A couple of years ago I came across a provocative short blog by Christian pastor and writer Tim Challies entitled “The Missing Elements of Modern Worship.” In the post he raises a concern regarding how the modern church has all but left behind many of the “hallmarks” of Christian worship that had been considered foundational elements of worship over the centuries by churches in just about every denomination. He specifically singles out five elements of worship that he believes have largely gone missing: prayer, scripture reading, expositional preaching, confession of sin and assurance of pardon, and congregational singing. His comments on each are worth reading and reflecting on. Why have these gone missing? Challies offers his assessment: “I am convinced that most of these elements have gone missing for pragmatic reasons—they do not accomplish something that the church leaders wish to accomplish in their services…leaders are judging elements by whether or not they work (according to their own standard of what works).” To be blunt, the reason church leaders are dropping prayer, bible reading, congregational singing, confession, from their services is not because they have determined from God’s word that they are unimportant, but simply that they don’t believe including these elements gets results.
If Challies is correct in his observation and assessment (and in my experience and observation the trend he identifies is very real and is only increasing in the American context), then he has raised a very important issue that every church needs to wrestle with. Namely, what will we do when we meet together for worship? And what criteria will we use to decide? With regard to the second question, I think Challies is exactly right when he identifies pragmatism as the main motivation behind many of the changes that have taken place in modern worship services across the country. To better understand this, we need to remember that beginning several decades ago a philosophy of doing church developed that was primarily focused on the evangelistic impact of the worship service. The primary goal became outreach to non-Christians, and so services began to be redesigned in an attempt to get as many non-Christians as possible into worship and keep them coming back. Understandably, churches that adopted this philosophy began to move towards a kind of worship that was more casual, positive, uplifting, and tended to focus more on general life issues that non-Christians would find engaging (1). With that goal in mind, we can understand why many of the elements of historic Christian worship began to go missing. Simply put, lengthy pastoral prayers, expositional sermons, potentially confusing Old Testament readings, talk of sin and judgement, unfamiliar old hymns, and many other things, just didn’t seem to work very well if the primary goal is to reach people who don’t like church and make them feel comfortable in church.
Now let me say at this point that I deeply appreciate and resonate with the heart and desire that is present in churches that have adopted this mindset towards worship. I think all churches can and should learn from them and imitate their intentional outreach to communities, desire to see people come to know Christ, and willingness to remove all unnecessary barriers that might add offense to the Gospel. We should go out of our way to be as welcoming and hospitable as possible to all visitors, and especially to non-Christians who may be visiting on any given Sunday. It may also be that the modern church service is a reaction against a perception of cold, dry formalism that sometimes characterizes more traditional American churches. The higher energy and more exuberant expressions of joy in the Lord in many of these churches can be a welcome correction to the sometimes funeral like atmosphere of more traditional churches. I am certainly not advocating here for a dry, sterile worship service format which may be biblically shaped but rote, heartless, and out of touch. No, let us worship in both in Spirit and in Truth!
However, like Challies, I ultimately do not believe that the modern worship service represents a positive development in American Christianity for several reasons. First, as a reformed pastor, I believe that we should seek guidance from God’s word and not our own wisdom when it comes to determining what ought to be part of a worship service. Second, losing the elements that Challies identifies represents a dangerous departure from historic Biblical worship. Indeed, as he asks “If a worship service includes no prayer and no Bible reading, can we even recognize it as Christian worship?” We are not the first generation of Christians to worship God, and we should not so quickly jettison the centuries of thought and reflection that have come before us. Finally, the new modern service has not produced the results that it promised. Sadly, what we have seen instead over the last few decades is that the new modern services have been far more effective at “de-churching the church” than reaching the un-churched (2). That is not to say there hasn’t been any fruit at all, but by and large the lack of in-depth biblical teaching and biblical worship has hurt our efforts at making disciples, not helped. I think it has also fed into and fueled the already present consumer mentality and individualism of American Christians.
Is there a way forward? I think so. Let me briefly share my vision for the Scottsdale Church Plant when it comes to corporate worship. The term I am using for what we are after is “energized liturgy.” The liturgy part refers to the fact that we will be guided by Scripture in how we think about what to do in worship. Our first question when it comes to gathering for worship is not “what do I want to do?” or “What do I think will reach people?” But “What does God say glorifies him?” And if we start with that as our goal, I believe we will also end up with a service that both builds up believers and reaches unbelievers. This does not mean that every church service will or should look exactly the same, but it does mean that we will hold onto historic biblical elements that have characterized Christian worship from the very beginning, such as the reading and preaching of God’s word; prayers of thanksgiving, adoration, confession and petition; congregational singing; and celebration of the sacraments, just to name a few. A Christian worship service should invoke gladness as we enter into God’s presence with thanksgiving, gravity as we come before the presence of a holy God who is a consuming fire, and gratitude as we rejoice in the good news of the Gospel (3). A good liturgy gives opportunity to express all of these emotions. The energized part refers to the fact that we are not content to just go through the motions. The prophets of the O.T. repeatedly condemned biblically correct but heartless worship, and we must always heed Jesus’ own warning to not “honor God with our lips, while our hearts are far from him.” A service of praying God’s word, preaching God’s word, and singing God’s word empowered by the Spirit should not be lifeless, rote, exercise.
May God lead his people to seek to worship him in Spirit and in Truth as we bear witness Sunday after Sunday through our worship to the good news of the Gospel of his Son.
(1) “Corporate Worship” by Matt Merker is a helpful book I recommend on this subject. Some of the thoughts and wording in this paragraph shaped by this book
(2) This is a phrase I have heard often over the last decade from various Christian leaders to describe the overall effects of the seeker church movement on the American Church. Sadly, there is a lot of evidence that the seeker movement, while getting a few more people to church, are not actually making disciples.
(3) From “Corporate Worship” by Matt Merker