Raise up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it, teaches Proverbs. For me, this has been the case regarding worship. I was raised a Lutheran, in an older, established congregation belonging to what would become the ELCA, First Lutheran in Minot, ND. I imbibed the ambience of the Lutheran liturgy as most Sundays we used Setting One from the Lutheran Book of Worship, the organist, cantor, and choir leading us in powerful, traditional settings of the Kyrie and Gloria, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei. And the glorious hymnody . . . I still get the chills I felt in childhood when I hear “Lift High the Cross.” The high point was Holy Communion: Congregants would process up, take a small silver chalice from the table, and kneel at the octagonal rail encircling the altar, and receive the elements kneeling. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but my experience of good liturgy shaped me, even as a child, both doctrinally in the ordinary, propers, and hymns, as well as experientially, as I encountered the mystery of God in the ambience of our beautiful worship.

But a funny thing happened on my way through the liturgical forum. I got saved as a teen, after a few years of concerning myself chiefly with hockey and heavy metal and dropping out of confirmation in junior high. In brief, I had a profound healing experience relieving me from a severe depression. From that point on, I began taking my faith very seriously, which was good. While remaining active in my Lutheran congregation, I also began to hang out in Baptist and Pentecostal youth groups, wherein traditional liturgy was often disparaged as “dead ritual” or something similar. Given my mad skills on guitar and bass, honed by hours in my basement memorizing every song Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Ozzy Osbourne ever recorded, I took an interest in what’s called “contemporary worship” right about the time (the early 1990s) many congregations affiliated with mainline denominations of longstanding liturgical tradition were experimenting with worship bands. Obviously we weren’t playing Metallica’s “Creeping Death” when the Old Testament reading concerned the exodus, but we were playing music in my Lutheran church as well as my evangelical churches that was peppy and pleasing, modeled of course after the typical 3:05 pop song.

In recent years, however, while continuing to play in worship bands, I began to become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of “contemporary worship.” As Rich Mullins, to this day one of my heroes, once said, contemporary Christian music is great entertainment, but it doesn’t belong in worship. (Ironic, indeed, coming from the guy who gave us “Awesome God” and “Sometimes by Step.”) I realized I was standing up front, on a stage, cranking hard on a guitar, or a bass, or a trap set, while leading a coffee-clutching congregation in singing lyrics that (as one internet graphic has it) involve “bad metaphors about God that seem oddly sexual.” I came to a point a few years ago where I realized our Sunday morning worship has hardly that at all; it looked and felt much more like a Top-40 pop-rock concert geared toward making an audience feel good than something designed to bring us to an encounter with the Almighty God revealed at Sinai and ultimately in Jesus Christ.

Why did many congregations take this turn? I suspect it involved a shift in the philosophy of religion (itself a subset of other cultural and intellectual currents) that came about in the 1960s and 1970s. Painting with a broad brush, before that time, religion concerned doctrine. After that shift, religion concerned experience. It’s easiest to see, I think, in evangelicalism, but the pattern holds for mainline Protestant and Catholic churches too. In any event, Christian worship became all too captive to culture and undergirded by a reflexive pragmatism.

Form and content are not finally separable, for the medium is indeed the message, or more cautiously, the form affects the content greatly. If our modern forms are emotive and superficial, we will wind up with a vision and experience of God that is emotive and superficial. Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi—how we worship shapes how we believe and thus how we live.

We need not make up worship, for liturgy is something given, something revealed, something objective, not something we concoct out of our own desires or feelings. In broad strokes, Christian liturgy comes from the Old Testament and Jewish culture fulfilled and interpreted by Jesus and the apostles. The liturgy of the Word comes from the liturgy of the synagogue, which involved prayers, Scripture, and preaching. The liturgy of the Eucharist (or Holy Communion, if you prefer) comes from Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper as the fulfillment of temple sacrifice. Of course there are many different rites across the times and spaces Christian history comprises, but they (should) stand in continuity with liturgical tradition going back to Eden, the first temple, and be theologically informed.

