Now, listen to the Doxology at the end of this clip...
This week another musical fundamentalist warned his readers against the things written on Baylyblog concerning the music of worship (not to be confused with the worship of music). I'm guessing he's talking about our conviction it's good and right for a string ensemble and solo voice to sing part of Handel's Messiah in the same service electric guitars, bass, piano, drums, and the voices of the entire congregation sing "For All the Saints."
With zeal. Loudly and with hands raised.
This gives some of our readers facial tics, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why? Is it wrong to use Handel's Messiah for corporate worship? Is it sin?
But of course, I jest. No one says it's "sin" to use highbrow music in worship. Only lowbrow. Contemporary instrumentation and music are manipulation of the emotions, you know. And Handel isn't? Drums are vulgar. Electric guitars suppress the voices of the congregation.
Well, please note the fruit of the habitual suppression of our congregation's voices demonstrated here during the singing of the Doxology.
Likely the most important thing to keep in mind during all debates of worship liturgy and music among the Reformed today is... that all an Englishman's preferences are a matter of principle.
Praise God for musicians who serve the church rather than demanding the church serve them. Thank you for your humble service, Jody and Philip and Dawn and Cole and Kaitlyn and Jurgen and Andrew and John and Aaron and Jason and Andrew and Anna.
Clearnote Churches
Clearnote Fellowship
Christ the Word
Monthly archive
- May 2013 (17)
- April 2013 (33)
- March 2013 (43)
- February 2013 (28)
- January 2013 (41)
- December 2012 (31)
- November 2012 (37)
- October 2012 (38)
- September 2012 (21)
- August 2012 (28)
- July 2012 (46)
- June 2012 (50)
Popular Posts
Tags
Recent Comments
- Shaun DuFault on The difference between pro-life and anti-antiabortion...
- Abram Hess on The difference between pro-life and anti-antiabortion...
- Abram Hess on The difference between pro-life and anti-antiabortion...
- Jessica on The difference between pro-life and anti-antiabortion...
- Rebecca Nugent on The difference between pro-life and anti-antiabortion...
Comments
I wouldn't use Handel's Messiah in Sunday corporate worship. But that's just me... :)
Your soloist and musicians did a wonderful job praising God with "He Shall Lead His Flock."
Don't understand where it's written that you can't have classical Christian music along with a worship band in the same church service.
Our parish has two traditional and one contemporary Eucharistic worship services every Sunday. As far as I know, that's just custom and what people prefer, not a prohibition of mixing different music styles in the same service.
>Is it wrong to use Handel's Messiah for corporate worship?
Don't think so.
>Is it sin?
No theologian here, but I'd say no.
Thank you for posting this. It was a great encouragement yesterday.
Now, perhaps like Dave, I don't think that Handel should be *all* of a worship service for the same reason that I'm skeptical about a lot of CCM; it can tend to produce a passive mood in the congregation.
That said, for special music, rock on!
Another suggestion; do Watts' "When I survey the wondrous cross" in the style of a heavy metal ballad; start out with a quiet voice and maybe a floutist or violin in accompaniment, gently but surely adding instrumentalists and voices and volume to the 3rd or 4th verse, then closing almost as quietly as the first verse. Bonus points if there is reverberation on verse 3.
OK, it might or might not work, but all in all, the classic style of hymnody--pianist or organist playing forte all the time--ignores the natural moods of most hymns. So at least, it's time to try something new.
(and as our hosts know, I am also a Baptistic fundamentalist--at least until my fellow fundamentalists fall in love with legalism and a strict, aBiblical--sometimes anti-Biblical--lifestyle)
This is the reason we've dispensed with prayers and a sermon, also. Too much danger of passivity and an audience mentality creeping in. And if we do allow an officer to preach, we make him do it behind a curtain or from behind the congregation so no one can see him.
We don't let the congregation peer in on baptisms, either; and we turn the piano to the side so its lid blocks the pianist from the congregation's view.
Love,
>Anything which makes a congregation function as an audience is problematic.
"Special music," anyone?
:^)
Preaching can be a distraction if it is primarily entertainment - eye and ear candy for the congregation. Think Jesse DuPlantis (sp?) here. If your music is a more eye/ear candy to keep the youth from fleeing to the Mumford and Sons concert going on down the street then it is not much better than a faux preacher’s comedic routine.
