Welcome to Summit Theological Seminary
"Teaching God's Word to God's World"
2766 Airport Road, Peru, Indiana 46970, (765) 472-4111
Why Worship Services Are Changing
First, because both old and young ministers
are ignorant that the fight for what should occur in a Church service was
fought many years ago and they do not know that the “regulative principle”
emerged as the winner. The “regulative
principle” is this, “If the Bible does not require something then it may not be
done, even if the thing proposed is not inherently sinful.”
It won because in reality it produced less disharmony and
debate and because it emphasized Bible doctrine over subjective
experience. The Reformers, the Puritans
and the Restorationists all adopted it.
Second, the above is now viewed as
“legalistic”, “binding of opinion” and “traditionalism”. All of which is taboo in this culture and is
considered stale, dry, boring, dead, and cold.
Third, “copy-cat”, “faddish”, “experiential”,
“relativism” is in and every new expression is welcome without regard to
whether it teaches the true doctrine of Christ or confirms the faith or unites
the believer to the Word and the table of the Lord.
The Word and the Table is exchanged for the “fad and the
fable.” There is little connection
between the worshipper with the faith once delivered and the participation of
the benefits of His table. Without
emphasis or instruction from His Word and the sharing in the benefits of His
Blood at His table one wonders how the faith and the necessity of
fellowshipping with Christ will ever be passed on.
J.J. M. Roberts says, “My
overriding point, however, is that the practice of piety promoted in a
particular Christian community should reflect and strengthen the theological
identity of that community and of the individual as a member of that community,
that it should arise out of the community’s theology. The danger today is that we simply pick and choose practices at
our whim as individuals, or that as communities we adopt a practice, however
foreign it is to the theology of our own tradition, because it seems neat or
because it draws a crowd at some other Christian group with whom we are
competing. In my opinion such faddish
or market-driven choices have no theological integrity, and thus can be fairly
characterized as incoherent.”
J.J. M. Roberts – from a speech November 25th, 2002 at the
Restoration Quarterly Breakfast in Toronto Canada at the annual meeting of the
Society of Biblical Literature. Christian
Studies number 20 – Austin Graduate School of Theology.
It is insane to throw away the hammered-out template of
simple worship that has shown generations of people how and why to live the
Christian faith.
Fourth, In totally undermining the time honored
“regulative principle” they do not have a clue that they are creating and
underlying the very cultural forces that are destroying the Church. When “Church” is transformed into
entertainment, bright lights, cliches, and self-help rhetoric, silly dramas,
one is strengthening Christianity’s biggest enemies.
Fifth, They do not understand the value of
tradition. Mark Holl says in the
“Lowest Common Denominator in Evangelism (First Things October 2004) “In order
to advance Christian learning, the vitality of commitment must be stabilized by
the ballast of traditions. Tradition
without life might be barely Christian, but life without tradition is barely
coherent.”
Sixth, There is a movement afoot that says the
book of Acts is not the norm but merely the History of the beginning. Even if that were true, Acts is still the
measure of a church. It is most
definitely the norm for the Lord’s intention for His Church. The churches in Acts show the design or
purpose of the Church. Surely, the
traditions that the apostles left of the commandments of the Lord can present
us a better “norm” than that offered today by Churches who do not even shoot
for the same goals that the early Church did.
Seventh, Theology ought to shape worship because
I can assure you, worship shapes theology.
A simple reading of the Old Testament worship shows worship created a
teaching of God’s theology and when they strayed from the pattern of His
traditions, it ended in a false theology.
Conclusion: “In Isaiah’s day, the human crowds were still present for
worship; it was God who had opted out.
The problem for religious leaders then was not how to get the people to
come back to attending worship; it was how to get God to attend. It might be wise even in the present to look
at worship from that perspective.
Perhaps we are spending far too much energy trying to figure out how to
adapt worship so as to interest and attract a disinterested public. Perhaps we might better spend our time
trying to please a potentially disinterested and increasingly irritated God.”
J.J. M. Roberts, “Contemporary Worship in Light of Isaiah’s Ancient
Critique,” in Worship and the Hebrew Bible:
Essays in Honour of John T. Willis