By Chaplain Mike

I hope you will continue to put up with my ongoing journey into understanding the Lutheran way of practicing the Christian faith. In a comment the other day, someone asked if this is now a Lutheran site. Well, no. But since I’m walking on that path, what I’m learning is bound to show up here. I hope I can write about it in a way that is accessible to all my brothers and sisters, and that will help us all grow in our faith in the various places we find ourselves at the moment.

One of the big issues over the past generation in many church traditions has been termed, “The Worship Wars.” You will find plenty of posts in the Internet Monk archives reflecting on these skirmishes fought within the “free churches” of evangelicalism—the non-liturgical churches that do not follow an established order of worship (at least intentionally), that are non-sacramental, and which mainly grow out of the revivalist tradition which follows a pattern of: (1) Preparation, (2) Message, (3) Invitation.

Despite all the bluster, conflict, split churches, new movements, experiments with various methods, and the ongoing frustrations in many evangelical churches, nothing has really changed with regard to the fundamentals of what evangelicals think about worship. The “Worship Wars” have been about style, not substance.

Most battles over worship in evangelicalism are about personal preferences with regard to style. What kind of music? Can we dress casually? Is the building and “worship space” marked by Christian symbols? To what extent should we use media and technology? Can I sip my latte while attending the service?

Bottom line, however, the nature of the service has changed little in the fundamental approach to its purpose. There may be (a lot more) singing, a praise band instead of organ, piano, and songleader, inclusion of drama, PowerPoint or video clips, and a casually dressed pastor who doesn’t stand behind a pulpit, but the “big event” remains the sermon, the “worship set” continues to prepare people to listen to the preacher, and the message is still designed to prompt a response. Today’s culture has replaced yesterday’s, that’s all. And this has led to conflict that has mainly erupted along generational lines and/or between those who are more “traditional” in their preferences vs. those who want church to be more “relevant.”

Veteran evangelical churchman Gordon MacDonald wrote a fine book about this—Who Stole My Church: What to Do When the Church You Love Tries to Enter the 21st Century It tells the story of a pastor who tries to bring peace between those who long for “the way it used to be,” and those who insist that “this is how it is now.”

At the same time, many people have left revivalist traditions to join liturgical traditions—Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, and others whose worship is based on an entirely different foundation.

It’s not that liturgical churches have “forms” whereas non-liturgical churches don’t. It’s not that liturgical churches always use traditional music. It’s not that liturgical churches do exactly the same things week after week whereas free churches are “spontaneous” and change things up all the time. The non-liturgical churches are often just as repetitive in their own patterns. These are all “style” matters, and while there are some generalizations that might be made about stylistic differences between liturgical and non-liturgical churches, this is not the main distinction between the two worlds.

At root, the difference is between a sacramental understanding of how God works, and a non-sacramental view.

This distinction is explained in the following words from a 2008 message by Peter Mills, Pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Akron, Ohio.

When the gospel is reduced to being an item of information, the effect is the almost complete exorcism of God’s word from the church; and a concomitant deconstruction of her Liturgy. Essential to the objective gospel of forgiveness is that God’s word has as its natural context the Liturgy of the church. Outside of an orienting liturgical reference, God’s word and gospel cannot be rightly comprehended.

. . . A result of word of God as mere information is that congregations devolve into loosely associated gatherings without substantive unity. The question of whether to join a particular congregation becomes not so much, whether the gospel is purely preached and the sacraments rightly administered, but an array of other, tertiary, and personal concerns (“How friendly is the congregation?”, “Do they conduct optional contemporary and ‘traditional’ Services?, “Is the music uplifting?,” “Are there children activities?”).

But the gospel in its catholic understanding is more than informational factoid of sin forgiven for Christ’s sake. Instead the gospel comprehends the Word as power of God (Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:18) which is spirit and life (Jn. 6:63). By the Word, forgiveness is not obtained in an abstract, disembodied, self-serve way; but delivered as the cleansing, healing, enlivening activity of God in the flesh of Christ for his people gathered by his word and ministered in sacramental presence.

A “liturgical service,” then is sacramental. That is to say, it is the objective means God uses by which his people continually receive the Gospel and its benefits. It is the “natural context” in which Christ saves us.

Friend of Internet Monk and frequent commenter Steve Martin puts it this way:

This is where I return when I feel unworthy, day after day (I return to my baptism as Luther said). I return to the Lord’s supper. It is there that I am accepted. It is there that I am forgiven. It is there that I am declared worthy. It is there where the last will and testament is read, and lo and behold, I am included! It is there that I receive a full share of the inheritance.

We also receive these gifts in the preaching and teaching of His Word, and in the words of Christian encouragement spoken between the brethren.

But the sacraments are something tangible. Something that we can actually see, feel, touch, smell, and taste.

These things, along with God’s Word of Promise (we mustn’t forget that!) are not rabbit’s feet that we rub like some superstitious pagans. These things carry God’s Promises when we exercise faith in what God promises to do, He will do.

As you can see, these two approaches to worship reflect not a difference in style but in actual substance.

• The revivalist tradition calls people who have a “personal relationship with Jesus” to come together voluntarily, “get fed” through learning the Bible, and then go forth inspired to serve God. It assumes that people have made a conscious decision to receive the Gospel (or, if it is an evangelistic meeting, it gathers them to hear and make a decision for Christ). It calls them to choose to come together to learn how to know Christ better, grow in their Christian lives, and serve him by being his witnesses.

• The liturgical tradition calls the church together for a much different reason. It holds that God’s family needs to live in the Gospel through regular sacramental gatherings. In worship we actually, literally, objectively receive the benefits of Christ’s finished work through Word and Sacrament, are nourished for our ongoing journey, and strengthened to live in new obedience by the Spirit who fills us through the tangible means God has provided.
  

Liturgy is not a style. It is the way God comes to us in grace.

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer

Originally posted May 26, 2007

Act 2:1-8 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. (2) And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. (3) And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. (4) And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. (5) Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. (6) And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. (7) And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? (8) And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?

