The Happenings of Sunday Mornings
Issue 6
Many apologies for the delay in getting this article out—somebody (meaning myself) got married and I was therefore a little tied up for about a month.
It is my opinion that one of the main reasons we have gotten where we are in terms of worship theology is because our understanding of what Christians do on Sunday mornings is deeply flawed. On a nationwide level, your average evangelical congregant goes to church because that’s what his parents did—and because God likes good people who go to church and because we are good people, we will go to church too.
That’s a rather blunt way of putting things, and folks within the reformed camp seem to think that it’s only those megachurches who have problems like that. But it is very rare to have any congregation made up entirely of born again Christians—in fact it’s definitely safe to assume that yours and mine is not this way. And in like manner, congregations in the reformed camp still have a tendency to struggle with the same sins as the megachurch down the street. We do live on the same street, after all. So before we pass sweeping judgements on the mindset other congregations have towards the morning worship and covenant renewal we undertake on the Lord’s day, let us first endeavor to remove the log in our own eye socket. Generally speaking, this is the world we live in, and we have this problem too: most Christians don’t have a clue what happens or what is supposed to happen on Sunday mornings.
We will eventually pull the car out of the garage and get it running, but first we need to pull all the old 2x4s and forgotten who knows what out of the way—which means we need to get a good foundational grasp of our Lord’s day gatherings.
And before that even, a little clarification is in order. Worship, generally speaking, is obedience to God and ordering one’s life accordingly so that honor may be given to Him (1 Corinthians 10:31, Romans 12:1). Even Abraham’s obeying God to sacrifice his son Isaac was worship (Genesis 22:5) and so was obedience to God’s command to eradicate the Amalekites—to include every man, woman, and child (1 Sam. 15:3).
In fact, every aspect of our life is worship. So let the reader understand—when we talk about “modern contemporary worship”, I’m not implying that worship only happens on Sunday mornings or that we take issue with how people grow corn on Tuesday (which I do, actually, but that’s another article). It is simply a term we use to get at the point quickly—the modern style of singing done on Sunday mornings.
When the church is gathered as a congregation on the Lord’s day, the setting and activity done is more specific than simply “glorify God with every aspect of life”. This gathering, as we see in Scripture, is that of covenant members and believers (Psalm 149:1, Acts 4:32, 15:30, Philippians 3:3). Within the context of the New Covenant, it is found wherever the saints are formally gathered (Acts 11:22, 14:23, 15:30, 15:41, 16:5, 18:22, 1 Corinthians 4:17, Revelation 1:4). The congregation assembled includes men, women, and children (Deuteronomy 31:12, Ezra 10:1, Nehemiah 12:43, Joel 2:14, Ephesians 5:22-6:4, Colossians 3:18-21).
Furthermore, this is not a lighthearted and unstructured party in which the leader crafts many jokes for entertainment or makes up the liturgy on the fly or surprises the congregation or does anything which might detract from this time of solemn repentance, covenant renewal, and joyful singing (Psalm 29:2, 95:1-6, 100:4, 150:1-6, Ezra 10:1-3, Nehemiah 12:43, Joel 2:12-15, 1 Corinthians 11:21, 2 Corinthians 14:33, 14:40, Hebrews 12:28-29). Even our clothing that we wear should reflect this. Psalm 29:2 commands us to “worship the Lord in holy array.” This is a far cry from the “come just as you are” attitude of flippancy present in so many churches today. In fact, in Matthew 22:11-13, God’s operating procedure when encountering a man who shows up at His wedding feast without proper clothing is to cast him into the outer darkness. Sure, it’s a parable. But that’s why the parable is so poignant: everyone knows that you need proper clothing for a wedding. Everyone knows that there is both a proper and an improper way to dress for certain events. And that’s why the parable works. In like manner, there is also a proper and an improper way to sing on Sunday mornings. But in our relativistic society, it has become a cultural evil to imply that the categories of proper and improper exist in the first place.
What things occur during the gathering of God’s people? Repentance (Ezra 10:1, Matthew 5:23-24), administering the sacraments (1 Corinthians 11:20), teaching (Psalm 40:10, 2 Corinthians 14:26, 1 Timothy 4:13), and singing and praying to God (Psalm 26:12, 29:2 35:18, 40:9, 68:26, 95:1-11, 107:32, 149:1, Colossians 3:16, Ephesians 5:19).
So far so good. Now for the less commonly discussed attributes of Sunday morning. We are not just a gathered congregation of us and our friends—there are others present. There is always a great clamor about how the Holy Spirit is present in our worship. And indeed He is. But shouldn’t He be present and with you as you leave the church building as well? Hopefully so. With as much hype as seems to surround this fact, one might think that having the Holy Spirit present was a rare and scarce event. Unfortunately, people have a very narrow view these days as to what influence the Holy Spirit has on us. So while the presence of the Holy Spirit is not to be scoffed at or made little of, it should be a standard everyday reality in the life of a believer.
