Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

Liturgy
The work of the people, the order of worship. The list of things that happen on a Sunday morning. Every church has a liturgy, some simply call it something else. Have you ever thought about what should be included in this list? What should not be included in this list? What does the Bible say about Christian worship? What elements have been included in that “list” since God’s people got together to worship Him in the time of Moses? David? Solomon? Nehemiah? Jesus? Peter? Paul? Augustine? Luther? Calvin? King James the First? John Wesley? Pretty much any Christian worship service until around 1900 when the revival meeting paradigm of preachers like Billy Sunday started to become adopted on Sunday morning, stripping the elements down to music, prayer and preaching. Up until then, there was more to it.

Are we starving our people? Are we careful to articulate the historical, Biblical faith? Are we providing every opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work through our services to build up the believers and reach out to the lost?

Something to Think About
In looking at the liturgies going all the way back through history, it seems to me that there are 15 essential components. 15 elements that have not only been included historically, but should be included for the ongoing health and foundation of any body of believers. I’m going to list them with a brief explanation, I’ll be interested in your comments.

15 Essential Elements:

1. Introit (entrance) - Opening song. Music helps draw us into an attitude of prayer and praise. (Psalm 100:4, Colossians 3:16)

2. Invocation - A call for God to be present with us, specifically the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (Matt 28:19, 18:20, Eph 2:18) Side note: how long can a person attend your church before they know for sure that you believe in the Trinity?

3. Confession/Absolution - We acknowledge that in spite of our sins we are loved and accepted by God, in turn we love and accept each other. (John 1:8-10, Rom 7::14-8:4) We are reminded that if we confess our sins that God is faithful to forgive us and make us clean. (John 20:23) These are words of comfort and hope.

4. Praise songs, hymns, spiritual songs - We sing together as God’s people, thanking Him and giving Him honor. What we sing, we know and believe. Side note: What are we teaching our people through the songs we teach them?

5. Salutation - We greet one another.

6. Reading of Scripture - We are to devote ourselves to the public reading of the Bible, all of the Bible. Law, Prophets, Psalms, History, Gospels, Epistles, OT and NT. (1 Tim 4:13)

7. Hymn or Song of the Day - A song that is specifically tied into the day’s teaching and readings.

8. Sermon - The teaching and application of the scriptures. What God demands of us (Law) and what God does for us through Christ (Gospel).

9. The Creed - The people proclaim their confession of faith and belief with the words of the Nicene or Apostles Creed. (1 Cor 15:1, 1 Pet 3:18, 1 Tim 3:16)

10. Prayers of the People - A time for prayer requests, intercession, and thanksgiving for the congregation, community and nation as well as the whole church. (1 Tim 2:1-2)

11. Offering/Offertory - Gifts, tithes and offerings are a response to God’s blessings. (1 Cor 16:2, Ps 116:12, Ps 51)

12. The Lord’s Prayer - We say the prayer that our Lord taught us to pray. (Matt 6:9, Luke 11:2)

13. The Lord’s Supper - We received the grace and blessing of our Lord through the meal that He instituted on the night of His betrayal. It is a time of thanksgiving, remembrance and examination. (1 Cor 11:23-26, Matt 26:26-28, Mark 14:22-24, Luke 22:19-20, John 1:29)

14. Benediction - The Aaronic blessing, given to Moses to be said to the people as they left worship, through Christ we have been blessed and now we are to be a blessing to the world as we go. (Numbers 6:23-27)

15. Baptism - Any reading of the Great Commission shows us that this is a vital work of the church.

AMEN

With God’s help and blessing we intend to make sure that these elements are included at CrossPoint on a weekly (or monthly) basis. We are asking Him to help us incorporate these important components in ways that are creative, missional, attractional, incarnational, and a natural out-flowing of the mission He has entrusted us with.What are your thoughts? Am I missing anything?

Discussion
- What elements do you think you should add to your church service?
- What elements are not needed?

Origins - Part 2 from crosspt media on Vimeo.

A CALL TO PREACH
A few months ago Pastor Matt asked me if I would be willing to give the message on the 5th of July. He doesn’t know this, but my emotions split in two directions. Part of me jumped up and down with excitement, I went to school 25 years ago to study the Bible and to someday be a pastor/teacher. The desire to stand up in front of a group of people and tell them about Jesus and God’s word has been burning in me for a long time, probably since I was twelve years old. However, another part of me was filled with dread, like I just found out that I would be having major surgery - in front of 1200 people. Pastor Matt and Pastor Bill set the bar really high and the thought of being measured by their standard is daunting. I told him that I would love to give it a shot.

It was a while before the series and topics were solidified. We settled on a series called ORIGINS, a series that would look at several of the stories of people in the Bible and retell their stories with an emphasis on the big theological ideas that they teach us. Once I found out that I was going to be speaking on the subject of Abraham and the covenant I started thinking about how to prepare.

I’m writing this article as a sort of “bonus feature” to the sermon that I delivered on July 5th.

WRITING THE SERMON
The first thing I did was a search the Bible for the word Abraham. I wanted to read every passage in the Bible that mentioned him. He is in a lot of them. I prefer to listen to the Bible, and I have a few audio versions, so I collected all of the passages where he was mentioned and made an iPod playlist. The playlist was about 3 hours long.I would listen to God’s word and make notes. Anything that I found to be interesting. I wasn’t looking for order, I was just writing anything that jumped out at me or occurred to me. Little notes like, “Sarai must have been really beautiful,” and “Abraham never saw much of the promise that God spoke to him.”I had several pages of notes.Then I searched through some blogs and sermon databases of preacher/teachers that I am fond of. I’ll admit it, I listen to sermons on my iPod all the time for fun. Some of my favorites are Doug Wilson, Kemper Crabb, Mark Driscol, Matt Chandler, and Ravi Zacharius. I looked for some messages where they had talked about Abraham and found a few. Pastor Matt also sent me a sermon that he had given on Abraham a few years ago.