We had our Pentecost worship gathering at soli deo this week, and I once again was amazed at what bad press the Feast of Pentecost usually gets among most evangelical Christians. How did such an important part of the Christian story become so lost and muddled?

For example, if you read the Gospels, you are bound to notice that no matter what happens, Jesus never tells his disciples, “OK…that’s all there is. Time to get to work.” There is always something more to come.

The disciples not only saw some incredible demonstrations of power, they experienced some of that power working through themselves on the two occasions when Jesus sent them out on missions “two by two.” I’m sure that after seeing the miracles of Jesus, the disciples would have said, “the Spirit of God is here. What are we waiting for?” Jesus said things about the presence of the Holy Spirit in his ministry that sounded like the age of the Spirit had arrived. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” What more could anyone ask for?

Of course, that was exactly the point. There WAS more to come. The Spirit that the disciples experienced in Jesus was coming to everyone in the people of God in fullness. In John 14 and 16, Jesus said that it would actually be better for him to go away so that the Spirit could come to all of his disciples in an intimate, advocating, comforting and consoling way. The Holy Spirit was coming upon the church in a way that had been predicted in the prophetic scriptures and previewed in the ministry of Jesus.

Even after the resurrection, the disciples are being prepared for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The resurrection does not do for the church what the coming of the Holy Spirit does for the church. Imagine setting around with Jesus for those 40 days after Easter, being told, “Wait. Not yet. The Spirit hasn’t yet come.” If we put the overlap of the book of Acts onto the end of the Gospels, then the disciples believe the Kingdom simply needs to be announced by Jesus, but he is saying, “Wait until the Holy Spirit comes. Then you will be my witnesses everywhere.”

In other words, the entire Bible is waiting for the day of Pentecost to arrive, for all the work of Jesus to be completed and the church to be born. What an incredible event! It is the church’s “Third Great Day.”

It seems odd that non-liturgical churches marking the birth of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus often lose Pentecost completely. The coming of the Spirit is a major event in the New Testament; a defining event in the history and identity of God’s people. For Christians, the first great act of the ascended, reigning Christ was to pour out the Holy Spirit on the church. The gathered disciples are really not the ekklesia of Jesus Christ- the New Covenant people of God- until the Holy Spirit comes. It is the birth of the church.

How unfortunate then that evangelicals either lost Pentecost or put the focus entirely on the wrong aspects. For example, I recall being in a large church where the pastor- with a seminary doctorate- was preaching that the point of Pentecost was….to draw a crowd. Yes, Pentecost was a way for God to create some fireworks and get a crowd together for the first big church event. It’s almost comedic to think of Pentecost being an attendance stunt. While Acts tells us that the crowd in the temple that heard the first Christian sermon was amazed at what they heard, how did the emphasis ever fall on Acts 2 as a lesson on justifying whatever we need to do to get a lot of people in the building?

Of course, the recent Azusa Street Revival Anniversary celebrations remind me that there are millions of Christians who see Pentecost primarily in terms of the arrival of power for the operation of the Gifts of the Spirit. The increasing influence of “Pentecostal” evangelicalism brings with it many positive contributions in worship, body life and evangelism, but the over-emphasis on spiritual gifts makes the letters to the Corinthians more pertinent than ever.

While the Holy Spirit is the author and giver of gifts, the place of spiritual gifts in the church seems to be one of the most distracting, misunderstood issues among Christians. I believe the New Testament compels us to be open to all the giftings and operations of the Spirit that God may send to his people as they witness, minister and serve. At the same time, the Holy Spirit does not give gifts as a way to divide the church into the “spiritual” and the “unspiritual.” Incredibly, some of those evangelicals who most loudly proclaim the heritage of Azusa Street seem determined to view the Holy Spirit in terms remarkably similar to the divisiveness and immaturity of the Corinthians.

The Holy Spirit did not come to divide the church, but to birth it, equip it and unite it. In I Corinthians 12, Paul says that the one thing all members of the body have in common is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is a clear reference to Pentecost, and the promise that the same “Pentecostal blessing” that came on the Apostles will come on all who believe. (Acts 2:38-39) Pentecost itself is repeated in Samaria, in the home of Cornelius and in the case of disciples of John the Baptist, not to teach a universal experience of tongues, but to show the apostles that the same Holy Spirit that came from Jesus to them was given to all peoples, just as the old covenant had promised.

The clear purpose of Pentecost was to bring into birth a new people of God, the beneficiaries of the ministry of the one mediator between God and man and all that he accomplishes in his life, death, resurrection, ascension and session. Pentecost is not a show or the dividing of the church into a spiritual competition between those with spiritual gifts and those not yet blessed. Pentecost is the creation of the people of God that scripture has always looked toward, from the covenant with Abraham until the consummation in the Kingdom.

The celebration of Pentecost should be among the church’s most important days because everything that it means to be the church- election, inheritance, salvation, empowering, community, mission, hope- all comes in the Holy Spirit that is poured out on Pentecost. Let’s reclaim the meaning and significance of this day, and make it a day that belongs to all Christians as our joyful, common birthday.

By Chaplain Mike

There are four major holidays in the Christian Year:

• Christmas
• Good Friday
• Easter
• Pentecost

We all know about Christmas. Not only is the story poignant and heart-warming (who doesn’t love a baby?), but it also fits with seamless perfection into our nuclear family-oriented, consumerist culture. Thanks especially to Charles Dickens, Clement Moore, Bing Crosby, Frank Capra, and the vast Christmas retail-industrial complex, we American Christians not only enjoy Christmas, we base a large portion of our national retail economy on it.

As for the two holidays that fall on Holy Week—if Spring Break (the real “holy week” for many in our culture) doesn’t interfere—many Christians go to Good Friday commemorations. Some liturgical traditions even hold three-hour services to mark the time Jesus spent on the cross. And no doubt Easter Sunday gets a fair amount of attention. But even though it has traditionally been THE holy day for the church over history, in our culture Easter comes in second place by quite a distance. The songs just aren’t as catchy as those Christmas tunes. Easter baskets can’t trump presents under the tree. The Easter Bunny vs. Santa Claus? You gotta be kiddin’ me, it’s no contest. Still, most everybody likes and gets dressed up for Easter.

