Bi-vocational Ministry
Worship Wars11: Racism in the Church
Friday, January 25, 2008– These are the chronicles of my days serving a small, elderly, traditional, Southern Baptist Church as the bi-vocational pastor, 1992-2007. Since the stories seem to focus on the bad things that happened, instead of the good, I am not naming names, I have never even given the name of my church other than to say it was in Fort Worth TX. Any names that I give involve somebody who did something good, and even then I just give first names. The entire 15 years I served as pastor was filled with problem after problem, fight after fight, so this blog is an effort on my part to work through the junk and perhaps arrive at a better understanding of what God was doing.
Since this week we celebrated Martin Luther King Day, I thought I would add a blog about my experience with racism in the church. On a separate page of this blog I have included my background, so this post will deal exclusively with racial matters in the little church I was a part of.
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When I began pastoring this church in 1992 the church was averaging about 65-70 and there were two black families in the church. The church hired nursery worker and her 4 girls were in the church and one family of 4 that lived near the church attended sporadically. Additionally, I learned that there had been a black man serve the church as Music Minister several years prior. There was one extended family that were Mexican and one older lady that was Mexican. The rest of us were white. So we were not a very diverse congregation but we were diverse enough to encourage me.
By the end of the first year the one black family that attended sporadically had left for a larger church, though the kids showed up once in a while through the years. The only racial issue that developed early on came to me from one of my deacons who was hispanic. He was a very godly man, a source of great encouragement to me, and, I thought, well respected by the congregation. He taught a men’s Sunday School class and his daughter and son in law were my friends and very supportive as a young couple. His son was my most faithful SS class member through the years. This man and his wife and 2 daughters and son in law all sang in the choir, making up the single largest contingent of the choir. He not only served as deacon, SS teacher and choir member, he also served as church treasurer after my first couple of years (more about the treasurer situation in a later blog). In short, this man was godly, faithful, encouraging, a leader by example and a workhorse. So what went wrong?
During the times we were without a music minister I had led the music in my first couple of years. But then one time somebody mentioned to me that this man had led the music before and might do it again, so I asked him. He gladly took the opportunity and he did a far better job than I. He could work with the choir and he had a good voice along with the sweet spirit he was known for and his enthusiasm, I soon was interested in asking him to take the job as music minister.
Although I never personally witnessed it, nor heard it, he told me that he did not think the congregation would want him to serve in that capacity. Apparently there was an undercurrent of either racism towards him or some form of disrespect from the old ladies of the choir towards him. After a while he no longer wanted to do the music. Though not proven, I suspect that some folks just very subtly said some things or expressed enough dissatisfaction that he got discouraged and quit leading the music.
More evidence of this subtle prejudice came a couple of years later as we tried to rejuvenate the Sunday School. This man was a great SS teacher. He studied the word and his delivery was very strong and passionate. I caught bits and pieces of his lessons through the years and was always blessed. He had done some lay preaching in some Mexican congregations and some translation in bi-lingual services.
He and I knew the church was problem filled and that it needed some major changes. He came up with a plan for a couples class for the older crowd and he presented it to the older adult SS department. They actually hooted him down in a very disrespectful manner. He was heartbroken and came into my office the next week to tell me that he and his family would be leaving the church that week. I was devastated. He was the most godly man in the church, he was exciting to be around, he was a thinker and a doer. His wife and kids and their kids were absolutely crucial to the younger adult department. I tried to dissuade him, but he was adamant that he could never gain the trust and respect of these people. Again he hinted that it may have been about race. He taught one more class with the older folk and told them he was leaving and why. Our church lost 10 faithful people that day and NOT ONE of the older folks came to me to urge me to do anything to get them back. It was almost, good bye and good riddance.
That was in the summer of 1998 I believe, and from that day on I absolutely felt like all was lost at our little church. In my pastorate, that was the one blow we received that I think sealed our doom as a congregation. Statistically, the church did decline steadily from that point on with a brief upswing around 2000 or so. I grieved a long time over the loss of this good man and his family and seriously considered leaving the church at that time. The Lord never opened another door, and we stayed.
Fast forward to 2005-6 for a couple of incidents that really let me know that there was some latent racism in the church. I believe it was in Feb. 2005, or maybe in the summer when the Sunday School material had a lesson on Racism. In the Adult III Ladies class (the source of many blessings and troubles) one lady came to me all upset because of how the material had been covered. Several comments from some of the other ladies really came across as racist and expressed a desire to keep the churches segregated. This was not the first time that this lady had brought some pretty serious concerns about the class to my attention. But this was pretty much the straw that broke the camel’s back and she left the class, took some time off from the church, but eventually came to back and participated in my class which was not age specific but tended to be the younger folks class.
Then in 2006 it was time for January Bible Study, an annual week long program in Southern Baptist life that focuses on studying one book of the Bible. This year the study was on the Gospel of Mark, but theproblem was that I had preached all the way through Mark just a couple of years prior. I thought the church should hear the study presented by somebody other than me. I sought the approval of the church for brining in an outside guest preacher to lead the study with about $200 as an honorarium. The church approved.
