Finally

...something I can respond to without having to dig out my Martin Buber or Kierkegaard. Yes, it's a show, Nat, like any presentation that takes planning and rehearsal. Every church service I've been to has been that. It's what the show is about that matters. This is one where the focus is on Jesus Christ with overt corporate worship of Him and proclamation of Holy Scripture. It's not the same as a Rolling Stones concert or a local theater production or an infomercial.

Marilyn

P.S. It was very brave of you to ask that question.

...one mo'...

Here's a bold question - and I may not like the answers, but answer anyway:

Is the worship service at the Chapel Hill Bible Church a Show?

"Expectation"

That's a key word, Caleb. "Expectation" can be a wonderfully advantageous yet potentially dangerous thing. For example, if we have high expectations of our spouse or a friend or some other close relationship, and those expectations aren't met, we are very frustrated (they are human, after all). Expectations in the context of corporate worship are similar, and could manifest themselves in a couple of different ways (or more, but I'll mention two opposing ones). We could come expecting The Show up front to be top-notch, first-rate, and something that makes us "feel" a certain way, perhaps without us having to do a whole lot. We could also come expecting that God is going to do something today: meet us; speak truth to us; convict us; shower comfort, mercy, forgiveness, joy, love upon us. Sometimes (not always) I feel that more people fall into the first category than the second.

Why is it that many do not expect God to do anything when we meet to worship? Is there something we the leadership are (or aren't) doing that is preventing either God from moving or people from expecting Him to...or both??

Back to ya, Hodson

I really love your point about doing things together that cannot be done alone. That is something to truly consider. A certain Bible Church pastor's wife once told me a similar thing: that something different happens when we are all worshipping together than when we are alone. I interpret that as God doing something different, revealing Himself in a unique way, when we are gathered as a worshipping community.
I think we often forget that we really are a community of worshippers, not just in theory, but in actuality, and whether we feel like it or not. That's why, Caleb, I am glad to hear you say that knowing you are surrounded by other worshippers -- people gathered for presumably the same purpose -- is "extremely powerful" to you! How many times have we heard (or said!) "I didn't get anything out of worship today" or "I'm not really ever fed by [so-and-so's] sermons"?? I think We the Congregation would do well to have the attitude of "What is God going to do in our midst this morning?!" or "I pray that God works mightily in our community this morning". Certainly, Getting Myself Fed is something that happens on my own, thus I think corporate worship should serve a different, much broader purpose.
Thanks again, Caleb. Well said. Don't move to Connecticut.

Greetings Nat, Keith, Marilyn, Caleb, Debbie, Michelle, Gelin and Walker.

Thank you so much for your participation in the first meeting. I marvelled at how each person had a unique perspective or sensitivity that I have a hunch will lead to a very vibrant and colorful group. Many things were said, but these are some of the gems that I remember;

Michelle: Her prayer for us not to be "earnest" trying to do things by our own strength, but to surrender. I like the picture of us all coming up with great ideas of how things could and should be and then praying to God..."We cannot, but you can..."

Gelin: I just loved just listening to the sound of his voice, and the references to the first church. I like the idea of going to God's word and really understanding what was important to the first worshipers.

Debbie: Her sensitivity to the many who love the Church, have things to say but could potentially feel voiceless. It reminded me how important it was to ask for God to put in all our hearts a real love for the body and a heart to serve.

Caleb: ...awesome....the encouragement to see worship as a "way of life", every day, minute, second...I want to talk more about this.

Marilyn: A much needed sense of humor, bold and gentle prayers.

Thanks to all.

"Free-Flowing Praise": Psalm 95

Hey.

I have a book called The New Worship: Straight Talk on Music and the Church by a guy named Barry Liesch. In Chapter Three, he refers to a five-phase pattern of worship developed by Vineyard pastors John Wimber and Eddie Espinosa back in the 80's. [I think the intended context was corporate worship, but perhaps one should not rule out its potential usefulness in personal devotional time.] The five phases of their sequence are (1) invitation, (2) engagement, (3) exaltation, (4) adoration, and (5) intimacy.

They use as their basis the first seven verses of Psalm 95:

Invitation
Come, let us sing for joy to the lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation, (v. 1)

Engagement
Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. (v. 2)

Exaltation
For the lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. (vv. 3-5)

Adoration
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the lord our Maker; (v. 6)

Intimacy
For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. (v. 7)


While I am quite wary of formula or prescription (though I don't see this as such), I believe that there is validity to this model and sequence. It has a natural rhythm to it. It should be noted that they did not develop this "system" and then plan their corporate worship accordingly, but rather, this pattern was an outgrowth of what was already happening (further proof that theory should always follow practice, not the other way around). And while we at the Bible Church do not rigidly follow a particular format or liturgy, there are times when I as a worship planner admittedly don't know where to start!! This is helpful in giving a modicum of biblical example/motivation/kick-start to designing a worship service in our paradigm.

By the way, if you'd like to check out Chapter Three in its entirety, click here.

Next Meeting

August 28 works for me.

