John D. Witvliet

I am writing to express gratitude to God for 1,215 remarkable people: the 1,174 writers who have contributed to this print journal since 1986 and the (estimated) 41 people who have commissioned, reviewed, edited, and prepared those contributions for print. Both in its historic form as a subscription print journal and in its new form as a comprehensive collection of practice-oriented articles and tools, Reformed Worship is primarily a resource ministry—a place to find resources to prompt learning and help with preparation for upcoming worship services.  Growing LeadersWhile fulfilling that calling, Reformed Worship also has been a remarkable leadership development ministry. Hundreds of people have had their very first published article appear here—sometimes because an editor reached out to them, sometimes because one of their fellow parishioners recommended their work, and sometimes because they had an idea they couldn’t keep to themselves. These authors grew through the publishing process. Editors coached them into greater clarity. Their own ministry teams back home reviewed their work and encouraged them to look at their ideas through the lens of other potential readers—an exercise in empathy. In many cases, sprawling 2,709-word musings had to be pruned and pruned again. In others, a 300-word kernel of an insight needed tending to grow into a full flower. The worship service outlines and other practical suggestions published in Reformed Worship needed field testing. Essays on complex or abstract theological themes needed to be explained in ways that a wide audience could grasp and learn to cherish. Anyone who has published a set of ideas for a worship service in a journal learns new skills and sensitivities along the way that then deepen their other work in their congregations. Anyone who crafts even a brief article on a biblical text or theological theme and receives constructive feedback from an editor or reader brings that insight into their engagement with other texts and themes. One of the founding insights in our work at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship was that what the church needs most is not another hymnal, a new sound system, a revised prayer book, or another set of published scripts. What the church needs most are discerning, prayerful, joyous people who treat their work as worship planners and leaders as a holy, pastoral calling. This insight came directly out of learning from the discerning, prayerful people who had already been contributing to Reformed Worship. It continues to be altogether true today.  Sharing KnowledgeReformed Worship has been a space in which these discerning, prayerful, and joyful people have been able to benefit the church. When they edit a hymnal, install a new sound system, revise a liturgy, or prepare scripts or artworks and then write about it, Reformed Worship has been there to pass along their wisdom. The benefit for readers is immense, and the learning multiplies. Let us never fail to notice and thank God for the astonishing grace of communication. Think of it: A congregation in Nova Scotia or New Mexico or Nigeria experiences the outpouring of Spirit through a four-week Advent series that pierces the sentimentality and consumerism of the culture. Their leaders write about the series with coaching from a dedicated editorial team, and the liturgies are published. Ten years later, a rookie worship coordinator pulls an old issue of Reformed Worship off the shelves and contextualizes and adapts the series for a congregation that also senses the Holy Spirit’s prompting in new ways. It reminds me of one of my favorite Lord’s Supper prayers from the early church. It expresses thanks to God for the miracle of “transmission of the sound of the voice by means of the tongue striking the air, and for hearing, which cooperates with the air . . . to perceive the speech lighting upon it” (Apostolic Constitutions, Book VII, fourth century).What an abundance of gifts each of us has received! As a reader of Reformed Worship, I have learned from author-teachers who are pastors, musicians, artists, designers, elders, deacons, teachers, writers, administrators, and deeply engaged worshipers. I have experienced a robust community that transcends the U.S.-Canada border, gaining additional insights from writers from Pakistan, Korea, Indonesia, Argentina, Nigeria, the Netherlands, and more. I have learned from authors in congregations both large and small, both rural and urban, both contemporary and traditional. Through Reformed Worship, I continue to learn from writers who have joined the great cloud of witnesses, noticing how their articles published years ago still help me remember their unique voice. While there are other sources I can consult for higher-profile authors, I can’t think of a better place to go than Reformed Worship to meet faithful writers from such a variety of contexts doing such thoughtful work. I look forward with great anticipation to see how this very same DNA unfolds in Reformed Worship’s continuing ministry online. Receiving GraceAll this goodness is dependent on a remarkable number of gifted people behind the scenes who have fact-checked articles, cross-checked references, confirmed copyright compliance, edited first, second, and third drafts, organized planning spreadsheets, audited internal finances, coordinated mailing logistics, maintained subscription records, answered phone inquiries, and designed beautiful page layouts. In that way, Reformed Worship is very much like the local church, which often is filled with unsung heroes, too. How beautiful this is! All of it is, in its own way, a symphony of praise in which “[b]elievers one and all, as members of this community, share in Christ and in all his treasures and gifts,” considering “it a duty to use these gifts readily and joyfully for the service and enrichment of the other members” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 55).To close, let me dwell on this catechism answer just a bit longer, attempting to name the graces we’ve received in slightly different terms. First, Reformed Worship is a ministry of mutual recognition. Here, organists and guitar players learn to notice gifts in each other. Leaders at large and small churches gain not only practical ideas, but also self-awareness about their own unique opportunities and limitations.Second, Reformed Worship is a ministry of covenantal pluralism. We come here grafted by God’s Holy Spirit into God’s covenant people, bringing into the writing and reading tremendous differences we learn to engage constructively. Third, Reformed Worship is a ministry of traditioned innovation. We wouldn’t need Reformed Worship if the church didn’t need to respond to changing ministry contexts, or if the church limited its musical repertoire to songs written centuries ago. And if all we cared about was innovation, we wouldn’t need a vehicle to help us think and pray so carefully about the kinds of innovations we affirm. Fourth, Reformed Worship is a ministry of receptive ecumenism. Here we have learned to notice the charisms in Reformed Christianity that others have affirmed as helpful to their own life as apprentices of Jesus. Here we have explored gifts from other Christian traditions that can be embraced in ways that are entirely consistent with a Reformed theological vision. Each of these four terms happens to be a key phrase in large and growing bodies of literature in print and online. Each is an attempt to respond to the hyperpolarization in today’s cultural moment. While this is not the place for a nuanced analysis of each, it is worth noting that the way Reformed Worship has embodied a vision of the church over these many years seems perfectly attuned to the urgent need of Christians today. It makes me eagerly anticipate the next 1,215 people who will join the chorus of writing, creating, and editing and the thousands of readers who will be graced by the gifts the Spirit is giving the church through them.

