Category Archives: Articles on Worship

Strange Lyre: Conclusion

Strange Lyre: Conclusion

This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

A good theologian once drew me a diagram of the progress of Christian doctrine and Christian history from the apostles to our day. He drew a rather jagged line, with offshoots and branches coming off it. He explained, “The line from the apostles to us today is not a straight one. It includes many errors,… Continue Reading

Cessmaticism: The Strange Hybrid of Contemporary Christian Worship

Cessmaticism: The Strange Hybrid of Contemporary Christian Worship

This entry is part 6 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

We began this series by making the claim that Pentecostalism has quietly (or not so quietly) colonised Protestant worship, even in those churches and groups that explicitly reject Pentecostal theology. We have described the distinctives of Pentecostal worship, not in terms of its views regarding the operation of the charismatic gifts, but in terms of… Continue Reading

The Idols of Intensity and Extemporaneity

The Idols of Intensity and Extemporaneity

This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

A polarized debate goes on between different stripes of Christians over the place of experience in Christianity. One side asserts that experiential faith (what the Puritans used to call “experimental religion”) is fundamental to a living, supernaturally-empowered relationship with Christ. The other side asserts that experiential religion is of passing interest, for spiritual experiences range… Continue Reading

Pentecostal “Praise and Worship”: A Radical Departure from Historic Worship

Pentecostal “Praise and Worship”: A Radical Departure from Historic Worship

This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Christian worship has often had a remarkably similar shape across traditions. Bryan Chapell showed in his work Christ-Centered Worship that corporate worship (sans communion) in Roman, Lutheran, Reformed and Evangelical traditions had a very similar form: a Call to worship, a Kyrie or Confession, followed by Thanksgiving, an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading,… Continue Reading

Early Beginnings of Pentecostal Worship

Early Beginnings of Pentecostal Worship

This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

An easy error for a historian to commit is to equate or link events or movements in history that are similar, while ignoring or underplaying their differences. One example of this is when historians of worship note that modern negative reactions to contemporary pop-rock worship contain similar objections to ones levelled against the hymns of… Continue Reading

Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship

Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship

This entry is part 1 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

It’s hardly disputable that global Christianity has been overwhelmed and colonized by the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. After Roman Catholicism, the Christianity identified variously as charismatic, Pentecostal, Prosperity Gospel, or Latter Rain (with all its permutations and differences) makes up by far the largest percentage of what is classified as Christian. In just over 100… Continue Reading

Discerning the Christian Imagination: Analogies and Proportion

Discerning the Christian Imagination: Analogies and Proportion

This entry is part 7 of 9 in the series Christian Imagination You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

If Christians should grow in their ability to discern superior Christian works of imagination, how should they do this? Must every Christian pursue some kind of music appreciation, literary criticism or aesthetic theory in order to recognise Christian from non-Christian or sub-Christian imagination? Likely not, though no Christian should scorn the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom… Continue Reading

Shapers of Christian Imagination

Shapers of Christian Imagination

This entry is part 6 of 9 in the series Christian Imagination You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

How is Christian imagination shaped? A true but not very helpful answer would be to say, “everything shapes imagination”. Visits to the doctor, watering the garden, schoolwork, housework, trading and every other activity shapes our outlook on reality in small or big ways. But it is also true to say that certain actions imprint the… Continue Reading

The Work of the People

The Work of the People

This entry is part 15 of 15 in the series Fundamentals of Corporate Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

A biblical understanding of the corporate importance of gathered worship should impact everything we do in corporate worship. First, although every church member is a priest with direct access to God, we do need to remember that the Spirit of God does gift different individual Christians in different ways, and he does gift some men… Continue Reading

Sacerdotalism in Contemporary Worship

Sacerdotalism in Contemporary Worship

This entry is part 14 of 15 in the series Fundamentals of Corporate Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

The medieval church suffered from a kind of sacerdotalism that removed worship from the people and made it the worship of priests on behalf of the people. But as we have seen the last couple of weeks, the New Testament clearly identifies all believers as priests who have access to God through Christ by the… Continue Reading