When we gather on Sunday morning, reflecting Jesus’s resurrection on the Lord’s day, we are gathering in unison with all other faithful congregations. In fact, when Paul writes to the Corinthians about a man who has his father’s wife, he says this:
“For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” —1 Corinthians 5:3-5
Or take Philippians 1:7, where Paul mentions that the rest of the church suffers with him in spirit while he is imprisoned, as in like manner they are also partakers of grace with him. The fact of the matter is that we are not individual bipedal carbon units going about our own isolated ways. Nor do churches operate in this fashion. When the hand suffers, so does the foot. And when we gather together, we do not do so by our own lonesome selves. We physically gather with our own church, but spiritually we are gathering with the church as a whole.
Perhaps more commonly spoken of is the fact that when we gather as a church on Sunday mornings, God is there in our midst to accept our worship (Psalm 82:1, Hebrews 4:16). In the Old Testament, He manifested Himself in the glory cloud descending upon the temple (1 Kings 8:11), the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34), Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:16), and the wilderness (Exodus 16:10). And in the unadulterated world, He walked with Adam (Genesis 3:8). Jesus confirms this in Matthew 18:20 when He says that “wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst.”
Furthermore, corporate worship does not leave out the rest of the heavenly beings and angelic majesties who also worship God. Indeed, Heaven and all that dwell therein is present during our worship (Deuteronomy 4:26, 1 Corinthians 11:10, Hebrews 4:16, 12:22, Revelation 5:11, 7:11).
This is a key point that most churches miss these days. We are not merely gathered as a bunch of people communing with God who happen to be in one place at the same time. We are quite literally coming into the presence of God as we will on the day of judgement, along with the global church and the heavenly host whom we would be tempted to worship if we could see them. In fact, in Revelation John is rebuked twice for attempting to worship angelic beings in 19:10 and 22:9. This is not a lighthearted reality, and the fact that most churches do not realize this reality leads us to perform some rather outrageous acts of disrespect against the Lord, who is infinitely greater, without knowing it.
If all this is so, with what emotional frame of mind should we enter the church building? When we come before God, how must we act and present ourselves?
One might think a great deal of thought would be put into this subject, especially on the part of pastors. On the contrary, the church-as-financial-institution business model has become so pervasive that the come-as-you-are attitude has reached and is still present even in many reformed congregations.
If a man were placed on trial with no attorney and no jury and the president of the United States were sitting as judge, much thought would likely be put into every minor detail of his defense, to include manner of speech, dress, hair style, gestures, and composition of words. Nothing even close to this is even encouraged by pastors whose duty it is to prepare their congregations to come before the Lord of Hosts, who not only rules the universe, but made it with His own words. Instead, most congregations have been shepherded to have no fear of God in their hearts.
In presenting ourselves before God, our attitude should be that of fear and trembling and reverence and joy. This is not a contradictory statement—if the Bible commands all of these, we must seek to align our attitude accordingly. The fear of God is referenced countless times throughout Scripture, and it is almost always applied to righteous people—people who fear God find favor in His eyes. Genesis 15:12 speaks of God’s covenant with Abraham, during which Abraham is put to sleep and is terrified by God’s presence. During his travels, he is afraid of the Egyptians because they did not fear God and were therefore likely to kill him on account of his wife (Genesis 20:11). The reason Abraham seriously sought to offer his son as a burnt offering was because he feared and obeyed God (Genesis 22:12). Where the fear of God is, there you will find a righteous man. And where it is lacking, evil deeds are sure to follow.
Preachers love to caveat this idea. They mention something about the fear of God and then immediately follow up with “Now, don’t take this to mean that you should actually be scared of God. What it actually means is lots of respect.” Send this lie back to the pit where it came from and read more Scripture.
Exodus 1:17 features midwives who fear God and lie to the king of Egypt, thus saving the lives of many infant boys. Exodus 9:20 and 30 show this same king and his servants who do not fear God, ignoring His words spoken through Moses and thereby losing vast amounts of wealth through the destruction of their crops and livestock. When the people of Israel see the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, they fear the God who did this (Exodus 14:31). When they see God’s glory revealed on Mount Sinai, they are so afraid that they ask Moses to speak to God for them. Moses assures them that this fear of theirs is to prevent sin (Exodus 20:19-20).
I would like to drive this spear all the way home because the idea is so adulterated in this day and age. The fear of the Lord is a good thing. If the Lord is feared, the fear of man is driven out. We should not be merely respectful—Hell is a place reserved for those who do not actually fear God.