I had a friend who was a professor at the seminary who had already participated in some of the Men’s Suppers at our church and I knew he would do a great job; so I asked him and he agree. The Sunday in January finally arrived and he came in to give us a lead off sermon from Mark’s Gospel, and all went well. Or so I thought.
That night as we continued the study I noticed that attendance was considerably down from our normal Sunday night attendance. The rest of the week we had the lowest attendance ever for January Bible Study. I thought it was just because the older congregation was not as able to get out anymore. But no, a couple of the folks, including my mother and another older lady I really, really respect, told me that the others were not coming because our preacher for the week was a black man. Come to find out, that Sunday morning after I had dared to have a black man in the pulpit preaching (as opposed to just leading the music) one older family left the church never to return. (Well, now that I am gone, I have heard that they came back). I was stunned. This was unbelievable. This man was good enough to come to our Men’s Suppers with all the guys, but to ask him to preach was a no no!?
I have heard that Sunday mornings at 11:00 are the most racially segregated time in America. I guess I get it now.
Epilogue: My mom passed away about a little over a month ago. When we left the church in Feb. of 2007 she resigned her membership in disgust. By then her health was too frail to get out much anyway, so she never joined us at Redeemer Church. But when her end came, my brother and I chose to invite the preacher whom she chose to stand by during that quietly controversial period of shame in our church. He preached her funeral sermon and no active members of that church were in attendance, per her request.
I look forward to the day when the Lord comes back and we will all be so in love with Jesus that skin color will be a thing of beauty and not prejudice.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Worship Wars10: Hymns Alone (Solus Hymnus?)
Wednesday, January 23, 2008–This blog is about my misadventures as a bi-vocational pastor of a small, elderly, traditional Southern Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX. 1992-2007. The stories are all true, but I never mention my church’s name nor do I name any person except when I am praising them for a job well done. I am writing these stories to help myself overcome some issues and to avoid bitterness, but also to work through some practical church issues. I would hope that these stories will be of some benefit to those who are in or studying to go in to the ministry. I hope to interject a little bit of my humor which can be dry and sarcastic I suppose.
To finish up the music themeI have a couple of other stories to tell. I am totally convinced that one of the key issues that prevented our growth was the fact that we were still singing hymns from the hymnbook while virtually every church around us in our neighborhood had gone to singing a mixture of old hymns with new songs and choruses. The younger generation wanted a musical style that reflected their faith and would attend church where that need was met. Even though I am 49 I, too, wanted to update our worship without getting rid of the old hymns. Back in the 1970’s-80’s I enjoyed Maranatha Praise music and in the 90’s I listened to a lot of Hosanna Praise! music from Integrity. Granted, a lot of the praise music was pretty weak theologically and musically very simple and boring compared with the hymns, yet I find the music helpful in leading me to worship the Lord.
To demonstrate how strongly the congregation felt about this hymn vs. chorus issue here is one sad story. One of my music ministers who was very talented and dedicated, really wanted to introduce some new choruses to the congregational worship service. I advised him to go slow and not push to hard. Over the months he gradually brought in up to 3 choruses per worship service. Suddenly 3 older ladies left the choir. They would not sing for this music minister any more. Eventually the offerings on Sunday began to grow noticeably smaller, about 30% smaller. Towards the end of this ordeal one older lady talked to me about the music minister, “The only voice we have is to withhold our tithes”. An older gentleman also got with me toward the end and told me that people were not giving because of this music minister.
I counseled the young man and urged him to back off the choruses and he did somewhat, but the older members just did not care for him at all, even though they had voted him in. But that is where some of the problem was to begin with. When we brought this fine young minister on board, we had been without a music minister for almost a year, as was usual when we had a vacancy in that position. I had had so much difficulty in finding a music minister that the congregation was quite agitated with me about the situation and would not listen to me when I explained why young ministers at the seminary were reluctant to take the position even after we had increased the pay from $300 to $500 a month.
Finally it reached the point where I appointed the choir to be the search committee. This may have been a mistake on my part, I’m not sure. My goal in doing that was to not simply relieve myself of the burden (and blame) but to let them see just how hard it was. It was the right time to look as the school year was beginning, so the committee got several resumes in from the seminary and began to pick ministers to come “try out”. This is what the committee was doing: they would contact a minister and schedule him to come lead one service, then schedule another minister to lead the next week. That way they could sample several and choose the best one. The flaw in that system was that while they were sampling one, the minister from a couple of weeks ago had moved on to another church and taken a position so that when the committee called one back that they liked more than the current week’s tryout, he had already taken a position. We went through about 3 rounds of this game before I interfered and told them what they were doing wrong.
Finally we found a guy that had never actually served as a minister of music anywhere. There was a reason for that. Though he was a fine young man and had a lot of talent, his talent was in composing and arranging. He could not sing well at all. His voice was weak and a little bit squeaky. He was not the prototypical song leader. But he was a good man, the younger folk in the church immediately liked him as did I. He was available and wanted the job; he needed some time as a music minister for his resume, so I applied a little bit of pressure to the committee. They agreed, reluctantly, to issue an offer and present him to the church which subsequently voted him in.