But what about Pentecost?

Celebrating Pentecost
Pentecost (the word means “fifty”) is celebrated by the Jewish people fifty days after Passover. One of the three pilgrimage feasts of Israel (Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 16), it was not originally associated with a historical event. In Leviticus it is called, “The Feast of Weeks,” a one-day festival that marked the beginning of harvest season. Both Leviticus and Deuteronomy stress that, during this harvest, special consideration was to be given to provide for the poor and the aliens in the land (Lev 23:22 , Deut 16:11-12). Based on the dating in Exodus 19:1 (when Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai) the feast of Pentecost was expanded to include a commemoration of God giving the Law to his people. The Book of Ruth, with its harvest themes, is read at this time.

When Christians think of Pentecost, we link it with the birthday of the Church. On the day of Pentecost, according to Acts 2, God poured the Holy Spirit out on his new covenant people, creating the community of those who follow Jesus and spread his Good News to the ends of the earth.

Pentecost should be one day when Christians rise up and celebrate. It’s the Church’s birthday! Yet, for many of us, particularly in non-liturgical traditions, it is simply another Sunday. And the “forgotten Person of the Trinity” is ignored yet once more. Contrast the pomp and circumstance that attends our remembrance of the Son’s coming into the world (Christmas) with the silence that greets the Spirit’s descent (Pentecost)! This is the exact opposite of the tenor of the Biblical witness! How can we get things so backwards?

The cynic in me says that our culture’s view must be, “If we can’t use it to sell stuff, then we’ll just treat it as another day.”

Apparently, we have forgotten Jesus’ words, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7). Our Lord himself told us that the Spirit’s coming would be the best thing ever to happen for those who believe in him. For the outpouring of the Spirit is the capstone of Jesus’ finished work—he who became incarnate, who was revealed to Israel, crucified, buried, raised, ascended, and enthroned. Now from the throne his Spirit falls and puts the new covenant into operation on earth.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances… (Ezek 36:25-27)

And so, the holiday that came to be identified with the giving of the old covenant law now marks the new covenant in action. The giving of the Law, fulfilled in Jesus, is now followed by the next great stage in God’s plan of the ages—the baptism of the Spirit, who writes God’s law in our hearts. The announcement of harvest now becomes the beginning of a great ingathering of sinners, as God calls his people from the ends of the earth. The command to remember the poor and dispossessed is fulfilled in an ever-expanding, ever more diverse community that loves and provides for one another in unselfish, sacrificial ways. The risen and vindicated Lord, now exalted to the right hand of God, where he has taken his rightful place of cosmic rule, has poured out his Spirit on God’s people, empowering them to exemplify life in a new creation and to speak its life-giving authority that raises the dead and transforms the world.

Is this not worth celebrating?

Shouldn’t our worship this Sunday be one giant birthday celebration, an explosion of color and sound, a rushing of wind and fire with powerful Gospel preaching (Acts 2), bright, thankful, joyous music (Ephesians 5:18-20), grateful praises for the hope of eternal life and renewal of all creation, beginning with our own lives (Romans 8), earnest prayers and creative, self-denying efforts for assisting the needy with Spirit-inspired love (Acts 4:32-35)?

I suggest that we raise a petition to put the celebration of Pentecost on par with the other great holidays. I can’t imagine how hurt the Holy Spirit must be when we fail to commemorate the day of his arrival. And what do we really think of the Church when we ignore her birthday? And how much do we genuinely treasure what God through Jesus has done for us, when we ignore the Divine Person who was sent to make the gifts of redemption real in our lives?

This weekend, as we mourn Michael Spencer’s passing, thank God for the hope of eternal life, and comfort one another in our time of loss, IM will feature classic posts from the Internet Monk.

Dr. StrangeLiturgy
I’ve got friends in high-church places.

The humor of me standing in front of a Presbyterian Church, wearing a robe, saying the Apostle’s Creed and leading congregational confessions, is still not lost on me. If only Hall Street Baptist Church could see me now. They wouldn’t be laughing. (That’s Cranmer over there grinning. Isn’t he?)

I grew up fearing any church that didn’t resemble a tent revival. The first time I went to a Roman Catholic worship service, I was so scared and confused that I walked out. When everyone headed up front for the mass, I thought it was the invitation, and it seemed a good time to duck out. The stress of trying to figure out kneelers was too much for me.

Even Methodist churches frightened me. I simply didn’t understand what was going on in the simplest liturgies, and I assumed it was bad for real Christians to be around it. “Good” was evangelistic revivalism, and all the efforts expended to get people down to the altar, or even better, up there “testifying’” of how they got saved. (My Episcopal friend was just as confused by our Baptist services, but he handled it far better than me. I never found the courage to even visit his church.)

Today, revivalism scares me to death, and the comfortable predictability of the common liturgy is home for me and my family. When ministers start “winging it” and talking about what has God laid on their hearts, I want to go out the back door. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer ought to be the law of the land as far as I am concerned.

My friends often talk about liturgical churches as if they were dens of open Satanism. There dead, phony Christians, bound in Papist chains of tradition and quenching the Spirit at every opportunity, sit frozen, worshiping God in a box and considering themselves the only real Christians. Meanwhile, down at the Free Pentecostal Last-Days Assembly and Revival Center, real Christians, free in the Spirit, get high on Jesus, get saved every Sunday and see God working miracles at every service. Shambala-shingi.

I’ve quit trying to explain myself to these people. Having “been there, done that” as a naive Charismatic during my high school years, I know how convinced these folks are that liturgical churches are wrong, and that anything genuine must be extemporaneous. But I think I need to go on the record with what I’ve found in the liturgical tradition, and why I’ve taken my children away from revivalism and helped them find their way into a church that purposely avoids the very things I valued most for years as a Baptist.

