The Lord and His Church:  Implications For Worship

The old constraints are regarded as irritations more than useful boundaries.  Indeed many would agree that unless we experiment and become more free and more responsive to local needs, the denominational church cannot survive.  In particular there is a widespread lack of confidence in ordered liturgy as a sufficient vehicle to express the worship of a congregation.

Doubtless there are many reasons for this situation.  I would suggest three, of which the second and third flow from the first.

i. The Difficulties of Evangelism.

Most ministers of the gospel are committed to evangelism.  They experience some success together with much frustration and rejection.  In some areas churches grow; in others they stagnate numerically, or even decline, despite the best efforts of minister and people alike.  When a minister is not evangelising he will frequently feel the pressure of falling numbers.  It takes real effort to create a thriving youth fellowship and Sunday school, and, often despite all attempts, nothing works.  One of the strategies adopted by ministers is to change the services in an attempt to make them more accessible to the outsider.

ii. The Effects of Thirty Years of Television.

If we think of how spectator sport has had to change to survive in the age of television we must become conscious that the electronic media has also changed our church life.  It is not only that television directly competes with church (it is said that The Forsyth Saga killed Evening Prayer), but that it shapes the mind of the persons who may go to church.  Books are still read in Australia, but we are not a bookish community.  The complications of prayer books demand a high level of literacy and a willingness to adjust not always helpful in the evangelistic context.

iii. The Theology of Multi-ministry

WE have become convinced, rightly, that every Christian has a responsibility for ministry in the congregation.  With less logic, perhaps, many have also reached the conclusion that the congregational gathering should be designed to allow for all to minister.  A service dominated by one person offends all the theological principles now common to Christians everywhere.  Yet liturgical worship allows for this and even encourages it.  Furthermore, it formalises love.

Not surprisingly given these factors, emphasis has now come to be placed on fellowship rather than worship, on encounter with the brother rather than encounter with the Lord.  A deliberate ‘chattiness’ and informality has become part of liturgical style.  Much of this, however, seems to be instinctive rather than the product of a reasoned approach.

In order to focus thought about these issues, I am going to ask the question ‘What if you were founding a congregation from scratch?’

Some of us have become involved in the painful process of ‘shutting down the branch church’, of constriction rather than construction.  Yet the present day is also an age of opportunity, when new congregations are coming into existence.  Some of this is demographic growth as churches are located to serve new suburbs.  But some of it is growth of another sort as the gospel penetrates groups of people, the ‘tribes’ of the modern world.  Graduates of our college working in Sydney have been involved in work among Italians, Greeks, Chinese, and Vietnamese, for example; there is no reason why sociological tribes should not be so ministered to as well – airline crew, university students, yuppies, dinks (dual income, no kids), city workers and so forth.

Some, at least, therefore, will face the challenge of beginning from the beginning, of being free to structure things in ways which they see as important, rather than being bound to traditional forms of liturgy and ministry.  If we can at least imagine ourselves in this situation, it will give opportunity to ask, ‘What matters?; What must we have?’

Beginning from Scratch

The great Congregationalist theologian, John Owen, wrote this about the status of the individual congregation:

That unto such a church, and every one of them, belong of right all the privileges, promises and power that Christ doth give and grant unto the church in this world.

This assertion conforms well with a view of the church common amongst us (as the other papers in this collection reveal).  The church is not to be defined in terms of location or building; nor through legal and other links with a denomination; nor through the time at which it meets; nor through its liturgy; nor through its government or polity.  The church is the congregation of God’s people ‘in Christ’ and finds true and sufficient expression in the gathering of even two or three in his name.

Such a view leaves certain great questions unanswered:  the status we accord to the ancient denominational ‘churches’, for example, and the way in which such a congregational view copes with the question of church and society.  But it has much to commend it, especially the power and duty given by it to the congregation to order its own affairs.

Those who are keen to apply Owen’s words, however, should notice other of his pronouncements.  On the essence of a true church he wrote, ‘It be a society of men united for the celebration of divine worship’.  Elsewhere he comments: ‘The joint celebration of all gospel ordinances and worship is the great and principal end of the evangelical church’.  The centrality of worship in Owen’s definitions is striking; it seems distinctly at odds with the contemporary emphasis on congregational fellowship as the purpose of the gathering.

Indeed it may be argued that present fascination with the ‘two or three gathered together’ type ecclesiology has allowed the intrusion of the world into the church.  The result often appears to be no more than the secularisation of church services.  With the community desperate for friendship and love, churches have become ‘friendship stations’, and turned inward on themselves in the name of ‘fellowship’.  ‘Encouragement’ is the need of the hour and gifts for ministry take on the role of outlets for self-expression.  Church has become ‘human centred’.