Q I think I am a pretty good preacher, but not a really good preacher. Still, my church council is urging me to strengthen this aspect of my ministry. Any advice? A Over the past decade in our work at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, we have had the opportunity to listen to and learn from preachers and congregations in several Christian traditions who have been working to strengthen Christian preaching.  One big lesson is simply this: with God’s help, preachers can improve. For some preachers, taking on the discipline of developing a sermon manuscript can be a transforming discipline. For others, transformation comes when they learn to preach without one. For some preachers, the discipline of spending ninety minutes in contemplative prayer early in the week is transformative. For others, engaging more substantive biblical commentaries can add spiritual protein that may have been missing. For some, learning to preach sermons that are five minutes shorter makes a transformative difference through concentrating and focusing the content of the message. For others, adding five minutes of content creates space for sermons to breathe. For just about every preacher, learning the art of telling a story well makes a difference—learning not to overexplain, not to add details that may cause listeners’ minds to wander. For some, simply ending an annoying habit they may not know they have removes roadblocks. Ultimately, the Holy Spirit wonderfully takes our imperfect sermonic offerings and does amazing things with them. The Holy Spirit also works through any number of learning processes to help us love the message and our hearers more. Discerning which to prioritize depends a lot on the cultural context of the congregation and the personality and strengths of the preacher.  Everything I have said so far focuses on the preacher. But perhaps an even richer area of potential for preachers and congregations is to work together to focus on both preaching and listening to Christian preaching. Ultimately, it is the hearing and living out of sermons that matter.  We notice thoughtful preachers doing things such as: Hosting discussions of sermon texts with different groups within the congregation—including seekers who may be newly exploring Christian faith—a few weeks before a sermon is preached. The preacher learns to listen to the questions people bring to a text and to speak directly to them. Participants come to sermons primed to listen more intently. Hosting post-sermon meal discussions to reflect not primarily on the sermon itself, but rather on how to live out the sermon’s message. Thoughtful preachers who listen to these discussions may well learn how to preach even more effectively about living out the gospel message. Crowdsourcing insights for a sermon. If a preacher is prepping a sermon on a psalm of lament, asking worshipers to send examples of lament songs from secular culture would likely generate a thought-provoking Spotify list and memorable sermon illustrations. It is also effective pedagogy to help people not just hear about the ways that the psalms speak to pervasive human needs, but experience that connection for themselves.  Involving select groups in helping to choose sermon themes and texts. One thoughtful pastor I know asks council members every summer to identify five essential texts or sermon themes for autumn sermons. Another lectionary-using pastor invites high school students to select which of the assigned readings for a given week would be most fitting for their congregational context.  Giving the congregation something to explore before a sermon. One pastor posts the week’s Scripture on social media about three days before a sermon along with a question or comment that invites people to begin to engage the text. Another posts a link to a thought-provoking article or podcast early in the week (the Zeteo search engine is useful for this). Another offers those links after a sermon to extend engagement.  Helping the congregation embrace the gospel-centered takeaway. Imagine ending every sermon (at least for a season) with the line “We leave this place today with good news to share: ___________” and then asking the congregation to repeat the line out loud, perhaps both as the sermon ends and then later as the service ends. One week a congregation may declare: “We leave this place today with good news to share: God’s Spirit heals deep inner hurts.” The next week they may say: “We leave this place today with good news to share: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” And the next: “We leave this place today with good news to share: Jesus Christ conquers evil and invites us to rest in him.”  Each of these ideas is inexpensive, requiring no new budget lines. But they do require thoughtfulness over time. It’s not realistic to sustain every one of these, but over time, ideas like these can reinforce the sense that a church’s ministry of proclamation depends on both preachers of the Word and hearers and doers of the Word.    

Q Our worship team was discussing Psalm 63, especially verse 2: “I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” We were struck by how challenging it is to invite people to behold God’s power and glory. What advice do you have? A You have beautifully summarized the vocational call of all preachers, church musicians, artists, and other worship leaders: to invite people to behold God’s power and glory. Our work is invitational, not coercive, and we point away from ourselves to the living God. Here is John Calvin’s summary of this call: “[God’s] benefits towards ourselves we extol as eloquently as we can, while we call upon others to reverence His Majesty, render due homage to His greatness, feel due gratitude for His mercies, and unite in showing forth His praise. In this way there is infused into their hearts that solid confidence which afterwards gives birth to prayer; and in this way, too, each one is trained to genuine self-denial, so that his will being brought into obedience to God, he bids farewell to his own desires” (John Calvin, The Necessity of Reforming the Church, trans. Henry Beveridge (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1843), 43–44). Worship as a Window Think of worship as a window. In gathering prayerfully around Word and sacrament, we are invited to see “the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). As Calvin said of the Lord’s Supper: “the believer, when he sees the sacraments with his own eyes, does not halt at the physical sight of them, but by those steps . . . rises up in devout contemplation to those lofty mysteries which lie hidden in the sacraments” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, n.d.), 4.14.5). Just as the Eastern Orthodox tradition instructs worshipers to look through and not at icons, so Calvin instructs us not merely to look at the elements of the Lord’s Supper, but to look through them to perceive the beauty, goodness, and glory of the ascended Jesus Christ and all his benefits. If our public worship services are like a window or icon in this way, the temptation we face as worship leaders is that we will spend so much energy dressing, repairing, or cleaning this window that we will have no time to look through it ourselves—to perceive, contemplate, and be grasped by the power and glory of the triune God. Similarly, the temptations we face as worshipers are that we will admire or criticize the window rather than looking through it or that we will be altogether distracted, with little interest or energy for perceiving the astonishing vistas of divine glory that Jesus offers us through the Holy Spirit. Three Disciplines Some very