The cause of it all
A boy can’t be too careful what he reads. I have no idea where I picked up Robert Webber’s overlooked book, The Majestic Tapestry, but somehow it found itself in my hands, and I read it. Several times, and to my everlasting  benefit. It was this little book that cost me a promising career as a Southern Baptist revivalist.

Robert Webber is a professor of Church History and theology who has devoted his career to the encouragement of evangelicals in deepening their appreciation of the larger traditions of Christian worship. Majestic Tapestry was my introduction to a Christian tradition I had never heard of before. (The extent of my ignorance defies measurement. I had no truthful ideas about any Christianity beyond my own fundamentalism and what I had been told about Catholics. And most of what I believed about my bunch was wrong.)

Here was the Christian year, the great themes of redemption outlined in the liturgy. Here was the church militant and triumphant, and a depth of appreciation for the Bible as a worship source that I did not find in my corner of the faith. Here were the Psalms, the Collects, the Responses and other voices of simple, Biblical worship. Here were the bonds that held Christians together across history and denominations; the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Here were the saints, the confessions, the creeds, the saints, the martyrs and, yes, the liturgy of Christianity. And it was apparently all mine, even though I was in a church that thought most of these people were roasting in hell.

I was captivated. Webber predicted that the wider Christian tradition has particular appeal for boomers who dislike denominationalism. I had grown up in the hothouse of denominationalism, but many of my significant Christian friendships were with non-Southern Baptists. I knew these brothers were Christians, and I sensed that they were part of a larger Christian family to which I belonged, but did not know it.
Webber focused on the theme of Christus Victor (Christ Victorious), and showed me how the worship of the church re-enacts this theme each time it gathers to worship. Here were Guilt, Grace and Gratitude as the great themes of worship. Here was the Lord’s Supper as a great table of communion and a preview of the eschatological banquet at the end of time. Here was baptism into the body of Christ, not just “our church.” Here was an acceptance of other Christians in the great tradition, rather than an exclusion of all other Christians over matters that were clearly trivial or even false.

The effect of Webber’s book upon me was profound–and it continues to this day, as I come more and more to value the great tradition of faith flowing from the Old Covenant into the New and through the Church of all times and places.

Out in Left Field
In 1982, we moved to Louisville so I could attend seminary. I had worked as a full time Associate Pastor for youth for three years before coming back to school, and I was not really interested in any more youth ministry positions. I wanted to pastor, and refused to apply for several youth ministry openings in the Louisville area.

One day, however, I was contacted by Highland Baptist Church, a church near the seminary in the Cherokee Triangle area of Louisville. Highland was not my uncle’s kind of Southern Baptist church. For one thing, the church was extremely “high church” compared to the typical SBC congregation in Kentucky, to say the least. Most SBC pastors would have felt they’d wandered into a moderately high Presbyterian church. Worship was liturgical. Scripture was read in three lessons. Corporate prayers, responses and confessions were common. Music, though occasionally aware and appreciative of its revivalist roots, was polished, serious and classical. The pastor, Paul Duke, was a young preacher whose fine sermons were filling the church up with professionals and the seminary community. He preached from the lectionary and was more Fosdick and Craddock than Criswell or Vines. The beautiful stone sanctuary was full of liturgical colors and the Christian year.

I tried to not act like Jethro Bodine, but the fact is, I was wowed. This was “high cotton” for a kid from the revivalistic backwaters of Western Kentucky. No, they weren’t wearing robes or using incense, and yes, they had invitations, but this was a church intentionally plugged into the tradition that Webber was writing about. In my two years as youth minister at Highland, I did a passable job with the students. But I learned enough about the church to change me for a lifetime. I never again felt entirely comfortable in a typical Southern Baptist Church.

Seminary underlined much of what I was learning at Highland. I came to understand the tradition of the church, and to see the value in allowing that great tradition to replace denominationalism. At the same time, I saw some of the possibilities for integrating this tradition into the mission of the church; the many ways that scripture and tradition, rather than modernity and pragmatism, could shape evangelism and ministry.

In Church history I studied this tradition, and in theology I saw its development and influence. For the first time, I saw how my fundamentalistic Baptist roots related to that great tradition. I realized that even in the sawdust trails of revivalism, there were the echoes of liturgical worship and the Book of Common Prayer. I noted that our 1956 Baptist Hymnal, when examined closely, was full of texts that were not written recently in Nashville. Some were translations of ancient Latin texts. Catholic lyrics? In my hymnal? It was only one way my eyes were opened to the overarching influence of the Christian tradition.

What I Love

What do I love about liturgical worship?

I love the Christian year. When I was working on church staff, we were told to organize the church year around the various offerings and denominational emphases from the Southern Baptist Convention. Other than Christmas or Easter, there was no vestige of the Christian year. It was the program of the church that held together our worship and proclamation. I remember how this never really struck me as odd until I had children. Then it became obvious that the Christian year was a primary way of teaching our children–and the whole congregation– the story of the Gospel.

Today the Christian year is one of my passions. Advent, Lent, Holy Week, Epiphany, Trinity Sunday, Christ the King, Ascension, Annunciation, Holy Baptism–all of these days teach us the story of Jesus and preach the Gospel to us. Why would we want to neglect this great heritage? Why can’t all Christians see the value in the visual and artistic celebration of the Gospel that is made possible using the Christian year?

One of the saddest mistakes of fundamentalism is in assuming that if something is “catholic” it is Roman Catholic, and therefore poison. The Christian year is the property of all Christians, and I can only rejoice that more and more evangelicals of every kind are discovering Advent and Lent. Hopefully, soon we will see the Christian year reclaimed in all churches, and a great unity of worship created as a result.

I love the lectionary. Three scripture passages read in a worship service! In my revivalistic roots, you could wave the Bible around, you could slam it on the pulpit, tear pages out for an illustration, talk about what it said and quote isolated verses, but you couldn’t actually read from it much except in Sunday School. Three scripture readings in church would have been a special Christmas program, or maybe January Bible study run amuck.

