Twitter in church

This morning Eugene had a tweet about twitter in church linking to an article in Time magazine about pastors encouraging their congregations to tweet during church!

Bizarrely enough it's something I've been thinking about. It is easy to sit with your mobile in hand (on silent of course) and send a few messages. I'm not admitting to doing it, because I don't think I have, but I've certainly thought about it. Students do it via laptop in lectures (I know they do, because sometimes they send me emails). It can be a way of people connecting with each other and with the 'experience'. Yet is is "virtuous", is it being the kind of people we want to be? Maybe there is a place for sitting and listening without having to publish a response?

I am struck by the contrast with the instruction in the Westminster Directory of Public Worship (1645) which tells worshipers that "The publick worship being begun, the people are wholly to attend upon it, forbearing to read any thing, except what the minister is then reading or citing; and abstaining much more from all private whisperings, conferences, salutations, or doing reverence to any person present, or coming in; as also from all gazing, sleeping, and other indecent behaviour, which may disturb the minister or people, or hinder themselves or others in the service of God."

It is a very different world. But maybe there is some wisdom in the Directory. What do you think?

Some more on Psalms

A student made an interesting comment yesterday. I'd asked him to read Richard Pratt's book Pray with your eyes open. When he reported back he said he'd liked it and one strength was that it used the Psalm's a lot. He said something like "Usually its he Pentecostals who are into the Psalms, not the Reformed". (I checked that I could quote him here!)

Wow! Talk about giving up our heritage.  The movement that used to be the Psalms-singer, or in the Anglican mode the Psalms-chanters, nows looks like the group that isn't into the Psalms.

Scripture in church - the Directory

Thinking about the Bible in worship sent me back to the Directory of Public Worship (Westminster Assembly, 1645) to re-read its instructions.

Fascinating stuff.

First of all since it is part of public worship the reading is to be done by the pastor or teacher or by someone training for ministry. I don’t think that public reading should be restricted to that office, but I wonder if we send the message that it dosen’t matter than much when our ministers never read.

All the books of the Bible are to be read in the common language from the best translation and to be read clearly so everyone can hear and understand.

The minister decides how mauch to read each time, but usually there should be a chapter of the Old Testament and a chapter of the New, or more if that is to short or it is is easier to follow if a longer portion is read!

The books should be read through in canonical order and chapter by chapter, but books like the Psalms shuld be read more often.

The minister might give an exposition along with the reading. Now don’t think that is the sermon, no there would be an expostion (or maybe two) and a sermon later in the service. But the minister is advised to complete the whole reading first, not commenting along the way and to be careful about how long this takes so as not to limit time for preaching or to make the whole servie “tedious”.

Literate people were to be exhorted to own a Bible and read it privately, while others should be encouraged to learn to read.

The demise of scripture in church

I am reading R. Scott Clark’s provocative new book Recovering the Reformed Confession. It is a great read, argued crisply with some fascinating historical studies along the way. If you know Scott and his Heidelblog you won’t be surprised to know that he pulls no punches (in one chapter he argues the revivalist tradition including Edwards, Lloyd-Jones, Packer and Iain Murray has subverted Reformed theology and piety!) I’ll comment on the book in the next few weeks. Now I want to take up one issue that reading it crystallised for me.

Lots of Evangelical churches in Australia with a reformed tradition (I’m thinking of Presbyterian, Anglican and some independent churches) have changed their patterns of worship  or  liturgy in the last generation. (Most of them  would not use the words worship nor liturgy but they are better than circumlocutions such a “what we do when we meet as a church”). That is no great news, though those of us who have grown up through the changes may not see how great they’ve been.Lots of those changes ‘had’ to happen, because older patterns reflected a culture of formality that has gone. However I’ve had a nagging sense that some valuable things are lost in the shift (and I’ve bemoaned the loss in class!)

In “Recovering the Reformed Confession” Clark argues for exclusive psalmody, which is something I grew up with. I am not going to join him in that (and I’ll explain why some time). I do agree that we have neglected the song book that God gave the church. As I thought about that again I had my moment of clarity. It dawned on me that this is part of a wider pattern in the change in worship. We have managed to remove almost all the points at which the church used to hear Scripture!

Think about a traditional Presbyterian service that you’ll find in the The Book of Common Order (Presbyterian Church of Australia, 1956). It would open with a call to worship, usually drawn from scripture. There would be a prayer of approach, often taken from Scripture. A pray of praise (which would have more or less scripture depending on the minister) and a prayer of confession which would often appeal directly to a promise such as 1John 1:9. Then there would be an Old Testament and New Testament reading and a sermon, the Lord’s prayer and a benediction and doxology often taken from Scripture. Even in the hymn singing churches there was often a pattern of having at least one psalm. In more recent years responsive readings were also used. If the Lord’s Supper was celebrated then the narrative of institution would be recounted twice and there might be a further Bible reading and reflection. There were plenty of things that could be done badly in all this, and the prayers and sermon could be drivel while the people had little heart for worship. But even in the worst case it was a form which gave the opportunity for extensive reading of Scripture. We could do the same analysis of the shift from a Prayer Book Service in the Anglican Church.

What happens in lots of churches today? The call is a welcome which runs along the lines of “a funny thing happened to me on the way to church …”. The prayers are brief and while perhaps (and only perhaps) more heartfelt than in more traditional services do not have any more substantial reflection on Scripture. In a family service there will be a kid’s talk, which is often an object lesson on a general theological or moral point including the words “the Bible says”, but with nothing read and certainly not a passage explained. The Lord’s prayer is not heard and there is probably only one (often short) reading. The service (meeting) finishes with the now traditional benediction, “please stay for coffee”.

I know that is a caricature and that it is not as bad as all that in all churches. Is your church very different though? (For my local friends, this is not a complaint about Springwood-Winmalee PC . We have some of these problems sometimes but often do better than I’ve described here).

The last generation has seen an encouraging resurgence of textual-expository preaching and an enthusiasm for small group Bible study. But we’ve lost something as well! We fret that people don’t read their Bible’s, but we don’t read them much when we get together, so people are simply following the example of church!

I don’t want a return to formalism or even formalities, but we need to work on how to infuse worship with Scripture. There’s the challenge.