Truth Unites - Evangelical Worship Needs Church History

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Gavin Ortlund explains how knowing church history can strengthen evangelical worship services. Book on Confession of Sin and Assurance of Pardon: https://www.pcabookstore.com/p-12987-confessions-of-sin-assurance.aspx Worship in the 2nd century: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/what-was-a-church-service-like-in-the-second-century/ Thomas Watson on the Lord's Supper: https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Supper-Puritan-Paperbacks/dp/0851518540 Lloyd-Jones on Preaching: https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Preachers-D-Martyn-Lloyd-Jones/dp/0310331293/ Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

evangelical worship services often feel kind of shallow. A lot of times it'll feel like a concert and a TED talk about Jesus. And I say this as an evangelical, someone who wants to try to serve evangelical churches. But there's a, I would say this is our greatest weakness, is just kind of a historical out-of-touchness and resulting shallowness, if I can just speak bluntly. And I think the great news is there's a huge hunger for more depth today. I think a lot of young people, especially. Oh, it's exciting to see. Gen Z. I love Gen Z. They're great people. They, there seems to be more of a hunger for liturgy, rootedness, depth, substance. I know people who will drive one to two hours for a traditional Latin Mass. It's interesting, fascinating.

And I believe this is a hunger. This hunger for depth is a healthy one that we should try to meet, and that within the Protestant traditions that we inhabit, we have resources to greatly touch that need, to a great degree touch that need. Here's five suggestions. These are fairly basic, and I think they could hopefully apply across different denominations in different church cultures and without any sacrificing of evangelical and Protestant distinctives. Number one, strategic use of liturgy. This is one of the most obvious ways that evangelical churches have tended to fall away from pretty much universal tendencies throughout church history, And here's the good news.

We can increase our use of liturgy without radically reversing our church's culture and structure of worship. Liturgy can be done in ways that feel organic and authentic, and liturgy is great. What I mean by liturgy is just formal rituals in our corporate worship. So that would include things like a call to worship, a benediction at the end of the service, passing of the peace, more on that in a moment, affirming, say, the Apostles' Creed together during the service, praying the Lord's Prayer, scripture readings, but even just singing songs as a kind of liturgy. There's really actually no way to avoid rituals. The only question is how intentional we are with

them. And these historic practices came about for a reason. They can be so helpful. For example, the simple things of having a call to worship at the beginning of the worship service and a benediction at the end can be done in less than a minute each, and yet they add something so significant. They help frame everything else that happens. I think a lot of people have the fear that, well, we're more of a low church, so I don't think we can do liturgy. But I personally believe that there's a place for liturgy in different forms and in different church cultures, and that all Christians right now should at least consider and be intentional to think through. What might this look like for us? Let me just give some examples. So suppose you're in a contemporary worship service

where you sing, you know, the lyrics are up on the screen and you're in an auditorium that's very dark. Okay, so you'd say, we can't possibly do the Lord, the Apostles' Creed together. Well, why not? Why not just, you know, you sing the first two songs before the third song in between the worship pastor has a one-sentence introduction explaining we're going to affirm together an ancient Christian summary of doctrine to celebrate and remember our faith together. You launch in, you say it, and you just go straight into the third song. There's all kinds of ways to do it in ways that don't have to disrupt the overall culture and feel of your church. What I'm trying to say is I think even low church settings can step into basic liturgy in ways that are really edifying,

and I think it really meets needs right now. Let me give an example from my own ministry. I went during the Lord's Supper at our last church, I would introduce the memorial acclamation. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again. Very simple, very basic. But just, there's such power in the repetition of these truths of the gospel, and they get down deeper into us through repetition. I think this is one of the—and the other thing is it just helps make Christ the focus, and it kind of ensures that we're communicating the content of the gospel every single time. Another thing that we incorporated that was super edifying is a time for confession of sin and assurance of pardon. Man, this is often the most meaningful aspect of the whole

service for me. I'm going to link to this book that could be helpful if you want to learn more about that and have maybe some examples to use from a Presbyterian context. All of this is a part of our own Protestant heritage, and it's sorely needed right now, I think. At least to consider, I understand different churches will feel led in different ways in terms of the details of this. Second, emphasize the Lord's Supper. Throughout all church history, the Lord's Supper, or communion, It has different terms, has tended to be the climactic moment of a worship gathering. If you want a fascinating article about worship in the second century, read this by Justin Taylor, I'll link below. You can get a flavor, for example, how it looked very early on.