Of course, there is the irony. In liturgical churches, the Bible is read all the time and shows up in every part of worship. It’s been said before that even if the sermon is repeatedly terrible, one can still get the Gospel and a good deal of solid teaching in just the liturgy and prayers of the liturgical churches.

In addition, lectionary preaching is a wonderful alternative to the “whatever text strikes Brother Billy this week” method. Lectionaries bring Christians together, as many different churches read the same lessons and hear sermons from the same Gospel or Epistle passages. Lectionary resources allow preachers to share their ideas on how they will approach the text. And, of course, the lectionary keeps the scriptures front and center. You can’t just chase the issue of the day when the lectionary does its job.

I was in an Episcopal church the week before the big vote on ordaining Bishop Robinson. The text of the week, of course, had nothing to do with the issue of the day. The rector, who felt his congregation needed to hear about the controversial issue, made the text work for his purpose, but still had to come back and talk about the Gospel for more than half the sermon. I thought that this was a good example of how the lectionary resists our own agendas, and keeps us in the scriptures, preaching Christ.

I love the creeds, confessions and responses of liturgical worship. Nothing seems to agitate the non-liturgical Christian more than the twin sins of 1) saying things together and 2) saying something every week. Why is this so irritating? Apparently, these folks think they don’t do it.

Uhh…what? Ever heard of singing? Most Protestant Churches spend a large amount of worship time saying/singing the same things together with as much gusto as they can work up, but when you take away the instruments and the tune, suddenly it’s a march over the cliffs of Romanism. Isn’t that silly?

Further, last time I checked in at my home church, the spontaneous prayers and comments this week sound remarkably like last week. Take such weekly boomerangs as the offertory prayer offered by Deacon Smith: “Lord, just bless this offering, bless those who give. Bless the sick and be with our pastor. If there be anyone here today who is not saved, may they come to Christ before it is eternally too late. In Jesus name, Amen.” Sound vaguely familiar to anyone? This makes the weekly Collect a regular oasis of innovation.

One of my favorite times in the worship service is the congregational confession. Standing together, saying in unity the words that agree we are all failures and all in need of grace, I really feel at home. It’s the same with the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, questions from the catechisms and our weekly responsive Psalms. Together, as one body, no one showing off, we confess our sins, announce our faith and talk to God in the words He has given us.

I love the fact that liturgical worship isn’t every worshiper doing whatever he or she wants to do. I’m not one to criticize the particular behaviors of any group of worshipers, but I would like to suggest that there is something really wrong with a service where people are given permission to try and outdo one another in participation and enthusiasm. Now many of my friends call this being “free” in worship, but this sort of freedom seems to have certain predictable consequences.

Showoffs and people who want attention really get into the act. People who want a life on the stage and screen feel invited to make that big impression on…..the rest of us? (When will the endless numbers of young people claiming to be called into “Christian music ministry” end?) Distractions are the norm, and the poor guy who just sits there gets bombed with guilt and constant admonitions to “get free” and “Shout/clap/jump/stomp/holler/dance for/to the Lord.”

Liturgical worship says if we can’t all do it, we probably won’t do it. It’s that simple. Oh sure, some people kneel and others don’t. Some sing louder than others. There are always ways for human nature to come through, but the idea here is to worship as a congregation, and the freedom to worship God comes along with a freedom from the domineering reign of the human ego and the demands to be recognizable to the culture.

I’ll say it plainly: some churches have turned worship into an embarrassing chaos that has no resemblance to the “decently and in order” command of the Apostle. We are fallen human beings. When you take off the restraints and tell us to be “free in God,” don’t be surprised at all if you get someone running around acting drunk or who knows what. Yes, that is a worse case scenario, but it is rapidly becoming too true to ignore.

Thank God for the sanity of liturgical churches.

In fact, I may be most grateful of all that liturgy feels no need to impress the world by being like the world. It is the most un-contemporary, un-seeker friendly thing I know of in the church. It is the church’s own way of hearing and speaking, and so far, the world has made very little successful progress in turning the liturgy into a commercial for the spirit of the age. That is not to say that some liberals and innovators haven’t fallen for the temptation, and done violence to the Book of Common Prayer tradition in the name of something modern. But go to any liturgical church–anywhere–and marvel at how much of Christianity has survived even the onslaught of the blasphemers.

I love the fact that most of what is said outside of the sermon is scripted. In other words, I love it that I don’t have to listen to brother Billy Bob carry on about what God has laid on his heart THIS WEEK!!
I once had a long conversation with a thoughtful young man who couldn’t–absolutely couldn’t–come to grips with my preference for liturgical worship. I asked him if he ever got tired of hearing preachers talk. Just constantly talking to fill the hour. Especially, didn’t he weary of the banter and the cute comments and the unnecessary asides? Didn’t he sometimes wish he could come to church and hear the Bible, good words of encouragement, short, to-the-point prayers and a minimum of happy talk? He admitted that I was right, but no amount of preacherly imitation of Jay Leno would convince him to go where they were reading the service.

I understand his feelings, but once you are inside a good liturgical church working at making worship meaningful, that “scripted” feeling gives way to an appreciation of EVERY WORD that is spoken in the service. The value placed on every sentence and every small prayer or response is one of the richest treasures of the liturgy. Words ought not be thrown out as if they really didn’t matter, and they shouldn’t be used to manipulate in the way the world uses words to sell and corrupt.

Evangelicalism has become a cult of celebrities. Leading pastors are superstars, even cult-like figures of adoration and near-worship. Most evangelical worship encourages this imitation of the entertainer. Musicians, preachers, worship leaders all take their cues in style, dress and manner from the entertainment idolatry of our culture. Liturgical worship does not encourage this, and actually works against it by restraining the minister within the liturgy. The minister is the servant of the Word. He is ordained for the ministry of Word and sacrament, and his personality must become his servant that the Word might be heard and seen.

