What role does the history and tradition play when developing our liturgy?

Last time we took a look at the primary goal of our liturgy as well as some important underlying Biblical principles.   With the understanding that our services should be both God-centered and edifying for the believers who walk through our doors.  It is now time to look at how do we structure our Sunday gatherings?  As I mentioned in the first article, the Bible simply does not give us complete details on how we are to shape an entire corporate gathering.   So as Tim Keller stated, “we must ‘fill in the blanks’ that the Bible leaves open…we will have to draw on tradition; on the needs, capacities, and cultural sensibilities of our people; and on our own personal preferences. ” While everything we do at a Sunday gathering should be grounded in Scripture, we should also be willing to look across this spectrum of history and tradition towards all the saints who have gone before us.  Rather than trying to be innovative or hip, we can humbly look toward those who professed and lived under Christ’s lordship from years passed.

Before moving on, I need to clarify that to say the church is rooted in history is different than saying that the church only looks backwards in history for its credible methods.  “Liturgical” and “Traditional” are not synonyms.  Liturgy incorporates traditional elements, but cannot be defined or explained simply by referring to traditional aspects of corporate worship. We also must be careful to recognize that the church exists along a continuum of history of which its current setting and cultural context is a part.  We therefore need to learn from the historical applications of worship and incorporate them into our current context and setting.

When we look at our history, we need to start with the history conveyed in the Bible. Liturgical worship is deeply rooted throughout the history of the church, which extends all the way back to Adam in the garden. The prophets of the Old Testament demonstrate the significance of liturgical action as a barometer of corporate spiritual health.  Every time there is a revival or sign of spiritual health in Israel out come the liturgical events (sacrifice, circumcision, passover, etc.) On the contrary, nearly every time there is spiritual, political or moral decline, liturgical activities suffer.  (Report of the Christian Reformed Church’s Liturgical Committee) While many of the practices in the days of the Former Prophets do not exist today, we have continued to celebrate the covenant-renewal.  The covenant is a central biblical image for describing the relationship that God has established with his people.  Israel was God’s holy people; they were set apart from every other nation.  “The whole life of the nation was worship, set apart to God.” (Frame) Therefore the Law of Moses contained precise rules for prayer and sacrifice; it exhorted Israel to obey God’s word and sing praises to him.

Looking at New Testament worship, we see two things: 1. God now encompasses both Jews and Gentiles in one body to give him worship.  (1 Peter 2:9) 2. Various elements of Old Testament worship point to Jesus. (Heb. 10) Precise rules for liturgy are not found in the New Testament. While we have freedom of the Spirit, we are also commanded to do things in “decency and order.” “The tension between freedom and order is never relieved, but rather left to become a matrix of creative flexibility and common order, whose end was to be the edification of the church. People who, in the early days, worshipped as Christians also worshipped as Hebrews. They had no sense of being the less Jew for being the more Christian. Hence, it is not surprising to see Christian liturgy structured by the synagogue, as that structure was given new content and life by the reality of Christ. So the liturgy of the Christian church was both old and new; the old was taken up and infused from beginning to end with a new Spirit and a new life. The people of God have existed since this time and have carried on through to today.” (Report of the Christian Reformed Church’s Liturgical Committee)

Liturgy is not some new fad. This thing has been going on for thousands of years. The traditions of worship have been passed down by faithful men and women for generations. Our hope is to remain rooted in many of these important traditions, while thoughtfully structuring our services for our particular context.  Next week we’ll look specifically at some of the liturgical traditions of the Church over the past thousand years.  We will explain what they were and why they were important in their particular setting.

My name is Mike Pruett, and I’m a Renew Project Leader for one of the Middletown Community Groups.  This past week we had the opportunity to serve long time Middletown resident Carol Knight.  Carol lives in a very old home, which until recently had a HUGE wooden five-car garage.  Due to time, weather and a falling tree, the garage had almost completely collapsed, leaving a pile of wood, glass, wiring, shingles and other random items piled up in her backyard.  City ordinances necessitated the complete removal of this former garage, quite a daunting task for a single woman living on a fixed income.

David, the Director of Renew at The Oaks, talked with city officials and found out about this  need. After seeing the daunting task, he scheduled three separate community groups to work on it over two days.  Tuesday, the Monroe community group showed up, and with the help of a neighbor operating a bobcat, work began.  People lined up to haul pieces of debris, small and large, into the dumpster.  By the end of their two hours, one  trailer-sized dumpster was completely filled, and they estimated we would need three more!  

