Worship

Review: Worship By Faith Alone

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Worship By Faith Alone (Dynamics of Worship). Zac Hicks, foreword by Ashley Null. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: Addressing the contemporary concern for “gospel-centered” worship, looks at how Thomas Cranmer, deeply committed to justification by faith alone in Christ alone, reformed the worship, liturgy, preaching and devotion of the Church of England.

For many of us outside Anglican circles, the name of Thomas Cranmer comes with few associations. We may remember his role in the editing of the Book of Common Prayer. Until reading this work, I did not realize how pervasive his role and work was in the English Reformation, touching on every aspect of the worship, liturgical materials, and preaching of the Church of England. I also did not realize what a profound influence Cranmer’s bedrock belief in justification by faith in Christ alone, had on all his efforts.

Zac Hicks seeks to do two things simultaneously in this study. One is to trace how Cranmer’s belief in sola fide informed all the revisions he made to the structure of worship, liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer, other works of devotion, and the character of preaching in the church. The other is to draw from Cranmer’s work principles for “gospel centered” worship in our own day. In so doing, he shows that Cranmer was far more than a skilled stylist or liturgical genius but that there was an order or shape to all of what he did and that was rooted in his deeply held belief in sola fide.

The first part of this work traces the evidence for the influence of Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith in the writings of Cranmer. He shows how this shapes his thinking on a wide range of issues from purgatory to the eucharist and transubstantiation, the priesthood. A most important concept for what follows is his discussion of the grammar of sola fide. In the language we use throughout worship, the focus is “not I, but Christ.” Humans are passive, respondent, whereas God in Christ is active, the actor in our salvation. Hicks traces this from Ambrose, Chrysostomm, and Augustine through the Reformer Luther and Melancthon. He stresses how Cranmer drew upon this in stressing both the promise of God and the comfort God gives.

The second part of the book shows how Cranmer applied his convictions to every aspect of worship. He begins with the structure of the liturgy. Cranmer not only simplified by elimination but re-ordered elements to remove the confusion, as he saw it, of faith and works. Hicks, here as throughout demonstrates this through side by side comparisons, here of the order of Morning Prayer and Holy Communion. He goes on to focus on how theology shaped liturgical language. through side by side examples of edits Cranmer makes to emphasize, “not I, but Christ.” He then turns to ceremonial, architecture, the arrangement of worship spaces, the move from an altar to a table reflecting the shift from what we offer God through Christ to what God gives us in Christ, nourishing us at his table. He looks at nomenclature and special ceremonies and in every area brings sola fide to bear. He shows how Cranmer shifts the focus of eucharist from consecration to reception. Finally, he discusses how Cranmers commitments were worked out in both homiletical and devotional instruction, particularly in the Book of Common Prayer.

Hick’s concluding chapter draws the implication of Cranmer’s work for “gospel centered” worship. He believes this involves:

  1. Analyzing the structure of our services.
  2. Analyzing our theological terminology.
  3. Analyzing our rituals, actions, and architecture.
  4. Analyzing our devotional piety.
  5. Analyzing our preaching.

Hicks offers illustrative examples under theological terminology of how two common worship songs, “I Surrender All” and “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” might be written to reflect a “not I, but Christ” focus, “Christ Surrendered All” and “God has Decided.” The section on theological terminology includes seven subpoints, each worth careful attention. Language matters and we would do well to imitate Cranmer’s scrupulous care in these matters.

This book delightfully surprised me, in its study of the thorough-going revisions Cranmer made to Anglican worship, the theological center that informed that work, and the challenge for our worship today. I believe far too many languish in churches where the structures, whatever liturgy there is, music, and preaching, focus on us, our experience of God, our needs and our obedience and not what Christ has done, is doing, and will do for his people, and how by faith we might appropriate and live into that work. Zac Hicks has not given us a dry, dusty academic study of an English Reformer but a compelling model of what happens when the church’s worship life is ordered around sola fide, the idea of “not I, but Christ.” This book was a breath of fresh air!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Worshiping with the Reformers

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Worshiping with the Reformers, Karin Maag. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: A survey of the various worship practices of Reformed church bodies, revealing the diversity of practices and the reasons for those differences.

The Reformation led to many changes in the church. Among these were changes in various worship practices that reflected the changes in thinking about the worship of God by church leaders. Not all those changes were in the same direction. This book, a companion to IVP Academic’s Reformation Commentary Series, surveys these practices and the reasons behind them.

