In this series, I hope to highlight the benefits of certain worship practices that are sometimes missing from the free-worship traditions. I do not mean to patronize those already doing so; I hope to show how a wise use of these practices can only improve the worship we offer God. A Call to Worship is often… Continue Reading
The singing of psalms has all but disappeared from many congregations, unless you count the “As the Deer” chorus as a singing of a psalm. (Lifting the first line from a psalm and adding words about your desire to eventually worship generally doesn’t count.) One cannot help feeling that many congregations treat their hymnal as… Continue Reading
Our fathers had much to say about stillness, and by stillness they meant the absence of motion or the absence of noise or both. They felt that they must be still for at least a part of the day, or that day would be wasted. God can be known in the tumult of the world… Continue Reading
I can’t imagine that readers of this blog attend churches where the Scriptures are never read during corporate worship. However, we may find that many attend churches where the reading of Scripture is not practicedas an end in itself. In many churches, the Scriptures are read simply before the sermon, or to preface the sermon, as… Continue Reading
In 1880 J.S. Curwen wrote Studies in Worship Music, an attempt to study the psalms and hymns sung throughout English churches of the time. The final third of the book records Curwen’s eye-witness accounts of the churches he visited. The following are some excerpts from his visit to the Metropolitan Tabernacle. “Mr. Spurgeon evidently takes delight… Continue Reading
In the free worship tradition, almost nothing is as frowned upon as the idea of prayers that are read or planned. These are seen as the embodiment of vain repetitions, and a clear sign of dead formalism and mindless liturgicalism. For years, I thought that unrehearsed, spontaneous, off-the-cuff prayers demonstrated how very real our connection… Continue Reading
Finishing worship well is as important as beginning it that way. Just as a call to worship consecrates the time for worship, so a benediction allows the last word to be God’s blessing and exhortation to His people to continue worshiping as they depart. There is biblical precedent for this. Almost all the epistles end… Continue Reading
“My faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed.” So goes the hymn, and if taken over-literally, we might agree. Our faith does not rest in a creed, or even in propositions that explain the gospel. Our faith rests upon the person and work of Jesus Christ, which the propositions of the… Continue Reading
When we select the songs and hymns for corporate worship, there are plenty of weak, cowardly, and even evil reasons to motivate our choices: sheer familiarity, a pledge of allegiance buy cialis 10mg to a certain tribe within Christianity, a desire to attract or placate certain constituencies in the church, or the desire to appear… Continue Reading
A hymn to complete another hymn, or a hymn to complete a section of worship, is how we might think of singing the Doxology, or the Gloria Patri. The Doxology known to most Protestants was composed by Thomas Ken in the 17th century, and a common version of the Gloria Patri was composed by Charles… Continue Reading
Artworks are valued for what they do but not for any immediate function. Art is far from “useless,” even though its distinctive value is realized only when it serves no immediate function, when the viewer or listener gives up any immediate self-centered demands on the work and, instead, gives him- or herself up to the… Continue Reading