Poker & Spirits

Cronulla.
Here I am today: where I was born and where I grew up for the first 23 years of my life.
And where there has been periodic gang warfare – surfies and rockers in my teenage years; Middle Eastern and Anglo gangs 15 years ago.
And where there was the infamous, still unsolved, Wanda Beach murders.
And where… the gospel is needed.

One church in Cronulla “has a big vision to see hundreds of people establish life in Jesus.”
But, how to reach those hundreds?
To reach the unreached they recently ran a “Poker and Whiskey Night” (employing the services of a professional poker player), “with all proceeds / winnings to support men’s mental health awareness.”
I guess that would include support for men struggling with alcohol and gambling.

Why? What is happening in the “evangelical” church that this sort of thing is now seen as a legitimate means of outreach?
Forty five years ago I was in Far North Queensland. There a pastor told me of a church nearby where the elders protested that the furniture (pulpit?) on the stage could not be relocated because that was where they put the keg on Saturday night.
But that was in a church that didn’t even pretend to be evangelical.

Word & Spirit

How are men and women brought to know God and His salvation in Christ?
Those whom God would save “He is pleased effectually to call, by His word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.” (Westminster Confession 10.1)

“Word and Spirit”
Not by teaching men how to gamble and filling them with spirits.
But by His Word and Spirit.

But, when we lose confidence in the means God has ordained, we turn to trusting instead in our own inventions. (Eccl 7:29)

Spirit & Truth

Something similar is happening in worship today.
Many churches have lost confidence in the means God has ordained by which we are to worship Him. Instead, they are increasingly turning to human innovation and creativity to attract unbelievers to worship.
But, worship of what?

An excellent resource that has recently been released is the DVD: Spirit & Truth. (To view the trailer, see here)
It was produced by Les Lanphere, whose previous DVD, Calvinist, critiquing the New Calvinism, is also well worth watching.

The following is my review of Spirit & Truth.
Quotations, which I put in italics, are all from the DVD.

The Fundamental Question

A documentary cited in the DVD states:
During a time when we are seeing a decline in more traditional churches across the nation, the mega church seems to be attracting more and more people.
While 95% of churches across the country have under 200 people in attendance on any given weekend, statistics show that the mega church keeps growing.

This has led to panic among many, and to some radical shifts in how churches worship.
But we are missing the most important question:

When too many of us think about worship we ask the wrong questions.
We think, “What would I like?”, or “What would non-Christians like?” or “What would people in my church like?”.
And we’re missing the central question:
“How does God want to be  worshipped?”

Neil Stewart aptly comments:
Even just politeness means that we should ask God, “How would you like me to worship You?” I do not have the right to approach my Creator, whom I have offended, on my terms.

Worship is central to our existence, as J. C. Cunningham reminds us:
The God who spoke the universe into existence is the very same One who chose man to participate in the greatest blessing in all the earth – and that is to worship God.
Worship is at the centre of our existence and the reason for our being.

But, as John Calvin once noted: Man’s nature is a perpetual factory of idols.
Robert McCurley comments:
We begin to fashion idols with our own ideas first; then it is manifest through what we do in our actions…
We have to begin to think right.
Not in terms of human innovation and creativity, what can we concoct to bring to the Lord.
But rather we are to begin by saying, “What has He told us to bring to Him?”

The first table of the Ten Commandments puts God first; our obligation to God takes precedence over our obligations to our fellow man. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.” (Jesus)

Death by Worship

Scripture abounds with examples of those who brought down God’s wrath by going about worship their own way, rather than God’s. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (Prov 14:12)
King Uzziah was struck down by God when he chose his own way to worship God (2 Chron 26:16-22).
And, before him: Uzzah, who died for his (and David’s) sin in worship (2 Sam 6:1-9).

Kevin Deyoung and Chad Vandixhoorn both point out that such sins go back to the beginning of time. The first murder (of Abel by Cain) followed the Lord’s rejection of Cain’s worship.

After that the Israelites chose to worship the Lord [yes, it was “the Lord”, Exod 32:5], using a visible image: a Golden Calf.

Kevin Deyoung then reminds us that Nadab and Abihu “offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them”. They then perished in fire (Lev 10:1-6). “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29).
Such was the gravity of their sin that not even their father was allowed to mourn for them. Robert McCurley comments:
His emotional attachment to his children had to be subjected to the higher priority of the honour and glory of God.

Reformation

The DVD notes that idolatry is the most commonly mentioned sin in Old Testament.
Frequently such idolatry was not in conjunction with the worship of other gods, but with the worship of the Lord.
Consequently, Robert McCurley notes: The Old Testament reformations all had at their very heart the reformation of worship.
Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah are examples.

Beyond Old Testament times: The great movements of God and the outpouring of His Holy Spirit that resulted in true reformation all had at their very heart the reformation of worship.