The book examines eight aspects of the church’s worship beginning with the matter of when people went to church. In many settings, attendance was more or less an expected duty, with the key driving factor of observance of the sabbath. Businesses were closed and activities banned that could distract from Sabbath attendance. At the same time, feast days were pared down, and many considered superstitious. What they did in worship is the second topic. I learned that seating was often arranged in a circle around a central pulpit, emphasizing the priority of preaching. A real challenge was attention, including the dealing with the problem of fights breaking out! Weddings in many settings occurred during worship, with the whole church witnessing vows. So did not only funerals but burials, a carryover of medieval practice that where the living literally worshipped atop their dead kin, buried under the floor!

As already mentioned, preaching took on a central role in Reformed churches. Calvinist and Lutheran groups tended toward more doctrinally oriented preaching while Anabaptist focused more on moral exhortation. Adherence to scripture was emphasized throughout and the training of pastors took on a greater priority. Regarding prayer, churches varied, though for all prayer in the context of worship was considered vital. Some focused more on the use of scriptures, particularly the Psalms and the Lord’s prayer, others on liturgy, which had a strongly participatory element. While the content shifted, prayer books continued to be important in teaching people to pray. Posture was debated–standing, seated, kneeling. This chapter includes a wonderful historic rationale for set prayers, over against extemporaneous prayer.

As is well known, baptism and communion were widely debated–their meaning, administration, their timing. Maag covers all of this without arguing a particular conclusion. She offers a fascinating discussion of the visual arts in worship and the tension between instruction and idolatry. She also explores music, the preference for simpler tunes for congregational singing, psalms versus, hymns, and the controversies around instruments, including organs. While some preferred a capella singing, the importance of instruments was to keep the singing from dragging, which tends to happen with unaccompanied singing. These were not simply matters of taste but of theology. Finally, Maag considers worship outside the church including the practices of pilgrimage, the care for the sick and dying, and household worship.

This is a highly readable survey rather than a granular treatment. We are introduced to dominant characteristics of worship in Reformed settings, and offered helpful bibliographies for more specialized study. Maag articulates that one of her hopes is that understanding the decisions, sometimes different, that the Reformers made will help Christians be more thoughtful of the Triune God they worship and how they give expression to that worship. It also strikes me that there is history from which we may learn without repeating the same contentions. Most of all, we learn that many things were done for theological reasons, rather than contemporary taste. Of course the spirit and manner in which this is done, with devotion and warmth and love for God rather than a judgmental sterility seems vitally important. Soli Deo Gloria!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Work and Worship

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Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy, Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson (Foreword by Nicholas Wolterstorff). Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020.

Summary: Proposes that a theology of work is not enough. In scripture, people were formed in their work through worship rather than simply an intellectual engagement.

Many of us have believed there is a disconnect between Sunday and Monday through Saturday. Our answer has been to develop a Christian theology of work. A variety of books have been published (I posted such a list recently). The assumption has been that if we can get our thinking about work right, then we will follow Christ as disciples in our work. We organize Bible studies, book studies and adult education courses. We have created marketplace ministries. And this has been helpful.

The authors of this book affirm these efforts but believe there is a missing element. It is the connection between worship and work. They observe that how the people of Israel and how followers of Jesus were formed in the ways they worked was through their worship. And they brought their work into their worship through thanksgiving, through offerings, and through prayers for God’s blessing of the work of their hands. Then they brought their worship into their work. Sadly, worship often fails the workers in the pews. It is institutionalized, spiritualized, individualistic, saccharine, passive, privatized, and mainly designed as a fueling stop. The lack of connection of work and worship leads workers to conclude that work doesn’t matter to the mission of God. This is essentially the first part of the book.

The second part of the book shows the way work and worship were integrated in scripture and the life of the early church. The Pentateuch shows the bringing of work into worship, especially in the form of offerings. The Psalms may be seen then as singing God’s work into ours. The prophets denounce the destruction of the connection of work and worship through idolatry and through injustices toward workers while maintaining the façade of worship. Turning to the early church, they consider the very earthy gatherings of early believers in homes in the context of meals in which people brought various fruits of their work to help fellow believers and then in the Lord’s table were nourished by the work of Christ. Likewise, the street processionals of the early church in the early centuries engaged the market place, the economy of their cities in liturgy.