This was lovely and an enhancement of worship during a period of reflection/thanksgiving. Well done.
The doxology was also lovely corporate worship. Of course the posture of some (the couple that raised their hands a la an individual Pentecostalism moment) distract from that "oneness" the voices reflect.
God bless you, Tim and David, as you continue to watch over, rule and bless your people.
Al sends
Actually, it is everybody else who isn't raising their hands that is distracting from the "oneness."
-Joseph
Joseph, I can only speak from experience here, but if the liturgical leaders of this congregation want everyone to raise their hands in worship then everyone should. It seems that these few are just doing their own thing and I for one had my attention drawn toward them. They stood out.
So, my question would be, since everyone was singing the same thing, why were they all not doing the same thing? One body and all that.
Al sends
Hi Al,
There are two questions, really. First, is it wrong to raise our hands during worship? You don't seem to be saying it's wrong. Certainly the practice of raising our hands is biblical, at least with regard to prayer. I'm not sure, but I feel like you're not willing to say it's wrong, but that you still don't like it. (Maybe because of bad experiences with worship that was not decent and in order and also included hand-raising?)
The second question is, must everyone in the worship really do exactly the same thing? I will say for the record that it is not unheard of for the worship leader to tell the congregation to raise their hands in praise, just as you seem to suggest. But is it wrong for a person to cry when they are convicted of sin or moved to joy during a song? Or must everybody cry with them at the same time? What about smiling?
Yes, one body is important. If the worship leader says to stand up, and somebody is feeling rebellious and refuses, he is refusing to be in unity with the body, and the elders should deal with him. And on the other hand if somebody stands up while everybody else is seated, and starts jumping around and shouting and clapping, certainly the elders are going to have to make a judgment about whether that man needs to be asked to sit down. However, let's not forget King David dancing in his underwear, eh?
With love,
... that in this anti-liturgical environ I'd stumble across a discussion of an elementary, fundamental principle of liturgy, viz. that the only way you actualize one body out of many is through a liturgy, which prescribes united words and actions for all present. Yes, sometimes the words and actions are assigned to different persons present; but that no more undoes a liturgy than a solo passage or solo ensemble within an orchestral performance undoes the symphony they are performing.
Indeed, a symphony performed by an orchestra is the closest analog I can think of to a well-executed liturgy of worship: everyone contributes to a whole, everyone is ... well, united with everyone else to produce the symphony. The orchestral score, attended to by all performers, insures that there is one thing brought into being -- the symphony. While it courses through time it most definately is NOT 100 or so individual musical performances which happen to occur in one place at one time.
And, so, I understand (and sympathize) with Al's observation on the raised hands. Let all raise their hands, or none (unless there is some reason for that one to do so, as when an elder offers a priestly prayer on behalf of the assembled saints, adopting the ancient orans posture while making his prayer).
So, here's a solution: The person leading the liturgy will command that those who feel a need to express with their body the praise they are giving with their mouth must raise their hands. (It's kind of like a jazz performance.)
That works for both sides, yes?
:)
Thanks Tim,
No, I think we should raise hands and kneel (in a corporate confession of sin), just that these specific liturgical acts ought to be done together, with great joy.
It is the individual break out that seems out of place during a corporate worship service.
David did not dance nekked every week. I think if our Church were ever forbidden to gather in worship for an extended period of time a bit of ecstatic dancing might be in order.
al sends
Sorry that was to Joseph...
Al sends
If the more restrictive Old Covenant left room for spontaneous and individual expressions of worship (i.e. freewill offerings), then surely we in the New Covenant can be at least as accommodating.
It's an honor to be confused with my dad.
:)
-Joseph
And oftentimes that's precisely what we do. But then, I've heard it said that foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. It's healthy for a congregation to be left a little room for spontaneity, even individuality in worship. And that's not inconsistent with the idea of unanimity of action, generally. In arguments about worship, excluded middles are about as common as they are unhelpful.
I'll repeat my comment to Fr. Bill above: If the more restrictive Old Covenant left room for spontaneous and individual expressions of worship (i.e. freewill offerings), then surely we in the New Covenant can be at least as accommodating.