The Work of Ministry

The Work of Ministry

This entry is part 13 of 15 in the series Fundamentals of Corporate Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Last week we saw that since all who are in Christ are priests who are able to draw near and offer sacrifices to God, therefore, all believers should be active participants in worship. But there is a second biblical reason that all believers should actively participate in corporate worship, and it is connected to the… Continue Reading

The Priesthood of All Believers

The Priesthood of All Believers

This entry is part 12 of 15 in the series Fundamentals of Corporate Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

In the year 365 a council of church leadership met in the city of Laodicea to discuss various problems that had arisen in the churches of the region and decide what to do about them. The fourth century was a time of theological controversy and unrest in the church. Church meetings had become disorderly; heretics… Continue Reading

Dialogue with God in Corporate Worship

Dialogue with God in Corporate Worship

This entry is part 11 of 15 in the series Fundamentals of Corporate Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Over the past several weeks I have been developing the biblical idea of the dialogical structure of corporate worship. Historically, church worship services have been designed in such a way to both display and nurture this kind of communion by being structured as a dialogue. God speaks, we respond. God calls us to worship him… Continue Reading

God Speaks, We Respond

God Speaks, We Respond

This entry is part 10 of 15 in the series Fundamentals of Corporate Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Last week we noticed the dialogical structure of worship manifest in the terms “spirit” and “truth” in John 4. So let’s unpack this two-part, dialogical structure of worship. First, God speaks. One of the most remarkable statements Jesus makes in this conversation is what he says at the end of verse 23: “The Father is… Continue Reading

Conclusion: Beauty as Love

Conclusion: Beauty as Love

This entry is part 34 of 34 in the series Doxology: A Theology of God's Beauty You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

In this series, we have considered the meaning of beauty, objections to beauty, and how beauty is to be sought. We’ve answered the objections that beauty is “subjective”, or that it is nothing more than personal preference. We have also found that parallels exist between finding beauty in general revelation, and finding it in special… Continue Reading

Dialogue with God

Dialogue with God

This entry is part 9 of 15 in the series Fundamentals of Corporate Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4 illustrates well the essence of worship with God as a relationship of communion with him. But where this passage helps us further is that it explains the nature of this all-satisfying communion with God. After Jesus uncovers the fact that the woman is seeking for satisfaction in… Continue Reading

In Defense of the Prayer Meeting (Part 2): Its Essential Purpose

In Defense of the Prayer Meeting (Part 2): Its Essential Purpose

This entry is part of 2 in the series In Defense of the Prayer Meeting You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

This series of posts is in defense of the prayer service. In the first post, I offered some important introductory remarks, and laid out the biblical warrant for the prayer service. The second reason to maintain the prayer service is rooted in what the prayer service represents. Namely, the prayer service represents the body of… Continue Reading

Living Water

Living Water

This entry is part 8 of 15 in the series Fundamentals of Corporate Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

For the past several weeks I have been building the case for a biblically-founded theology and practice of corporate worship. The first few posts established the bedrock foundation for all theology and practice of worship, the inspired, inerrant, authoritative, and sufficient Word of God. God’s Word leads us to understand the goal of worship, communion… Continue Reading

The Practices of Correspondent Love

The Practices of Correspondent Love

This entry is part 33 of 34 in the series Doxology: A Theology of God's Beauty You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

The practices, or disciplines of the Christian life function to nurture correspondent love. The disciplines are not themselves the sum and substance of communion with God. Instead, they are the gymnasium, or rather the exercises, that develop and strengthen ordinate love for all of life. The process of experiential communion with God extends to family… Continue Reading

Covenant Renewal in Corporate Worship

Covenant Renewal in Corporate Worship

This entry is part 7 of 15 in the series Fundamentals of Corporate Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

The understanding of the purpose of corporate worship that I have been exploring for the past couple of weeks is this: Corporate worship is communion with God in his temple, or better yet as his temple, the church, which is made possible only through Christ by the Spirit. This understanding has important implications for what… Continue Reading