AUDIO
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Phillip Jensen speaks on Anger as part of a series on emotions in the Christian life, delivered at the Australia Day Convention 2010
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“Ah yes, for us (Sydney) Anglicans, what we say, our words, are important.”
This is a comment from a friend of mine when I let him know about the new project I am going to write about in this blog.
His point was that whereas for a group like Hillsong it really is all about the music and a certain kind of preaching, for us Anglicans, while music is important and teaching the word of God especially so, other words said during our services have always been important.
The-group-formerly-known-as-the-Archbishop’s-Liturgical-Panel has been beavering away and is about to let loose a new website with remarkably helpful resources for people constructing the words and outlines of our services/ meetings when we meet as the people of God in a public way.
Phases in our history
There have been three phases in the history of our services and the words we use here in the Diocese of Sydney: Authority, Reaction, Responsibility.
Authority: This refers to a time when our services used were those which were properly authorised and at least in theory the minister had no real choice but to use “the said book and none other except as lawful authority allows”.
Reaction: is what happened some time in the 70s and later, building up to a crescendo at the end of last century when we baby boomers overthrew the control of authority over what went on in our church. We did this for all kinds of reasons, most of them good, some more dubious. (Interestingly, a theologian friend of mine here in Sydney who is not a baby boomer said to me the other day that he thought that all we baby boomers ought to apologise for the way we wrecked everything before we can properly move on in the future. Typical generation Xer!)
But Reaction has now run out of steam. We are now in a new phase.
Next phase: Responsibility
We now have to take responsibility in a positive sense for the words that are used and the structure of our services. There is actually a lot at stake here, at least in the long term.
Where there is not thoughtfulness and responsibility, particularly for the theological shape and content of our gatherings, a dangerous decline and theological emptiness will eventually impact on us.
As well as that, we simply may not be making available to the people of God remarkably good prayers and other resources. There will be basically a secularisation of our services. Even today, I detect that Oprah Winfrey and that rather gushing personal style is unthinkingly becoming the control of our services. You see this Oprah-style at play when the most important person in the church is you (or, worse still, the service leader) rather than, of course, the one we have all come to meet: Jesus.
There is also a need for thoughtfulness and responsibility because, simply, we want our services and meetings to work.
By work, we mean both genuinely be an encounter with God through his word and people and work in the sense of providing a really encouraging, edifying experience that inspires and instructs our people to live the Christian life and is attractive to outsiders.
New web resource
The group-formerly-known-as-the-Archbishop’s-Liturgical-Panel is now trialling a website in which a great number of resources will be made available.
The website will be called bettergatherings.com and will contain both information and advice about services, a massive range of resources that can be used, prayers and so forth including especially some of the classic Anglican prayers that we would do well to keep, and a program called Service Builder in which you can just put things in and out will come an outline of a service which can then be downloaded into PowerPoint and so on. This is but the beginning.
More importantly, what is needed in the diocese is a genuinely engaged theological discussion about what goes on in our services and gatherings. What we really think we are doing and what message we are sending, both by what we say or not say. In other words, it’s going to be theological issues that will drive the genuine movement of the responsibility phase of our services in the diocese going into the future.
I was interested that the other day I heard a woman speaking about how she had just become an Anglican attendee and it was really helping her spiritually. “Yes,” she said, “I love the way in which we start our service and meet with God, the way we have confession. It’s just the right thing we should be doing when we start to pray.”
I thought to myself that she was right and then a thought came: yes, such practices as the regular public confession of sin with a clear evangelical assurance of forgiveness ought to continue to be a mark of our Sydney Anglican services. And unless we do take seriously our responsibility, they, like so much else including the proper reading of God’s word in the congregation, may well just slip away.
So let’s keep at it.
However, I don't agree with the link you have made between a personal style in a service or service leading and the result that we will think we or the service leader is the most important person there, rather than focusing on Jesus.
I note the splash page is all in Latin!
how ironic!!
As for the Latin, good for a laugh but it left me totally confused.
Finally, perhaps the heading, "Especially for Ministers" should read, "For Ministers and Service Leaders"?
I look forward to coming back to the Better Gatherings site once all the bugs have been ironed out. It should be a uesful resource when I am preparing for services.
JD
Doesn't that smack of priestcraft, though?
But what do we read on the website? Let me quote:
So much for the decision Synod made about this report; the liturgical resources have included its own different doctrinal statement that was deliberately not made in the doctrine commission report.
This is entirely inappropriate.