Six days in the trenches is long enough for some.
My dear brother, that "couple" you mention is my wife and someone else near her. I've gone forward to lead the pastoral prayer during which we all kneel. And my wife and I are here laughing as she says, "what's really lacking in unity is my wearing a headcovering when very few others are doing so."
With much affection, dear bro,
If only most reformed churches were close enough in doctrine, belief, and worship to argue over whether there should be only be corporate hand raising or should we allow for individual freedom of expression. :-) Thanks for the debate and the video.
Praise God for an overwhelming amount of Christian musicians in your congregation! Thank you Dawn for always being willing to share your beautiful God-given voice during worship.
Unity or no, the fact that some were raising hands (closet charismatics I tell ya!) and some were not, that would indicate that the congregation has blessedly not sunk into passivity.
Can I get an Amen on that? :^)
“ … the fact that some were raising hands … and some were not, that would indicate that the congregation has blessedly not sunk into passivity. Can I get an Amen on that? :^) "
Well, no. It's probably far more probable that this observation indicates that this is a congregation which makes no pretense at all to liturgy as a vehicle for corporate unity. Said another way, the unity (such as it is, and it may be hugely real on some level) is not the kind of unity that one can actually see with the eyes. You might hear the unity in the voices during singing, but you won't objectively see it.
Jody wrote (twice!) “If the more restrictive Old Covenant left room for spontaneous and individual expressions of worship (i.e. freewill offerings), then surely we in the New Covenant can be at least as accommodating.”
Well, yes, of course.
But, what exactly is the accommodation envisioned? The freedom (or propriety) for an individual to exhibit something in the context of corporate worship that is, after all, purely his own exhibition, purely collateral to the corporate worship? Or, does the accommodation amount to the freedom of all worshipers present to exhibit whatever they please, because there is no “liturgical expectation” of anyone at any particular moment?
In congregations which worship liturgically, there is always something expected for them to do, anticipated as next, and then next, and then next all the way to the end. A Prayer Book worship service is quite literally scripted. Everyone is always on the same page, and everyone has his part to play at any time.
This is a great comfort to newcomers, by the way, because they can never be “lost.” I always tell them that everyone is always on the same page. Literally!
However, within that script there is, indeed, freedom for individuals to experience individually all sorts of things – joy, fear, grief, awe, contrition, gratitude, and so on. I laugh at those who denigrate “dead liturgy.” I suppose such folk have only visited worship services conducted by cadavers in funeral homes.
Each Sunday, as I press the bread of the Eucharist into the hands of the worshipers, I get an up-close-and-personal opportunity to gaze into the face of each worshiper. The range of things I see within a single worship service is astounding!
But, in my anti-liturgical cradle faith, or in the flamboyantly free-from-any-expectations worship service of modern charismatics, it truly is an occasion where there is no corporate worship at all! Rather, it's a convocation of individual worshipers worshiping individually in isolation from any others (except that they're in the same room at the same time). It's the same unity as a pile of freshly raked leaves.
I'm far afield from the subject of his blog. I'll repent me by saying that the Psalms endorse all manner of instrumentation. To evaluate music during worship one must go far beyond the bare element of instruments.
>>> I'm far afield from the subject of his blog.
Over the years though (I've a few gray hairs in my beard now and can say such things), I've learned to love my pastors' occasional "off-topic" digressions. They're not pointless wanderings; they are pointed wanderings, and the most fatherly, helpful things get said as part of them. (Though sometimes it is a bit of a crawl through tangles, crags and fencerows getting back to the main outline.) So Fr. Bill, I guess I am asking you not to denigrate those blessed rabbit trails...not that I really think you were.
Love,
Fr. Bill, I'm afraid you're militating against abuses foreign to our worship, dear brother. The fact that some choice is left to worshippers as to what to do with their hands during a particular element of the service is so far from being flamboyantly free-from-any-expectation, that I simply don't know what to say. After all, we were all standing, all facing the same direction, all singing the same doxology, opening and closing our mouths in time with the music. Determinate actions far outweigh the indeterminate ones, here. Can it really be that in your view all sub-prayerbook traditions are fundamentally indecent and disordered according to 1Cor 14:40? If not, why persist in making these excluded middle arguments?