But this was then retained, for the most part, among Protestant traditions, and even sort of reasserted and re-centralized in the 16th century. And it really is only more in the 19th century that it's fallen away more from Protestant practice, which is, I think, a diminishment and a loss. Again, I want to leave room for some differences here where Christians will feel led differently, but nonetheless, I think we really need to reclaim this aspect of our own heritage as evangelicals. The Lord's Suffer is such a meaningful part of the service, so for so many reasons. One is, it's a more tangible way of responding to the preaching week by week. So there's some aspects of worship that are a little more receptive, and there's others that are more

responsive. Having the Lord's Supper regularly, if not weekly, routinely gives us an opportunity for response. And then just what it is that we're doing is such a place of rich intimacy with Christ, in which we feast upon Christ and receive his benefits afresh. I like to think of it if this doesn't sound strange, like the Lord's Supper is what it feels like when you first become a Christian, but having that experience of His grace and mercy afresh. And I'm not alone in this. This is a historic, even Baptist view. Charles Spurgeon said, I think the moments we are nearest to heaven are those we spend at the Lord's table. I've talked about that elsewhere. So how do we do that? You know, I do think it's worth considering the frequency question. I don't make that a matter of we should

pass judgment on one another for weekly or monthly or quarterly or whatever. I tend to think more more frequently is better, but I don't really want to make that like a wedge issue between us. But one basic thing can just be reading about it and studying it more. So at my last church, we worked through this wonderful book by Thomas Watson. It's accessible. Lay Christians can read it. It's pretty brief. But it is so rich in theology, and it just helps us understand what is happening.

So even just that basic step of growing in our understanding of what the Lord's Supper is can be so helpful. Number three, teach a theology of preaching. So one of the strengths of evangelical and Protestant worship services is our view of preaching. This is something we have emphasized a great deal and thought about a great deal. But once again, I don't think we can assume anymore that people know what a sermon is. I think a lot of evangelical churches have sort of lost touch with our own roots. So, for example, what makes a sermon that is preached in the context of worship different from just a speech given in another corporate gathering among Christians?

Well, I don't think we can assume our people understand that, or sometimes even those doing the preaching. For example, we need to help our people understand that listening to a sermon is an act of worship. It's not like we worship God by singing, and then we're just learning at this point, but the act of listening to a sermon is an act of worship, and specifically, we believe that God is speaking to us through the word preached. and so we are worshiping God in this specific manner by hearing from God. And it's amazing if you go back to the reformers and see Luther and Calvin and others, Heinrich Bollinger, they had almost this sort of sacramental view of preaching, and they emphasized consistently, the preaching of God's word is God's word. Luther said, every honest pastors and preachers' mouth is Christ's mouth, and His word and forgiveness is Christ's word and forgiveness.

the word which he preaches is likewise not the pastors and the preachers but gods. Calvin said, when a man has climbed up into the pulpit, it is so that God may speak to us by the mouth of a man. Now, this is standard Protestant theology. Many of us have sort of fallen away from this to some extent today, and we need to kind of be rehabilitated into our own historic understandings of worship. And to be clear, the word of God preached is different from the Word of God in scriptureated, for example. So we're not saying that sermons are infallible. But nonetheless, we can speak of sermons as God speaking to his people. And just think of the high view of preaching this reflects. You know, think about, do our people understand this, that God is speaking to us? There's this kind of

divine to human encounter going on through the faithful preaching of the gospel. We need to deepen our theology of this, and I suggest this wonderful book by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. Would be a great place to start. I'll put a link to that as well. Number four, if you do a greeting time, explain the historic rationale for that. The purpose of this is not just to say hi to somebody or to make all the introverts in the room squirm, though that might happen. The purpose is historically what we call the passing of the peace. And this is an ancient Christian practice in the New Testament when the resurrected Christ greets the disciples. He frequently says, peace be with you. And Paul gives instruction to greet one another with a holy kiss. In the early church, this developed very quickly

into the church's liturgy. You can even find Augustine calling this a sacrament, and this was retained in historic Protestant worship as well. This is a beautiful way of extending the peace of Christ to others. What we have received from Christ, we are extending to others. And I know it can feel kind of weird doing it sometimes, especially if you say the words, peace be with you and also with you or whatever. Again, the exact wording of it might differ from one place to another. But if you think about how meaningful that is, it's actually an incredible, I mean, just think about the fact that in our worship service, there's this horizontal element that's always been there. And that's, you know, in the New Testament, you see this as well. For example, it makes in Hebrews 10, you find

encouraging each other is the opposite of neglecting to meet, which assumes that if you're there, you're encouraging other people. And this is just a helpful thing to have. as a part of our worship and think theologically about, you know, it's not just a buffer. It's something that has a bearing upon the gospel and upon our worship. A simple piece of advice for us, those of us who are in ministry, is just to explain this. If we have a time of greeting and worship, just to explain, this is a historic Christian practice. It's been called the passing of the peace. And what we are now doing is extending the peace of Christ to each other that we have received from him and so forth. I think a lot of our job as pastors is just to explain things

and we have to explain them over and over again, which just like parents do as well. Because we forget as well, right? But number five, sing theological songs. So singing is obviously a wonderful part of worship. Sometimes this gets downplayed as though this isn't worship, but it is, you know. It's all over, you think of all the Psalms about singing and about musical instruments. This is a very formal and official part of the life of ancient Israel. King David had appointed people to various kinds of service that includes musical instruments like