With this background, the authors then consider practices in which work and worship may be integrated in the contemporary liturgical context. They begin with seven actions of workers in the Eucharist or Lord’s table: examine, approach, thank, receive, share, hold, and consume. They then discuss how people are prepared to approach and how worship space may be configured. They suggest five ways of bringing work tangibly into worship: trumpets of praise, ashes of confession, tears of lament, petition for the workplace, and the fruit of their work. They include examples of a variety of prayers for the workplace. Finally, they consider how workers are scattered to their work.

Throughout the text are a variety of sidebars offering examples from various contexts of the topics under discussion. Sometimes, I find sidebars distracting. Not here. These were both relevant and beautifully illustrated the ideas of the text. Some are prayers or songs or stories or practices. I appreciated the pointer to The Porter’s Gate Worship Project and particularly their collection of work songs.

More than this, I appreciate the focus in this book of not simply developing worship for workers, but worship with workers, and affirming how the workers in our pews are also priests of God bringing their work (and other workers) to God and bringing God into their work places. The book helped open my eyes to how we cannot bridge the disconnect between Sunday and Monday through Saturday only through theologies of work. For many, that theology must first be lived out and given voice in our worship. Ora et Labora (pray and work) is not simply the rule of the monastery. It needs to be the rule for us all. This is a wonderful resource to begin to bring our prayers and our work together.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Why I’ll Be in Church This Sunday

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Inside_Church_view

Inside Church view at Water Baptism. Photo by Agapeoc [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia

There have been a flurry of reports and articles about the decline in church membership and attendance. The only category that seems to be rising is the “nones,” those who claim no affiliation, even if they would consider themselves “spiritual.” My work takes me into a number of different congregations, and my own sense is that there are more empty seats in recent years, bearing out what these studies are saying.

I could speculate about the causes, and many have, but I have no clue what is happening, to be honest. Maybe you do and can enlighten me. It also strikes me that it would be easy to throw programs and gimmicks at this. I’m not sure this would help. Gathering for worship is probably one of the most voluntary acts in modern life–one that comes more out of reasons of the heart than any effort to compel attendance. I may have to show up for work, or class, or weekly book group, or music rehearsal. Not so for worship in most cases.

So why will I be in church this Sunday?

Some is simply a matter of habit. I’ve been in worship most Sundays since I was probably about five years old. But habits are not necessarily bad. Habits of self care are good for my health and hygiene. I have to admit that I don’t always enjoy exercise. But exercising has become a habit. A habit with good consequences.

Gathering for worship has the good consequence of reminding this person who can all too often consider himself the center of the universe that God is, as well as the wild truth that the God of the universe is crazy about us pea-brained human beings. It is a relief to go to a place where you discover again and again that you are loved “just because….” The readings, the hymns and songs, the prayers, the confession all remind me of these bedrock truths that ground my life.

A statement out of Fleming Rutledge’s Three Hours grabbed me. “There is no other way to be a disciple of Jesus than to be in communion with other disciples of Jesus” I decided, maybe surrendered to relentless pursuit is a better word, to follow Jesus many years ago. Ever since, Jesus has been pulling me out of my propensity to go it alone–self-sufficient and self-protecting. Gathering with people, I would probably no more choose than the family I was born into, pulls me out of myself–to teach a class of giggly elementary school girls and rowdy boys, to pray for someone’s aunt I’ve never met, and to go through all the good and rough seasons of life with people who in time become dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and no longer just that person so different from me. It is odd how showing up with others, and for others over a few decades can change us.

I actually believe, when I recall it, that worship is about God coming and speaking to his people each week. It can come through a hymn or song, or a prayer. Often it comes through a pastor’s message. Maybe we are more blessed than we know to have a pastor who I believe tries to listen to God and what God wants said from the scripture for the week. Often, I discover that there is a sacred sense that is quite different than the common sense I live by.

Incidentally, I think showing up can encourage the pastor. I’ve been on the other side of the lectern and a room full of attentive people encourages one’s heart. Each of us matters. In some ethnic communities, there is a sense that the sermon is as much the congregation’s responsibility as the preacher’s. That’s what “call and response” is all about.

Also, I believe a church is a group of people on a journey together. Sunday isn’t just about listening for some personally inspiring thought. It is also about listening to the One who wants to help us navigate the journey together and knows the road. Church is about listening for what the Guide would say to us. This pulls me out of what I want for this group into what God wants.