Everybody always thinks they are in the middle.
Father Bill, as I've said many times, Clearnote Church has always followed the liturgy used by Calvin and Knox in Geneva at the time of the Reformation. There are, of course, a couple deviations; most especially that we do not believe it's wrong to worship with hymns and spiritual songs that explicitly name our Lord Jesus.
But we use printed litanies for our prayers of confession/assurances of pardon each week, along with an elder leading that prayer. We have a confession of faith printed each week which everyone confesses in unison, standing together. We have hymns, Psalms, and spiritual songs everyone sings together, and standing as we sing. We have a congregational prayer everyone kneels during. We have Scripture lessons in which the reader goes through a book of the Bible, chapter by chapter, each week. We say "This is the Word of the Lord" after which the congregation responds, "Thanks be to God." Frequently we use the Lord's Prayer, said once more in unison. We have the Lord's Supper every other week and most times follow the old Scottish liturgy (which I've reproduced here on the blog for all to see and use, if they wish). And that liturgy is simply Knox's and Calvin's liturgy for the Lord's Supper.
'Liturgy' is the work of the people--the work of the people at worship.
We are entirely liturgical in every sense of the word.
Nowhere does Scripture command the reading of Anglican words. You may prefer it, and God bless you.
But to label anyone who doesn't follow Cranmer's prayer book "non-liturgical" leaves me gobsmacked.
As usual, with great affection,
Except when they don't...
Jody and Tim,
I have recently been in your worship service, so I feel I have a good idea of how it works, what goes on during it, and so forth. Yes, Tim, I have heard you speak in this blog to Clearnote's allegiance to the Geneva liturgy, and I've seen your compliance with it. And, Jody, it's just fine if on one Sunday at Clearnote 15 to 30 percent of people raise their hands, and a different segment do so on another Sunday.
I also know, from the periodic militation against abuses in the liturgical camp that I've read at this blog over the years, that you too militate against abuses that are foreign to our worship at St. Athanasius (and every other liturgical congregation in which I've worshiped!), though our worship is -- from the perspective of modern Geneva in Bloomington -- most likely riddled with abuses of many sorts. That's what sort of leaves me gobsmacked -- forceful militation in this blog against the abuses on can find within communities of Christians who worship with a liturgy, such that a passerby will think (I know I have!) that you believe liturgy to be the enemy of wholesome worship, never its facilitator. Placed alongside your compliance with Genevan liturgy presents me with a dissonance I simply cannot fathom.
And so, it seems, we are hindered from hearing what the other is saying. For example, Jody seems to think I've charged Clearnote church's worship with being flamboyantly free from any expectations when I expressly tied such a characterization to modern charismatics! Jody, are you trying to tell us you identify with modern charismatics in the worship you lead?? Pshaw!
If you can so egregiously misread that comment, I now understand better how you also entirely missed the larger point that comment supports. Why should I try again?
Sometimes it's useful and edifying to explore differences in doctrine and piety among Christians. Other times it's not. Only experience guides us to know which is which. On the nature, edification, and -- most particularly -- the "dynamics" of how liturgy actually constitutes corporate worship and facilitates its enactment ... well, I'll henceforth hold my peace and retreat into the musty halls of the English Reformation.
Actually that was not a bad example of why I was right.
Warning against the dangers attending the elevation of forms and ceremonies is not the same as condemning form and ceremony, nor those somewhat more elevated forms and ceremonies practiced at Athanasius. We don't even aim at discouraging their use. Ours is a liturgical church, as we've established. Rather, our intent is to militate against the temptation among Reformed men to employ forms in order to (1) protect people from the ministry of the Holy Spirit Who blows where He wishes, (2) flirt with sacramentalism (3) cover over the distinction between true and false conversion, (4) denigrate the preaching of the Word by undue abbreviation, pulpiteering, or subordinating the Word in importance to the sacraments (5) signal superior socioeconomic status or intellectual sophistication, keeping the poor at bay (6) indulge in cultural jollies under pretense of religion.