This is wrong!
Di
This really is very serious. It is entirely inappropriate for the committee charged with the responsibility of preparing suitable resources for Christian assemblies to ignore the very report that Synod endorsed and to charter its own course.
Firstly, an apology. I was not intending to do more than announce the Better Gatherings project and not actually open the website. I didn't realise that it was quite as live as it is. My lack of knowledge, I am afraid. We are still testing it.
Secondly I entirely reject what Phil Griffin says when he accuses the taskforce of somehow defying a decision of synod when we say in our notes
"it is consistent with Scripture to talk about a church 'service', and to view congregational ministry as a means of worshipping God."
The report of the doctrine commission, of which I am a member, did not say that such language was inconsistent with Scripture. Nor did the Synod 'decide' that it was so by welcoming the report. So the Better Gatherings Task Force has not defied Synod.
In fact much of the helpful doctrine Commission report will be found in the notes. And when we go live officially there may even be more.
We welcome debates about these theological questions. And other even more important ones.
One of the great features of the doctrine commission's report is that it goes beyond the debates over the use of 'worship' language to describe church and uses other terms that unite us, as seen in the fact that the report was welcomed by Synod. However, what I read and quoted takes us back into these debates.
So then, with respect Robert, I again submit that the article I quoted on the website has taken us in a direction away from the doctrine commission's excellent report.
Once the website is up and running I will read the material carefully as you rightly suggest. However, I remain concerned that the view being promoted as 'biblical'on the relationship between 'worship' and church is not consistent with the doctrine commission report. Among other things, I disagree with the way the heavenly worship of Revelation is read back into what we are doing in our assemblies on earth.
I am so sorry that this issue has come up again, when, in my view, the doctrine commission report gave us a way forward that ensured both the vertical and horizontal aspects of church (we to God, we to each other) were given their proper place.
I value enormously the heritage we have as Anglicans of orders of common prayer. I value very greatly the manner in which congregations are taught and nourished by the principles enshrined in the BCP. I am deeply concerned about trends such as the loss of prayers of confession, two Bible readings, consecutive Bible readings, confessions of faith, prayers that cover more than perceived individual needs or common local needs and so on.
However, I supported the Doctrine Commission report's acceptance against those who believed it was weak on things like the non use of 'worship' to descibe church. To see it reintroduced now is very disappointing.
I am really disturbed to read what Philip has been saying. I'm also a member of Synod, and I was very interested in the debate that occurred over the doctrine commissions report.
I was surprised (and unhappy) that the doctrine commission report avoided words like church and worship. When John Woodhouse was queried about this, the gist of his reply (as I understood it) was that the report was in a sense broader than just church, because it addressed *all* instances of Christian assembly. The report itself did not preclude the further "working out" of what worship meant, and it's relationship to a weekly service.
I also recall the Dean getting up and saying, "For heaven's sake, vote for this. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction."
Ok, I thought, it's not claiming to be comprehensive. I can support what it *does* say then. I also noted that we were "welcoming" the report rather than necessarily "endorsing" the report.
So it disturbs me greatly when someone suggests that synod has voted to remove worship language from the liturgy. That is not how I saw things, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It all smells a bit of bait and switch.
I believe that "worship" is one of the things that we do at our weekly gatherings. If I thought we were voting against that understanding of worship, I would not have "welcomed" the report with synod - I would have had to vote against the motion. I suspect I'm not the only one.
Indeed!
Anything to help claw back the historic reformation understanding of worship, or as Calvin would say, the practice of the ancient church is to be welcomed.
And could we please stop putting the ' ' marks around worship and service and own them in their historical, if not biblical context!
But now we are back to square one. It seems that the liturgical panel has chosen to re-ignite this debate. In David Peterson's words:
In other words, and as David Peterson argued in an earlier article on this website, he believes the report is found wanting in this area of the Bible's teaching on worship.
But the motion synod passed implied the liturgical panel's work would flow from the report, not create a new statement on the theology of Christian assembly. What was the panel's brief?
What a bad outcome. More division, and less opportunity to address the issues that matter, to which the doctrine report refers us.
I think it's an exaggeration to say the liturgical panel has created a new theology of Christian assembly. I did not believe the intention of last years synod motion was to do away with "worship" in church. Rob was on the doctrine commission, and he seems to be affirming my understanding of this.
