A random quote from Matt Chandler that I like.

“If your understanding of the person and work of the Holy spirit doesn’t involve or include planning.. then.. then you’re dumb. I don’t know how to say that more sensitively or politely.. let’s be charitable, that would be a concerning ignorance.. and dumb.

The Holy Spirit is no less present in planning, and I think to be effective spontaneously, to be effective in the moment, the ‘moment’, you are dependant on previous preparation. I think through preparation then, your heart is at rest, at peace and prepared to discern the spontaneous. I think you’re much more vulnerable if you don’t plan or prepare, and I think it’ll become evident to people that you’re making it up as you go along. So, we should not make an adversary relationship between planning and the active work of the spirit in the moment during the sunday celebration. They work together, there is a relationship with each other.”

The way wholly loving God works out under the old covenant is in heartfelt obedience to the terms of that covenant – and that includes the primary place given to the cultus, with all it’s import and purpose in the stream of redemptive history; and the implications of this outworking include distinctions between the holy and the common, between holy space and common space, between holy time and common time, between holy food and common food. The way wholly loving God works out under the new covenant is in heartfelt obedience to the terms of that covenant – and here the language of the cultus has been transmuted to all of life, with the implication, not so much of a desacralization of space and time and food, as with a sacralization of all space and all time and all food: what God has declared holy let no one declare unholy.

..for members of the new covenant.. ..our response to God in worship should begin by carefully and reflectively examining what God requires of us under the terms of this covenant. We should not begin by asking whether or not we enjoy “worship,” but by asking, “What is it that God expects of us?” That will frame our proper response. To ask this question is also to take the first step in reformation. It demands self-examination, for we soon discover where we do not live up to what God expects. This side of the fall, every age has characteristic sins. To find out what they are by listening attentively to what the Bible actually says about what God demands will have the effect of reforming every area of our lives, including our worship.

What ought to make worship delightful to us is not, in the first instance, its novelty or its aesthetic beauty, but it’s object: God himself is delightfully wonderful, and we learn to delight in him..

..It is disturbingly easy to plot surveys of people.. ..drifting from a church of excellent preaching and teaching to one with excellent music because, it is alleged, there is “better worship” there..

..you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself.

excerpt from Worship by the book, pg 29-31

Working toward a definition of “Worship” Carson engages with some current scholarship on the meaning of church gathering

New covenant worship terminology prescribes constant “worship.” [David] Peterson [in his book Engaging with God] therefore examines afresh just why the New Testament church gathers, and he concludes that the focus is on mutual edification, not on worship. Under the terms of the new covenant, worship goes on all the time, including when the people of God gather together. But mutual edification does not go on all the time; it is what takes place when Christians gather together. Edification is the best summary of what occurs in corporate singing, confession, public prayer, the ministry of the Word, and so forth.

Peterson, of course, allows that when the people of God gather together corporately, they are still worshiping. What he insists is that the distinctive element of their corporate meetings in not worship but edification. Inevitably, there are some who go farther. Observing not only how “cultic” language is used in the New Testament to refer to all of Christian life, and noting the lack of any mention of worship when the New Testament writers provide purpose clauses as to why the people of God meet together, these scholars conclude that we should stop thinking of “worship services” and meeting together “to worship” and the like. They make some good points, but a good part of their argument turns on a definition of worship that is tightly tied to cultus

If indeed, as Carson implies in this second quote, meeting together as a church is greater than simply edification, I’m curious to read further his definition of worship. Has the church become too much the “some”, distinguishing the purposes of both, making edification “for us” and worship “for God”?

Not saying that God needs edifying, or we need worshiping, but can it not be encouraging to declare the magnificence of God? Likewise, can God be glorified where his people gather to exhort one another in holiness and knowledge of the word? I don’t think Carson would disagree.

excerpt from Worship by the book, pg 24-25

To Summarise: The construction of a responsible theology of worship is made difficult by strongly held and divergent views on the subject, by a variety of linguistic pressures, and by the sharp tendencies to produce quite different works, depending in part on whether the theologian is working out of the matrix of systematic theology or of biblical theology.

I love this about Don Carson – the way he will summarise 7 pages into one neat, succinct sentence.

Here’s a quote from the chapter:

Intriguingly, many of the new nontraditional services have already become, in some churches, entrenched traditions – and, on a historical scale, arguably inferior ones.

–Ouch! That’s a challenge, certainly one set before the modern evangelical church. What do you think?

From Worship by the Book, edited by D. A. Carson (with Mark Ashton, R. Kent Hughes and Timothy J. Keller as contributors)
The above segments were taken from the chapter entitled Worship under the Word, pages 18 and 13 respectively.

Edit: Challies has a small review of the book here

Comments on the welcome

I’ve read this post before, but came across it again, raiding the blog of Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village church.

Here’s a sneak peek:

Every week I purposefully say the same thing to our first time guests. It goes something like this:
“Good Morning. My name is Matt Chandler I am the Lead Pastor/Teaching Pastor here at The Village. If this is your first time visiting with us I want to welcome you. I am guessing that if this is your first time here you are in one of two lanes.. ..

and later in the post:

Over the last few years, people who have given their testimonies in the baptistery have commented on the welcome. It disarmed their fear and anxiety about being in a church for the first time.

Awesome reflections, and great intentional and purposeful church. Check it out at the link below.

Comments on the welcome