Concerning the positive case for liturgy there is much to be said, of course. And it would please me if you would continue to say it, here. But we find almost no one within the Reformed stream willing to deal with liturgy's conceits. And if you think it doesn't come with any, that could be why we keep talking past one another.
One corner of the English Reformation, you mean. The Calvinistic Puritans and the Westminster Assembly are just as much a part of it, and I think the better part for considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt when it came to the Great Ejection. I suspect a back and forth about the validity of that last statement would go a long way toward helping us better understand one another...
And "sacramentalism" is often used to describe people who simply believe what Westminster and Calvin taught on the sacraments.
Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer can go toe to toe and then some with the Non-conformists when it comes to making sacrifices to be faithful to Christ.
>>"sacramentalism" is often used to describe people who simply believe what Westminster and Calvin taught on the sacraments.
Not true. The only people I've read warning against sacramentalism are very familiar both with Calvin and the Westminster Standards. Also the Holy Spirit's book of Romans:
With affection,
I'm not saying those people, great folk though they are, aren't familiar with Calvin and Westminster but that I've seen it applied to people who simply believe what Westminster and Calvin taught.
No argument there, but they died a hundred years earlier, didn't they. I wonder if they ever fathomed the church they gave their lives for would spew out 2000 of her godliest ministers for the sake of her traditions.
Cranmer wrote the BCP and you were discussing worship which is layed out by the BCP.
Given who the head of the Church of England is and that they were familiar with Henry VIII I don't think they'd be all that stunned.
Yes, David, I know.
Then why mark them as inferior to the Non-Conformists?
David, I think you've missed the point that Jody made. Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley were godly men, and Cranmer would likely have been appalled to see his Prayer Book kept, while so many godly pastors were being thrown out in 1662. Jody didn't mark them as inferior in any way. I don't know how you came up with that...
Liturgy, either high or low, has attendant dangers. To say that isn't to oppose liturgy, but to give a pastoral and helpful warning to all those who have ears to hear. The Sacraments are powerful, and their abuse is powerfully destructive. To warn against Sacramentalism isn't to oppose Calvin or Westminster, but to agree with them. However, we are operating in a different context than Calvin, Cranmer or the Westminster divines--some of the dangers they faced have lessened, and others have increased. That's the reality of church history.
Probably it was this when he was rebuking Father Bill.
The irony is that in some ways many Puritans were further from Calvin than an Anglican like Richard Hooker.
I'M WRONG: please note that what I had written below is gone because it was wrong. I had said that David Gray is attending a Lutheran church and he's not. He's attending and a member of an OPC church (we were in the OPC congregation two Meredith Klines attended during seminary). I apologize. - Tim Bayly
>>people who simply believe what Westminster and Calvin taught.
I'm Reformed and have been a part of Reformed denominations for thirty-five years now, and I've never heard anyone cautioned against sacramentalism who was simply being Calvinistic or Westminsterian.
But then a number of my Reformed friends have converted to Roman Catholicism, so I see it as a real danger.
Love,
He was rebuking those Anglicans who chose the riches of the British Empire over the meekness and humility and poverty of Jesus Christ. As for your criticism of those faithful ministers of the Great Ejection being "further from Calvin," I suppose one might find reasons to work oneself into that corner and get comfortable in it.
Love,
That would seem unlikely to help them given that I'm a member of an OPC church and will be there on Sunday, just as I was there last Sunday and the Sunday before.
I would recommend "Richard Hooker and the Authority of Scripture, Tradition and Reason" by Nigel Atkinson. I read it when I was a Reformed Baptist in England and found it enlightening. He does a good contrast between Hooker, Calvin and the Puritans Cartwright and Travers. Very helpful book.
I should add it is a mission church and has an uncertain future. Next reasonably orthodox reformed church is nearly 100 miles away.
Switch to the vernacular in your liturgy and see what happens.
I will pray for your church.
Love,
Thanks pastor, you are gracious as always. What might have thrown you is some time back I mentioned I was attending an LCMS Bible Study. Our OPC church has essentially no function outside of Sunday morning and I've found the Bible Study helpful in many respects. I wish every pastor in NAPARC would teach the election of the elect in as straightforward a fashion as this LCMS pastor does. Even when I disagree with something it still is useful and helps me understand the LCMS better.
Pages
Add new comment