I was born before World War II and have made the comment that one used to be able to go to a Church of England anywhere and know what was going to happen. Now one goes to one's parish church and only knows from moment to moment what is going to happen
Another aspect of the old was that one knew that many fellow christians were worshipping in tha same manner in many other places. We even had the same Bible readings. Does anyone else think we have lost something?
That is exactly what the doctrine commission's excellent report enabled us to do, but, as David Peterson writes, the liturgical panel felt it important to add to this report
So then, the problem has now been created by the liturgical panel with its additions. I ask again, what was the brief given to the panel? Were panel members asked if they supported the doctrine commission report that Synod WELCOMED?
I sympathise, but the (church) world has moved on.
We have the same issue in Presbyterian Church, variety from one church to the next and the bizarre situation of people travelling the length and breadth of Melbourne to avoid bands, find better preaching and on it goes.
Regarding Robert's comment, get(ting) on with thinking theologically about what really good "whatever-you-call-thems" is exactly right though I for one prefer to name the "whatever-you-call-thems" as historically understood, but then I don't want to antagonise Philip.
I wrote my article on Calvin and Worship not because I think we should simply replicate what Calvin did, but because I see what he did 430 years ago as a corrective to my experience of Sydney Anglican worship (2 churches over past 10 years, but flagship churches, but also replicated in some Presbyterian Churches) where I think the notion of meeting with God in worship has somehow got lost even though there are elements of prayer of confession, absolution, sound preaching and other good things. I actually think our practice, (no doubt for good reasons, and I have been just as much a part of this as anyone else), of emphasising the fellowship aspect actually mitigates against corporate worship.
Hence my questions: What was the brief given to the panel? Were panel members asked if they supported the doctrine commission report that Synod WELCOMED?
To be frank, I think it is time to move on from worrying about one or two words and get on with thinking theologically about what really good "whatever-you-call-thems" (Shades of 2 Tim 2.14)
Are you saying that a discussion of the word ‘worship’ in relation to gathering is in the category of quarrelling about words that leads people away from Christ?
Some (rightly or wrongly) think the use of the term ‘worship’ as a concept to describe our gatherings is a step away from truths that are taught in such books as Ephesians and Hebrews, with the potential to diminish the theology of the cross.
Di
I’m hearing that you are saying that to discuss 'worship' in relation to gatherings is in the category of “irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness and their talk will spread like gangrene.” (2 Tim 2:16-17)
Am I hearing you correctly?
Di
Thanks everyone.
this has been interesting to watch, and yet robert did state that:
More importantly, what is needed in the diocese is a genuinely engaged theological discussion about what goes on in our services and gatherings. What we really think we are doing and what message we are sending, both by what we say or not say. In other words, it’s going to be theological issues that will drive the genuine movement of the responsibility phase of our services in the diocese going into the future.
there may well be a need to tighten up the conversation, but surely this was at the heart of the issues that robert himself raised?
I don't think this is the most appropriate forum to attempt to resolve those differences.
I didn't mean to say 'stop the debate' on what the Bible teaches about worship.
Slightly off topic, I question the way you speak of our Lord on this forum - I note you seem to invariably speak of Him as Jesus, perhaps because the evangelistic aspect is to the forefront, or more probably modern language usage?
Biblically with very few exceptions, and a simple word study will confirm this, the name Jesus is normal usage in the Gospels when His humanity is to the fore. However once we get into the epistles it is Lord, Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus. I really think in the Christian Family we should be reflecting the usage of the the epistles. In other words, in my (our) approach to God's Son, ie the one who is my (our) Lord and Saviour, I (we) should use the language that is appropriate to my (our) relationship to him. He is my (our) Lord and I am His servant, follower, and hopefully devoted at that.
I know it gets back to language and today everyone is first name, even the good Bishop, and he may encourage this. However, my question is, is this right, is it Biblical and, if I may be permitted, has it been the historic practice of the Church?
I don't think so.
So what do you SydAngs reckon?
Thanks for spending the time to develop resources to express what it means to be Christian when the body of Christ is gathered together. As a layman, I'd really like to hear where the liturgical panel is taking this. Maybe a public forum or conference could be organised to discuss or inform people of these issues (if that is not completely out-of-order!)
My view is that liturgy (the structure of a church "gathering") is important on focusing the gospel. Good gospel-centred liturgy safe-guards the Good News of the Lord Jesus from bad and heretical preaching. Confessing sins, sins forgiven, the Lord Jesus's death and resurrection, reading God's word and stating the creeds does nothing but bolster Christians in the Good News of Jesus.
I pray that God might continue to guide your deliberations.