Whatever comes out of the preacher’s mouth are…the words of a man. A fallen man just like me. I know that the liturgy is also the words of fallen men, but there is something about the common service of worship in a high church that shows what can happen when human personality is harnessed to words selected precisely to give glory to God and not man. The liturgy has been “purified” like few human creations are, to bring the words of  men into subjection to the Holy Word of God. I like the result, and I believe it has done me good.

I love a lot of other things. I love the use of art and architecture to glorify God. I love the hymns. I love the sense of history. I love the humility at the heart of Liturgy. I love the constant return to the language of the Bible. I love the voices of people from across the ages becoming the voices of worshipers in my little church. I love the centrality of the Sacraments, especially of that neglected celebration around the Lord’s Table. I love the theologically driven message of liturgical worship, where God matters more than the audience.

What’s not to love?
Liturgical worship can be every bad thing the critics say. It can be empty, frozen, repetitive, insincere, and elitist. It certainly can go over the heads of some kinds of people. Like any human worship expression, the use of ritual can allow our fallenness to make words about God into merely background noise for the wandering human mind. It is more demanding than other kinds of worship, and you have to practice to be good at it. It is not friendly to the lazy or the easily bored.

Yet it appears to me that the answer to deadness in worship is not sheer innovation. It is not rejecting the liturgy that brings to us the Christian tradition in the very words of scripture itself.  The judgments of modern worship consumers on liturgy are not reliable. It will survive, and if we value it, it will thrive now and in the future. It will outlast polls and market studies, because it has outlasted every trend it has ever faced, and yet it continues to serve the church.

Reviving liturgy, bringing new worship expressions into old forms, new music, new approaches to congregational worship–all of these are important tasks for those of us who value liturgy, and believe that it must grow stronger and survive these times to once again bear witness to Christ when the innovations of the seeker-sensitive mega-church era have become yesterday’s abandoned fads.

Webber believes that the generations behind the boomers will be more open to liturgy than their parents, because they will be tired of the cynical attempts to lure them with flash. The language of liturgy has rich possibilities for reaching those who are weary of television and Powerpoint, and long for symbolism and substance to merge into something deep and genuine. Even Pentecostal/Charismatic churches have shown openness to looking at their own worship and reacquainting themselves with their liturgical, classically Christian roots. There is an exhaustion out there in the modern worship crowd, and liturgy is the oasis many will find in their staleness and dread.

I am glad to have found a home in liturgical worship and in an appreciation for the greater Christian tradition. I hope that my remaining years will give me opportunities to share this true renewal of Biblical worship with many of my evangelical friends. This is a treasure worth finding, and passing on, for with each new congregation that discovers the worship of the ancient church, the treasure of Christian tradition itself is made richer.

By Chaplain Mike.

Many of us in our Christian traditions learned to celebrate Christ’s resurrection on a day—Easter Sunday.

Easter is the great Lord’s Day, the climax of Holy Week, the high point of the Christian Year, marked by an explosion of color, wafting fragrance of lilies, majestic sounds of organ and baroque trumpets, bright new clothes, formal dinner with the family. A blissful Sabbath! Our little ones receive baskets of candies and toys, hunt for Easter eggs, strap on patent leather shoes, dress up like little ladies and gentlemen. We take their pictures out in the yard framed by the early blooms of spring. Women wear hats to church, white gloves. Even the men adorn themselves in pastels. This is the one Sunday we sing, “Christ the Lord is risen today! Alleluia!” The choir resounds with joyful praise. Everyone smiles. Such a happy day!

And then it’s over.

In the non-liturgical churches I have served as a pastor, the time after Easter was one of the few “lulls” in the year. For families, it formed the season between spring break and May, which where I live has become one of the busiest months of the year—with spring sports in full swing, summer sports like Little League beginning, end of school and church year programs, graduations, weddings, holidays like Mother’s Day, college students returning home, outdoor projects getting into full swing—and, of course, here in Indianapolis we have all “the month of May” activities leading up to the Indy 500 race. After the Easter event, and before the month of May, we had a period of relative quiet.

As an evangelical (and an American), it seems to me that I was always taught to think in terms of events. Events can be strategized, planned, advertised and marketed, organized, staffed, set up, prayed for, executed, cleaned up after, reviewed and evaluated, and followed up. It’s a typically business-like approach. A well-run event can make a big splash, leave a lasting impression, and play a crucial role in forming a group of people into a community.

However, as I have more seriously considered the practice of the liturgical year, I have been challenged to think more in terms of seasons than simply in terms of events. Seasons force us to face the “dailyness” of life rather than simply its special points.

It’s like the difference between a wedding and a marriage. Or the birth of a baby and learning to care for an infant.

We love Christmas, but it is in Advent that we learn to long and pray day by day for Christ to come. And it is in Christmastide (the days following Christmas) that we take time to gaze with wonder into the face of the incarnate baby Jesus, to do as Mary did, “treasuring all these things in her heart.”

And so it is with Easter. Easter is a season, not just a day. On the Christian calendar, the period that begins on Easter Sunday is called “The Great Fifty Days,” “Pascha,” or “Eastertide.”

Writing in The Complete Library of Christian Worship V, Marjorie Proctor-Smith says,

Celebrating Easter for fifty days is a Christian practice almost as ancient as the annual observance of Easter. …The term Pentecost was first used by Christians to refer to this seven-week period as a unit: “the Pentecost,” or the fifty days. It was only later that the term was applied to the fiftieth day, at which time then the fifty days was called the Easter season.

The importance of this period for the ancient church is reflected in the language used by early writers wen speaking of it, and the practices which their comments reveal. Tertullian refers to the period, which he called the Pentecost, as a laetissimum spatium, a “most joyous space” in which it is especially fitting that baptisms take place. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, write an annual “Festal Letter” to the church in which he announced the date of Easter, which “extends its beams, with unobscured grace, to all the seven weeks of holy Pentecost.” In every letter Athanasius emphasizes the centrality of the Easter observance for Christians, speaking of the fifty days especially as a time of joy and fulfillment: “But let us now keep the feast, my beloved, not as introducing a day of suffering but of joy in Christ, in whom we are fed every day.” It was, quite simply, a “Great Sunday” which lasted for seven weeks, a week of Sundays, wherein the church celebrated on a large scale the resurrection of Christ. “All of Pentecost,” writes Basil of Caesarea, “reminds us of the resurrection which we await in the other world.”