The Protestant Reformation is a case in point when Roman Catholic corruptions were stripped away from the worship of God.

But reformation at that time was not always carried through to completion.
Joseph Pipa notes how, to appeal to a wider audience: Luther wanted to keep worship close to what the people already knew.

Lutheranism followed the “Normative Principle”:

However Calvin approached things in a more rounded way. With him, there was a return to the simplicity of the Bible.

As a result, in Reformed circles they followed the “Regulative Principle”: This is undergirded by the Five Solas of the Reformation:

In the Second Reformation of the following century, the number one focus for the English Puritans, Scottish Covenanters and Dutch Puritans was worship.
They agreed with Calvin who, when he was asked, “Why the Reformation?” replied, “Because we must worship God in purity”.

The Regulative Principle

The  Regulative  Principle is based on our understanding of the sufficiency of Scripture. (See 2 Tim 3:16-17; also Deut 12:32, 30-31, Mark 7:8)

Terry Johnson, picking up on Calvin’s famous dictum “Man’s nature is a perpetual factory of idols” notes:
We’re naturally idolaters. We naturally get it wrong. And because of that we want to go to the Bible to find out the worship that pleases God.

According to Robert Godfrey, long after the Reformation, a dead formalism set in in some regions, and concern arose as to how to streamline what we are doing more effectively to get the heart engaged.
As a result, Robert McCurley observes that:
At the end of 19^th C, for the sake of popularity, for the sake of attracting the masses, there were major pushes to reintroduce innovation.

Tim Challies (Informing the Reforming blogger) expands on this:
The church growth movement had a huge impact: How are we as churches going to reach out to them and draw them in. That’s very noble.
The answer was: To get them into the church we need to give them what they want. And so we’re now going to ask unbelievers, or disaffected professed believers: What would it take to get you into our church? Our churches then became reshaped to reflect the preferences, the desires, of unbelievers.

To (mis)quote Madame Roland: “O Relevance! What crimes are committed in thy name!”

Steve Nichols comments:
So all of a sudden this notion arose: How do we reach unchurched people?
We take the word ‘church’ out of our name. The last thing we want architecturally is to look like a church. And certainly we don’t want to act like a church when we gather for worship.
But there is a price to pay for that: if we don’t want to  look like a church, and we don’t want to act like a church – well, we’re not the church.

We are not free to worship God however we like.
Jesus said: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24)

Worship in Truth

To worship “in truth” is to worship according to Scripture. Every ordinance, every act of worship, is to be based on what we are told in the Bible.
Can I demonstrate from Scripture that everything we do in worship is commanded by God?

However we must distinguish between the “Elements” and the “Circumstances” of worship.
– The Elements refer to what we do as acts of actual worship, eg. the Word, Sacraments, Prayer. These are determined only by what God’s Word allows.
– The Circumstances refer to the non-essentials that facilitate worship, eg. chairs to sit on, a roof over our heads, a time to meet. These are not in themselves acts of worship and are decided by common sense.

Today, however, there are those who are introducing innovations into the acts of worship itself as though these were non-essentials, comparable to circumstances.

Robert McCurley explains how this occurs:
“What do I find attractive, or enjoyable, or emotionally meaningful in worship?”
Some people answer that by having praise bands, and the equivalent of a dance hall, and they think, “This engages me and makes me feel worshipful.”
Others are repulsed by that, and so they go in the other direction: “I want high church liturgy – what seems dignified and reverent.”
Both are being driven by the same root problem. They are viewing the worship of God as a means for satisfying something in themselves.”

This goes back at least as far as Israel’s worship of the Lord by means of a Golden Calf image.
Moses rebuked Aaron: “What were you thinking?” – to which Aaron responds, “You know how the people are.” (Exod 32:21-22).
He was only giving the people what they wanted, in order to make worship more acceptable to the masses.

David Strain comments:
Worship has been shifted from God-centredness to man centredness. Our primary objective is to gather a crowd. And so worship must be tailored to the tastes of our target audience.
The principle that is shaping what happens in our worship is not God, but it is the tastes and preferences of our target audience.
He continues:
I think there is a sense that we are losing our consumer base, that we are losing our young people. And so there is this instinct in corporate America that when your business falters, what do you do?
You go back to your customers and you try to identify what are their needs, what are their desires – and then you give it to them.
We’re kind of half right and all wrong. Because the customer is always right. But the Customer and Consumer of worship is not man; it’s God!
And that’s the great problem – we look to corporate America for how to grow the church, how to fix the loss of market share in the church.
The business land in America, when it comes to identifying its customer, only knows how to look down; when, of course, when it comes to the church, when it comes to the Consumer of our worship, our first business is to look up; and to listen.

The Means of Grace

The DVD continues with an excellent discussion of the means of grace, particularly the Word, Sacraments and Prayer.

