Category Archives: Worship

Don’t forget the Ascension

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Christian discipleship has a lot to do with locating yourself in the story of God. One of the ways that the Church has done this is through the Church calendar–taking time to place ourselves in the narrative of God’s redemptive work in Christ. There are other stories of which we are a part, but none is deeper or more important than the story of God’s reconciling the world to himself.

For low church evangelical protestants the temptation is to reduce this redemptive story to two movements, or even one as we’re pressured by the culture in which we live to mark time according to a different calendar–one where some of the holidays have the same name, but have very different meanings poured into them.

The Christian calendar (outside of strictly liturgical churches) often gets reduced to Christmas and Easter. If we’re honest, Christmas edges Easter out. Easter itself is often reduced to Maundy Thursday (if you’re lucky) and Easter Sunday, rather than the Triduum that the Church has historically celebrated (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday). True reflection on the work of Christ on the cross seems quite difficult absent three days to consider in community.

We rarely pause moreover to consider the significance of the Ascension to the story of God. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells his disciples that unless He leaves them the “comforter” (“counselor,” “advocate”) cannot come to them. He is speaking, of course, of the Holy Spirit.

Were it not for the Ascension, we would be without help and without a deep and living connection to the Godhead through the Holy Spirit.

Christine Sine offers a reflection on the Ascension by guiding us through the words of several liturgies used to celebrate this important day in the life of the faith.

Consider preparing for Ascension Day by reading and reflecting on the word of God.

From the Acts of the Apostles (9.11f., Phillips):

When he had said these words he was lifted up before their eyes till a cloud hid him from their sight. While they were still gazing up into the sky as he went, suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them and said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking up into the sky? This very Jesus who has been taken up from you into Heaven will come back in just the same way as you have seen him go.

And Jesus’ own words in the Gospel of John (16.7):

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.

Consider this liturgy from the Reformed tradition:

Our God goes up with shouts of joy!

Our Lord ascends to the sound of trumpets!
All: Sing praises to our God, sing praises!
Sing praises, sing praises to our King!
The Almighty rides in triumph.
The Almighty leads captivity captive.
Who shouts for joy? Who blows the trumpet?
The hosts of heaven sing the honor of his name;
they praise him with an endless alleluia.

-David Diephouse, Calvin College

Thanks be to God! Amen.

The beauty of hymns

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First Presbyterian Church hosted Matthew Smith and Indelible Grace in concert last week. I’ve appreciated their music for quite a while finding in it a healthy reformed spirituality that makes my heart sing.

Over the length of my sojourn with Christ, I have found that the lyrics of many contemporary expressions of Christian devotion leave me feeling unmoved since their view of God seems to be both shallow and rooted in the first person experience of the writer/singer. In other words, we sing about how we are feeling about God in the moment. The problem for me comes when (every week) the words being used to describe my experience of God in the moment actually fail to capture my experience of God in the moment. Perhaps it’s an inadequate analogy, but I it seems to me that the healthiest expressions of my love for my wife come not in my finding words for the experience of my in-love-ness, but in describing those attributes and characteristics of her that cause me to love her and to have committed myself to her for life. The focus ought to be the object of affection rather than the experience of affection itself.

To be sure, not all contemporary songs fall into this trap. Many, however, do. I have found that the words of the hymn writers of yesteryear often capture more of God’s character and His attributes, the very things that cause me to love Him. These works often also focus on the saving works of God both in the life of individuals and in the life of the invisible church.

Consider the first two stanzas of Charitie Lees Smith’s 1863 hymn (as rendered in C. H. Spurgeon’s Our Own Hymn Book):

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong and perfect plea;

a great high priest whose name is Love,

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

 

My name is graven on His hands,

My name is written on His heart;

I know that, while in heaven He stands,

No tongue can bid me thence depart.

 

My point isn’t to create a battle between contemporary expressions of devotion to God and older expressions. I simply want to point out that in my own experience there is something deeply comforting about finding a connection with the saints who have gone before, who have experienced God’s covenant faithfulness in a world where their lived experience was significantly more difficult than my own. For this reason, I’m grateful for artists like Matthew Smith and Brian Moss who have given new expression to timeless truth!

 

 

Church as a pub?

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I have been reading several books on missional theology lately including Hirsch and Frost’s, The Shaping of Things to Come. The book came to mind when I read this article about a new church development (PCUSA-eze for a church plant) in Oregon.

For those who didn’t read the article, let me give you an overview of Common Table Public House in Bend, Oregon. Here’s a section from the article:

That call [to reach 18-35 year olds in a highly secular city], in the case of Bend, has taken the form of the Common Table Public House. Its mission: ‘Feed all people, cherish the earth and pursue awareness.’ Hospitality, welcome and action are at the heart of this ministry experiment that serves people daily, in the form of food and drink, and monthly with a shared meal and faith gathering.

‘We are trying to be a place, to use the cliché, that earns the right to be heard — more than that, that earns the right to have the privilege of people joining you and trusting you that you are a safe place where they can be authentic, tell their story and participate.’