Indeed, perhaps the root of recent liturgical malaise is theological. To say “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” as many do, is to say that God is in the eye of the beholder, since traditional Christian theology has identified God and Beauty. As St. Augustine exclaimed, “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!” And so beauty in liturgy will lead us to divine beauty. Beauty is the attractive element of truth, which when revealed delights us, pleasing intellect and soul, and thus in beautiful liturgy we are presented with the truth about God.

This, then, is the way forward, I think, for real evangelism and discipleship. Instead of providing people with an experience with which they’re already familiar from the culture, we ought to aim for liturgy that makes saints, a liturgy not captive to the culture affirming us but liturgy that reaches back ultimately to Eden through the traditions of the Churches, transcending and thus transforming us, giving us a glimpse of heaven, indeed of Beauty himself, ever ancient, ever new.

Leroy Huizenga is Director of the Christian Leadership Center at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Thanks to Cranmer

This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant (Gen 17:10-14).

Both Jews and Muslims in Germany are more than a little concerned about an Appeal Court ruling from Cologne which stipulates that the removal of the foreskins of babies and young boys amounts to bodily injury, and is therefore a violation of German law.

Sweeping aside millennia of religious custom and ritual, the Court has determined that State law in this regard is above God’s law, and that the child’s fundamental constitutional ‘right to physical integrity’ is challenged by the parental fundamental right to freedom of religion.

In cutting the boy, they reason, he is denied the freedom to choose his religion, because the outward change to his body and permanent. This is not, of course, the case with Christian baptism, which is also usually inflicted on babies, but a sprinkling of water on the forehead is not deemed to have enduring effects on sexual pleasure later in life. This Higher Court ruling expresses the view that the boy should have the freedom to choose whether or not to be circumcised when he reaches the age of majority and there is informed consent; that he is born with the right to ‘physical integrity’ which nobody should be permitted to take away (other than for acute medical reasons).

The verdict has some specific context, but the precedent has far-reaching implications. The case involved a four-year-old Muslim boy who suffered serious bleeding after undergoing a botched procedure. His mother took him to the emergency unit at Cologne University Hospital, and state prosecutors subsequently charged the doctor who had performed the operation.

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From Stand Firm with thanks to

Reading and praying this morning, I was arrested by the lesson from Numbers 16:

…and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Get away from this congregation, so that I may consume them in a moment.” And they fell on their faces. Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, put fire on it from the altar and lay incense on it, and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them. For wrath has gone out from the LORD; the plague has begun.” So Aaron took it as Moses had ordered, and ran into the middle of the assembly, where the plague had already begun among the people. He put on the incense, and made atonement for the people. He stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stopped. (vv. 44-48)

Aaron reminds us that Jesus is our High Priest, standing between us and the judgment our race goes out of its way to merit.  Incense represents a pleasing offering to God, and only the perfect offering of Christ on the cross can make up for the way we live life on our own terms rather than as an offering to our Creator.  Incense also symbolizes prayer, and Jesus is the High Priest who “…is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”  (Hebrews 7:25 ESV)

After offering the morning “Suffrages” (a short litany for the church and the world), I found myself praying them again later, with that picture of Christ standing between those who will draw near to God through him and the many plagues that are upon us in this fallen world.  I prayed something like this:

Show us your mercy, O Lord;  And grant us your salvation.
Jesus, stand betwen our self-centered, sin-enthralled race and the judgment we deserve.

Clothe your ministers with righteousness; Let your people sing with joy.
Jesus, stand between all the flaws and falsehood in our churches and the rejection we deserve.

Give peace, O Lord, in all the world; For only in you can we live in safety.
Jesus, stand between our corruption of your creation and the disasters that afflict us through it.

Lord, keep this nation under your care; And guide us in the way of justice and truth.
Jesus, stand between this abundantly blessed yet ungrateful nation and the calamity we risk.

Let your way be known upon earth; Your saving health among all nations.
Jesus, stand between misguided peoples and the spiritual forces that deceive them.

Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten; Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.
Jesus, stand between suffering people and the despair that can engulf them.

Create in us clean hearts, O God; And sustain us with your Holy Spirit.
Jesus, stand between our flesh and the “second death” it courts.

