Doxologue

Ok — so you were thinking that this blog was dead!

In April of 2008 (!), Stephen Nichols predicts the “Hymn of the Century.” Thoughts, brothers?

Currently, we take the Lord’s Supper together once a month. We pass out the elements and take them together as a family.

I’m not a fan of taking the Lord’s Supper individually. Jesus instituted the Supper with his disciples corporately. We only see it practiced in the New Testament corporately. It seems best to be me that we celebrate the Lord’s Supper as a body, just as we will celebrate the Marriage Feast of the Lamb as one body.

I don’t think that this poses any tension between emphasizing communion with other believers and communion with Christ. I think that there is ground for saying that at least some aspects of my communion with Christ occur in and with my communion with the body of Christ. When we strip the Lord’s Supper of its corporate setting, we are missing something very important.

Brothers, we are looking at different ways to celebrate the Lord’s Supper at Grace Church. We do it weekly. Lately we have been passing out the elements and taking them, one at a time, together. What other ways have you done it? What do you prefer? Do you prefer approaches that emphasize our communion with each other or our communion with Christ Himself? How do we keep both in tension?

I’d encourage our readers to consider attending The Northbrook Conference, October 13-14 at our church in Cedar Rapids. We’ll be learning about “The Church: Temple of the Holy Spirit or Tower of Babel?” from Jim Hamilton. Should be a great time to learn to be a people for his glory!

Since we are Doxologue (which might be translated “discussions on glory”), I thought I’d link to my sermon last week which outlines the glory of God in the story of redemption. My attempt to remind myself and the church why God does all that he does.

A few helpful links on corporate prayer:

Bob Kauflin posts a corporate prayer of confession from WorshipGod06.

Jim Hamilton discusses corporate prayers, especially prayers of supplication.

David and Kevin, what sort of corporate prayers are incorporated into your congregational worship services?

Readers of Doxologue may want to check out “Covenant Song,” recently published on Reformed Praise.

David, great post on private worship! Thank you for convicting and encouraging us all. I will reply.

I would encourage our readers to check out Al Mohler’s three-part series on Authentic Worship (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). It would be a great conversation starter for a small group or Sunday School class.

I’ll be at the Sovereign Grace worship conference this week in Gaithersburg, MD. God has used these conferences and this group of churches mightily in my life to reform and expand my view of worship and worship music. I have found no other group that is so dedicated to a God-Centered, Cross-Centered, and Word-Centered view of worship AND is dedicated to a passionate expression of worship through music using a wide variety of styles of music in the contemporary orb. In the same service that they might preach a fifty minute expositional sermon on Ephesians 1 and the glorious truth of election, they will have a fifty minute time of intense and God honoring singing, prayer, sharing, and reading.

We are having a special service this Sunday, one in which all of the singing will be done without accompaniment (a capella). We do not believe that this is the only acceptable method of singing to the Lord in worship as some do. Instead, I use servcies like this as a way to remind all of us that the music is not the main thing in worship songs, it is the lyrics and the truth about the Lord conveyed in those lyrics. I do all that I can each week to help people focus on the lyrics instead of just going along for the ride with the songs. Below is the explanation I gave our church in a church-wide email:

Brethren,

As I mentioned during the announcements on Sunday morning, our music will be a little different this Sunday during Gathered Worship. The only music we make will be with our voices, the instruments that we carry with us wherever we go. To help us prepare I have put together a page on our website with audio files you can click on to practice and learn parts.

http://www.redeemerbiblechurch.com/acapella/

The hymns:
#101 Come, Thou Almighty King
#100 Holy, Holy, Holy
#55 To God Be the Glory
#562 All to Jesus I Surrender (The family worship book hymn of the week)
#308 Jesus Paid It All
#731 Doxology

For those who don’t know what the parts mean, Soprano refers to a higher female voice and is the same as the main melody of the song. Alto refers to a lower female voice, Tenor a high male voice, and Bass a low male voice. Don’t worry too much about what part you are, just try to learn one of the parts in your gender that feels comfortable for you. Or if you don’t feel up to the task of learning parts (or if the songs are new to you) then just learn the Soprano part (the melody).

It is my hope that by stripping away all of the accompaniment that we normally use on Sundays the Lord will remind us of what the main instrument is in worship, our voices (and behind our voices, our hearts). I believe in Gathered Worship that the congregation should be the main instrument. That doesn’t mean that the congregation needs to be the only instrument, but that all should feel encouraged, welcomed, and helped to sing (by being able to learn the tunes to songs easily in a way that make them feel comfortable). God has designed texted music to be a means to deliver the truth of its text to our hearts. Unfortunately, we can come to depend too heavily on this music, regardless of the variety of music we use, to make our worship feel “real.” Have you ever visited another church, particularly one that had different music, and thought that you just couldn’t worship God? Or maybe you feel that way at Redeemer. Let me challenge you to think about these things this week in preparation for Sunday and ask the Lord to deepen your understanding of what makes worship acceptable to the Lord and invigorating to your faith. Keep in mind one of my favorite passages about worship and singing, Colossians 3:16

“Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

There are two other things I want to share with you about Sunday.

First, I hope that such a radical change in music once in a while will remind us that the lyrics are the most important part of making music. I want you to feel like the music has been “stripped away” to reveal more clearly the truth of the lyrics and make sure that by focusing on the God described in those lyrics you are focusing on Him, not simply the music. As one popular worship song puts it:

When the music fades
All is stripped away
And I simply come
Longing just to bring
Something that’s of worth
That will bless Your heart
(The Heart of Worship by Matt Redman. To hear the story behind this song see this link: http://www.crosswalk.com/faith/worship_center/1253122.html)

Redman reminds us that we should see our singing as a love offering to the Lord. Recognizing that we are singing for an audience of one will help us to not be self-conscious about our singing, especially on Sunday when we can’t hide behind instruments. God commands believers to sing to Him. And that includes many of you who think that you can’t sing. The Lord looks on the heart, not merely outward appearance (or the musical quality of your voice), so be assured that the Lord can be pleased with your music even if to others it doesn’t sound good. Likewise the Lord is not pleased with singing that is beautiful but that is inconsistent with the disposition of the singer’s heart. As the title of Redman’s song says, it’s about the heart of worship, not the voice of worship.

Second, I hope that you will be blessed on Sunday by hearing the voices of more than 200 believers united in beautiful harmony. Sure, we won’t sound like a polished choir, but we will be able to sing the harmony of these hymns. God has given us harmony as one of the facets of what makes music beautiful and I hope you gain a new appreciation for it.

So practice these hymns and come on Wednesday to prayer meeting where we will sing these hymns together as a warm-up for Sunday. May God grant you a wonderful week of private worship that leads up to a glorious culmination on Sunday as we worship God together!

For Christ and His church
David