simple disciplines can help us here: Prayer: In preparing and shaping a worship service, pause first to pray “Holy Spirit, help us to perceive God’s power and glory” and to ask “What aspect of God’s beauty and glory is revealed in this week’s sermon text?” When answering the question, take time to contemplate unique dimensions of God’s beauty revealed there. In other words, be sure that your creative process is grounded in awe, wonder, and gratitude. Preparing worship for God’s people is itself worshipful. Awareness: In worship, be aware of how you and others are guiding people’s attention through words, gestures, projected images. Are you calling attention to yourselves? To a certain style or form? In addition to ways we invite worshipers to become aware of and hospitable to each other, are we also explicitly inviting people to attend to a particular dimension of God’s glory? And are the melodies, metaphors, rhythms, and gestures we are using well-suited to actually “beholding” that dimension of glory in a deep and transformative way? Not every tune or turn of phrase is well suited to the deep engagement demonstrated in this psalm. Reflection: After worship, don’t settle for talking merely about how the logistics or tempos worked out. Push deeper by asking which aspects of God’s beauty and glory inspired or convicted you as you worshiped together and then turning those answers into prayers of thanks and praise for how God’s Spirit helped you worship. Three Challenges These God-centered practices are a starting point. As we engage in them, we also need to pay attention to some perennial challenges: Culture: Our understanding of divine power and glory is in constant need of refinement. It is altogether too easy to bring to the Bible and to our worship planning a distorted, culturally-shaped definition of power and glory rather than letting the Bible redefine our understanding of divine power and glory. Without the Bible’s corrective lens, we can too easily see Jesus’ life as an exception to the pattern of God’s glory rather than the very best example of it. In the world of politics and pop culture, humility, gentleness, and sacrificial love are very often the opposite of power and glory. In Jesus Christ, we see a different way. As we study God’s Word, we are all on a lifelong journey of learning and growth. Cliché: Our language for divine power and glory can become cliché. We sing the word “glory” so often that we become immune to all it means. It joins words like “amen” and “hallelujah” as part of the jargon of the church’s worship life. This is not a reason to set aside this language, but it is a reason to look for both ancient and recently written lyrics that convey God’s glory in fresh and faithful ways. Coercion: When we are inspired and grasped by God’s power and glory and experience a certain emotional register, we can be tempted to engineer or coerce that same kind of experience for others. The inner landscape and outer gestures of “beholding” may well look and feel quite different given the vast range of personalities, dispositions, and cultures across our common humanity. It may look and feel like Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” or like the chorus “Be Still and Know.” It may be expressed by raised hands or by closed eyes. It may be loud or quiet. One practice I have learned from several wise colleagues is that of noticing the many different ways that “beholding God’s glory” can look and sound across cultures globally. Learning to notice and celebrate differences frees us from the burden of thinking that we even could engineer or coerce that kind of depth. In all of this, we are pursuing an approach to worship that is “self-forgetful” in the deepest, healthiest sense. But rather than simply challenging worshipers to decenter their own concerns (which often leads us to think even more about them) this God-centered approach invites us into lifelong practices of paying deep attention to the goodness of the Lord.

Q Christ the King Sunday is new to me, and I’m not quite sure how it fits into the logic of the Christian calendar. Where does it come from? Does it duplicate Ascension Day? What about Christ as prophet or priest? A Christ the King Sunday is a common way to celebrate the final Sunday of the Christian calendar just before the liturgical year starts over with the four Sundays of Advent. In contrast to the ancient origins of the season of Advent and the celebration of Christmas, Christ the King Sunday is less than a hundred years old. It was added to the Roman Catholic calendar by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and was initially observed in late October. Pius XI had previously written the pastoral encyclical “On the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ” in response to the trauma of World War I. Building on that encyclical, the mandate to observe Christ the King Sunday ensured that the theology of Christ’s lordship would be emphasized prominently in worship every year. It was only in 1970, as part of post-Vatican II reforms, that the celebration was moved to the last Sunday of the Christian year. Later in the 1970s, the ecumenical Common Lectionary embraced this practice, and it has since been regularly observed in many Protestant contexts. Whereas Ascension Day focuses on a particular historical narrative, Christ the King Sunday focuses on a theme latent in the entire Christian year, one with strong connections to Christmas, Transfiguration Sunday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, and Ascension Day. Royal motifs run through Scripture texts for each of those days, and this choice of a date for Christ the King Sunday at the end of the Christian year conveys the conviction that Jesus’ entire life and ministry—as well as all of history—ultimately points to the reign of Christ, whose rule challenges all human authorities and supersedes all powers and principalities. Attending to the breadth and depth and countercultural nature of Christ’s lordship is a potent spiritual antidote to the travails of our age. Being invited by a large percentage of the worldwide ecumenical church to put this theme at the center of our worship just before Advent is a gift. Three Approaches to Christ the King Sunday With this in mind, consider three promising approaches to this day. First, consider framing the closing weeks of the Christian calendar as an eschatological crescendo that calls attention to the ultimate telos of Jesus’ reign in fullness. Many historical lectionaries feature an implicit emphasis on these eschatological themes, assigning texts about the emergence of false messiahs, the separation of sheep and goats at the last judgment, the parable of the wise and foolish maidens, and the “day of the Lord” to Sundays in November leading up to Advent. Today, most of us worship in Christian communities that are eschatologically undernourished. But ancient sources reveal their wisdom to us, mapping an approach to shaping worship throughout October and November that strengthens our Scriptural diet of these sturdy, gutsy, countercultural texts. Second, always celebrate Jesus’ lordship as one of several interrelated dimensions of his person and work. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches us to cherish Jesus’ identity as prophet, priest, and king (Q&A 31). While only the third of these identities or offices of Christ is singled out for a named celebration in the ecumenical Christian calendar, ecumenical lectionaries throughout November feature prominent readings from Hebrews about Christ’s high priestly role, and multiple texts throughout Ordinary Time feature Jesus’ role as prophetic teacher. In each case, Jesus’ three offices overlap and mutually reinforce each other. It can be instructive to name this explicitly, correcting false impressions that can too easily distort our understanding of Jesus’ person and work when we focus on one element of Jesus’ identity while ignoring other elements. On Christ the King Sunday, consider adapting this explanation: “We worship Jesus as Lord, knowing that ours is a Lord who expresses power by establishing peace, who receives our worship while offering priestly prayers on our behalf, and who invites us into kingdom work by instructing us in the ways of peace.” This challenges latent, culturally shaped definitions of “lord” or “king” that might otherwise limit or distort our understanding. Third, explore the more direct historical links between Christ the King Sunday and the violence of war. Here is a sampling of Pius XI’s pastoral reflections: “One thing is certain today. Since the close of the Great War, individuals, the different classes of society, the nations of the earth have not as yet found true peace. They do not enjoy, therefore, that active and fruitful tranquility which is the aspiration and the need of mankind. This is a sad truth which forces itself upon us from every side” (par. 7). “The inspired words of the Prophets seem to have been written expressly for our own times: ‘We looked for peace and no good came: for a time of healing, and behold fear’ (Jeremiah 8:15), ‘for the time of healing, and behold trouble’ (Jeremiah 8:19), ‘We looked for light, and behold darkness . . . we have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us’ (Isaiah 59:9, 11)” (par. 9). “It is possible to sum up all we have said in one word, ‘the Kingdom of Christ.’ For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one’s life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. It is, therefore, a fact which cannot be questioned that the true peace of Christ can only exist in the Kingdom of Christ—‘the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ.’ It is no less unquestionable that, in doing all we can to bring about the re-establishment of Christ’s kingdom, we will be working most effectively toward a lasting world peace” (par. 48–49). Especially when warfare dominates the headlines, it is instructive and inspiring to see how Christians in earlier generations responded to the heinous violence of war in their preaching and prayer. In the case of Christ the King Sunday, it’s not just that we are invited to take comfort in Jesus’ ultimate reign, but also that we are challenged to see how countercultural this vision of lordship is. Jesus reigns as the Prince of Peace. He is violently executed in order to bring an end to violence. And his rule extends over all of creation, challenging narrow nationalism and reminding us that our citizenship is heaven. What a gift it is to worship a Lord who is the Prince of Peace! Looking for Christ the King Sunday resources? If you are a subscriber to Reformed Worship you can use your account information to access all of our back issues at ReformedWorship.org. Type “Christ the King” in the search bar at the top right corner of the page to reveal numerous resources to get your planning started.

Q I am new to a Reformed church. In the church’s sermons and prayers and other aspects of liturgy, I am struck by all the emphasis on what God does. There is so much emphasis on this that I barely hear anything about what we are supposed to do. What about all the Bible’s commands? A My first reaction to this is gratitude! A central dimension of worship is “remembering the wonders God has done” and interceding to God in all circumstances. Attending to God’s actions past, present, and future is indeed one hallmark of biblical, trinitarian worship. Seminary students at Reformed seminaries are often taught to learn how to form sentences with “God-active verbs” that stress divine agency—and rightly so. Reformed confessions introduce the sacraments by explaining what God does in and through them. This emphasis on divine action is especially important for our celebration of creation and justification—two of the many gifts of God that happen without any action on our part. Yet, as you say, the Bible also talks a lot about what we are called to be and to do—the shape of covenantal life with God. The Bible relishes imperative verbs, including commands about what we are to be doing in worship: setting our minds on things above, seeking God’s face, singing praise, giving gifts, and more. As you suggest, worship services rightly include rehearsals of these biblical imperatives in the middle of sermon, in the reading of God’s law, or in a “charge” spoken just before a concluding benediction. The challenge here is resisting a kind of zero-sum math about these commands. What we don’t want to do is to simplistically suggest that our sermons move from an 80/20 ratio of divine to human action verbs to 60/40, or vice versa. Throughout the Bible, we are taught to reject this zero-sum math and learn to perceive the ways in which both God and humans can be exercising agency at the very same time, where God’s help heals and inspires our actions. When the psalmist testifies that God “put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God” (Psalm 40:3), God is acting (giving the song) even though the psalmist is singing. When the psalmist prays, “Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise” (Psalm 51:15), the psalmist intends to act, but in a way that is prompted and enabled by God’s action. Isaiah reflects on the human activities of teaching and listening, amazed at how God makes both actions possible and fruitful: “The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue . . . [and] wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed” (Isaiah 50:4). In Philippians 2:12–13, Paul advises, “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling” (human agency), and then goes on to add, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (divine agency). Similarly, in Philippians 4:13, Paul states, “I can do all this” (human agency) “through him [Christ] who gives me strength” (divine agency). So I am agreeing with you that the Bible’s commands belong in worship, but also stressing that we do this in a way that does not diminish or replace the emphasis on divine action. This is why we respond to a call to worship with song lyrics like “Come, thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace” or “Come, thou almighty King, help us thy name to sing.” This is why we speak vows in worship with the phrase “We do, God helping us.” This is why a sermon on one of the Ten Commandments rightly features the command itself and its call on our lives while also conveying the sense that the command is a gift from God and that God offers us help as we seek to obey it. This is why at the Lord’s Supper we not only rehearse the Bible’s mandate to celebrate the feast, but also pray in a way that acknowledges the Spirit’s work in and through our participation. This is why a charge at the end of a worship service is incomplete without a benediction. In a famous sermon on Romans 8 that John Calvin later quoted, Augustine once preached: “Yes, you act and are acted upon. And if you are acted upon by one who is good, then you act well. The Spirit of God who acts upon you is the helper of those who act. The name ‘helper’ indicates that you also do something. . . . Grace does not destroy the will but rather restores it” (Sermon 156, on Romans 8:12–17, discussed memorably in Calvin’s Institutes II.V.15). What a compelling vision—the very idea that God’s Spirit is healing and renewing our capacity to act faithfully.