Wednesday, two community groups from Middletown showed up to continue work.  A fresh dumpster was brought in thanks to Rumpke, who provided dumpsters for us both nights. We had no bobcat Wednesday, but our folks  worked hard, pulling and heaving and breaking what used to once be walls, rafters, and doors, into smaller chunks that could be loaded up. Carol was with us the entire time, talking and sharing her life and regularly thanking us for the work being done.  A neighbor came to take pictures, and a reporter from the Middletown Journal showed up to document the project. A link to that article can be found here.  l  At the end of our two hours, the second dumpster was completely filled, with a majority of the large pieces removed.

Afterwards, we shared with Carol our church’s vision and motivation for serving.  While there is no specific scripture related to fallen five-car garages, what is clear is the mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to serve with our whole hearts to the glory of God.  

For me, this became so much more than a simple cleanup project.  Here was a woman none of us personally knew, who was under serious pressure and strain to remove a seemingly insurmountable obstacle from her property.  For us, it didn’t matter why she needed the help; the important part was that an opportunity was literally laid at our feet to serve and love a neighbor.  Carol, like the rest of us, is a beautiful work of the Lord’s hand.  We are glad to have been a blessing, and look forward to finishing up what we started at her home sometime soon!

In the last article, I talked about the term liturgy and how it simply means “the work of the people.”  In the most basic sense, every church that has a structure and order to their services is liturgical.  One might ask, “How are we supposed to structure our corporate gatherings?”  But before we address that question, I think there is an important underlying question we need to talk about first: “What is our main purpose in meeting every week as a body?”  So in part 2 of this series, I want to address our primary goal for our Sunday corporate gatherings.  I also want to lay some important biblical groundwork for how we should structure our services.    

What is the primary goal for our Sunday corporate gatherings?

Unfortunately, while the answer to this question should seem clear, the practices and even structures of many evangelical churches across our country have muddied the waters.  Many churches with good intentions have taken secondary goals and built their services around them.  Most of these goals, (i.e. being evangelistic or seeker friendly) are good, however they are not primary.  We must first realize that our corporate worship is for God’s pleasure and his glory. When we gather as a body on Sundays, our number one goal should be to magnify the worth of God through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.    

It is also important to see that true worship cannot exist apart from Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus is the only mediator between us and God, and it is through Him that our praises will be made. (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 2:12) Anyone can sing “worship” songs of course, but unless the Holy Spirit is actively present in a person they cannot say such things as a sincere expression of true worship.  Once an individual has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, true worship can begin.  His life and death in our place has brought us peace with God.  We now come boldly before God, praising Him for what He has done.

Finally, we need to see that true worship is never something that people can initiate on our own - it always begins with God. John Frame writes, “In worship, God is always speaking to us…and we should be constantly responding to that word in faith and obedience.” Real worship isn’t something that is worked up within us, but rather a response to seeing and understanding God’s control, authority and presence in our lives.  So if worship begins with God and is primarily for his glory, how does liturgy or “the work of the people” fit in?  

It would be easy to turn all our focus to God and say that we should not pay any attention to human needs in corporate worship.  But in corporate worship it is important to recognize and live out the two greatest commandments: loving God and loving our neighbors.  Both can and should exist simultaneously and influence the way we organize our services.  Our corporate gatherings are to be God-centered, but also edifying for the believers who walk through our doors.  Edification can come through hearing words of encouragement, being continually reminded of the truths of the gospel, and seeing that we have a God who is ever present with us.  Paul says,”Let all things be done for edification” (1 Cor. 14:26), and to “teach and admonish one another in all wisdom,” (Col. 3:16) and to address one another is psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” (Eph. 5:19)  Frame writes, “Worship has a horizontal dimension as well as a vertical focus.”   Next week we will begin to look at this horizontal dimension and see what the Bible and history say about the way we structure our Sunday services.

This past Sunday, Pastor Kevin tackled the touchy subject of how we are to view our money and possessions in light of the gospel.  When we encounter the radical grace we have been shown through the death of Jesus on the cross in our place, it should change our attitude towards money.  In 2 Corinthians, Paul encouraged the Corinthian church to give of their finances “for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).  When we understand how much we have been given by grace through Jesus, how could we not be radically generous towards those around us?!