In a society that seems to increasingly lodge its hope in political, media, business, or sports heroes, all of whom sooner or later are shown to have clay feet, worship reminds me that there is a kingdom that is not of this world, a perspective that comes from somewhere else, and a time frame of eternity that ought shape our lives.

Finally, gathering with other Christians in a local congregation reminds me of all the places this is happening around the world, and that “love one another” has a much larger scope that transcends national boundaries, and ethnic groups, and social classes. This past Easter Sunday, I arrived at church stunned by the bombing of Sri Lankan churches, and concerned for the safety of two Sri Lankan friends. I was reminded of the global family I was part of who were gathering time zone after time zone across the planet, and in this moment, sharing in the grief of Sri Lankan believers.

That solidarity in our community results in practical partnership with a collection of other local congregations, teaming up to host a community garden, food pantry, medical clinic, and to collect supplies for school children, infants, and even pets in low income households. Together, these churches and other community groups saved a local wetland from developers. Gathering Sunday by Sunday moves us to pray globally and act locally each week.

For these reasons, and perhaps more, I will be in church this Sunday.

 

 

Review: Expository Exultation

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Expository Exultation

Expository Exultation, John Piper. Carol Stream, IL: Crossway Books, 2018.

Summary: Contends that the purpose of preaching is expository exultation; that preaching is integral to worship in the preacher’s work of making clear and exulting over the text of scripture as it reveals the glories of God.

This is one John Piper book that I can unequivocally endorse. While I might differ with him in other matters, I found myself saying “Amen” again and again as I read this book. The reason for this is that he recovers and articulates as well as anyone since Martyn Lloyd Jones and John Stott the glory and high calling of preaching. His central contention is that preaching, properly done is “expository exultation.” What does he mean by this?

“The title Expository Exultation is intended to communicate that this unique form of communication is both a rigorous intellectual clarification of the reality revealed through the words of Scripture and a worshipful embodiment of the value of that reality in the preacher’s exultation over the word he is clarifying. Preachers should think of worship services not as exultation in the glories of God accompanied by a sermon. They should think of musical and liturgical exultation (songs, prayers, readings, confession, ordinances, and more) accompanied and assisted by expository exultation–preaching as worship.”

Piper offers a helpful correction to the mentality that says worship is over when the music ends, where the message is kind of a letdown or a time for the mind to wander.

The remainder of the book is an unpacking of the above statement. He begins with a discussion of how fitting it is for the people of God to gather for corporate worship and then shows how preaching as expository exultation is integral to our corporate worship and rooted in the persons of the Trinity. The following two parts of this work focus on both the supernatural and natural aspects of expository exultation–the work of the Holy Spirit and the proper use of our skills to communicate with clarity and logic the reality of God and his work revealed in the biblical text.

The next part of this work was perhaps one of the most illuminating parts for me that explained why much biblical exposition falls flat. We may say what the text says, even individual words, and what it means, and how it bears on our lives. But Piper contends that we often do not clearly communicate the reality to which the text bears witness as we direct attention to the text so that people discover that reality for themselves, not by hearing us, but by seeing that this is what the text says. Good preaching shows how reality shines through the text.

He then turns in the next part to the central realities to which he believes the biblical text bears witness. They are the glory of God, Christ crucified, and the obedience of faith. Piper would contend that all three run through scripture and ought run through our exposition of it. Then in the following part, he shows how these three central realities run through even the Old Testament. He concludes by reminding the preacher of the high calling and indispensable importance of expository exultation in the life of the church. And he speaks personally to aspiring preachers:

“But he who called you is faithful. He will do it. I testify from forty years in the ministry of the word, through the best and the worst of times, God loves to help the preacher who is desperate to make the word plain for the holy happiness of his people, by the blood of Christ, for the glory of God. He will help you.”

So much preaching seems disconnected from the glories of God and the work of Christ we sing and celebrate in music, liturgy and ordinance or sacrament. Too often it seems merely to be an inspirational message to help us engage another week, or a series of marching orders. Piper articulates a vision of preaching consistent with the rest of worship–that God is the glorious hero of the scriptures we preach, that the decisive act in the story was the life, death and resurrection of the Son, and we are invited through the regeneration and empowering of his Spirit to participate through the obedience of faith in this great venture of God in his world. Those are the realities we make clear from the text of scripture and over which we exult and lead God’s people in joyous exultation both in corporate worship and lives of worship. No wonder Piper has been at it forty years and continues to preach and write with such passion!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Subversive Sabbath

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Subversive Sabbath

Subversive Sabbath, A. J. Swoboda, Foreword by Matthew Sleeth, MD. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2018.