Deuteronomy 28 is filled with detailed descriptions of curses which will be laid on the Israelites if they do not fear God (verse 58). Joshua 4:24 reads “…that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
In 1 Kings 18:3-4, it is recounted how Obadiah hid a hundred prophets in a cave and provided them with bread and water. Why face certain death if this was found out? Because he feared the Lord greatly (verse 3).
“It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, and He shall be your dread” —Isaiah 8:13. What happens if we fear something other than God? “ ‘You have feared a sword; so I will bring a sword upon you,’ the Lord your God declares” (Ezekiel 11:8). Matthew 10:28 reads “Do not fear those who kill the body” [actual fear] “but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him” [actual fear] “who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Hopefully the point has been made well and clear—the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and those who try to squirm their way around the fact are causing little ones to stumble. No man knows Scripture better than Satan himself, and it should be no surprise that after all this, people skip to the end of the Bible and pull a perfectly good verse out of context to promote their idea that if we love God with all of our being and if “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18), then the more we love God, the less we should fear Him. But if we take the verse in context, we realize that it’s referring to the fear of punishment. And the fear of punishment is not the only type of fear. We are stilled called to fear God for who He is, while at the same time being confident when we come before His throne—but only because we are reconciled to Him through Christ. And because of this, we should not dishonor His perfect sacrifice by coming before the throne of God in an improper frame of mind.
We are, after all, approaching the inapproachable. Our God is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24, Hebrews 12:29), and He is working within us, compelling us to even think about approaching Him in the first place (John 6:69-70, Ephesians 1:4). We are told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Therefore, should we be scared? Absolutely we should be scared. Not with a fear of being punished, because this would indicate a lack of faith in Christ’s sacrifice. But we should approach God with reverence, righteous fear, trembling, and joy (Psalm 2:11). They are all required.
Instead, by direction of the praise band, congregations make attempts to call upon the Lord as they might call upon Baal, vainly coaxing the Holy Spirit to come out of wherever He’s hiding by singing little ditties which are not entirely untruthful in their raw lyrics but are quite untruthful when it is assumed that their styles are products of reverent behavior. Believe me when I say that if you were to see the Lord of Hosts in all His glory enthroned before your eyes, with Jesus Christ the Son of Man sitting at His right hand, flanked by angelic majesties, your last thought in the universe would be to sidle your way up to the throne swinging your hips to “Shine, Jesus, Shine” or “It is You”. Are they wicked songs? Not in their proper context—the kitchen isn’t a bad place, though I’d much prefer scripture set to sea shanties—but their proper context is certainly not corporate worship.
Our culture has made the application of this idea extremely difficult. On the one hand, we are told that we cannot judge anything—everything is subjective and there is no solid right or wrong. On the other hand, those who do make judgement calls restrict themselves to judgement calls which are clear cut and analytical—in our culture of accounting for everything down to the last cent and tithing dill and cumin, anything remotely subjective is rejected as an insecure field of certain decision making. In these modern times, there can be no unknowns. And it is a crime to make a judgement of values based on anything other than mathematical foundations. This is also why people lose their heads when they are given generalities. They immediately bring up caveats and exceptions because we live in a society where absolutely everything must be accounted for. It is simply humans trying to be omniscient.
I bring this up because we need to get our heads around the fact that although musical style is indeed a rather subjective area of study, we still have an obligation to make judgement calls in this area.
Different things serve different purposes—hammers are for nails and destruction while a teapot is for hot brown water. While one is not morally better than the other, it would be foolhardy to get their roles mixed up. Similarly, we need to understand that songs which are not designed or incorrectly designed for corporate worship should not be allowed into corporate worship. And up until now, there has probably been much agreement between the two sides as to general principles. Now it comes time to apply them, and this is where things might get sticky. But keep this in mind—everything will go better from here on if you understand that it is perfectly fine to make judgement calls about subjective things as long as you step back and look at the thing as a whole: what does the song do with your attitude? With your perception of God? With truth?
We have dug into what happens during corporate worship—we come before the Lord and all His heavenly host, along with the rest of the church, while the outside world watches us—humans and demons alike. We know that we must come before God with fear and trembling, reverence and joy. So what types and styles of music should we reject, and which should we strive for?
This will not be a comprehensive list of goals—I appreciate feedback and advice here. Some of the topics to follow have already been looked at, while others will be the focus of future articles.
To begin in general terms, our offering of musical praise to God must exclude anything which goes against God’s created order. This idea applies to any other area of life of course, but it should be especially present in our minds when we come before God. Let’s break this down further into real examples.