As stewards of God’s resources, we are instructed in the Bible to give a portion of our income away to the church and to help care for the poor.  Tim Keller teaches that without an experience of the gospel and grace, our giving is passive and spontaneous - - we only give when guilted into it by someone else and when we do give it is whatever we have or can afford at that specific time.  However, when we experience the gospel our giving then becomes active and intentional.  We become active in seeking out ways to give and bless others with our finances and we become intentional about how much of our income we want to give to others.  The gospel completely changes the way we view our money, and it gives us the freedom to give it away in acts of radical generosity.

In an effort to encourage active and intentional giving, we have electronic giving set up through The Oaks website.  Through this site you are able to give online by direct withdrawal from a bank account or by credit card payment.  Giving can be designated one time gift or as a recurring gift (weekly, monthly, etc.).  The recurring option helps to facilitate intentional giving rather than a spontaneous moment at the end of the month when we realize “oh I forgot to give this month!”  

We have been using this form of giving for several months now and it has been very helpful for many people.  In fact, nearly half of our monthly giving is done through electronic giving.  This has allowed people to be consistent in their giving and it also helps the church leadership in budgeting and planning because scheduled giving can be more easily tracked.

We don’t use online giving as a way to get more money from our people.  This isn’t about making money.  This is about worshipping Jesus in the way we use our finances.  If signing up for online giving would help you in this way, please visit our Giving web page on our main site and follow the directions found there.

http://www.theoakscommunitychurch.org/giving/

This past Saturday, April 25^th was our first all-church project for Renew.  We partnered with Keep Middletown Beautiful, a local non-profit organization, to come together with folks in the community to landscape and paint at Sunset Park for about 4 hours.  In total, about 40-50 people from The Oaks showed up to help. It was a beautiful day for the project, with 85 degree temperatures and not a cloud in the sky. As volunteers showed up at the park, the folks from Keep Middletown Beautiful directed them to jobs and everyone went cheerfully to where they were assigned.

People from The Oaks served in a variety of ways. Some  went to the basketball courts to paint the backboards and poles, and then on to the volleyball courts to paint the poles there as well. Afterwards, they looked like brand new courts. Others dug out sod around trees and benches, hauled it all the way across the park, and came back to mulch the areas for a nice, clean finish.  Another group of people drove around the park in a truck, picking up and hauling away dead branches and trimmings scattered everywhere.  The biggest project, which took about 2/3 of the volunteers, was the massive task of painting the chain link fence around the tennis courts. It was daunting and it was tedious, and nobody who served was able to come away without a significant amount of paint splattered all over their face, hair, and arms.

Although the folks at Keep Middletown Beautiful said over and over how bad they felt that we had such “messy jobs,” none of our people complained. It was extremely encouraging to see the joy that flowed out of serving the city together in community.  There was clearly a spirit of mercy, humility, and servanthood present in our people.  They were excited to serve, and it was rewarding to see solid results from our efforts. We enjoyed the free lunch provided for us too, especially the homemade desserts!

This project should remind us that when the body of Christ comes together to serve our city with humble hearts, we can have a very real impact.

My name is Mike Binder, and I’m a Renew Project Leader for the North Dayton community group. About a month ago, my brother David asked all of the community groups to pool a small amount of money to build a wheelchair ramp for a man and his wife in Middletown.  It turned out that two guys in our community group just happened to have an extra wheelchair ramp on the house they’d just moved that they were willing to  donate to this couple.  

While modifying/assembling a wheelchair ramp is no small task, we didn’t need 7 sets of hands to do it, so we found other ways for the rest of our group to help.  In the end, we wound up edging  the sidewalks, planting some fresh flowers in a bed next to the house, and laying down concrete pavers at the end of the ramp so that Rick’s wife can travel safely from the ramp to the driveway without trudging through a pit of mud and shingles that had accumulated at the foot of the old ramp.  I think I can speak for the group and say that we were all quite pleased with the final product (although there are still plans to go pressure wash/paint the porch, ramp, and pavers, to give it that “finished” touch).  Rick’s wife was taken aback when she saw not just a new ramp, but also freshly planted flowers.  One of the ladies from our community group, Kourtnie smiled and said, “Every lady needs some pretty flowers for springtime!”  She just beamed.