Whatever happened to worship?  Can the tension between ‘worship’ and ‘fellowship’ be resolved?

It is my judgement that in popular expositions of ecclesiology and in contemporary church life based on this ‘congregational’ mould, the person and work of Christ has been neglected.  Our worship and fellowship must take their shape from the presence of Christ in our midst.  That is what distinguishes the Christian meeting.  But this leads to the next questions:--What is that presence?  Who is Christ?

Christ, the Church’s Prophet

John testifies that Jesus Christ is the Word of God, and Paul affirms that he is the cornerstone of the church.  He is not the church’s prophet in any sense that the church owns or controls him.  On the contrary, when we call him the prophet we mean that he is the one to whom the church owes its being, makes constant reference, and preaches to the world.  He is the one whose word is decisive for the church.

The gospel is called the Word of God, and the shortest definition of the gospel given to us in scripture is that it is Jesus Christ.  Hence when Philip ‘went down to the city of Samaria’, he ‘proclaimed to them the Christ’, and when Paul explained his message it was in similar terms:  ‘For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord’ (2 Cor 4:5).  It is no misnomer to call Matthew, Mark Luke and John ‘Gospels’, for they join with the other NT witnesses in preaching Christ.

Christ is, of course, the Head of the church, its Master and Lord.  He sustains and protects the church; he also rules over it as a king rules his people and a shepherd his flock.  To call Christ the prophet of the church is to assert that the means by which he rules is the Word, fundamentally the Word of the gospel, and then the word of Scripture, especially as it is preached.  The Word is carried and interpreted by the Spirit which is the gift of Christ, but the Spirit does not supplant or bypass the Word.

Thus when the apostles were sent forth to disciple the world, it was with the goal of drawing the nations into submission to God a submission expressed by obedience to ‘all that I have commanded you’.  When Christ portrays the collapse of the house built on sand, he attributes the fatal flaw to an unwillingness to submit to his Word (Matt 7:26,27).  When he speaks of his people as God’s flock, they are led by the shepherd’s voice:  ‘The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out’ (John 10:4).  Abiding in Christ, as the branch abides in the vine is a matter of allowing his words to ‘abide in you’ and keeping his commandments (John 15:7, 10).

Not surprisingly, then, pictures of the church in the NT show it as an assembly gathered around the Word as ancient Israel gathered to receive the Word of God at Mt. Sinai.  The focus of interest in 1 Corinthians 14, for example, is in the vexed question of tongues, but the prior place of prophecy in the assembly is perfectly plain, as is the pre-eminence given by Paul to the Word of the Lord as the touchstone of congregational life and behaviour:  ‘If any one thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord.  If any one does not recognize this, he is not recognized (1 Cor 14:38, 39; see also Col 3: 16; Acts 2:42; 1 Tim 4: 13).

The prophetic work of Christ in the church is carried on through his gift to the church of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (Eph 2:20; 4:11; cf 1 Cor 3:5-9).  The apostolic Word enshrined in Scripture occupies a special place as the norm for the exposition of pastors and teachers.  The ministry of oversight and eldership is especially marked by teaching.

That Christ is the prophet of the church, therefore, means that it is the business of the church to gather in expectation of hearing and obeying his World.  He summons the assembly through the gospel – it responds with the worship of faith and obedience, thanksgiving and godliness.  Whatever else happens in church, it is essential that the rule of Christ by his Word be given free reign.  In times past the church has resisted secular tyrants in the name of this Prophet.  It stands in danger now of stifling his voice by meeting with other goals in mind than to listen to it with the disciple’s ear.

Christ, the Church’s Priest

Three powerful images of the church in the NT – as body, as bride, as flock – serve to emphasise that the church belongs to Christ.  He is the guardian and chief shepherd, husband and head of his people.  In each case, furthermore, the point is strongly made that the church belongs to her Lord by right of purchase, and this purchase is his death on the cross.  ‘Husbands, love your wives’ writes Paul, ‘as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her’ (Eph 5:25).

The same emphasis is made through the language of covenant as found in the Epistle to the Hebrews.  The obsolescence of the old is clear through its inadequacies, most of all its inability to remove sin.  The wonder of the new is that Christ himself is able ‘to appear in the presence of God on our behalf’(9:24).  His blood, unlike that of bulls and goats effects the washing away of sin and the cleansing of the consciousness of sin.  The death of the mediator is the essential precondition of the enactment of the new covenant, and having been enacted the covenant now stands as eternally valid and sure:  ‘We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all’ (Heb 10:11).