The traditional north American model for church planting usually involves getting a core group of people from a sending church, funding and permission from a presbytery, a place to meet, an organizing pastor, and setting out to hold worship services and attract people from the community to the new church.

There are places in the country where this model still works in the sense that is produces a sustainable congregation. However, it’s uncertain as to whether this model works terribly well for people in the 18-35 age range.

A presupposition in this model is that people in the community see a need for being part of a congregation that is centered on regular public worship. This presupposition is largely not shared by the emerging post-Christian generation of Americans.

According to Frost and Hirsch (The Shaping of Things to Come) this new reality requires a new response. Instead of planting churches in the traditional sense, they call for new ways of being church that involve being sent into the community to interact with the folk we’re called to serve.

Common Table is an example of the model they’re arguing for. It creates a space in which Christ followers can authentically interact with those who are not yet Christians. It is in the community rather than seeking to extract from the community.

Many would look at Common Table and not see anything that vaguely resembles a church. I look at it and see something fundamentally healthy and biblical about a gathering of people, many of whom are Christians, into a relational matrix centered in table fellowship. If Common Table is a centered-set group–focused and centered on following Jesus and drawing others closer to Him, then it’s a church. And its something we will likely see more of as our culture gradually becomes alienated from the traditional practice of church since the 19th century.

For an overview of missional church see Columbia Seminary President Steve Hayner’s article, “The Shaping of Things to Come” here.

Review: Eugene Peterson, The Pastor [1 of 2]

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Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. 320pp.

I just returned from a three day retreat on which I read Eugene Peterson’s memoir, The Pastor. I first encountered Peterson while in seminary. He had something of a cult following amongst certain students who seemed read everything he’d ever written and who, at the time, struck me as little odd in the extent of their devotion.
I have since come to find in Peterson’s writing a sanity that is helpful at the times I most despair of my vocation. In fact, it was The Contemplative Pastor that called me out of law school and back into the church, actually the parachurch, having almost abandoned pastoring before I even began.
I appreciate Peterson, but I don’t consider myself a fanboy. To this day, The Contemplative Pastor is his only book that really has connected with me in any significant way. I appreciate the magnitude of the task, but I’ve never really liked The Message. Peterson’s is a unique prose style, which can at times be laborious. I suppose he’s much like his pastor-theologian mentor Karl Barth. Enough of the dialectic already.
Nowhere is this more evident than in The Pastor. At the end of the book, Peterson admits that memoir is not a genre that comes naturally to him. I agree. In many ways this book feels unnatural, forced. After all, I’d say that each of his books is a memoir (something that can be observed in the pages of The Pastor where we meet the circumstances of life and ministry that brought each work into being).
The book at times gets a little preachy. Ironic, perhaps, since Peterson has such an aversion to the God talk that he claims marks many of his fellow clergy. It’s almost as if he’s trying just a little too hard to convince his contemporary pastor-readers of the folly of their ways. Would that they (we) would hear and heed him! However, at times I found myself thinking: “Easy Eugene. I got it: you don’t like numbers…people are souls. Yep, let’s move on.”
There is, however, pure gold in The Pastor. Writing about his “company of pastors,” fellow clergy he met with weekly for more than twenty years:
…we were tired of letting people who were not pastors tell us what we should or should not be doing as pastors. The sociologists and the academics, the psychologists and business executives, the talk-show gurus and religious entrepreneurs had all had their say about us long enough.
I remember reading the LinkedIn profile of a former pastor. It read, “non-profit management professional.” My heart sank. Perhaps this man was seeking a way to exit pastoral ministry, I don’t know. It may be that he thought that this was the closest “secular” description of his work. He might have a point.
There are so many things about the work of a pastor that are secondary that we make primary. Peterson excels in calling pastors to the heart of their vocation: living life with their congregations and guiding them in the Jesus-shaped life. That’s pastoring. Not every pastor will be as fortunate as Peterson in shaping their life and work. It takes a lot of discipline to emulate Peterson’s “unbusy pastor.” I’m not even sure the extent to which Peterson himself succeeded. Where he succeeds, and I suppose it has been the mark of his ministry, is in helping us imagine what it could look like and that is no small thing.
More on that later.

I miss Ash Wednesday!

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Today is Ash Wednesday, the day that (for Christians) marks the beginning of our 40 day (excluding Sundays) journeytoward Easter.

I have come to love Lent because it gives the gift of focus and, indeed, of anticipation. After all, the events of Easter unfolded because of God’s deep love for his creation that is wracked by sin.

I have come to love Lent because it gives the gift of focus and, indeed, of anticipation. After all, the events of Easter unfolded because of God’s deep love for his creation that is wracked by sin.

For the first time in many years, I’m not at home for Ash Wednesday and its proving to be profoundly disorienting! In general, my practice is to avoid traveling on important periods of the church calendar. For it is especially at those times that we are meant to be with family, the household of God. But, this year I am attending a conference in Colorado Springs. I don’t have a car and I my day is pretty packed with meetings, seminars, and some time with God in solitude. And it’s in that time of solitude that I’ll be forced to try to turn my heart and mind to reflection on my great need for a savior and God’s greater provision in Christ.