Working with the Wilsons all day on Saturday was such a blessing to all of us, in that we all felt a connection to them by the time we left.  His wife came out to check our progress about every hour or so, and was quite pleasant each time.  The neighbors even came by toward the end, just to watch us work.  I got a chance to chat with a few of them at the end of the day, and a guy named Tim said that he used to live in the adjoining place to Rick’s (he has since moved around the corner).  He said, “I’m just a neighbor, and I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what ya’ll are doin’ for Rick.  It really means a lot.”  He was one of the ones who helped Rick construct the original ramp.  Darrel was another one of Rick’s neighbors, and he showed up about an hour before we left.  For about the first 15 minutes, he just stood there in silence munching on Milk-Duds and watching.  We all said “Hi”, and he just nodded and kept watching.  After we had packed up, Darrel came over to pray with us before we left. 

  Rick made us enough homemade Sloppy-Joes to feed about 200 people, along with potato chips and 2 cases of Pepsi.  That was probably the best tasting service project I’ve ever done.  I loved that what little he had to offer us, he offered with excellence.  This is a principal I would like to see played out in my life more frequently.

Our community group was thankful for the opportunity to serve, and we  look forward to seeing Rick and his wife again soon!

The Finished Project!

How many times a week do you go out of your way for somebody else knowing that they can’t pay you back?  Think about it: when a proposition of inconvenience or a request for “a really big favor” comes your way, what goes on in your head? If you’re anything like me, I’d bet that what goes on is something along the lines of a cost/benefit analysis.  Your brain will ask you questions like:

• Do I have a sense of duty or obligation to this person?
• How much will this inconvenience me?
• Will sacrificing my time and my plans pay off in the end?
• Will this favor put this person in debt to me, so that I can call on them in the future?

Does any of that sound familiar? It may be subtle; it may be completely subconscious; in the end, however, what it reveals about our hearts is that we view our time and energy as commodities to be traded and dealt with in terms of what type of return we will receive.  Will the benefit outweigh the cost? And if it will, we’ll often do that favor, go the extra mile, and inconvenience our busy lives under the guise of benevolence and charity. But is it really charity to do something that ends up paying you back in the end?

God has a different system. In Luke 14:12-14, Jesus says:

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment.  But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

It’s counter-intuitive, isn’t it? Even more: it’s revolutionary.  Why should you go out of your way for somebody who has no means of repaying you? It won’t benefit you. You may not even get a “thank you.” You may leave and feel as if no one has noticed the act of mercy that you’ve done. But Jesus promises that our Father in heaven notices.  The work we do in the name of Jesus is not to be done for the sake of getting praise, recognition, or even feeling good about ourselves. Instead the work we do must flow out of our  love for God and our love for other people, regardless of how we benefit from the transaction.  

Remember that Jesus did not come in order to receive recognition from man or earthly gain. He came with the mission of losing everything in order that we might gain eternal life.  How can we dare cling to selfish pride, thinking that if we are to help others it must somehow benefit us emotionally or economically? We have no grounds for this type of thinking. Instead, we should serve with compassion, humility, and grateful hearts.  In doing so, we not only serve the needs of our neighbor; we also glorify God, which is the only way we can say “thank you” to the One who gave everything for us.

If so, you should become a part of The Oaks Community Church discussion forum.  We are launching this forum as a place for people of The Oaks to interact and communicate with one another.  We hope this can be one more tool to keep each other connected to things happening at The Oaks and our community.

You can access the forum by clicking here.  To comment and start new discussions you will need to sign up as a member on the site.  Your username should be your name or something similar that will be easy to identify you.

Check it out today at www.theoakscommunitychurch.org/forum and join the discussion!

This past week I had the privilege of attending the Beauty for Ashes conference at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville.  I sat under the teaching of Dr. John Perkins and Randy Nabors, both of whom are heroes of mine in the field of mercy ministry.  I left the conference  energized and excited about the mission God has called us to in the city of Middletown.  I also left with a renewed conviction that practicing Biblical mercy is not optional;  it is a calling placed firmly upon every Christian’s life.  

In order to clarify what I mean when I say “mercy,” let me offer this definition taken from Randy Nabors:  Mercy is “compassion toward those who are in need, resulting in action to alleviate that need, through acts of charity leading towards self-sustainment.”

I want to share two passages from Scripture that emphasize the imperative of mercy that is placed upon every believer’s life.  First, consider the words Jesus uses to announce the beginning of his earthly ministry:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19, italics mine).  Many folks try to relieve the emphasis on the poor in this passage by arguing that Jesus simply meant “the poor in spirit.”  While I believe the poor in spirit are included in this passage, I believe it is wrong to limit this passage to the spiritually poor.  The fact of the matter is that Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe said “I have come to preach the gospel to the poor.”  This message of Jesus is supported by the life of Jesus.  If he ONLY meant the “poor in spirit,” why did he spend so much of his time on earth dealing with those who were physically poor?  Why did he hang out with the downtrodden and the outcast?  Why did he feed the hungry, heal the sick, relieve the oppressed if His only mission was to preach good news to the spiritually poor?  The first words of Jesus’ public ministry call us to both evangelism and mercy.  