Churches fret and strive about so much – too much, really.  If we neglect the proclamation of the true High Priest, the only one who can stand in mercy between humanity and unsparing divine justice, we are truly disposable.  Plague infested, toxic waste.

May we be thankful that he lives and stands in prayer for us.

From Christian Today

A new Global Charter has been issued by academics and activists to uphold the right to freedom of thought, conscience and belief enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The drafting of the Global Charter of Conscience was overseen by English author and critic, Dr Os Guinness, and German sociologist, Dr Thomas Schirrmacher.

They hope that the document will bring religious tolerance back to the centre of public debate and safeguard the freedom of future generations to engage in public life.

The document calls for a public square that maximises freedom for all and asks people to have respect for those with differing views.

In one section, it appeals to religious believers and secularists to “acknowledge the excesses and at times evils of their respective positions, and commit themselves to an equal regard for the rights of all who differ from them in their ultimate beliefs”.

Read here

27 June 2012

Fr Gavin

When trawling the net today I was distressed to find apiece on the imminent name change of the USPG.  On reading I was intrigued by the lines that state  ‘No doubt this name worked well in its day, but words like “propagation” are simply out-dated in the twenty-first century. So it was time for a change’.  The rationale for the change goes like this:

“Our new name, Us, is directly derived from USPG, so it speaks to our heritage, but it also speaks about inclusivity. There is no “them”; we are all “us”. Our work – in partnership with the churches of the Anglican Communion – is for the benefit of the whole community, regardless of ethnicity, culture, gender, sexuality, age or faith. No-one is excluded…more’”

Well it seems that this early part of the 21st C is all about change, but perhaps a little history is needed.

1701

The Revd Dr Thomas Bray founded the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) in 1701. Dr Bray’s aim was to send priests to American to provide English colonists with access to the worship of the Church of England. SPG missionaries also sent school teachers and took the gospel to slaves and native Americans.  From USPG website,

It then seems to me that at its very root the society existed to promote/propagate the Gospel specifically.  So the removal from its name of such a key concept cannot be just a name change.  It seems to me to be symptomatic of the modern christian church that is too scared to declare anything as unique and true about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  All of “Mission and Vissi9n” processes seem to have robbed us of the very clear mission in the New Testament ” Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inthe name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Mtt 28:19-20.

As we in FCA Southern Africa seek God’s guidance on the planting of new churches and how to train leaders for that very commission of Mtt 28, it seems so sad to me that other mission societies are dropping that imperative to spread the Gospel.  As one reads about the new name “Us” – United Society, one cannot help noticing that Us is very self centered – again we dare not have something that is good and precious to us that we might want to’ share’  for fear of appearing superior, paternalistic or even colonialist.

As we see more and more trusted mission societies being gently converted into societies of the UN Millennium Development Goals, please remember to pray that the church of Jesus Christ will always still find enough labourers for the harvest we are called to bring into the Lords House.

June , 2012

Phillip Jensen
June 24th, 2012

There is no joy in hell.

Its very existence reassures us of ultimate justice. Where else can the victims of the Holocaust find justice? But justice is little comfort when we consider hell’s horror.

Hell is such a horrible concept that sensitive souls want to recoil from even considering it. Denying its existence can even be called a godly heresy. Godly -  in that God does not enjoy the death of a sinner and nor should we (Ezekiel 18:23,32; 33:11, 1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9); but – a heresy none the less because the scriptures teach the reality of judgement and hell (Matthew 7:13, 21-23; 10:28).

Much of what horrifies people about hell is the vivid and imaginative presentation of it by preachers, artists and writers. When confronted by scary pictures, some people close their eyes while others bravely make fun and laugh at them. So we have the Christians who cannot so much as think of hell and the non-Christian who will parody the whole notion portraying Satan with horns and tail, pitchfork and opera cape, or boasting, with more bravado than sense, of sharing a beer and a joke with all their mates down there.

Both responses make speaking on hell difficult. On the one hand the preacher is accused of insensitively using manipulative scare tactics and on the other hand he is ridiculed for believing in childish ghost stories. But it is our Lord Jesus himself who used hell in his preaching, so we must not – and cannot – leave it out of our declaration of the whole counsel of God.

