Cheap Imitation

Here it is Sunday and I'm at home. Health concerns have me at only about 1/2 operational efficiency. That's fancy talk for I'm not feeling well. That's OK! I will get over it; or I won't. Whatever.

Anyway, because I'm home I was wandering around the "web" looking at some of the Churches around the country. (Who said the internet is not useful?) I visited the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Idaho Falls, Idaho. On their web site I read this about their sabbath day worship service:

Substantial, reverent worship:

The apex for every Christian week is Sabbath worship.

It is the duty of all Christians to present themselves with all of the family in the assembly of the saints to render praise to God, submit to the life changing discipline of the Word preached and the Word made visible in the sacraments of baptism and holy communion, sing the songs and Psalms of the Kingdom, confess doctrine, and give of our earthly goods for the support of the church.

We are called out of the world for these few moments to live in a world fragrant with the air of the coming Kingdom of God. Thus, we seek to provide the true laborers of worship (you, the saints) with all of the ordained elements of worship so that we might provide the true audience of worship (not you, but God) with worship that will be pleasing to Him.[emphasis mine]

I have never read a more beautiful description of what worship should be. "...a world fragrant with the air of the coming Kingdom of God." "We are called out of a world...!" How is it that we have come to believe that in the name of pride - we call it relevance - we think our choruses about what we are doing for God, the mind-numbing "modern" hymns we sing, the pointless shallowness of sermons about...about what?, we think are viewed by God as Worship?

The Sabbath should be the day when our entire focus should be on the God who is our savior and the Kingdom he is preparing for us, but what do we do? We drag our secularized desires into this sphere - rock bands and all - call it worship and wonder why we don't attract the unsaved. We don't attract them because the schmaltz passed off as a sermon, the garage-band sounds, and the constant harping about money is what they see on TV every day. Why would they want to spend their day off with a cheap imitation of what they live now?

Why can't we just show them the "fragrance" that is coming and allow God to do what He is going to do?

Towzer On Doing Church

Sometimes I have problems with what I see in church. Apparently I'm not the only one. A.W. Towzer had this to say:

We of the nonliturgical churches tend to look with some disdain upon those churches that follow a carefully prescribed form of service, and certainly there must be a good deal in such services that has little or no meaning for the average participant—this not because it is carefully prescribed but because the average participant is what he is. But I have observed that our familiar impromptu service, planned by the leader twenty minutes before, often tends to follow a ragged and tired order almost as standardized as the mass. The liturgical service is at least beautiful; ours is often ugly. Theirs has been carefully worked out through the centuries to capture as much of beauty as possible and to preserve a spirit of reverence among the worshipers. Ours is often an off-the-cuff makeshift with nothing to recommend it. Its so-called liberty is often not liberty at all but sheer slovenliness.—God Tells the Man Who Cares.

From time to time I've mentioned to my church leadership that a more formal structured kind of Worship service might be more appropriate. Needless to say my suggestions have not been appreciated. Oh well, I'll keep trying. Who knows, perhaps someday others may agree.

Worship or Paganism

Our church, not long ago,  gave in to secular ideology by instituting what it calls "blended worship." The intent was, I think, to somehow use catchy, rythym-based choruses with words and images digitally presented on two large screens in the mistaken belief the "young people" will somehow become more involved in "church stuff." They haven't, and there is a consequence in using worldly ideology in an attempt to promote God. (There is no other way to describe what we are doing).

I have always believed Worship should be about God not about what "young people," or old people, for that matter, wanted. We have had a couple of people leave us to go elsewhere over this issue. They wanted a different style of music. Music style should never be a reason for contention and if music were properly used it wouldn't be. If we sang scripture as instructed in the Bible there would be no room for argument, people would define their loyalties when they quit.

Scripture read at length, taught in depth, sung in congregation and prayed at length is not popular so we don't do that in our Church. We pay lip-service to those things, but that's about all. We are, I suppose, a typical American congregation. Few of us read books, let alone the Bible, and our attention spans are getting shorter by the day. We have become so immersed in the idea that digital technology is a gift from God, we sometimes forget to turn off our cell phones for the Sunday morning "Worship" service.

Worship should be about "renewing our minds" but there are so few people who actually think anymore I'm not sure they are aware that concept is a command of God. (Rom. 12:2) We are so far gone now that one of the "choruses" we sing has images that are idolatrous, if not blasphemous. It is a repetitious ditty which show some of the national flags of the world. One of those flags is the Iranian.

The Iranian flag has script on it and symbolism. Here is a description of the flag:

(The flag is made up of) three equal horizontal bands of green (top), white, and red; the national emblem (a stylized representation of the word Allah in the shape of a tulip, a symbol of martyrdom) in red is centered in the white band; ALLAH AKBAR (God is Great) in white Arabic script is repeated 11 times along the bottom edge of the green band and 11 times along the top edge of the red band.

So, by dumbing ourselves down to be historically, intellectually, spiritually, vacuous we have inadvertently changed our "worship" into an idolatrous perveyor of foreign gods. The only word in English to describe this is: Pagan.

Here is what one article at the Banner of Truth has to say about this:

Pagan worship is non-cognitive, but we are called to worship God with our minds, and that which we are supposed to have fill our minds is scripture. The language of Christian worship is scripture. We are either reading it or expanding upon it through exposition, singing it, or praying it. We do this because faith comes by hearing the word of God; it is the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation.

The article ends with this:

"People are coming to church and just hearing a bunch of talk and singing a bunch of songs," says the preacher. But faith comes by hearing the word of God, and if it's not being preached, sung, read, and prayed, and if the content of our services are decreasingly Biblical, it is an ominous thing that is happening - a tragedy unfolding before us of monumental proportions.

God help us! (Hosea 7:2)

Worshiping in Song

Pastor Doug Wilson's Church is Moscow, Idaho. Most people may know him from his televised debates with the atheist Christopher Hitchens. Pastor Wilson's church obviously loves to sing. Watch this video to see a church truly worshiping God through song. You can read about the setup by clicking here.

O Sing a New Song to the Lord from Daniel Foucachon on Vimeo.

The Regulative Principal for Worship

The Regulative Principle in Worship: A brief article.

by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon

[Quoted from Puritans Mind]

The Regulative Principle was given its classical and definitive statement in the reformed Confessions formulated in the 17th century. It is stated in Chapter 21 paragraph 1 in the Westminster Confession:

The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might.[1] But the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.1] Rom. 1:20; Psa. 19:1-4a; 50:6; 86:8-10; 89:5-7; 95:1-6; 97:6; 104:1-35; 145:9-12; Acts 14:17; Deut. 6:4-5  [2] Deut. 4:15-20; 12:32; Matt. 4:9-10; 15:9; Acts 17:23-25; Exod. 20:4-6, John 4:23-24; Col. 2:18-23

Therefore, I must ask. Is this appropriate worship music? It was played on Easter Sunday 2009 at New Spring Church (Whatever that is).