Q My question doesn’t come from a worship planning meeting, but from my Bible study. I have been puzzling over the fact that God would command worship through animal sacrifice in the Old Testament but then inspire poets to write psalms that say “You do not delight in sacrifice . . . [or] take pleasure in burnt offerings” (Psalm 51:16). I understand that the point is to insist on sincere worship of the heart, but why then all the prescriptions for external sacrifices in the first place? A You are in good company in puzzling over this. Back in A.D. 425, Augustine reflected on this very dilemma in his famous City of God (book 10, section 5). Augustine lingers over Psalm 51:16–17: “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” Augustine spotted a paradox—rather, he found a way, as he often did, to rephrase the point of the psalm in a paradoxical way: “Observe how, in the very words in which he is expressing God’s refusal of sacrifice, he shows that God requires sacrifice. He does not desire the sacrifice of a slaughtered beast, but He desires the sacrifice of a contrite heart. Thus, that sacrifice which he says God does not wish is the symbol of the sacrifice which God does wish.” In addition to carefully linking this text with Psalm 50:12–15, Micah 6:6–8, and Hebrews 13:16 (I encourage you to look these up), Augustine concludes, “A sacrifice, therefore, is the visible sacrament or sacred sign of an invisible sacrifice.” It’s worth lingering over this. That “invisible sacrifice” is indeed a wonderful gift. But so often when we insist on only that, we end up being allergic to paying too much attention to the “visible sacrifice.” Augustine’s formulation is like an antihistamine that squelches that allergy. What matters is not just the heart, but connecting the heart with the external action. What matters is a contrite spirit in an external expression. The inside and outside are inseparable. Indeed, a few chapters later Augustine concludes, “As to those who think that these visible sacrifices are suitably offered to other gods, whereas the invisible sacrifices—the graces of purity of mind and holiness of will—should be offered, as greater and better, to the invisible God, Himself greater and better than all others, they must be oblivious that these visible sacrifices are signs of the invisible, as the words we utter are the signs of things. And therefore, as in prayer or praise we direct intelligible words to Him to whom in our heart we offer the very feelings we are expressing, so we are to understand that in sacrifice we offer visible sacrifice only to Him to whom in our heart we ought to present ourselves an invisible sacrifice.” A more robust answer to your question would press on to say why this internal/external connection is so important. One reason is that external actions in worship can so often change and transform what goes on deep inside of us, shaping our emotions, our will, and our innermost thoughts. Augustine and John Calvin each believed that both the sacrifices prescribed for ancient Israel and later Christian worship practices were a “school of godliness.” External action is not just an inside-out expression of what is going on deep within. Sometimes external action is part of an outside-in catalytic transformation process. Sometimes all of this may be happening at once. The more I think about this question, the more I realize that this gets at something we don’t talk about enough. For all the thousands of books, articles, blogs, and websites about worship available today, the relationship between internal and external worship is a theme that seems all too rare. While it remains important to insist that deep, internal worship is essential, we should do so by celebrating how, by God’s grace, our external and internal acts of worship can connect and reinforce each other. Throughout this year, Reformed Worship has featured several articles on spiritual disciplines. Every single discipline depends on this internal/external connection. We are faithful to the profound message of the Hebrew scriptures when we do everything we can to resist separating ritual and heartfelt piety—simultaneously resisting “ritualism” and “pietism”—and to celebrate the concord or connection between what we feel and know and what we say and do. With all this in mind, the profound parallelism of Psalm 19:14 is even more powerful: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart [simultaneously!] be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer” (NRSV).

Q In our church, we have long viewed Lent as a time to focus on confession of sin. While that is crucial, I have this sense that this isn’t fully adequate. How would you approach expanding our vision? A Let me start by affirming how crucial it is to name and confess sin and to celebrate God’s gift of forgiveness. Lent is an ideal time not only to teach about the lavish grace of God by which we receive forgiveness through Christ, but also to practice confession and assurance as a regular pattern in worship. With that Lenten cornerstone in place, there are dozens of ways to expand our vision. That is because union with Christ is a symphonic concept or image that includes many complementary aspects of the salvation God so freely offers us in Christ. Salvation is a multifaceted, many-splendored gift. In this brief column, I will describe just one practice to complement confession and assurance—a practice I sense is particularly urgent and spiritually crucial in a time of anxiety and discord. It’s the practice of entrusting. The practice is on vivid display in Jesus’ last words before his death: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). This is a prayer of attachment and trust, a prayer of relinquishing and resting. The familial address “Abba” (Father) echoes the opening of the Lord’s Prayer, placing tender, relational trust at the center of our theological vision. The praying person rests in the embrace of “the everlasting arms” of God (Deuteronomy 33:27). For centuries, Christian communities have insisted that faith is not merely intellectual assent to a set of ideas. Entrusting prayers lead us beyond mere assent and invite us to receive one of the best gifts of all: a sense of childlike repose. This prayer doesn’t displace attention to sin. Indeed, this act of entrusting explicitly resists the sins of pride, arrogance, and self-worship. But it complements our typical way of speaking about sin in Lent, which so often draws on legal language (e.g., we are “acquitted” in Christ, who absorbs the punishment we deserve) with language that is profoundly personal and familial. Indeed, the mystery and beauty of Christian faith is not only that God offers us forgiveness, but also that God adopts us as children. It is important to stress that praying “into your hands I commit my spirit” is a basic form of biblical prayer. Jesus did not make up those words on the cross. He recited them from Psalm 31:5. As a Jewish boy, he would have memorized those words and used them regularly—not unlike children today who are taught bedtime prayers. The apostle Stephen did the same thing, drawing on these words as he was martyred (Acts 7:59). And it is important to stress that this is not just a prayer for hospice units and bedtime rituals. It’s a prayer for morning as well as evening, for life as well as death. Praying “into your hands I commit my spirit” is a prayer for teachers, plumbers, pastors, and CEOs. It is a prayer for children, parents, guardians, and friends. If we had to choose a single one-sentence prayer to use each and every day of our lives, this would be a fruitful choice. Now to put this into practice! Try starting with a treasure hunt. Where can you find practices of entrusting? Search the Bible first: Psalm 131 for sure, and the Song of Simeon. Look for examples in Christian history: prayers of the martyrs and Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 1 (“I . . . belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ.”) Then create a list of songs, images, and artworks that convey this practice. Try skimming an entire hymnal or the CCLI top 200 songs in a night (a splendid way to spend an evening!). If possible, make this a group project, inviting others—even your entire congregation—to be on the lookout for compelling examples of this practice of entrusting. Then embrace this practice as a central aspect of how you introduce or frame the season of Lent. It’s important to be intentional about it early on because this vivid prayer of Jesus is not usually remembered in worship until Good Friday, when only a portion of a worshiping community is likely to be present. Here’s an example of how to introduce this early on without in any way setting aside confession and assurance as central Lenten disciplines: This Lent, we have the opportunity to grow in two central Christian practices by learning to say to God two things that don’t come naturally to us: “I’m sorry” and “I entrust myself to you, O Lord.” The latter is a prayer that builds on our previous approaches to Lent, which focused on the life-giving practice of confession, by adding a new practice of spiritual tenderness and rest inspired by Jesus’ very last prayer before he died. This year, may Lent be for us a “both/and” season—a season of repentance and a season of repose. In worship itself, much depends on how your worship service unfolds. If you prepare worship in a congregation with no set order of service, you have the freedom to choose a two-part discipline for each of Lent’s six Sundays—winsomely insisting, for example, that every week you will sing one song of confession of sin and one song of entrusting ourselves to God. If you do, identify them clearly as such so that worshipers will recognize the intent. Be sure to keep the focus on the spiritual value of each practice. This discipline is not an onerous burden, but an invitation to taste and see the beauty of the Lord. It is a “yoke that is easy.” If you prepare worship in a congregation with a set order of service, there are many ways to make this double theme visible: insisting that prayers of confession and assurances of pardon feature both legal and familial images, creating a music list of two kinds of Lenten songs that can be used in worship and also shared for personal use, and looking for iconography that corresponds with each. Further, I encourage beginning the prayers of the people every week in Lent with words that echo Psalm 31:5 and the prayers of Jesus and Stephen: “Almighty and loving God, how we long to entrust ourselves to you. Help each of us by your Spirit to pray, ‘Into your hands I commit my Spirit.’” In all contexts, be sure to look for ways to connect liturgy and life. Consider sending weekly or daily “learning to confess” and “learning to entrust” prompts for personal prayer or highlighting Bible texts that illuminate both practices.

Q Our church has embraced a minimalist approach to the Lord’s Supper. We introduce it with very few words. We linger there, but only for about ninety seconds. Then we’re on to the offering or benediction. The meaning of the Lord’s Supper seems clear, but also strangely thin. What can we do? Q I’ve been reading books about how the Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli gutted the Lord’s Supper of mystery and wonder, leaving so many Protestants with a fairly dry, intellectualist approach to the Lord’s Supper. Yet I can’t seem to track with the mystique that so many people attribute to the Lord’s Supper. What’s wrong with Zwingli? A These questions have helped me name and better understand one of the central dynamics I’ve discovered while teaching about the Lord’s Supper: the vast differences each of us brings to richly symbolic artifacts and experiences. After graduation ceremonies, some graduates proudly display their diplomas while others toss theirs in a desk drawer. After a grandparent’s funeral, one cousin will cherish a small memento from his grandparent’s belongings while another will quickly donate hers to a thrift store. Some wedding ceremonies unfold with one poignant and symbolic gesture after another; others breeze by en route to the reception. Some of us even from a young age seem wired with a capacity to perceive profound meaning in a given artifact or symbolic experience, but others aren’t that way and find it hard to imagine why other people would be. This helps me make sense of why some churches are content with quite thin celebrations and why some leaders are baffled by those who approach the Lord’s Supper with reverential, mystical language. Theologians typically diagnose all this in terms of the different theological ideas about the sacraments that have shaped communities and how those ideas prime us to anticipate, notice, and affirm the different kinds of experiences we might have at the table. Across the spectrum of Reformed traditions, it is typically asserted that John Calvin’s theology of the Lord’s Supper is more evocative of mystery than Zwingli’s. Indeed, to be lifted up by the Holy Spirit to heaven, where we feed on the ascended Christ—Calvin’s view—is nothing short of an astonishing invitation. And yet anyone who has read what Zwingli said about the virtues of sacramental participation would also be astonished by the boldness of his vision, even if his focus was more on how the supper is primarily an occasion for our mental remembrance of Jesus. Personally, I hope we keep reading both theologians—and that we deeply embrace the profoundly mysterious vision of Calvin that is inscribed in the Reformed confessions. These ideas do matter. Year after year, I discover people who affirm Calvin’s vision but then seem perfectly satisfied with rather casual, brief, and “not-too-big-a-deal” approaches to the Lord’s Supper. I can’t help but think that we all need some help when it comes to experiences of astonishment, wonder, and amazement. These emotive expressions are right at home in the Christian faith. Jesus’ parents (Luke 2:48), disciples (John 4:27), and Jewish contemporaries (John 7:15) were astonished by him. Jesus promises that we will be astonished by all the works God will do (John 5:20), echoing Old Testament prophecies (Habakkuk 1:5; Isaiah 52:14). Yet it seems as if in public worship we tend to squelch experiences like these or try to coerce them through contrived or inauthentic invitations. I have been musing lately about all the ways that we humans, across cultures and time periods, experience amazement and astonished wonder. Colloquial phrases like “take our breath away” and “rendered speechless” begin to show us how embodied an experience can be. We stretch the English language to its limit, using words like “dumbfounded,” “flabbergasted,” or “gobsmacked” to convey experiences of astonishment. The more I look for this kind of experience, the more I see it: as people travel to a national park, hold a newborn baby, learn to notice an exceptionally compelling birdsong, or experience a stunning athletic accomplishment, musical composition, or work of art. Quite a few social media posts I see feature testimonies of astonished wonder about something. If a really good theological vision is not enough to warmly invite people into amazement and wonder at the table, what can we learn from all this? One common element is that when people talk about amazing experiences, they can’t help but testify: “Now that is a remarkable rainbow.” “Holding that baby is pure joy.” “That high-jump performance was breathtaking.” And testimony seems to be a contagious form of speech. A rookie tennis fan sits in the stands perplexed by it all. After hanging around a while, she starts to notice remarkable serves or backhands and exclaims, “Now that was the most remarkable backhand