But the church, that is the older folks, never warmed up to him. The younger folk really received his ministry well and were able to worship. This young man also was able to recruit a man from the congregation whom everyone respected, George, into the choir. This greatly benefited George and the choir for he had some singing skills and he loved to sing and this greatly assisted his participation in the whole life of the church.
Eventually though, the young music minister knew he had to leave, the church was not going to change. He, too, is now working on his Ph.D.
After another interval without a music minister the Lord led us to another man, who was closer in age to the dominant group within the congregation. I basically was tired of hiring young men who would have to struggle and fight in this church. This new music minister was the best I had ever had in several respects. Because of his age, he was automatically more acceptable to the congregation. He had an abundance of experience in churches like ours so he knew what to expect and he had the wisdom that comes with that experience. This man also had the best voice of any of my music ministers and I think he likely had the most talent. He had never finished seminary but really new his stuff. Probably because of his not finishing school, he had remained bi-vocational most of his career and worked at local major employer in a good job. He was a major blessing to the church, brining maturity and stability to this essential position. With his leadership the older ladies returned to the choir and some of the youth also sang in the choir at times. The younger folk missed the former worship leader but readily accepted the new leadership even though he would not ever sing the choruses they loved.
After several good years with this man leading our worship there did arise some trouble. In my final couple of years at this church the decline in numbers due to death was taking its toll and the church desperately needed some younger folk. We had been without a youth minister for a couple of years and the church was eager to get a new one in. But we faced some of the same difficulties obtaining a youth minister as we did a music minister. In a previous post I have told how we finally obtained Billy as Minister of Youth and Music. But here was where a problem came in.
The older music minister was very professional and respectful of Billy, but somewhat resentful or cautious maybe? And I can understand that professionally speaking. You bring in a younger guy with a totally different musical style not to really work under you as an understudy but laterally. All of us were in a difficult situation which reflected the difficulties of the church as a whole.
But one Wednesday night in church or maybe it was a Sunday night, I was teaching on worship from Nehemiah I think, and I was open to questions or comments from the congregation. The music minister spoke up and said, and I am quoting, “Well I think that the Hymnal is every bit as inspired as the Bible.” The youth were all sitting in front as usual, along with Billy, and there was all of a sudden a bunch of wide eyed youth staring at me. I did not address the issue right then, perhaps I should have. After church the youth minister sent an e-mail to me because they had been very carefully taught the doctrine of the inspiration and authority and inerrancy of the Scriptures and were quite upset at what they had heard. Our young people knew more sound doctrine than most, for the entire time of my pastorate that was a non-negotiable with me. I then had to e-mail the music minister with the question to seek clarification. He retreated from his strong statement somewhat but still left me with the feeling that perhaps his reverence for the hymnal was excessive. Nonetheless I assured the youth that he did not mean it the way it sounded.
I do not think this music minister gives equal authority to the hymnal and Bible, but with that generation, there is a practical equivalence I believe that is problematic and that was at the root of one of our problems in the church. The church was absolutely culture bound in the area of the hymnal and church music. It did not want to change and it could not change. There was a deep reverent, emotional link to the hymns of the faith that led the congregation to the point where they could not separate their culture from their faith. The expression of their faith became their faith. Perhaps that is too strong and I mean that as a descriptive not a pejorative. We all do that over time I suppose.
But there are certainly consequences.
Today I am attending a church that includes some of the older hymns and includes newer songs as well. The newer songs are all beautifully full of sound doctrine and are different from the choruses I have heard in the past. I am enjoying learning the new songs but I have to admit, I miss the old hymns. We only sing 1-3 hymns per Sunday and the rest are the new songs, so I am really going through withdrawals. Please do not misinterpret this as a criticism of our current mode of worship. My wife and kids and I are feeling like we are in heaven in our new church and our Music Minister, Gary is absolutely the best I have ever seen, anywhere. But times have changed, and now I am in a place where I can change. The old hymns helped lead me for 48 years in my faith and they will forever be a part of me. So I miss them like I miss an old friend or even like I miss my mother, now at home with the Lord.
In conclusion, I really believe that the churches of the 1950’s that failed to change and adapt to the music of the 1960’s-70’s failed because that generation could not separate their preferences from their essential faith. The became culture bound and stopped growing. Deep seated distrust of the clergy amongst the membership, pride and rebellion all played a role in this decline over the issue of music.
Next week I will turn to a new topic in our worship wars: Prayers and Offerings. What could possibly go wrong with those two subjects? Oh boy…..
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Worship Wars9: Baptism & the Lord’s Supper
One of the first sticky issues I had to face was the matter of “Alien Immersion”. One Sunday this group of little green men from Mars came in and asked to be…No, wait, wrong story…That story is in my Science Fiction category. Let me start over. Alien Immersion is the name for an issue that has long plagued Baptists. What does a local church do when somebody wants to join but they were baptized (immersed) by a different church other than Baptist? In the old days some Baptist churches even called in to question the validity of baptism from other Baptist churches.