All of God’s creation is called to tremble when approaching Him (see above). Therefore, our music needs to reflect this by sounding reverent. There is nothing morally wrong about dancy, happy clappy songs. They’re fun. They are not prohibited in all areas of life (though with their lack of gravitas they are particularly of the feminine type). But their place is not before God within the gathered body during corporate worship. And I know that this is not an objective goal—it has to sound reverent? What kind of guidance is that?!?! But work with me here. Sure, it’s not objective and clear cut. There is no black and white metric by which we can obtain a scale. But God put subjective things into His creation so that we would have to think through them, applying the objective standard in His word to subjective problems. This is what I’m advocating for. Our worship needs to sound reverent. And you’ll just have to work with people who seem to think that happy clappy still sounds reverent because the lyrics happen to be truthful.
Continuing on, our music needs to reflect our God-assigned gender roles. When we sing, men need to sound like men and women need to sound like women. This is a subject with very interesting applications, but this will be the topic of a future article. So consider this a merciless teaser.
The songs of worship which we sing on Sunday morning are intended for praise, prayer, and edification (Ephesians 5:19-20). Contrast this with the modern idea that music on Sunday morning is for spiritual renewal—we are told to “prepare our hearts for worship”, to lay aside the cares of the week, and forget ourselves. We consider the Sunday morning service a success if we feel spiritually rested. While getting in the right frame of mind is not bad, focusing solely on oneself or forgetting real life is most definitely not the point. Our praise is an offering to God, not a meditative brain sauna such as we find in the song “Come, Now is the Time to Worship”. Instead, it must cause us to think—our worship should not aim to put ourselves to sleep like the pagan styles of worship, whose purpose it is to shut off the mind. In contrast, worship to God in faith should produce a mind turned on, active and productive. You should leave the church building inspired to kill sin, work hard, and be creative in your endeavors to further the Kingdom. You should not leave the church blinking in the sunlight as if you need a few more minutes to wake up. And yet, the vast majority of contemporary worship—even the theologically decent songs—has a musical style which produces exactly this effect.
Rather uncontroversial is the fact that good worship requires good lyrics—theologically good lyrics as well as productive lyrics. We do not come to church to shut our minds off by singing the same theologically true statement over and over again. If a man wanted to make an impression on his spouse by telling her how he appreciated her, he would not repeat the same one-liner over and over again, even if it was true. You might use this strategy successfully with a dog, but not with your wife and certainly not with God, who hears not only your words but also sees the motives of your heart. Let Him not find laziness in this area! Thankfully, much of the difficult work of composing adequate worship has already been done—the Psalms are God’s songbook, written to us so that we might sing to Him exactly as He desires. We can also use the Psalms as a model to compose our own hymns, though we must realize that they are composed by men and therefore subject to critique. Though I am not promoting an exclusive psalmody position, we should at the very least be singing the Psalms as a default, supplementing our worship with well-vetted hymns. It has only been very recently (during the time of the second great awakening) that the church in America moved away from singing primarily Psalms to singing primarily hymns. Now, it is rare to see any Psalms being sung, and even in reformed churches it is not uncommon to see a lineup of hymns with maybe one Psalm to the tune of a relatively recent hymn. We have lost much, but what we have lost is not unrecoverable.
And lastly, the worship we perform on Sunday mornings must be congregational, meaning the congregation makes the music. The congregation, and not some professional or otherwise select few people, should carry the weight of producing music fitting for our Lord. I am not against musical instruments as a whole, but I am against the musical instruments taking precedence over the voices of the congregation. There are two main reasons I come to this conclusion. One is the overwhelming number of commands to sing in the Psalms compared to those calling us to play musical instruments, and the other is a simple law of nature: most people in Christian societies have dabbled with musical instruments of some sort, but very few have the skill to play them comfortably. On the other hand, every last one of us gets voice practice at least daily through the simple use of our natural voices. Some people can play instruments, but pretty much anyone can sing. It is one of those things a young child can learn as though he would learn how to speak—while learning to play instruments takes deliberate, structured training. I will also delve into this more in a future article, but suffice it to say that we cannot lose the idea of the congregation producing the foundation of the music—as opposed to a worship band, with the congregation following along if it likes.
In the near future I will further discuss details of these examples, but I wanted to lay the groundwork in this article. If we do not know what occurs during worship on Sunday morning, and if we do not come with the correct attitude of reverence, fear, confidence, and joy, the worship service becomes whatever we feel like making it—in most cases these days it is a session where we sing popular songs we like which have a Christian label attached. And music fitting such a benign occasion is whatever we find which tickles our ears and soothes our minds—instead of what is pleasing and honorable and acceptable offering to God. And how do we discover what is pleasing to Him? By heeding His word and submitting ourselves to it. He does not leave us guessing in the area of how we should praise Him.