recovery I’ve ever seen!” What would happen in our communities if we listened more deeply to the testimonies of those who truly experience amazement and wonder at the table? Another commonality is that these experiences all require people to slow down long enough to pay deep attention. Hikers on a park trail need to pause at a lookout spot to take in the vista. Fans in the baseball stands need to get off their phones and actually watch the artfully turned double play. Fly-by Lord’s Supper rituals do not linger long enough. A third common element is that while an astonishing experience is accessible even to those who have little knowledge to interpret it, such as very young children, the more we learn about it, the more the astonishment grows. Physicists gain knowledge about the light of sunsets. Midwives and doctors gain expertise to assist in childbirth. A pitching coach knows a lot about the mechanics of a curveball. All that knowledge can enhance their experience of the wonders that come their way—provided they pause often enough from all their technical tasks to hum a doxology. So it is at the Lord’s Supper: contagious testimonies about trinitarian beauty, slowing down to behold the mystery of union with Christ, and continually learning from doxologically shaped theology all help to grow cultures of profound engagement. In all of this, we may well need to pay renewed attention to those who struggle, suffer, mourn and grieve: a spouse who has lost a loved one and senses at the table a profound unity with all those in heaven and on earth who praise the Lamb who was slain; those who struggle with poverty yet stand side-by-side at the table in equal need and dignity with those who are wealthy; those who are addicted to work or substances or fame and come to the table in need of healing. So often the most contagious testimonies come from the margins. A generation ago, these words of Rabbi Abraham Heschel were among the most cited inspirational quotes: “Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.” I find myself praying more and more that congregations and their leaders will pray for a profound sense of wonder at the table and that they will seek to shape cultures of amazement. Ultimately, cultures of amazement and astonishment can’t be engineered or coerced, but they can be gently nurtured.

Q Our new pastor thinks that worship is one of the most important places for practicing good Bible engagement disciplines and has asked our worship team to learn more about this. They never talked about this in my worship leadership training program. What is this all about? A I agree with your pastor. A worship service is a prime occasion for engaging with the Bible. For millions of Christians throughout most of history in many cultural contexts, it was the only place they could engage with the Bible directly. Even in communities with rich practices of regular group Bible study and personal Bible reading, in worship we engage the Bible in a different way. As I reflected on your question, my own thinking was sharpened by listing several ill-advised ways of engaging Scripture in worship, including: Treating it as merely a repository of religious ideas to think about Treating it as merely a collection of ancient writings Ignoring the historical and cultural contexts in which it was written Ignoring the stunning range of the kinds of texts included in the Bible Only ever reading one passage at a time without cross-referencing other texts Reading the Bible only by yourself without noticing how others engage it Only reading tiny snippets of the Bible at a time—only as much as you can fit on a greeting card Treating the images and metaphors in the text as inessential ornaments only loosely connected with the main point Reading a given text quickly and assuming this is good enough Having a Bible around to look good, but never really opening it at all! (Perhaps you could invite others to add to this list of bad Bible engagement habits. The exercise of creating this list will make it much easier to generate a list of good goals we want to work toward.) Now let’s generate a positive vision to counteract these approaches. Notice how even ordinary worship services invite us into something much richer and deeper. FORMATIVE: When we sing or pray texts directly from the Bible in worship, we learn to apprentice ourselves to these texts. When we sing or pray a text from the Bible, we don’t merely think about it; we plant the seed of God’s Word more deeply within us. CONTEMPLATIVE: When sermons are based on particular Bible passages and not just general themes, we practice dwelling with (or stewing in!) a particular text for anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half hour or more, depending on our context. In a world of hurry, this practice of slowing down to listen to an extended proclamation based on a text is a discipline of attentiveness we need. AUTHORITATIVE: When in worship a reader concludes a reading by saying, “The Word of the Lord,” and we respond, “Thanks be to God,” we practice Scripture’s authoritative claim on our lives. While that simple phrase doesn’t automatically mean we will treat the Bible authoritatively, that discipline is still a powerful symbolic gesture that makes a congregation’s aspiration clearer. SYMPHONIC: When worship services routinely read at least two passages of Scripture together in juxtaposition, we learn to see connections throughout the Bible’s sixty-six books. We practice the hermeneutical principle that “Scripture interprets Scripture.” And over time, we may well learn to notice that those connections are not all of one type. While some texts improvise on earlier texts (e.g., Mary riffs on Hannah’s song of praise), others offer striking and instructive contrasts (e.g., Jesus’ command that we pray for our enemies instead of paying the back a “tooth for tooth”). NARRATIVE: When in worship we learn to stick with a passage or set of passages over time (e.g., a six-week sermon series on Philippians, or a lectionary-shaped journey through the gospel of Mark or the book of Exodus), we resist the temptation to engage Scripture only as a set of proof texts or inspirational quotes that we can sprinkle into our lives. We learn to immerse ourselves in more extended Biblical passages. COMMUNAL: When congregations draw on preaching texts all week long to shape prayers, study, and conversations in ministries, we learn to engage the Bible not just individually, but communally. CONTEXTUAL: When congregations encourage their preachers to study the text and to include comments in their sermons about the literary features of the text in its historical and cultural context, we practice the discipline of honoring the organic nature of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the text. IMAGINATIVE: When congregations commission poets, artists, dancers, or songwriters to engage and to evoke the meaning of scriptural texts, congregations practice stretching their own theological and pastoral imaginations. GOSPEL-CENTERED: It is quite possible to read the Bible extensively without paying attention to the Jesus-centered, trinitarian vision at the heart of the gospel message. In public worship, we ideally place every text we read inside services that are trinitarian and Christocentric. What a beautiful vision: engaging the Bible in a formative, contemplative, authoritative, symphonic, narrative, communal, contextual, imaginative, gospel-centered way. Group Bible studies and personal and family Bible reading can also contribute to these aspirations. But worship is also indispensable for shaping healthy, vibrant disciplines of scriptural engagement. What could be better for engaging the Bible than thoughtful disciplines that have as their central concern inviting us together into nothing less than a public covenantal conversation with the triune God?