The situation I was faced with twice, was whether or not to require baptism of folks seeking to join the church from a Church of Christ. The C-of-C practice immersion, but their doctrine tends to emphasize that baptism is a necessary sign of faith; that if you do not get baptized you are not really saved. The C-of-C churches pretty much keep their baptismal pool full at all times so that if anyone gets saved they can be baptized any day of the week, even in the middle of the night. The real hardliners state that you have to be baptized in order to be saved, which makes it a sacrament (but they would object to that word I believe). Thus, their doctrine and purpose and practice of baptism is very different from what Baptists believe.
We believe that baptism is an outward sign of an inward faith that merely pictures what the Holy Spirit has done for you. Yes, baptism is a command or ordinance from the Lord, so it is a step of obedience, but we stress that the act of baptism does not save you. Baptism is a step of publicly identifying with Christ and his Church, so it is a step towards church membership. But membership in the Family of God comes prior to baptism. We like to point out that the thief on the cross was not baptized, yet received a promise from Jesus for paradise.
The first incident with a Church of Christ member wanting membership came in 1993-94. This was a wonderful young Marine NCO from the base close to the church whose wife was already a Baptist, but he was not. He was clearly saved, he had a good testimony and lifestyle and could articulate his faith. He was of a more moderate wing of the Church of Christ and did not hold to a sacramental view of Baptism. I took his case before the deacons and we discussed it. In light of our constitution and bylaws, and the sense of the church body, the deacons believed it would be best to require the young man to be baptized again in order for him to join the church. In this situation, though I personally did not think he needed to be baptized again, I agreed with the deacons and spoke with the young Marine and his wife. His overwhelming desire was to be united in church membership with his wife so they could raise their son in the church where both parents were active members, so he agreed to be baptized.
We presented him to the church and baptized him without any problem. This fine young family moved on in the Marine Corps the next year but we have stayed in touch somewhat. A few years later the marine NCO was ordained a deacon in the Baptist church and has faithfully been serving the Lord with his wife all these years.
Another issue about baptism involves those who were baptized at an early age but later came to a better understanding of salvation and wish to be baptized again, or, similarly, those who have strayed and come back, professing Christ anew, saying that they must not have been saved the first time, and now wanting to be baptized again. This is actually a fairly difficult and complex situation, as well as being very common. Because this problem is quite pervasive in Baptist churches I believe it reveals a serious doctrinal and practical weakness.
One guy I knew in college at FBC, Norman, was saved and baptized 7 times by the time he was 21. Brothers, this should not be. There is a lack of sound doctrinal teaching and close discipleship and follow-up that leads to this. this is for all practical purposes, Arminianism. We claim to profess the doctrines of assurance and perseverance, but practically speaking we deny these doctrines. We claim to believe and practice believer’s baptism, but I have seen 3 yr olds baptized.
Now don’t get me wrong, early childhood professions of faith can be very genuine and real. But they can also be contrived by parents eager to get their offspring saved. I was saved and baptized at the age of 8 and have never been through a period of strong doubt nor have I ever been in extensive rebellion and dropped out of church. I believe strongly that my salvation is all of God and that he who began a good work in me will bring it to completion on that day . About 3 times as pastor I had to tell eager parents to wait before presenting their children to the church for baptism. I never baptized any child under 8 and usually held out for 9 or 10.
Now here is where my convictions and the church’s desires clashed. One of the results of my caution towards children was that in our annual Vacation Bible School I NEVER gave a strong invitation nor pushed for “Decisions”. I did always present the gospel and gave the children some opportunity to respond. Any decisions made I did try to follow up with parents and Sunday School teachers. But a few times I would speak with a parent about their child’s decision to become a Christian and the parent would tell me something like, “Well Johnny is already a Christian and got baptized a year ago at another church.” This again demonstrated that the children were not being adequately taught, followed up, or nurtured. I will discuss VBS and children’s ministry in a later post, but the idea here is, because I preferred to be slow and cautious with children, and because most of our VBS kids were not from our church, but from the neighborhood and usually attended other churches, I did not get any baptisms out of VBS in 15 years. This really frustrated my church. To this day I sometimes wonder if my approach was the right one. I would just rather see kids get a careful, consistent presentation of the gospel and of sound doctrine over the long haul in church and Sunday School and from godly parents whom I know are in the Word on a regular basis. Church Camp, VBS and Revival salvation experiences can sure ratchet up your baptisms, but I have seen way too many of these “conversions” fail through the years. I am seriously not into inoculating people with the gospel.
I have a few funny baptism stories like every preacher I guess. A couple of times I failed to tell the janitor to fill up the baptistry in time and the water was way cold. My youngest son broke out into the breast stroke after getting baptized. My waders leaked almost every time. The choir got splashed on occasion. These things happen.
