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Blog Archive
February 08, 2016
Sing.Pray.Preach.See
For as long as the church has been around, she has attempted to pursue effective ways to engage the surrounding culture. The Church has at times sought to utilize common cultural means to attract outsiders. Some of those times seemingly pay off, others do not. There are an endless number of "vehicles" that the Church may use to engage outsiders. There are both 'come and see' approaches as well as 'go and tell' approaches. As the Church continues her quest to reach the world for Christ we will likely see even more "vehicles" utilized. Some old and some new. But my point here is that the issue begins to get far too complicated and confusing the more we try to decide what exactly we are supposed to do and look like. At least as long as we are the ones trying to decide.
I have chosen to use the word "vehicle" intentionally because much of what we do is designed to be the means or "vehicle" by which we remain faithful to that which we are clearly led to embrace by Scripture. The "vehicles" are nothing more than ways to transfer the message and engage God's people in worship. We have created a great deal of "vehicles" in the Church. So much so that sometimes we can't distinguish between the "vehicle" and the precious "cargo", the gospel. We have Sunday School, concerts, Awanas, drama, coffee houses, small groups, seminars, and the list goes on and on. We often find ourselves committed to the "vehicle" more than we are committed to the Lord Himself. We fight harder for the existence of our "vehicles" than we do for the Word of God! Many churches get far more fired up about their "vehicle" than they ever do about whether or not a Bible is cracked open, much less read. We need to be reminded what remains when all the trappings of our well intentioned "vehicles" are stripped away.
The Bible does not call for most of our modern "vehicles" but it does continue to make clear what is necessary no matter the time or place or culture. Jesus Christ died for the Church. The Bible makes clear that there is a tangible expression of the universal Church in the local Church. The Church is called upon to gather together regularly (and from its inception has done so on the first day of the week). The church is provided the responsibility it bears when she is gathered at such times. These basic necessary responsibilities can be summed up in four words: sing, pray, preach, see. What is it that these four simple words seek to convey? They remind us what our time being gathered together as the Church should be centered around and filled with. They help us to understand that we cannot maintain every kind of "vehicle" in the Church and still major on the fundamentals. We are limited! Limited by time, resources, and command! If we do not accomplish anything else, we must strive to accomplish these four things when we are the Church gathered.
Sing
Scripture is replete with exhortations to sing unto the Lord. It is a way in which we express our hearts by design. We see this in both the sacred and secular realms because it is inherent in our design as those created in the image of God. When we gather for worship, we extend the expression of our hearts to a corporate level. Something we cannot do on our own. It is an opportunity for the Church to corporately express our hope in the gospel in a united, singular voice. So we sing TOGETHER! Singing in our gathered services is designed to be something we all participate in. Not as a performance, but as an expression of worship. What do we sing? We sing about the majesty of our God and His gospel which is made known to us in His Word. So we sing the Word. Not just catchy lyrics about our joys and sorrows but eternal truths revealed by God in His Word. The Word of God compels us to faithfully sing the Word of God as a corporate expression of our trust in Him.
Pray
Few would dispute the significance of prayer (at least not in word). We are commanded to pray throughout Scripture. And we are compelled to do so more than by ourselves. When we come together as the Church, we unite our individuality into one voice through corporate prayer, a united expression our our hope in God. With so many personal needs and struggles it would be difficult to cover them all when gathered, so what should we pray? Jesus makes this clear in His teaching to the disciples as He proceeded to say, pray like this "Our Father …" Notice the corporate aspect of that prayer, "Our!" In our corporate prayers we are affirming our confidence in God to master our lives, a truth revealed in Scripture. If our confidence is in God and that confidence is rooted in Scripture, then we can confidently pray God's Word! With all the trivial things we can focus on, when we gather together we unite our focus around the Word. We should therefore affirm this by praying the Word.
Preach
While most people in church would typically say that preaching is the most important part of our gathering, it isn't necessarily true. If all the other elements of gathered worship are present then they will equally serve a significant part of our corporate worship. The difficulty is that we often digress from the Word in our singing and praying, therefore preaching often stands alone as the sole means of corporately sharing in the Word. In that case, preaching is likely the most important part, so long as it is faithful to the Word and not our finite agendas. Preaching, while significant, should be supported by the other corporate elements. When this is the case, corporate worship is more biblically accomplished. Preaching then serves as the explanatory aspect of a variety of exercises (along with singing, praying) in the Word of God. Just as the other elements should always serve as a significant part of our gathered worship, we must preach the Word as well.
See
This is probably the least understood element and possibly the only variable in our corporate gatherings (although that as well is debated). Often we hear how a lot of people are visual learners. It is this conclusion that leads many to include drama, videos, etc. as a part of their corporate gatherings. God created us and knows exactly what we are like and what we need. He too agrees with the need for visual expressions of the Word and therefore gave us some. They are called baptism and communion. While it is understandable that these elements are not always a part of the corporate gathering, it should be the goal. Who wouldn't want to experience baptism every week? Unfortunately we don't possess the control over that though we could be more passionate to pursue it responsibly. We could make communion a part of each gathering and many churches of all denominations do. I would personally love to see communion a regular part of worship, though it raises a number of other difficult questions. The point, however is that God has provided the visual expression of the gospel and we cannot improve upon it. Therefore, we should seek to make this element a part of our corporate gatherings as often as possible.
Sing the Word, Pray the Word, Preach the Word, See the Word. These are the basic elements of the Church gathered and must serve as the center of our focus in our main corporate gathering. In order to do so, it might mean that we have to make decisions about the many other "vehicles" that we have added. It isn't that the "vehicles" are necessarily bad in themselves. If they, however, cause us to decrease the fundamental prescribed elements of corporate worship, they become a hinderance to the work of the Word in the Church. Someone once said, "a good thing becomes a bad thing when it gets in the way of the best thing." May God grant us the pursuit of singing, praying, preaching, and seeing the WORD!