One potent consequence of this engaged Paul’s constant attention:  the fact that the Gentiles now join the Jews in having ‘access in one Spirit to the Father’ (Eph 2:18).  For Paul it was the death of Christ which led to this extraordinary situation of reconciliation to God, and, as with the author of Hebrews, he saw that the old legal system which had divided Israel from her neighbours was now dismantled.  The law had lost its power to condemn because salvation was won by Christ and appropriated by faith.  The Spirit’s coming to Jew and Gentile by faith in Christ was proof positive that all now may have access to God and that it is ‘not because of works’ lest any man should boast’ (Eph 2:9).

The revolution in religion inherent in the new covenant has not always been apprehended by the church.  It is not always recognized that priest, altar and sacrifice are now summed up in Christ himself as are holy times and places.  There has been the constant danger of attempting to relate to God or to one another through works and spiritual experiences other than faith in the cross of Christ.  The sacrifices pleasing to God are ‘the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name’, doing good and sharing what we have (Heb 13: 15, 16).  These sacrifices are the proper response to the one great saving sacrifice ‘outside the gate’ which sanctified the people efficaciously.

This truth must have a fundamental bearing on what we do as the assembly of the Lord.  The gospel transforms our relationship with God and challenges human notions of religion, especially the notion that God needs to be approached via the sacrifice of good works, be they moral or ceremonial.  The fact that Christ is the church’s priest, and that his blood is ever and only the ground of its relationship with God must be determinative for our meetings.  Not only must nothing of the works-mentality be allowed to intrude; the whole meeting itself needs to be shaped by the graciousness of the gospel.

Many today ‘go to church’ as a religious duty.  They long for an ‘enjoyment’ of worship, and are open to false views of worship which mistake entertainment for enjoyment, power for grace, and human friendship for love.  They regard ‘worship’ as something we do for God.  Often what we do in church is of such manifestly poor that even this inadequate motive for being present is lost.

Our gathering should be marked, however, by that joint boldness and confidence we have to enter God’s presence by the blood of Jesus, our full assurance of faith that we may draw near to God.  Indeed we believe that he has drawn near to us and is in our midst, or, to put the matter in another way, that we are already with Christ in the heavenly sanctuary.  We assemble in God’s presence to rest in him, to thank him, to listen to him, to worship him through love and good works.  The fact that we do not have to plead for him to meet us or to agonise over whether he cares for us ought to be the occasion for joy, not complacency.  Our approach is through the worship of the Mediator who came to do the will of God (Heb 10:9) and ‘by a single offering has perfected for all time those who are sanctified’ (Heb 10:14).  We do not join our worship with his, but rather enjoy the fruit of his perfect worship.

The priestly work of Christ is also fundamental to our relations with one another in church.  This is, of course, crucial to Paul’s argument about Jews and Gentiles.  It is because we are forgiven that we forgive, because we are loved that we love.  To be secure in Christ is to be released for the tasks of maintaining the unity of the body and serving one another.

Christ, the Church’s King

Christ is ‘king and head of his church’ as the Westminster Confession calls him (Chap 30).  Both his prophetic and his priestly ministry are royal, since Christ rules the church by his Word, having purchased her by casting out ‘the ruler of this world’ in his work on the cross.  But his headship of the church is exercised in further ways as well, notably in nourishing and cherishing the body of which he is Head.  His gift of the Spirit is for the common good of the body.

It is at this point that the mutuality of growth in holiness becomes the chief issue.  By a tragic distortion of doctrine of the mutuality of Christ’s people has today become focused on the spiritual gifts, and what was intended to be for the service of the body has become the cause of an unparalleled narcissism among believers.  The self-definition necessary to determine one’s gifts and the overwhelming desire to be known for having gifts has exhausted the energies of many.

Paul’s teaching about the relationship between believers was aimed at ‘the common good’ (1 Cor 12:7).  If one thing is clear about his ethnical teaching in Ephesians it is that the body grows to maturity together, by ‘building up’ by ‘speaking the truth in love’, by ‘addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart (5:19).  The parallel section in Colossians is similarly communal (3:1-17).  In short, holiness of life is not a solitary affair, but is to be attained by the ministry of saint to saint, as the Head of the church gives growth through his Word and his Spirit.  Included in this ministry is the task of discipline and rebuke (1 Cor 5).