the symbols and the liar and so forth. And I know that there's differences among Christians about whether that, whether musical instruments get carried over into the New Covenant era. Obviously, Christians disagree about what style of instruments to have. But certainly singing, as they are in the New Testament, we can't deny that. And I want to leave room once again for diverse expressions and cultures of songs. I think that happens in the body of Christ. I think that happens in the body of Christ, and that's just part, especially globally, you know, that's a beautiful thing, actually. But just to make one observation is I think we need, in evangelical contexts, songs that are rich

in theology. And I want to be so clear here to say I'm not saying we need old songs. New songs can be very theology rich and wonderful. I'll give some examples. And I'm not saying we need non-emotional songs. Emotion is great. But I'm just saying our songs should write. reflect our theology. C.S. Lewis has this wonderful comment about how theology makes the heart

sing unbidden. And this is so true. And we have such great resources. I mean, I think the main thing I'm trying to say in this video is I think evangelical worship services need more historical depth and even just drawing from historic Protestant worship. You know, there's so much we can draw up. You think of the great hymn writing tradition in Protestantism, these amazing hymns like how sweet the name of Jesus sounds by John Newton, when I survey the wondrous cross by Isaac Watts, take my life and let it be by Francis Havergal. It is well with my soul by Horatio Spafford. There's so many. We also have so many wonderful contemporary worship songs, like how deep the father's love for us by Stuart Townend. He will hold me fast by Matt Merger. I love that song.

In Christ Alone by Keith Getty and Townend again. And so many others, I am trying to be very expansive in this. I love all kinds of different expressions of worship. I love contemporary worship. I grew up going to Chris Tomlin concerts. We have Shane and Shane playing on in our house probably like 40% of the time. I mean, it's almost always on in the afternoons. I love all kinds of different worship. I'm not trying to make a snobbish kind of remark here, because there's different styles and different kinds of songs that all, and I'm not even saying every song has to be like really doctrinal, but just as the general diet, it helps to have theology that pulls our hearts up into worship. So, you know, for example, as a general rule, I think we want more songs that are focused upon the doctrines

that call for emotion than songs that are focused just on the emotional response itself. I think sometimes those songs are very powerful if you've got like this really great band up front, but sometimes in terms of what trickles down to actual local churches, boy, if you have a lot of songs that don't, that are theologically light one after another, and this is the diet of our worship, we feel impoverished. Just to give some examples here, what I'm trying to get at here. Take the song, Arise My Soul Arise by Charles Wesley, the great hymn writer of the two Wesley brothers. And you're singing this song, and you get to verse three, and you're singing about these bleeding wounds, crying out to the father.

this isn't really complicated language, and there's nothing, you know, there's nothing about predestination here or something, and it's not a non-emotional, dry and dusty thing. It's extremely emotional, but it's very doctrinal. You can't sing this without thinking about theology, and specifically here what I think is the most nourishing doctrine in all of Christian theology, at least for my own experience, the doctrine of the intercession of Christ, which I have a video about if you're interested in that. Same glorious truth that's in this hymn before the throne of God above where you're singing these words and there's no way to sing them without thinking about this beautiful doctrine. Now, again, I'm trying to not be a snob here because I'm actually, that's not

who I am, and I've often gotten annoyed by that when that comes out because the Holy Spirit gives breath to different expressions. It doesn't have to be highfalutin language. It doesn't have to be sophisticated and ornate or something like that, not every song needs to go real deep. But even, but I'm just saying getting to the gospel, getting to the truths of scripture in our singing, even something like the verse two of the song, the old song, Here I Am to Worship, which is a great song. And it, you know, this song is very doctrinal. It's talking about in this verse, the incarnation. But, you know, this is Philippians 2. Jesus humbling himself and coming to the earth. You know, something as simple as that.

This is great. People right now want the depth and the substance. Final thought. We who serve the church right now, and I'm making this video from the standpoint of just I long for evangelical churches to be strengthened right now, and there's so much we have to do to address that. I actually think some of the work I'm trying to do in apologetics and church history is relevant to that. I hope. I believe in all that. But one of the things that we have a responsibility to do is try to meet healthy needs. And I think this is a healthy need that we're seeing right now, especially among Gen Z and younger people. Think of it like this. Final metaphor. If my kids are hungry and they say to me, Dad, can I have a bowl of ice cream? I might say yes. That's a frequent question in my house. But I also might say no. It depends because

dessert is optional. But if my kids say, Dad, I'm hungry. I didn't get lunch today. Can I have a glass of milk and an apple and a slice of bread, of course I'm going to say yes, right? Because as a father, I have a responsibility to meet healthy needs. And I think church leaders right now should think about that. We have a responsibility to meet healthy needs. And right now, there is incredible hunger and need for historical depth and for rootedness. And I think we need to think about, why not do everything we can to respond and try to meet that need?