Seeing Easter as a season rather than a day might help us grasp more fully the meaning and implications of Christ’s resurrection.

• What a wonderful season in which to study the post-resurrection appearances! The ascension! The promise of the Spirit! The new covenant!

• To lavishly decorate our sanctuaries and celebrate Christ’s resurrection with exuberance for seven Sundays rather than just one!

• To have “Emmaus Road” Bible studies that show how all the Scriptures point to Jesus and his finished work.

• To celebrate the Lord’s Supper more often with a specific focus on Christ’s promise that we will share it new with him in the coming kingdom.

• To teach Biblically sound eschatology that grounds people in the Christian hope and the coming of the new creation.

• To explore the “Great Commission” the risen Christ gave to us and to practice “going and telling” the Good News of our risen Savior in various ways throughout our communities.

• To regularly celebrate baptisms and hear testimonies of those who have experienced new life in Christ.

• To hold special meetings for prayer as the disciples did, asking for God to fill us anew with his Holy Spirit that we might become more fully and joyously engaged in his mission in the world.

Many Christians assume that Easter is commemorated on just one day. It’s an event. After it’s over, we move on to something else.

But this cannot be. We are Easter people! The first Sunday of Easter is the beginning, not the climax of the season.

As the disciples grew in their understanding and love for the risen Christ over the great fifty days when he arose, appeared to them, ascended into heaven, and poured out the Holy Spirit upon them, may we too experience Easter throughout the entire season to come!

Perhaps it can be useful to you as well on your Lenten journey.

Blessings…

Litany of Penitence

Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints 
in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault 
in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and
 strength.
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We 
have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.
Have mercy on us, Lord.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us.
We have not been true to the mind of Christ.
We have grieved
 your Holy Spirit.
Have mercy on us, Lord.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness:
the 
pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways,
and our exploitation 
of other people,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration,
and our envy of those
 more fortunate than ourselves,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts,
and 
our dishonesty in daily life and work,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our negligence in prayer and worship,
and our failure to
 commend the faith that is in us,
We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done:
for our blindness to human need and suffering,
and our 
indifference to injustice and cruelty,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments,
for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors,
and for our prejudice and contempt toward those 
who differ from us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation,
and our lack of
 concern for those who come after us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;
Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,
That we may show forth your glory in the world.

By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,
Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

St. Peter’s also makes notes available to use while watching. Download notes here. (MOD: With regard to downloading the notes, clicking the link on St. Peter’s page will take you to another link at the bottom of the page. Right click (or Ctrl-click for Mac) to download the PDF file.)

Instructed Eucharist from St. Peter’s Anglican Church on Vimeo.

Today’s post is by guest blogger, Chaplain Mike

Those of you with sensitive ears, cover them for a moment. I’m about to utter a dirty word.

OBLIGATION.

Let me give you another one.

DUTY.

I confess to being partially accountable for the fact that these are dirty words to many today, for I grew up in the American Baby Boomer generation. We came of age in a society of rules and manners, of authority and expected norms of behavior. And we rebelled, hard.

My generation wrote “Question authority” on blackboards across the country. We grew our hair long. We wore jeans with holes and patches and girls cast away their bras. We publicly protested the war. We dug rock ‘n roll and advocated the recreational use of drugs. We promoted free love. “If it feels good, do it,” was another of our slogans.

We didn’t believe in respecting our elders simply because they were elders. After all, most of them were hypocrites, living by somebody’s made-up code on the outside, screwed up on the inside and behind closed doors. And don’t even talk about how messed up their politics were. For us, conformity was the worst crime (at least conformity to the norms of “good” society).

I saw this change happen and I remember when things were different. When I went to junior high, we had a dress code. For boys, no hair below the tops of the ears. Shirts tucked in. Belt required. No blue jeans, no sneakers. You said, “Yes, sir,” and “Yes, ma’am” when addressed by an adult. You asked permission to speak, and when you did you called grown-ups by their last names and appropriate titles.

You also went to church. That’s what good people did. It was your duty. It wasn’t your job to question such things, especially if you were a child or teenager.

But we didn’t like or accept this society of rules and duties. We felt obliged to nothing. Our duty was to be true to ourselves. We didn’t care about appearances; we wanted things to be “real”. We craved “authenticity.” We sought “experience” and when we copped a good high on something, we called it “truth.”

I had a spiritual awakening in 1974, became a pastor in 1978, and for more than three decades now have seen how this thinking has affected the church, particularly in the area of worship.

In most of evangelicalism, the old rules have been simply thrown out. The church has rejected principles of objectivity, tradition, form, repetition, and authority, and has replaced them with notions of subjectivity, spontaneity, freedom, and personal preference. It is no longer “the Divine Service,” it is “my worship.”

With an ever-growing bag of technological tools at our disposal to make it happen, Christians have more and more become a people for whom worship simply is not worship unless it gives me a tangible “high.” As a worshiper, I must have an “awesome experience” of God’s presence and power to feel like I’ve worshiped. God’s “truth” is defined as that which comes home to my heart with powerful emotions and a sense of being somehow “transformed.” The worship music of the past 40 years has by and large unashamedly focused on cultivating an ecstatic intimacy with God. Anything rote or not immediately appealing to the “heart” is cold, formal, and dead.

Pastors have joined the “get real” movement. They no longer wear the robe or hide behind a pulpit, but wander around a stage dressed casually, talking “authentically” about their own lives, dealing with topics that are “relevant” to their target audience.

In every area of the church’s worship—architecture, seating, music and the arts, order of service, sacraments, etc.—we seem intent on reworking and manipulating our practices so that they produce the most bang for the buck. For example, Willow Creek used to say the goal in their services was to create “moments” for people, moments of spiritual breakthrough, “aha!” moments, “wow” moments.