One constant feature of the NT’s teaching about the relationship of believers is the stress on mutual love.  In John’s gospel Jesus is reported as laying this obligation on the disciples on several occasions, and indeed making it a distinguishing mark of their fellowship.  ‘By this all mean will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’ (13:35).  Paul, of course makes this the central statement of his instruction about gifts (1 Cor 13) but it is to be found throughout his teaching:  He sees it as being founded on the love of God in Christ (Eph 3:14-19), and sustained by Christ as head of the body and husband of the bride (4:15,16; 5:29).  It would be perversion of holiness if the love of Christians were expressed exclusively toward other believers.  The pure and undefiled worship of God involves visiting orphans and widows in their affliction as well as keeping oneself ‘unstained from the world’ (James 1:27).  The Christian assembly is not true to its Lord it its members are not stimulated to ‘do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith’ (Gal 6: 10).

The kingly work of Christ in the church is, therefore, carried on as he causes his members to bless each other in love, stimulating mutual growth into the likeness of Christ himself.  We may indeed speak of gifts, but only in the context of needs, just as we discover our gifts best by endeavouring to meet needs.  Whether such high ideals are manifested to any marked extent in our churches may be questioned.  There is a hunger for intimacy and relationship without a doubt but is it being met by the love that ‘bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things’.  (1 Cor 13:7)

Worship, Fellowship and Christ

The preliminary questions were: ‘What if you were founding a congregation from scratch?  What matters?  What must we have?  This led to a delineation of the current tension between ‘fellowship’ and ‘worship’, and the endeavour to use our doctrine of Christ’s person work to resolve the dilemma.

John Owen, it may be remembered included the word ‘worship’ in his description of the purpose of church, an inclusion which may well jar on those whose emphasis is ‘fellowship’.  The joint celebration of all Gospel ordinances and worship is the great principle end of the evangelical church.’ But it must also be said that Owen had a profound interest in the order and structure of the church and was convinced that the gospel should be applied to every part of the church’s existence.  For him, as well as for those whose focus is on fellowship, ‘the sole end of all churches’ is ‘the edification of all that do believe’.

I will proceed, then, by way of five theses, with application:

1. Where ‘worship’ is contracted to refer to our devotion to God alone in church alone, we develop an interest in such false paths as ‘the holiness of beauty, the symbolic, ritual observances and our offering to God.  This emphasis always contains within itself the tendency to invent worship which it is imagined may please God.
2. Where ‘fellowship’ is expanded to include any Christian social contact, we develop an interest in the cult of the informal, and, as a result become trivial.  The temptation here is to turn Christianity into a vaguely religious secularism.
3. It would be better to avoid both words, ‘fellowship’ and ‘worship’ in connection with church and speak rather of love and faith.  We can use ‘faith’ because it focuses immediate and proper attention of Jesus Christ as Head of the church, and his Word as that which shapes human response to his presence and lordship.  We can use ‘love’ because it focuses attention on our brethren and demands that we serve them as Christ our Head directs.  We gather to meet Christ in the presence of and for the good of one another.
4. All of us need a thoroughgoing Christological correction to our practice of church.  That is to say, everything must be submitted to the test of whether it sets forth and conforms to Christ, our prophet, priest and king.  Is his Word allowed its sovereign place among us?  Is his atonement clearly the basis of our meeting?  Are we able to practice love between our members?
5. When the above principles apply to our meetings, we can see that the question of whether they are ‘formal’ or ‘informal’ is secondary.  Whatever the pattern of encounter, it needs to be shaped by Christ’s presence.  I believe that the Book of Common Prayer and the Australian Prayer Book satisfy the requirements I have outlined.  Much depends on the sociological setting as to whether they help or hinder love – but there is nothing intrinsic to them which does either.  Equally, however, a meeting constituted without liturgy may well meet the requirements, and may by its nature, depending on sociological factors, make our love for each other easier.  But the ‘free’ meeting is in mortal danger of becoming a ‘friendly hour’, untouched by the gospel of Christ, depending only on the ability of the minister to entertain.  The Prayer Book pattern of Scripture, exhortation, confession, absolution, prayer and praise is created by the gospel:  Its substitutes need not be.  In any case, we must not be satisfied with ‘love’ or ‘fellowship’ which is nothing more than friendliness at the level provided by a good tennis club.  The only escape from such triviality is faith in the Head of the church.

Conclusion

Novelty, experimentation and variety are marks of the age.  Pastors and people see this as evangelistically important.  We should encourage risk-taking since the times demand it.

But to experiment and take risks does not mean that we should abandon our theological principles.  True risk taking can only occur within the principles of God’s Word:  Otherwise, it is at the mercy of fashion and whimsy.

Doubtless the church-planter will need much more theological understanding than this paper has been able to indicate.  But if the church is planted without being shaped by Jesus Christ as its prophet, priest and king, the work is but poorly done, and the foundation ill-laid:  ‘For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor 3:11).

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