But the only sad experience we had involving baptism at my church was over a baptism done in the evening service. I had a family where the dad worked on Sunday mornings, so he only came to church on Sunday nights. This was a very faithful family, but they were not liked at all by the old guard at the church. Neither the mom nor the dad had been raised in the church, both came from a wild background, but both had been gloriously saved and changed forever by God’s grace. But this family did not meet the profile of what a nice young baptist family should be like in the eyes of the older members.
When their youngest daughter got saved around 9-10 yrs of age we were going to baptize her. The parents requested an evening baptism service since the dad worked in the mornings and he really wanted to watch his daughter get baptized. I agreed and thought nothing of it. We scheduled the baptism and placed it in the bulletin for the next week, baptized her at night and I thought nothing of it.
But the deacons started getting those phone calls. It seems that the old guard was quite upset that we baptized her at night instead of in the morning service where the whole church could watch. Never mind that the whole church is always invited to the evening worship service. Never mind that the dad would be able to watch his daughter at night but not in the day. Never mind that nothing in the church constitution and by-laws nor in the Bible restricts baptism to Sunday mornings. They wanted it in the morning so that they could feel good about themselves. It was first and foremost for their benefit this girl was to be baptized. I just was not and to this day am not sure where they were coming from with this. I never had occasion to baptize in the evening again. This family was a little bit hurt and embarrassed over the stink, but it was not their fault in the least.
As best I can remember, there was only one problem over the Lord’s Supper, and this was likely all my fault. We used to have monthly men’s suppers where the guys would meet in the fellowship hall for a meal on the first Friday night of each month. (More about that later). But some of us younger men got started talking about the need for a deeper level of fellowship at these occasions and came up with a plan to have the Lord’s Supper at some of these suppers so that it would approximate Jesus and the disciples in the upper room sharing the Lord’s last Passover meal together.
When I presented this to the men as an option that we ought to consider (again, this was not presented as a decided issue that I was forcing on anyone) all was pretty quiet, no objections were given. I thought that meant it was OK. My mistake. Over the next week the men and their wives (the old guard) got in a HUGE uproar over this. The women felt left out so they were mad; others were mad because they thought the Lord’s Supper should only be given on Sunday morning (when I pointed out that the Lord’s Supper was first done at night, hence the name Supper, that was not well received). But the best argument of all was that the church overwhelmingly felt that it was sacrilegious to have the Lord’s Supper in the Fellowship Hall instead of the Sanctuary. I kid you not, that was the main objection.
The following Sunday morning in Sunday School from my class we could hear the older men’s class discussing it down the hall. I and my young deacon friend (the same man whose daughter got baptized on Sunday night a couple of years later) went to the class to see if we could speak to the men about the subject to explain where we were coming from and have a civil discussion on the matter. What was I thinking? We attempted to present our request to the men and immediately two men in the class attacked. I mean standing up, pointing their fingers in our faces, yelling at the top of their lungs, red in the face calling us names attacked. My young friend and I sat there and took it. Every time we spoke it was quietly and respectfully, and we were shouted down. They called my friend a “bum” and a couple of other things. Finally, we stood to leave, thanked the men for allowing us the time to speak to them and left. It did not go well. My friend is a big man and could have pounded either of the two men, but he sat there and took it in meekness and humility.
No apology was ever offered by these two men to either of us for the rude, belligerent name calling behavior. But the next year the man who called my friend a bum got very ill and had to have a surgery. After the surgery my friend went with me to the hospital to pray with and give comfort to the one who had angrily called us names.
When all was said and done, this one was pretty much my fault. I should have researched the doctrine of communion more carefully and discussed it with the deacons privately before ever mentioning it in the men’s supper group. It is just a shame that something that is supposed to promote worship and unity in the brethren became instead a source of painful division. I never tried to do anything else with the Lord’s Supper again, just kept it in the sanctuary, on Sunday mornings, using the same small wafers and cups of grape juice. I look forward to the day when I can sit down at the Lord’s Table which he has prepared and eat in His presence without the limitations of this sinful world inhibiting me.
Saturday, January 19, 2008– These are the stories of the misadventures I had as a bi-vocational pastor of a small, elderly, traditional Southern Baptist Church 1992-2007. I am telling these stories in an effort at working through the pain that my family and I went through with a hope that these stories may help other young, bi-vocational pastors as they go through very similar situations. I am seeking to find the things that I did wrong or that I could have done better. I do not think any of these events are more difficult than what other ministers face on a regular basis, but this is my story, and I want to tell it.
I have been dealing with issues related to worship first, because worship is pretty much the central event of our lives. We are saved to worship, created for worshiping our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. The last several posts have dealt with music, but today I wanted to look at Baptism and the Lord’s Supper because we had a few interesting situations over these two ordinances.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 7 so far )Worship Wars 8: Musicians & The Sound of Music, part3
Tuesday, January 15, 2008– These are the stories of my misadventures as a bi-vocational pastor of a small, elderly, traditional, SBC church 1992-2007. This church was fundamentally not much different from thousands of other churches. My experiences as pastor, the stories I tell here, are the equal of stories most pastors could tell. Some are encouraging or funny, most are sad, however, because this is the story of a church that has failed. Sadly it is typical of many thousands of churches from that era. These stories are an attempt on my part to seek healing and understanding, to confess my failures and to prepare any other young ministers who may stumble upon this blog.