There is a whole lot of theology we could chew on with regard to this subject, but I simply want to introduce one contrarian notion to all this rubbish that says, “What I don’t feel can’t be real.”

Obligation.

Why do I worship God? Why do I attend a worship service and participate in it? The bottom-line answer is simply this: “Because I am obliged to do so.”

I owe it to God. I come to the worship service to give him his due. It is my obligation and duty as one created by God, redeemed in Christ, and baptized in the Holy Spirit to present offerings of worship and thanksgiving to him for who he is and what he has done for me.

Each week in the liturgy, we say:

Leader: Lift up your hearts.
People: We lift them to the Lord.
Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
People: It is right to give him thanks and praise.
Leader: It is indeed right, our duty and delight…

Note the emphasis here. It is “right” to lift up our hearts in worship to the Lord. It is “indeed right.” It is our “duty” to do so. Only when we’ve established that fact do any words of emotion or feeling enter in—“It is our duty and delight…” In fact, it may be that the “delight” only comes as part of fulfilling the “duty”!

We resist this because we do not understand the concept of “obligation” or “duty.” Many of us, when we hear those words, think of something that is required of us that we really don’t want to do. An obligation means a burden of responsibility that is unpleasant and unfulfilling. To fulfill a duty means to perform a tasteless task while gritting my teeth and wishing I were somewhere else. And all because of somebody’s “rules.”

These words need to be redeemed.

I worship God because it is my obligation to do so. But this is not because some cruel taskmaster has laid an unwelcome duty on me. No! It is my obligation because of the very nature of things. It is “right” because it is is congruent with reality.

• Because of who God is and because of who I am.
• Because he is the Creator, and everything in this universe, including me, was made by him.
• Because he sustains me every day of my life, granting me each breath and heartbeat.
• Because he is my Redeemer and Savior.
• Because he took note of my sinfulness and brokenness, took pity on me and gave his Son to die and rise again on my behalf, conquering sin and death for me.
• Because he is my Comforter and Guide.
• Because the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in my life, assuring me of the divine promises and writing God’s laws on my heart so that I may obey them.

Since everything I am and have has come from his hand, I am obliged to say “thank you.” It is my duty to bring my offering of praise. I owe it to him. I am fully aware that I can never repay him, and that is the last thing on my mind. I am simply recognizing my eternal debt to the One who made me and saved me.

Grasping this takes worship completely out of the realm of coming to a service to seek out an “experience” with God. Whether or not I have a “moment” is simply not the point.

The traditional liturgy of the church is designed first of all to enable worshipers to fulfill the obligation of giving thanks to our Creator and Savior for who he is and what he has done.

Whether I feel like it or not, I owe it to God.

Now I know some of you are going to point to the prophets and to Jesus and start throwing verses at me about the danger of going through the motions without putting your heart in it. And you are right. But you are talking about the diminished definition of “obligation” that we all grew up fearing.

The fact that something is a duty or obligation does not require anyone to do it as a mere formality. In fact, to truly recognize our obligation is the most foundational motivation of heartfelt obedience.

COMMENTS NOW CLOSED.

If anyone asks me why I go to church, I am not afraid to tell them: it is my obligation and duty. It’s simply the right thing to do.

Since our posts and comments have referred a lot to liturgy lately, I thought it might be good to revisit a nice little tool to help people understand various aspects of liturgical worship. Our first look at this book can be found here. Today, we have a another look and review from Patrick Kyle of New Reformation Press. Thanks, Kyle!

Over the holidays we threw a party for our friends on New Year’s Day, kind of a post party party. One of my friends walked in with a book that immediately caught my eye.  It is titled the ‘Pocket Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship’ authored by Brett Scott Provance and put out by IVP Academic. This volume is one in a series of fourteen Pocket Dictionaries published by IVP.  This series looks to be really promising. You can check it out here.

Being only slightly obsessed with liturgy I quickly prevailed upon my friend to lend it to me.

I am enjoying this little book. True to it’s title it is really a ‘pocket dictionary’ coming in at only 135 pages and sized in such a way as to fit in your pocket if needed. It is arranged alphabetically and has a simple cross reference system and a few pages of bibliography.  The entries are basic and clearly written, giving enough information to point you in the right direction if you want to dig deeper, but still giving a satisfying answer in the event you are just looking to define or clarify a term.

Despite its small size it contains a veritable wealth of information, everything from liturgical and biblical terms, to the church year and all its feasts, important figures in church history, liturgical vestments and their meaning, and of course a breakdown of all the parts of the liturgy.  Pretty impressive for such a small volume. It is not exhaustive, but contains far more about liturgy and worship than most of us could think to ask.

Another outstanding feature is the price. Amazon has it for $8 new and lists it even cheaper used.  This is a great intro to all things liturgical for those interested who come from non liturgical traditions.  Those of us from liturgical traditions will find it to be a handy quick reference guide for educating ourselves  on the finer points of the liturgy and the Church Year.

This is one of those books that you can add to your Amazon order to qualify for free shipping and will turn out to be something you will use.

I will be adding one to my library when my friend wants his copy back. Its a great little book at an outstanding price.

I’ve served at two churches with exceptional pipe organs and organists. Some of my best memories of worship are about the postlude.

The last amen had sounded, the congregation was leaving the worship space and the organist, with the help of Bach, was taking the roof off the building.

I absolutely soaked it in. Could not get enough. If you have this sort of postlude possibility, I am officially envious.

Those postludes sent us out with JOY. Wonderful waves of the majesty of God, going out the doors, out the windows, right through us into that broken world that Jesus loves so much.

It could make up for any number of bad sermons, solos and choir specials. It was, when done well, sensational.

Of course, most churches can’t get close to that and shouldn’t try. A piano or brass postlude may be ambitious. Or in a contemporary setting, the band can simply cut loose.

Whatever you do, go out with joy, if possible. The Gospel, and its very Good News, should be the last Word heard and felt.

Go with God and Go in the music that fills the Trinity, spilling over to the open heart of every person who is thirsty for the Living God.