I found Terry Johnson’s comments on prayer convicting:
If you believe that we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit for the ministry of the church there’s going to be a lot of prayer in the public gathering of the church.
Jesus said, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer.’ (Matt 21:3) Prayer is a defining element of what the congregation does when it gathers.
There’s just so much irony in the situation today that that which in many ways is the defining element of the service is being squeezed out, and all but eliminated in so much evangelical worship.

Robert Godfrey also comments:
For thinking about how does the visitor react, prayer is a very boring thing to do. If you turn worship into evangelism prayer doesn’t make much sense.
But if we’re really thinking about God, and approaching Him, and meeting with Him, then prayer makes great sense, and ought to be more central in what we are doing.

Worship in Spirit

The DVD also focuses on the importance of heart worship.
Our worship of God is not only to be “in truth”, but also “in spirit”.

Unfortunately some have turned this into meaning that worship must be “spirited”, i.e. lively in a worldly way.
It is noteworthy that the apostle Paul rebuked the church in Corinth for their worldly “spirited” worship. “God is not the author of confusion but of peace,” he tells them. Therefore “Let all things be done decently and in order.” (1 Cor 14:33, 40)

I found Ryan McGraw’s discussion of Psalm 149 helpful, particularly his level headed exposition of praising God “with the dance” (v 3).
He points out that the Psalm also refers to praising God “on their beds”, and with “a two edged sword in their hand” (vv 5,6). These can hardly refer to acts of formal worship, so there is no reason to assume “dance” should be interpreted that way either.
Rather, we are simply being told to praise God in all circumstances. (1 Cor 10:31)
So much of the Christian life is learning to do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time.

There is also a helpful discussion of singing in worship.
And a warning by John Bower:
There is reason to be careful with song in worship. It is said that people will sometimes sing their heresy before they believe it. So it is important that our singing reflects the teaching of Scripture.
And this salutary warning from Bob Kauflin about the need for care in how we use music:
Music is like a Trojan horse. It can carry associations and it can carry wrong thinking into our hearts in a way that it seems like a gift, but really it is destroying us in the process.

The issue here is is not about “modern” or “traditional” hymns or music; nor does it deny how important suitable music is in helping the singer engage with the truth.
The problem comes when music becomes an end in itself, divorced from the truth. Robert Godfrey warns against this:
People come to church wanting an experience, and seeking a kind of music that gives them the feeling they’re after.
It’s not that feelings and experiences are altogether wrong. But if my main reaction to the experience of worship is how I feel in response to music I’ve been distracted from Christ; I’ve not really been drawn to Him.
I think you could make an argument that for many in the modern church, music has become a new sacrament: they think they can find God through the music.

And Rick Philips:
What we see today is a cathartic model of worship… I know that is very popular – for the same reason that people go to football games… But, it simply is not Christian worship.

Universal Worship

Kevin Deyoung notes:
The criticism is sometimes offered that Reformed worship is ‘white’, it’s western, northern European, and it can’t possibly appeal to others or it doesn’t cross cultures, or it’s just trying to repristinate something from the past…

Confex Makhalira, from Malawi, refutes this.
The DVD shows Reformed worship in: China, Israel, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, India, Greece, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, Japan

There is also a good discussion on the Sabbath/ Lord’s Day.

Conclusion

Josh Buice:
One of the things that is such a tragedy today as it pertains to worship is that people think that worship is boring; and one of the reasons they think that worship is boring is because they don’t know God.
When we rightly know who God is then worship can’t be boring, because God is not boring.

I highly recommend the DVD.
I purchased my copy of Spirit & Truth from Reformers Bookshop

Contributors referred to in this review:

Neil Stewart: pastor, Christ Covenant Church, Greensboro
J. C. Cunningham: pastor, Christ the King Presbyterian Church, Port St. Lucie, Florida
Robert McCurley: pastor of Greenville Presbyterian Church
Kevin Deyoung: Senior Pastor, Christ Covenant Church, Matthews, North Carolina
Chad Vandixhoorn: Professor of Church History, Westminster Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania
Joseph Pipa: president and professor of systematic and historical theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Terry Johnson: senior minister of Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Georgia
Robert Godfrey: chairman of Ligonier Ministries and president emeritus and professor emeritus of church history at Westminster Seminary California
Tim Challies: author and blogger, pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario
Steve Nichols: president Reformation Bible College, Sanford, Florida
David Strain: senior minister, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi 
Ryan McGraw: professor of systematic theology, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
John Bower: professor of church history at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh
Bob Kauflin: director of Sovereign Grace Music
Rick Philips: senior minister, Second Presbyterian Church, Greenville, South Carolina
Confex Makhalira: church planter in Blantyre, Malawi
Josh Buice: pastor, Pray’s Mill Baptist Church, Douglasville, Georgia