So what do we know about hell? The Bible itself spends very little time describing or even mentioning hell. The word only occurs 12 times in the Bible, all in the New Testament, all but once on the lips of Jesus. Based on usage of the word ‘hell’, there is only one hell fire preacher in the Bible – and that is our Lord Jesus Christ.

The word itself referred to the valley of the sons of Hinnom, close to and outside Jerusalem. The valley had been used for human sacrifices to Molech but was intentionally ‘defiled’ in Josiah’s reforms (2 Kings 23:10, 2 Chronicles 28:3, 33:6). The prophets (Isaiah 30:31-33, Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5-6, 32:35) spoke of it as the valley of slaughter and of its fire and vermin as the final end place and destruction of the wicked.

The descriptions of hell are usually minimal but involve fire, corpses and vermin (Isaiah 66: 24, Mark 9:43, 48, Matthew 18:8 James 3:6). Other parts of the New Testament speak of the final state of judgement in terms of outer darkness, weeping and gnashing teeth, destruction, and second death. However, eternal fire is an image of God’s prepared punishment for the devil and his angels, to which sinful humans can be cast (Matthew 25:41, Revelation 14:10, 20:10).

While the word ‘hell and any descriptions of it are used sparingly in the Bible, retributive punishment is widely taught and illustrated. Such punishment is not limited to this world and lifetime only; for both judgement after death and life after death are clearly taught in scripture. (Isaiah 66:22-24, Hebrews 9:26-28). Indeed the very concept of “the resurrection” is one of judgement as well as eternal life beyond the grave (Matthew 10:28, Luke 14:14, John 5:28-29, Acts 17:31). Both this life and judgement are talked of as ‘eternal’ (Matthew 25:46). The permanence of this judgement is emphasized in Jesus’ parable (Luke 16:19-31), as well as Paul’s language of “eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

Jesus teaches us about hell to warn us of behaviour that would take us there. In Matthew 5:22 he speaks of hating and despising our brother in such fashion as to be liable to the hell of fire. And in Matthew 5:29, 18:9 and Mark 9:43-47, he portrays the horror of hell in such terms that it would be better to lose and eye or a hand than ever to be thrown there. In Matthew 10:28 and Luke 12:5 he warns us to be more fearful of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell rather than the one who can only kill the body.

Whatever we do or do not know about the details of hell, it is clear from Jesus’ teaching that it is so terrible and terrifying that we should do all in our power to avoid it.

Our hatred of hell is but a pale reflection of God’s detestation of its terrors. It is why he responded to Amos’ prayers by holding back the judgement that was coming on Israel (Amos 7:2-6) and why his heart recoiled within him when faced with destroying Israel (Hosea 11:8f). It is this compassion of God that even now means he patiently endures sinfulness to give time and opportunity for us to repent (Romans 2:4f, 2 Peter 3:9f). And even more, it is God’s compassionate desire that none should perish, which moved him to give his only Son that we should not perish at all but have eternal life (John 3:16); and it is because of his Son’s similar compassionate desire that Christ Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:4-6).

Hell is a horrible topic but we must not avoid thinking about it or preaching it, for it is the basis of seeing not only the ultimate justice of God but more importantly the greatness of our God’s compassion and saving work in Jesus.

There is no joy in hell but that is why there is such joy in heaven over every sinner that repents (Luke 15).

Feature photo: peterjr1961

The Renewed Pastor (edited by Melvin Tinker, Mentor, 2011), a book of essays in honour of the pastoral ministry of the Revd Philip Hacking, is worth buying purely for the chapter on The Pastor at Prayer.

Written by the Revd Peter Lewis, Senior Pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Church, Nottingham, it is a timely reminder that the best quality expository preaching is nothing worth if delivered by a prayerless pastor. In the light of the fact that the Revd Hacking’s ‘long-stay’ parochial ministry in Fulwood, south-west Sheffield, was powered by faithful intercessory prayer for individuals, the Revd Lewis superbly explains the spiritual necessity of prayer for effective pastoring:

God’s work in people is not easily done: we are not puppets, we are moral agents. Prayer takes time to work because God takes time to work in all of us. He has to work against much ignorance and many prejudices; against fears, inconsistencies and follies. God’s work in people is a delicate, complex and very special one. It is remarkable that He offers to share that work with us and asks us to work with Him. This is a very great privilege. It involves much faith and prayer, much thoughtfulness and consistent living on our part.

