by the Collegium Musicum below.

More chanting from the altar, and then the principal door of the church opens, and in comes a procession of girls, headed by the teacher, all dressed as angels.  They proceed to the high altar, where the teacher sings from the first verse of “Vom Himmel hock”[From Heaven Above], and the second verse is sung by the girls in two-part counterpoint.  The third verse is taken by the organ and the choir in the gallery as a beautiful five-part motet.  While the procession has been marching down the aisle, one of the ministers chants a “Gloria” answered by the electoral court-and-field of trumpeters with fanfares and drumrolls.

After the sermon there is more chanting by the liturgist, and the instrumentalists play a boisterous “Te Deum” [To God]. Then follows another Latin anthem by the school children.

Things now begin to happen in the organ loft: over the railing is raised a cradle with a doll, while some boys with incessant mooing imitate the animals in the Bethlehem stable.  The choir and congregation sing a hymn, and at this point high up on the organ facade a Bethlehem star, illuminated  and supplied with small bells, is turned round and round, operated by an organ stop.  Three wooden images, representing the three Wise Men, with their traditional attributes, solemnly move forward and bow before the doll in the cradle.  At the same time we notice two puppets, representing Moors, standing on each side of the central group.  One blows a trumpet, and the other beats a drum.  Throughout this scene on the gallery railing the Collegium Musicum plays a ritornello [an instrumental refrain].

A boy soprano intones “In Dulci Jubilo” [Good Christian Men, Rejoice], which is continued by male voices, accompanied by shawms, and bombards.  The song is scarcely over before a sight exceedingly beloved of the children appears in the centre aisle.  It is old Father Christmas himself in his white beard, with pointed cap on his head and a large sack on his back, soon surrounded by ‘angels’ and children, who vie with each other for the good things that are to be given out.  When the large sack is empty and Old Father Christmas has disappeared behind the sacristy door, then is sung as the closing chorale “Puer natue est Bethlehem” [A Child is Born in Bethlehem]. 

quoted from The Story of Christian Music, page 89.

Many churches use video screens in worship today to project song lyrics, Scripture texts, sermon outlines, video clip illustrations and church announcements.  To the younger generation it is as if we have always used screens, since that is all most remember.  Video projection technology has come a long way from the overhead projector with song sheets moved manually onto the machine. 

Is the use of projection onto screens in worship value neutral?  One might immediately state that technology does not have a message since it is the medium over which the message is communicated.  In the article “PowerPointless: Video Screens in Worship”  (Christian Century, July 25, 2006) Debra Dean Murphy states a different viewpoint.  Murphy believes that the use of video screens in worship is not value neutral and causes a number of undesirable outcomes for the congregation and leaders.  She refers to PowerPoint software for her argument, but it could easily be other worship projection software that we could mention as well (SongShow Plus, Easy Worship, MediaShout, etc.). Here are some of her arguments (quoting from the article page 10-11):

1.  The use of PowerPoint promotes a kind of cognitive style that routinely disrupts, dominates and trivializes content.

2.  PowerPoint elevates format over content.  It produces a ’stacking’ of information, the relentless sequentiality that divorces content from context.

3.  Hymns (or other worship songs) are only seen in short fragments at a time.  How will our children learn to read a hymn as it is printed on the page - as well as learn to read music - a dying practice much due to video screen technology?

4.  PowerPoint conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian.

5.  The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention - an object of fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors.  When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they begin to worry that it will malfunction again.

6.  PowerPoint makes worshipers less aware of the persons around them: they engage in less eye contact and other forms of human interaction for fear of missing something on the screen.

7. PowerPoint sets up a competition between what’s projected on the screen and the human voice doing the preaching, praying or singing.  It’s a contest that PowerPoint will always win because when the brain is asked to listen and watch at the same time, it always quits listening. 

8.  PowerPoint contributes to sensory overload when something is happening on the platform and something different on the screen at the same time.  It can manipulate emotions and stifle imagination.

What sort of culture does the use of video screens create?  What kind of people does it produce? Our church members spend much time each week in front of computer monitors, cell phones, TV’s in restaurants, and come to church on Sunday to happily position themselves in front of the biggest screen of all.  (end quote)

Murphy comes across strongly against the use of video screen technology in worship and she does have some interesting points.  The end of her article suggests that we do not rid ourselves of video screens but that we tame the use of the screens in worship.  She does see some positive aspects for the use of this technology but she advocates more judicious and limited use of projection in worship. 

I would add that we should tame all of our technology used in worship.  It does seem at times that the technology used in worship can become more fascinating than God Himself.