Although we fought over worship at times, we were also blessed in worship most of the time. This blog is dealing with more failures at the present, but I am also including some of the blessings. But if most of the time we were blessed, why spend so much time on the negative? The negative things ended up killing this church. It doesn’t take much negative to completely overwhelm the positive it seems. Some have told me, after I have relayed some of my stories, that our church was more problem filled than the norm. I at times think that, but when you look at the large number of churches founded about the same time mine was (early 1950s) and track their progress over the past 50 years, you see a very similar pattern: early, rapid growth, stagnation in the late 1960’s, then steady decline til death. Brothers, this should not be. There were some serious flaws in our doctrine and methodology that led us to this ungodly pattern. In this blog I am seeking to expose that ungodliness.
As I have said elsewhere, for a small church we were very blessed with good musicians. Before I arrived at the church they were known for having excellent musicians: organists, pianists and music ministers with excellent talent and hearts for the Lord. One of the former ministers of music from the early 1970’s (Marty) actually made it big time, and he publishes a lot of music for Baptists today. One of the organists (Rebecca) received her doctorate and is very successful. One of the pianists we had in the mid ’90’s, Mary, earned her doctorate and has taught at the college level and another young lady who played the piano for us in the early ’90’s, Rhonda, is now working on her doctorate as well.
I have told you about Bob, our primary accompanist during my years at the church, and how wonderful of a man and musician he was. Whether it was the organ, piano, piccolo or singing in the choir, Bob was a blessing. But the other primary accompanist we had my last 6 years (after Bob’s illness stopped him from playing the piano) was Helen. Helen is a wonderful 87+ yr old ball of fire. She has more energy today than most people half her age. Helen used to play piano for WA Criswell before he went to FBC Dallas! They knew each other in Muskogee, OK. Helen used to play for some radio shows back in the ’30’s. Her and her late husband were involved in missions and church plants for decades. And this woman can tickle those ivories! She can change the dynamics of a worship service with her smile and upbeat tempo. When she is at the piano the congregation gets an aerobic workout. Singing hymns is good exercise when Helen is at the bench. She has the whole hymnbook memorized I think. And Helen will once in awhile add a touch of jazz to whatever she is playing, just for fun. Sometimes I really thought we needed a good sax player, a bass and clarinet to go with Helen and we could worship Dixieland style!
Helen is still playing at my old church (it is not quite dead yet, the old guard is still struggling) and still having fun while being a blessing to the Lord and his people. She still goes to the nursing home once a week to play the piano and lead them in some singing.
Music ministers have an incredibly tough job. People get real emotional about their worship music and music ministers catch a lot of heat. Stephen was my first music minister and he did an excellent job with the choir and congregation. It was Stephen’s leadership that got the choir thinking and then backing the purchase of the 1992 edition of the Baptist Hymnals in 1993.
One incident happened while Stephen was here and Rhonda was accompanying that is worth bringing up because it was so bizarre. After we purchased the new hymnals, we also purchased the Accompanist edition which came in a loose leaf binder. The church had apparently never had an Accompanist edition before, so it raised a few eyebrows due to the cost, but Stephen and Rhonda explained how useful it was and the congregation approved it. The Accompanist edition included a lot of extra intros and bridges, etc., but the controversy involved the looseleaf nature of the book. This was done so that the pianist could remove pages for easier playing and take the pages home for rehearsal.
In the senior adult Sunday School department every Sunday morning they would open with a hymn, prayer requests and a devotion. They met in the sanctuary, piano side. The lady who played the piano for the opening assembly was, how should I say it… a bit difficult at times. She began to use the new Accompanist edition to play her one hymn for the Sunday School, even though we had tried to make sure that everyone knew that was for the church’s paid accompanist only. One Sunday she could not find the hymn she wanted to play; it had been removed from the hymnal. Rhonda, the paid accompanist who was then working on her Master’s in Church Music degree at SWBTS, had taken the hymns for Sunday home on Wednesday night in order to practice. Rhonda was very sweet, smart, professional and responsible. She had asked Stephen if she could take pages out for rehearsal and Stephen had consulted with me. We both agreed she could do this and in fact we brought it up before the deacons who also agreed. That was one reason for purchasing this expensive book (about $200 if I remember correctly).
Well, when the Sunday School accompanist could not find the hymn she wanted, and she learned that the paid Church Accompanist had taken the music home, she threw a major fit. She called every deacon and cussed them out. She let the music minister have it, and she stayed out of church for several months, and NEVER returned to Sunday School. To this day she attends the church but won’t go back to Sunday School. She never called me an chewed me out though. However, when she did come back to the church several months later, she blamed me for her not coming back sooner, because I never went to her to apologize. Admittedly I failed to go see her and ask her to repent of her sin and come back to the church and apologize to those she offended needlessly. That was weak on my part. But more of that story later. When she did come back, she would not sing in the choir under Stephen again, but she did return to the choir when we got the next music minister in 1994.