Given the indispensability of intercessory prayer for Christ-honouring pastoral ministry, it is surely not unreasonable to conclude that a pastor who does not spend as much time interceding for individuals as he does in sermon preparation is wrongly motivated. He is, to quote the aphorism, in love with preaching; he is not loving people, neither the found nor the lost.

In short, he is going on an ego-trip.

This is a sobering warning for those of us schooled in rigorous expository preaching as an antidote to past evangelical pietism.

The Revd Lewis’s excellent chapter is rather spoiled by the appendix. He tells an anecdote about a prayerful missionary to whom God reportedly revealed his intention to use a specific individual to evangelise Nepal: -

this was a case of a given assurance, a prophetic revelation of God’s Spirit, and it was given to a man of prayer. God does not tell His secrets to those who only drop in for a chat.

The problem with such a view of prayer is that it can lead to competitive legalism. Up your intercessory prayer hours and you’ll get privileged inside information from on high denied to others. That can unfortunately be used an excuse for prayerlessness by modern pastors wanting to emphasise the dangers of past evangelical legalism.

Cranmer’s Curate is inspired and humbled by the example of Ephaphras whose pastoral prayer Paul commends in his letter to the Colossians:

He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured (Colossians 4v12 – NIV).

What a man! And, significantly in the context of Colossians, Paul says nothing about him being told secrets.

Diocese of Central Florida no longer interested in leasing

By Scott Gunnerson
FLORIDA TODAY
http://www.floridatoday.com
A church congregation north of Cocoa completed its split with an Episcopal diocese in 2007 following a national feud in the Episcopal church over the Bible and sexuality.

The Glory of God Anglican Church bought the property the congregation has worshiped at since the 1960s from the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida for $875,000, according Beatrice Sorensen, church administrator.

The diocese had informed the church it was no longer interested in leasing the property at 3735 Indian River Drive, which was the site of Gloria Dei Episcopal Church before the amicable split.

In 2003, the Episcopal Church, a U.S. wing of the Anglican faith, became divided when the first openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, was consecrated.

Individual parishes left The Episcopal Church, and 115,000 people left the denomination between 2003 and 2005, at least one-third was attributed to parish conflicts over the consecration. Traditionalists said they believed gay partnerships violate Scripture.

The gay bishop issue was a symptom of a larger problem for the congregation of the former Gloria Dei Episcopal Church, but they wanted to remain Anglican because of their love of Scripture and desire to stay historical to the faith.

“We wanted to remain faithful Anglicans as we saw it,” said the Rev. Paul Young, a Convocation of Anglicans in North America priest. “We want to remain faithful to the Christian historical roots, and really that is anchored in Scripture for us.”

Glory of God wants to be relevant to today’s culture and stand on timeless, mainstream Christian faith, according to its website.

“The reason most of the parishes that did leave and remained Anglican under different branches would be the love of Scripture and staying historical to the faith,” said Young, who has led the congregation since 2005.

Jeff Marshall, who is an elder at Glory of God, was dismayed at how the denomination changed from what he was taught when he joined the Episcopal church.

“When I was received into the church, I didn’t realize the church was turning its back on the things it had been teaching for a really long time,” said Marshall, who was raised in a Southern Baptist church.

Glory of God’s average Sunday attendance has dropped to 80 people, compared with 130 before the split five years ago, but the congregation remains active.

“Our core membership is highly involved in the church,” said Sorensen, who joined the church with her family as a teenager in 1992. “The people that are here now really want to be here and are involved and participating.”

Marshall credits the enthusiasm to a rekindled missionary tradition in the congregation of Anglicans.

“It has caused us to recapture the missionary spirit that took Anglicanism all around the world initially,” Marshall said. “We in North America have somehow lost that missionary spirit.”

END

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