It’s issue 26! Thanks for taking the time to subscribe and read (about seven minutes) the newsletter. We’re on the second issue of our series on practical planning for worship services.
To summarize last week’s newsletter, we need a worship service plan which helps us intentionally choose our service’s elements (like the Theme Plan, but without the hokey) and our service’s order (like the Revivalism plan, but with more pastoral insight) while allowing healthy cooperation with our preaching pastor (like the 50/50 plan, but with more than a truce).
THE GOSPEL GATHERING
So here’s my best idea so far. I call my plan the “Gospel Gathering.” What is the “gospel gathering”? The Gospel Gathering seeks to glorify God by celebrating the gospel of Jesus Christ and its superiority over the idol of [this Sunday’s particular focus]. I’ll repeat it for you notetakers. It comes in three parts. The Gospel Gathering seeks to (1) glorify God by (2) celebrating the gospel of Jesus Christ (3) and its superiority over the idol of _____________ (this Sunday’s particular focus).
So with the remainder of my time, I’d like to explain those three points.
(1) Glorify God
Let me start with the best place to start: our goal is glorify God. We do this for a couple of reasons. First, this is our goal because it is God’s goal. “The earth will be filled,” God promises Habakkuk, “with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). So, “From him and through him and to him are all things,” says Paul in Romans 11:36. “To him be glory forever. Amen.”
Second, this is our goal because we were created to glorify God. “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth,” the Lord says to Isaiah, “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory.”
Third, this is our goal because we were redeemed to glorify God. He predestined us “to adoption as sons … to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Ephesians 1:5–6). God declares that he “blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25).
So this is the goal of all human activity, all of our works. When people see our good works, we want them to “give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”(Matthew 5:16; cf. 1 Peter 2:12). And glorifying God is the goal even of all our mundane work, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31; cf. 1 Cor. 6:20).
In many other contexts, I might spend more time trying to persuade you, but honestly, you are reading a newsletter on worship, so I assume you don’t need further convincing on this point. Our goal is to glorify God.
(2) By Celebrating the Gospel of Jesus Christ
So if all our actions as individuals ought to glorify God, how should believers glorify God corporately when we gather? We can answer in many ways, but the simplest is to say, “Celebrate the gospel.” Glorify God by celebrating the good news which brought you personally to him, and glorify God by celebrating the news which brings your church together.
Glorify God by celebrating the good news which brought you personally to him, and glorify God by celebrating the good news which brings your church together.
So, then what is the best way to celebrate the gospel when we gather together on Sunday mornings to worship? The answer is, “It’s very complicated.” Discovering the best way to celebrate the gospel as a gathered community is a local decision. The decision involves recognizing how the gospel has taken root and is bearing fruit in your particular context.
A church composed of highly educated and literate and wealthy parishioners should use their education and writing and wealth to celebrate the gospel.
A church composed of highly artistic, expressive, and socially connected members ought to celebrate the gospel in artistically nuanced, physically expressive, and communally oriented ways.
Churches should celebrate the gospel in ways which reflect how the Lord has made them.
One of the ways many churches celebrate the gospel is through a four-fold service order that rehearses the gospel. Bryan Chapell writes, “A milk carton differs from an egg carton because the contents determine the structure of their container. So also the content of the gospel forms the worship that best expresses it” (Christ-Centered Worship, 68.) These four movements tell the gospel’s story. They four movements rehearse the logic of the gospel and give believers ample opportunity to celebrate the gospel’s richness.
The service is organized around four gospel truths: (1) God is holy, (2) we are sinful, (3) Jesus saves, and (4) Jesus sends. Can you see the grand narrative of Scripture within these four movements? God is holy and we see his holiness in his creating our world and declaring it “good.” We are sinful and we see our sinfulness in our ancestors’ original choice to sin and our own ratification of their sinful choice. We need a savior, and because Jesus saves we have the savior we need. Jesus saves and we recognize how our problem incapacitated us from rescuing ourselves. Finally, Jesus sends and we recognize how he commissioned the apostles and how his word sends the church with his Spirit into the world.
These four gospel truths inspire four worship actions.
God is holy, so we respond with adoration. We adore our holy God who made our world and declared it good.
We are sinful so we respond with confession. Cornelius Plantinga says that “confession of sin is like taking out the garbage. Once is not enough.”
Jesus saves and so we respond with thanksgiving. Because we have seriously considered our sin—the brokenness we have caused, and how our sin has hurt others and offended God—finding out that Christ has died for our sins, that his body was broken for me—believers celebrate this good news as the best possible news. Finally,
Jesus sends and so we respond with commission. Our services, to follow James K. A. Smith’s ideas, do not finish with an ending, but with a sending.
So, four truths inspire four gospel actions. God is holy, so we adore. We are sinful, so we confess. Jesus saves, so we give thanks. Jesus sends, so we scatter to spread the good news of his kingdom to the places that he has called us to serve him.
As I have tried to articulate, I do not believe the Bible mandates that our services follow this four-fold pattern. But I do see the pattern modeled in passages of scripture such as Isaiah 6. God is holy, and Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up. We are sinful, and Isaiah confessed, “I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among the people of unclean lips.” Jesus saves, and a fiery coal is brought fresh from the sacrificial altar to cleanse Isaiah’s sin. And Jesus sends, in the Lord commissions by saying, “Who will go for us,” to which Isaiah responds, “Here I am, Lord; send me.”
There are, of course, other shapes for telling the same story. and theologian David Peterson has described other shapes that this celebration of the gospel can take in his book Encountering God Together. This four-fold service structure has much to commend it including some deep historical roots and a simplicity that fits people like us. So, I hope that you consider this paradigm prayerfully. Decisions like this should not be left to our whim but to our prayerful, and pastorally-guided wisdom.
In our next issue, we’ll talk about the new part. The Gospel Gathering seeks to glorify God by celebrating the gospel of Jesus Christ and its superiority over the idol of [this Sunday’s particular focus].
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May the Lord bless all of our efforts to make his praise glorious!