Stephen left the church after serving for about a year, and we went for a long time without a music minister. We advertised at the seminary but we were a small church and only paying about $300 a month which was not sufficient in 1994 to draw even a seminary student’s interest. What I discovered as I searched for music ministers is that most had prior experience while in college with these small, elderly, traditional SBC churches, and did not want to repeat the experience. Several candidates I interviewed flat out told me they would rather attend a large church in town than repeat their service in a church like ours. They were all too familiar with the problems and the challenges in these churches. This was something the congregation absolutely could not understand.
The assumptions by the congregation were literally these (they actually voiced these things to me): $300 a month was sufficient for music ministers because that is what they had always paid and had never had problems getting one for that amount in the 60’s and 70’s. Ministers were only in it for the money. There ought to be a lot of ministers willing to help out a smaller church. Ministers need the experience we can give them. More on this later, but sadly, this church is still operating with that mentality today (since I left the church in Feb. of 2007 they have not even successfully obtained an interim pastor; bringing in men for a week at a time, or up to 2-3 months at the most).
Finally the Lord sent us Fred, a seminary student, who had some income from another source, and his wife had a decent job, so he could afford to work for us. Fred had a good strong voice, so some of the older members who had trouble hearing enjoyed him. He loved working with the hymnal under the constraints the congregation placed on him and he, along with my wife, got a little children’s choir started for a couple of years. The only silly thing that happened during his 2-3 years as minister of music involved the lady who had gotten upset over the Accompanist edition of the hymnal.
A visitor had begun to come to church faithfully but did not join the church. Fred asked her to join the choir and so she started to come to practice. The aforementioned lady and a couple of other choir ladies made a little stink over the fact that this lady was allowed to sing in the choir without joining the church first. Fred came to me with the problem and we checked the constitution and consulted the deacons. We all agreed that it was not addressed by the constitution, but earlier in the church history similar things had been brought up and it had been OK for visitors to do things like teach in Vacation Bible School so why not sing in the choir? That brief controversy settled down, but by the next year the new choir member was told by the aforementioned lady that she could not sing well enough to be in the choir. She left the choir and eventually the church. (This poor lady was really sweet, but she once also complimented a man for his prayer for the offering and he proceeded to chew her out. She left in tears)
Fred left the church after 3 years of faithful service, and I went through another dry spell without a music minister. When Fred left he really challenged the church to increase the music minister’s pay and the music budget. Notice that he waited until after he left to ask for a raise. Fred served with integrity, understood where the church was coming from and what our limited resources financially were.
To be continued…
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Worship Wars7: Guitars & The Sound of Music, part2
Friday, January 11, 2008–These are the stories of my efforts to serve the Lord in a small, elderly, traditional, Southern Baptist Church as a bi-vocational minister, 1992-2007. I am calling this particular series of posts “Worship Wars” because most of the interesting and important things that went wrong, and went well, revolved around how we worshiped God. When people care deeply about something, there can be a tendency to get fightin’ mad if something tries to attack or change that which you care about. Additionally, the things I experienced at our church were quite common at all the other churches like ours. Something was going on in our culture that was affecting hundreds, even thousands of churches. These blogs obviously have a negative strain to them, but I am leaving out names except for some first names when it involves positive things or situations. And even though there are some negative things discussed here, my goal is redemptive. I and my family went through a lot and I am now trying to process this in a positive manner. I do have a goal of trying to help any other ministers out there in the blogosphere who may be facing some similar issues.
In my last posting I began discussing some of the issues surrounding music and musicians; I will continue that theme today. I have stated elsewhere in this blog that as a traditional church, the only musical instruments that were allowed or appreciated were the piano and organ. Last time I discussed in some detail the story of Bob, our longtime accompanist. Today we will look at some other misadventures in the realm of music.
One of the key things that the 1960’s brought into the church was a desire for music that would reach the Baby Boom generation. With the advent of the rock and roll era, and the growth of folk music as well, the guitar became the main instrument in our culture. There is nothing inherently evil or wrong with the guitar. You can certainly make the case that the biblical lyre was in some ways the ancient equivalent to the guitar. David was essentially a guitarist in the folk music tradition of his day and culture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyre
It is my belief after some study and observation, that churches in the 1960’s-70’s that made the transition musically and allowed guitar music into the worship service, increased their potential to survive the cultural upheaval that the ’60’s and 70’s brought. The churches that did not allow for the guitar, but fought over music instead, failed to make the transition into the post 60’s era and have declined or died. Now the guitar issues were not the only factor that led to the success or failure of a church by any means. Rather, I am saying that the fighting over music was symptomatic of deeper issues in the congregation and revealed other problems. These problems combined in my church, and thousands of others, to lead to death.