Marilyn

this is only a test...

hi, nat. how are you? i'm fine -- thank you for asking. i'll see you around town, dawg.

==> n

Hello team/committee/group members,
Whether we identify ourselves as the Worship Support Team, Support Committee
for the Corporate Worship of the Chapel Hill Bible Church or People for the
People, I am thankful that we will have this opportunity to serve one
another and the body of the Chapel Hill Bible Church. May we humbly
continue.
I have a few thoughts to share with you, since our departure.
•Should we prayerfully consider having a representative of the 50/60+ cohort
group join this team?
•I forgot to give you all copies of the following two short essays. This
may be something for the Blog site, but thought to send it now. So, I’ll
recycle the paper and give it to you to print yourselves, if you desire.
Until later,
Peace to you
~debbie
_______________________________________________________________________________
A SINGING FAITH
Authentic Christian faith is not merely believed. Nor is it merely acted
upon. It is sung-with utter joy sometimes, in uncontrollable tears
sometimes, but it is sung. "Words and music did for me what solid, even
rigorous, religious argument could never do, they introduced me to God, not
belief in God, more an experiential sense of GOD"- that's the way Bono, lead
singer of the band U2, puts it.
What is it about singing that takes us beyond mere belief or behavior?
Think of singing as a language that allows us to embody our love for our
Creator. Song is a means he has given us to communicate our deepest
affections, to have our thoughts exquisitely shaped, and to have our spirits braced for the boldest of obedience’s. Through music, our God draws
us deeper into a love affair with himself.
- Reggie Kidd, from WITH ONE VOICE: DISCOVERING CHRIST'S SONG IN OUR WORSHIP, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, forthcoming in October 2005. ISBN: 0801065917. For more information on Dr. Kidd and WITH ONE VOICE, visit www.rts.edu/kidd.

[WITH ONE VOICE has helped me to understand more deeply that our songs of
faith resonate most fully, most Christianly, when believing communities draw
on the strengths of high culture, folk culture, and popular culture. As I
grow in intimacy with the Savior, I see more clearly the joys and blessings
of deferring to the needs and aesthetic preferences of my brothers and
sisters within the body of Christ. Highly recommended.]
Have a great week,
Chip Stam
______________________________________________________________________________
Sometimes we must think that ours is the first generation to struggle with
style issues in Christian worship. Not so. Today's WORSHIP QUOTE is from
the pen of C. S. Lewis. Here the Oxford don and Christian apologist
reflects on the divide between those who appreciate and prefer church music
from the high art tradition and those who know only the music of the masses
and popular culture. The parallels to our current situations are not exact,
but the important lesson of Christian deference is clear-deference over
preference in the body of Christ.
AUTHOR'S DISCLAIMER: Lewis identifies himself as a layman and one who can
boast no musical education. He says, "I cannot even speak from the
experience of a lifelong churchgoer. It follows that Church Music is a
subject on which I cannot, even in the lowest degree, appear as a teacher.
My place is in the witness box. If it concerns the court to know how the
whole matter appears to such as I, I am prepared to give my evidence."

HIGH BROW AND LOW BROW MUSIC IN CHURCH
There are two musical situations on which I think we can be confident that a
blessing rests. One is where a priest or an organist, himself a man of
trained and delicate taste, humbly and charitably sacrifices his own
(aesthetically right) desires and gives the people humbler and coarser fare
than he would wish, in a belief (even, as it may be, the erroneous belief)
that he can thus bring them to God. The other is where the stupid and
unmusical layman humbly and patiently, and above all silently, listens to
music which he cannot, or cannot fully, appreciate, in the belief that it
somehow glorifies God, and that if it does not edify him this must be his
own defect. Neither such a High Brow nor such a Low Brow can be far out of
the way. To both, Church Music will have been a means of grace; not the
music they have liked, but the music they have disliked. They have both
offered, sacrificed, their taste in the fullest sense. But where the
opposite situation arises, where the musician is filled with the pride of
skill or the virus of emulation and looks with contempt on the
unappreciative congregation, or where the unmusical, complacently entrenched
in their own ignorance and conservatism, look with the restless and
resentful hostility of an inferiority complex on all who would try to
improve their taste-there, we may be sure, all that both offer is unblessed
and the spirit that moves them is not the Holy Ghost.
These highly general reflections will not, I fear, be of much practical use
to any priest or organist in devising a working compromise for a particular
church. The most they can hope to do is to suggest that the problem is
never a merely musical one. Where both the choir and the congregation are
spiritually on the right road no insurmountable difficulties will occur.
Discrepancies of taste and capacity will, indeed, provide matter for mutual
charity and humility.
- C. S. Lewis, "On Church Music" (1949) from CHRISTIAN REFLECTIONS, edited
by Walter Hooper. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971 reprint, pp.96-97.
[I am sure that there are many saints in our churches who would agree with
another statement in this same essay. Lewis writes, "What I, like many other
laymen, chiefly desire in church are fewer, better, and shorter hymns;
especially fewer."]
Have a great week,
Chip Stam