Q Our church is stuck in conversations about worship. Everything seems to come down to personal preferences and to how many people we can satisfy in any given week. We also have a stack of policies that really stifle our imagination. How can we get out of this pattern? A This seems like an apt description of hundreds of communities. And it points to the deep culture of a community—something harder to describe than to address. It’s likely that nothing will fix this quickly. Still, it’s worth the effort! While there are many ways to approach this challenge, I continue to be inspired by leaders who pay attention to the “language culture” of a community—its characteristic communication habits. First, pay attention to the very different ways that leaders introduce a new idea or try to strengthen a long-established practice. Some leaders do this through “preference talk”—for example, “I was at a conference and heard a new type of song that I simply fell in love with, and I knew we had to try it,” or “I love our edgy pre-sermon videos and would hate to ever see this practice go away.” Others do this through “rule talk”—for example, “Our rule is that we always sing two hymns and three praise songs.” Still others do this through “wisdom talk”—for example, “Forward-looking churches proactively seek to invite younger members to join teams and committees so that we build leadership capacity for the future,” or “We have discovered together how wise it is to have a team of people to prepare and review each Sunday service and to benefit from each other’s perspectives, gifts, and insights.” We can’t move congregations out of preference talk if we use it as leaders. When we do try to replace preference talk, we’ll succeed more in deepening the culture of a community if we embrace wisdom talk—ways of talking that help people see the underlying reasons for a given approach. Second, help people learn to recognize these contrasting ways of speaking in their own families, neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools. In each of these contexts, we all tend to slip into quite arbitrary defenses of a given practice in terms of either our personal desires or a somewhat arbitrary rule. Notice what happens when the topic of worship comes up in car rides home from church or at family reunions or water cooler conversations in the workplace. Preference talk: “I can’t stand it when they play that song so slowly.” “I prefer it when our associate pastor preaches.” “I love old hymns.” “I’m a guitar-and-drums kind of person.” Rule talk: “We never sing Christmas carols during Advent.” “We never show religious imagery that might offend people.” Then, starting in your small group, team, committee, or council, hold each other accountable to make it through an entire meeting without slipping into preference talk or rule talk. As you do, remember that you can quite easily transform just about any comment or observation from one mode of speech to another. Suppose you think to yourself, “I just can’t stand having carpet in church.” Consider all the options you have for expressing it: “I don’t like carpet in church.” (preference) “Do not carpet church sanctuaries.” (command) “The first principle for congregational singing is: do not carpet your sanctuary.” (rule) “Could we explore removing our church carpet?” (question) “Carpeting church sanctuaries dampens congregational singing.” (observation) “Wise is the church that plans its acoustics to enhance congregational singing.” (proverb) “When my former church got rid of carpet, we started to sing like a little choir, and the place came alive.” (testimony) The proverb and the testimony here change the atmosphere of the conversation. They gently shift the focus toward the rationale and enduring strength of a given practice. They are a form of wisdom talk. Wisdom talk is a way of talking that can help sustain a healthy practice over time. If a church sings a lot of music by a given songwriter just because “the pastor or worship leader happens to like it,” that sets up a scenario where these songs are forgotten the day that leader leaves. If a church learns to love the deeper reasons why that music is pastorally compelling, it’s more likely to last. This is just as true for church leaders as it is for athletic coaches, physical therapists, and dietitians who often offer some of our culture’s most compelling examples of wisdom speech. We are more likely to practice a given athletic drill and eat healthier food when we grasp the deep reasons why. There are caveats to consider. First, sometimes we and the people we lead use preference talk when we don’t mean to. Sometimes our hopes would more honestly be conveyed in the form of a testimony or conviction or proverb. But when we talk about our hopes, they come out in the form of a preference because that’s all we ever hear around us! More than once as a teacher, I have known the deep reasons why a given practice is so compelling but was nevertheless tempted to slip into commending something in terms of my own tastes. Second, at the same time, this linguistic shift toward wisdom talk could be used manipulatively. We all can be tempted to dress up our own preferences in whatever way is likely to carry the day—even when there really isn’t much enduring wisdom there. Third, it’s important to acknowledge that both rule talk and preference talk have their place. Preferences for certain foods or parks or animals or colors can be an expression of delight in creation. Firm rules can save us from touching a hot stove or diving into shallow water. Still, I would posit this: Communities are deeply blessed when their choices about worship are grounded not in a set of personal preferences or arbitrary rules, but rather in enduring wisdom that is openly discussed, shared, and mutually affirmed. See if you can gather even a small group of people to experiment with new ways of talking about what you do and why.