Summary: An extended argument showing how keeping sabbath is a counter-cultural, subversive practice in every area of life.

Apart from Abraham Joshua Heschel’s classic, The Sabbath, I would consider this the best book I have read on Sabbath. In a world focused on relentless doing, Swoboda challenges the Christian community to take the sabbath commands as seriously as we do the other nine, observing it is the only command speaking of something as “holy” to the Lord. His argument is that to begin to take this seriously is a subversive act, and perhaps one of the most significant way the church can bear witness to the transcendent reality of God. He writes:

“How is the Sabbath subversive? The truth remains that Sabbath will be challenging for anyone to live out in our busy, frenetic world. Sabbath goes against the very structured and system of the world we have constructed. Sabbath, then, becomes a kind of resistance to that world. Such resistance must be characterized as overwhelmingly good. In other words, if Sabbath is hard, then we are doing it right. It is never a sign of health or godliness to be well-adjusted to a sick society….Relating to our world of death, ‘going along’ is a sign of death. Living fish swim against the stream. Only the dead go with the flow” (p. xi).

The book consists of four parts, each with three chapters: Sabbath for Us, Sabbath for Others, Sabbath for Creation, and Sabbath for Worship. Beginning with Sabbath for Us, the first chapter explores Sabbath and Time, and the marvel that the first day life for Adam and Eve was a sabbath, where they rested along with God, and how hard it is for us to do the same. Sabbath and Work calls us to establishing rhythms of work and rest and challenges our worship of work instead of a reliance upon God when we do not work that carries into our work. Sabbath and Health speaks into how often we cannot say “no” when God says “no” and invites us for our health’s sake to rest.

In Sabbath for Others, Swoboda begins with Relationships, and how Sabbath practiced together may overcome the isolation of our lives and strengthen community. In Sabbath, Economy and Technology, Swoboda challenges us to think about how we prepare for the Sabbath in advance, and how we might do so in ways that others also enjoy rest, and how to manage our technology so we step away from our screens (he just went from preaching to meddling here!). He takes this further in Sabbath and the Marginalized, considering the implications of practicing the Sabbath so that the poor, the marginalized, the under-employed also find rest.

Sabbath for Creation begins by focusing on the intricate balance of creation and how Sabbath neglected is part of the the degradation of creation. He proposes that Sabbath is the string that holds everything together and that Sabbath-keeping is earth-keeping. Sabbath and the Land focuses particularly on how land needs sabbath to be restored, fallow periods every seven years that enrich the soil to enrich us. Sabbath and Critters (!) focuses on how we treat our animals, even to the point of suggesting chickens get a Sabbath from laying, and that all our animals need rhythms of rest.

Part Four centers around Sabbath as Worship, the ways we glorify God in community and in the world. It is Witness, setting us apart as this weird, contrast society that might be intriguing to tired, burnt out friends. It is Worship, and sometimes what we sacrifice rest for tells us what we falsely worship. It calls us into the trust that believes by not doing but by resting, we will experience God’s care. It is Discipleship that helps clear out what should not be in our lives, that exposes the noise inside us in times of silence, and helps us rightly order our lives into a new week.

While Swoboda interacts with a number of theological writers, literary figures, and others throughout this work, as well as the scriptures, his own stories of trying and failing and learning and pressing into Sabbath practice made this reader want to follow him into what appears a richer fuller way found by stopping and resting. He doesn’t present Sabbath as a cure all, but does propose that this command/gift is God’s way of liberating us from our hurried, distracted, alienated, consuming selves. Not only does this help liberate us from our false selves; Sabbath helps us to meet the true God. I will close with this:

“We worship the God who invented the weekend. This is why biblical scholar Al Baylis contends that ‘Genesis 1 is one of the most remarkable put-downs ever administered.’ The biblical creation account essentially served as a theological rebuttal of all the other ‘gods’ who never allowed anyone to rest. In a restless world, Yahweh required rest. Again, imagine what kind of first impression that would have given to an ancient person’s understanding of Yahweh. The God of Scripture not only rests himself but invites the world to rest with him” (pp. 9-10).

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.