By this time I had far more information that I could ever use in one message, and it was time to figure out what I was actually going to say. I asked God to guide me. I thought about our congregation and our community. The message started to take shape. I was going to concentrate on believing God’s promises as we wait in the space between. I was also going to show how the promises given to Abraham were fulfilled in Jesus, and how all Christians are heirs to that promise.

The first draft of the sermon was far too long. I had to simplify, get to the essential center of the message. This meant that some really cool stuff was left on the editing room floor. A sermon is like a short story, you don’t introduce any ideas that are not vital to the big point. A sermon is not a novel, where you can develop sub-plots, minor characters, intricate foreshadowing, etc. Those kind of things are best saved for a Bible study/teaching format.

I had to lose most of the literary exegetical components, even though they were really cool.Here is an example of the kind of things I had to cut. Although they are fascinating and cool, they are not essential to the bottom line of the message I was delivering. Moses wrote the book of Genesis to encourage and instruct the children of Israel while they were wandering in the desert preparing to enter the Promised Land. They followed the presence of God as he appeared to them as a cloud by day and a fire by night. When God appeared to Abraham as a smoking pot - cloud, and a flaming torch - fire, the original audience knew right away that it was God. They saw Him take a similar form every day. In the message I simple say that God appeared to Abraham and passed through the animals to “sign” the covenant for both of them. As soon as you mention the “smoking pot and flaming torch” you have to add ten minutes of explanation, and you run the risk of side-tracking the message.

I also had to condense Abraham’s story. The name change from Abram (Exalted Father) to Abraham (Father of Many/Multitudes) is mostly missing. I mention that Abraham’s name meant “Exalted Father” but that is misleading. The purpose of this message was not to give a chronological account of his life.

In my original draft I didn’t have any personal stories. I’m not saying that every sermon has to have personal stories, but maybe they should. God gives us our lives, and He expects us to share what He gives us with others. On Saturday (before I gave the message on Sunday) I added the portion about my conversion. I think it set up the message and made it stronger, by adding some personal testimony.I went over the message with Pastor Matt Popovits, my friend Rob Camper (Creative Director at CrossPoint), my wife Kim Hart, they helped me find the center of the message and say it clearly. They also helped me know what needed more explanation, what was funny and what was just confusing. I sent the draft to Pastor Bill, and he helped me reword a few places to articulate CrossPoint’s mission more clearly.

PREPARATION TO DELIVER
Finally, I had to prepare to deliver the message. Writing the message is one thing, but in an attractional ministry like ours, the way the message is delivered is half the point. The message has to be delivered in a way that truly engages the congregation. I can’t just stand up there and read my message.I recorded myself reading the sermon. I tried to do it the way I actually wanted it to be “performed.” It took several attempts. I would record it, listen back, make notes about what I thought was terrible, and try again. I came up with some humorous voices and worked on timing.

Eventually, I had a recording that I thought was passable. I listened to this recording until I could say the message word for word along with the recording. I videotaped myself giving the message and tried to think about body language, what to do with my hands, etc. I’m not an expert on these things, I just didn’t want to get in the way of what God wanted to say through me.I formatted by manuscript in blocks with big bold headings. I indented scriptures and highlighted them, anything that I could give myself permission to simply read, so that it was easy to find. I worked with Rob and we came up with some interesting visuals and captions to accentuate what I was saying on the screens. We used images from Bible comic books.

So there you have it. That was my process. Does it seem like a lot for a 30 minute sermon? Maybe it seems like I left something out. I’d be interested in hearing about any techniques that you do (or have heard of) that I didn’t employ.

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the church.  Although the church was born in Jerusalem and was in the earliest days pretty much a Jewish sect God’s actions at Pentecost show clearly where He was leading his church. 

⁵Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. ⁷Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? ⁸Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” ¹²Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

There are times when you read the bible when you read a question like that and you just want to slap the guy.  Dude, how stupid are you if you cant get the point of God talking to everyone in their own language.  The point is - the door is open to everyone. 

So it was on Pentecost Sunday I find myself in church sitting next to a Nigerian family and worshipping alongside Indians, Tamils, Indonesians, Americans, other Africans, Dutch, several English, and another Scot.   We sang songs that we all knew, read from familiar scriptures, and said the Lord’s prayer.  When we greeted each other there were the immediate differences (Nigerians dress well to go to church, often in bright traditional robes, a colorful spectacle) but there was also the peace that comes from shaking the hand of a man you have never met yet somehow you know.  That is what it means to be a Christian, it means knowing the essence of another human being and knowing that human essence is grounded in being a created child of God our Father. 

This week President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor as his choice for the supreme court of the United States.  Much of the talk centered around a quote made by Judge Sotomayor some time ago about the richness of the experience of a Latino woman when compared with others.  There is no doubt a story to tell in that woman’s journey.  Justice Thomas has a similar story and it is eloquently told in his biography “My Grandfather’s Son”.  These are two great American stories but to emphasise them goes against the notion that God teaches us at Pentecost and I think ultimately makes for a poor supreme court justice. 

Pentecost was a time when God got to the heart of the matter and overcame our individual stories and dealt with us in essence.  God said, I don’t care if you are Cretan or and Arab, I am going to deal with you just the same way.  I will demand of you the same and the rewards of heaven will be open to all too. 

I can’t help thinking that bringing our differences to the centre and making them the definition of our humanity makes for bad law and poor judges.  Better instead to behave like God at Pentecost and demand the same from all and let all have access to the riches of grace.