The very wise David Peterson has written an important article for anyone involved in public worship (i.e. I’d imagine most of the people reading this blog!!!).

It touches on a minor but persistent debate about whether we should call anything we do in church “worship”. It’s one that we encounter with a regularity that perhaps slightly overstates its importance. Peterson strikes a judicious balance on the issue:

Some people use the terminology of worship in a very restricted way with reference to what we do in church, even limiting its meaning to praise. This obscures the New Testament teaching about worship as a Christ-centred, gospel serving, life-orientation (Rom. 12:1; Heb. 12:28-9; 13:15-16). Furthermore, people who emphasize that they are ‘going to church to worship God’ tend to disregard what the New Testament says about the purpose of the Christian assembly. There is always a danger of thinking that we are doing God a favour by coming to church!

Thus, if Christians are meant to worship God in every sphere of life, it cannot be worship as such that brings us together. ‘Corporate worship’ may express more accurately what is involved, but the Bible’s emphasis is on coming together to participate in the edification of the church (1 Corinthians 14).

But move past taxonomy and there is a much more important issue: the balance we strike between vertical and horizontal dimensions of our services. This has implications for the songs we write and choose, how we plan services, and how we think about what we’re doing.

As a reaction against this kind of misuse of worship terminology, many seem to have abandoned any application of the language to what we do in church.
With this development has come an emphasis on meeting for fellowship and mutual encouragement, with little apparent expectation of encountering God together.

The result is a neglect of the vertical aspect of our public meetings:

Christian fellowship is more than friendship: it is a participation together in something beyond ourselves, as we hear and respond to God together. The risen Lord is present when we meet in his name and he ministers to us through his word and his Spirit. As we take part in the ‘building’ or edification of the church, our focus should not simply be on encouraging one another, but on growing in our relationship with Christ (Eph. 4:11-16).

I strongly encourage you to read the full article, available at: http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/indepth/a_church_without_worship/

This is an extended response to the The Briefing, edition 355 (April 2008), in which Mike Raiter has written a very interesting article on what he sees as the decline of public singing.

If, as Mike fears, congregational singing is in its dying gasps, how are we to breathe new life into it? If the current model is wanting, towards which vision should we look instead? I don't know, but this is what I think we're looking for.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let me warn you ahead of time: say the word “worship” in a lot of evangelical churches these days and you might find yourself stumbling unaware into the crossfire of a topical theological debate. Here's our take on the situation.

On the one hand we have mega-churches where you could be excused for thinking that “worship” simply means “church music”. The implication sometimes seems to be that by singing songs in E major we simultaneously bring ourselves closer to God, crown Jesus King (apparently God forgot to do that already) and even propitiate God’s wrath against Sin (if only there had been an acoustic guitar handy in Gethsemane).

In response to this confusion, some faithful and intelligent people have been pushing to remove “worship” from our vocabulary almost entirely - let’s call a spade a spade, they say: “singing” is what we do at church, and “service” is what we do with our lives.

Most vocal on this front have been people like Tony Payne (a writer and EMU Music board member). They point out that the New Testament doesn’t really use the word ‘Worship’ when talking about church services – because the temple (a particular place where the Israelites used to go and worship) has been replaced in the new covenant with something much cooler (Jesus Christ). Read the rest of this entry »