The second passage I want you to consider comes from Matthew 25.  In this passage we encounter what Jesus’ final words will be to us on the day of judgment. What factor does he use to separate the righteous from the unrighteous? 

To the righteous he says: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” When the righteous are confused and ask when they saw Jesus in these various states of poverty or despair, he answers: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:34-36, 40).  He uses the same determining factors to disqualify the unrighteous, saying that whatever they did not do for the least of these, they did not do for Jesus.  Notice that the factors Jesus lists are all acts of mercy and compassion towards the poor. 

I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking that we are saved by our good works.  We are not. We are saved ONLY through the great work of Jesus.  He lived the life of perfect obedience we should have lived and He died the horrible, painful death we all deserve.  Through faith in His life, death and resurrection, we are now children of God.  Our works do not justify us.  Our works do not save us; Jesus does.  That being said, Jesus makes it very clear in Matthew 25 that mercy shown to others is a inescapable result of our salvation. Tim Keller captures this point well in his book Ministries of Mercy when he writes,  “A life poured out in deeds of mercy is the inevitable sign of true faith.” 

 After all, wasn’t the act of Jesus coming to earth to live and die in our place the ultimate act of mercy?  How then can we consider showing mercy to others as optional?  

“Church meetings should not be regarded simply as a means to an end – a preparation for worship and witness in everyday life – but as ‘the focus-point of that whole wider worship which is the continually repeated self-surrender of the Christian in obedience of life.” David Peterson (Engaging with God)

At The Oaks, we hold our Sunday gatherings in high regard. This is an important time where believers can come together to worship God with one voice, where we are reminded of the hope we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ and where we can once again redirect our worship toward the one true God.  The question is, “How do we do this well?” How do we determine what practices should be included in our corporate gatherings?  Methodology continues to be a controversial subject in the Church because the Bible simply does not give us detailed instructions as to how we are to shape our corporate gatherings. “When the Bible calls us to sing God’s praises, we are not given the tunes or the rhythm. We are not told how repetitive the lyrics are to be or how emotionally intense the singing should be. When we are commanded to pray corporate prayers, we are not told whether those prayers should be written, unison prayers or extemporary. So to give any concrete form to our gathered worship, we must ‘fill in the blanks’ that the Bible leaves open. When we do so, we will have to draw on tradition; on the needs, capacities, and cultural sensibilities of our people; and on our own personal preferences. ” - Tim Keller (Worship By The Book)

Over a series of articles, we hope to explain our worship methods and practices - why we do what we do. Specifically, we will look at our liturgy and how we structure our services.

Over the past few year, many churches in contemporary evangelical Christianity have begun to look at their practices in corporate worship; specifically the use of liturgy in corporate worship. Many others still don’t know what it means or how it would be relevant in their Sunday gatherings. Regardless, most of these churches would probably consider themselves a non-liturgical church. In the purest sense though, any church that has an order of presentation and a way for the congregation to participate can be considered liturgical. Liturgy comes from the Greek word, “Leitourgia” and is literally translated: “the work of people.” When we assemble as a body of believers, our “liturgy” is the work that we do together. In Ancient Greece, before the birth of Jesus, this word referred to the work done by citizens of a community, for the community. Understanding liturgy in this way raises several question for the church:

I. What are our goals for our Sunday gatherings?
II. What has history and tradition taught us about liturgy?
III. What liturgical elements should be included in our corporate worship at The Oaks

Roger Scruton, a well-known British philosopher, suggests that corporate worship is one of the most important indicators of what a church really believes about God. He said, “If you want to know what a people really believe about God, don’t spend time reading their theologians, watch them worship. Listen to what they sing. Listen to what they say. Listen to how they pray. Then you will know what they believe about this God whom they worship.” Our liturgy at our Sunday gatherings will hopefully always reveal our love for God and his glory, our confidence in the gospel of Jesus, and our passion for changed lives through prayer, community and God’s word. Over the next few week we will explore this topic of liturgy and answer some of the common questions that usually accompany such a discussion.