The guitar fight occurred in my church before I arrived in ’92, and I have told some of that story already. But my first experience of this antipathy toward the guitar happened in about 1993 after I had been there for over a year. One Sunday morning a man about my age (mid 30’s at that point) visited in the morning service. I introduced myself and he told me that he had grown up in this church and was down here on business for a couple of weeks. As we were talking, one of the deacons and his wife approached and broke out in a big smile, called the visitor by name and hugs were exchanged all around. The older folks of the church loved it when some of the youth from “back in the day” showed up. This deacon inquired of the man’s welfare and of his parents’ health and generally had a great time of fellowship.
After church I spoke with the gentleman again and he stated that he would be back the next Sunday. He then asked me if he could bring his guitar and sing for the church. I asked him about what kind of music he would sing, having been forewarned by many people about what kind of music was appropriate in this church, and he stated that it would not be anything rowdy, it was in the folk tradition, and that he wanted to sing some songs he had written for the Lord. I agreed, seeing how warmly the leading deacon and his wife had received the young man, I thought, “Surely this will be a blessing for these older folks to see one of their ‘kids’ come back home and help lead in worship!” What was I thinking?!
That week I worked up the bulletin and order of service and included the young man’s name and stated that he would sing a couple of songs in the morning service and give a mini-concert in the evening service. That Sunday morning we had between 60-70 in attendance and the young man was excited to be in his home church serving the Lord again. After giving the announcements, reading a Scripture passage, and praying, I introduced the young man and explained that he was back home on business and that many in the congregation remembered him from the past. He was here to help lead us in worship by singing some of the songs he had written.
He got up with his guitar and spoke for a short while, thanking the church for the upbringing he had received here in the 1970’s, then introduced his song. As he started to play and sing, I was thrilled. He was really quite talented and I was impressed that he had written the music and had good lyrics. I found it to be very worshipful. The deacon and his wife who had greeted the young man so warmly last week, got up and walked out. At first I thought maybe one of them was sick or something, but later I found out that they were so upset that a guitar was being used in worship that they were quite angry and left.
After church, as people were filing out, a couple of others said some things about the inappropriateness of the guitar. But then Letha spoke up. Letha was the oldest active member of the church and was at this time about 90 years old. She was just beaming in a big smile and slapped me on the arm and said, “Don’t worry about them! I loved the music!” That evening as we were about ready to start worship and the guest was going to play 3-4 songs, the deacon and his wife came in to the sanctuary, saw the young man at the front of the church with his guitar on a stand, and promptly turned around and walked out in disgust. The crowd that night was noticeably smaller than most Sunday nights. I couldn’t believe it.
Fast forward to 2005/6 for the next time I tried having a guitar in church. That’s right, 12 years later. By this time the church was much much smaller, we were running around 30, and we had been without a youth minister for over a year. We had been having a tough time locating a youth minister who would a)work for $200 a month; b)meet my fairly rigorous doctrinal requirements; and c) put up with the problems in this church. But I will discuss youth ministry later. For now I convinced the church that if we changed the job description to Minister of Youth and Music, and had him work mainly with the youth, but assist the Music Minister when he was out then we could justify paying the man $300 a month. The church agreed. Additionally, I received permission from the church to begin a Saturday night worship service designed for the youth and younger adults; the new music and youth minister would help lead that effort.
Within a couple of weeks of starting the Saturday worship service (which means I was now preaching 4 different sermons a week and still working my other job 40+ hours per week) we signed Billy on as our new Minister of Youth and Music. Billy could play the guitar and lead the singing with some new songs and choruses which greatly enhanced our Saturday worship. Since this was on Saturdays, the congregation was fine with the new music. They didn’t have to hear it.
A few times on Sundays our Music Minister asked Billy to sing and play his guitar, and when our Music Minister was out, Billy would lead the singing, usually with guitar in hand. There was no serious opposition. Now some of the older folks did not really like it, but they were not willing to fight over it either since this was not a permanent change. Maybe we had finally made some progress. But was it too little, too late?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Worship Wars6: The Sound of Music, 1
Friday, January 4, 2008– At least since the day Israel watched the Egyptian Army take a plunge in the Red Sea, the Church has been singing. Music, with all its diversity, is a gift from God to man, especially a gift to the Church. Music reflects the creative heart of God and enables man to praise his Creator and Lord in heart, soul, mind and strength. Sadly this wonderful gift of music can also be a source for conflict, error, sin and heresy. In today’s blog I want to tell you about the blessings and struggles we had with music and musicians at the small, elderly, traditional Southern Baptist church where I tried to serve as the bi-vocational pastor 1992-2007. Music was one of the BIG THREE controversial issues we faced in the church along with How To Dress and my Preaching.
When I came to the church there was no music minister, so on my first Sunday guess who got to lead the worship? Now I can sing some, I had sung in a few choirs through the years: various children’s choirs in the churches we attended, my Jr. High School choir, an ensemble at church in my teen years, the college choir at FBC Norman when I was attending OU. But I cannot read one note of music. I can’t keep time even with a Timex. Pitch is something Noah used to seal the ark. But I can generally sing the right tune and sing loudly, so I guess I wasn’t a disaster at leading the congregation’s worship.
On that first Sunday, however, I had planned the songs without consulting my voice. I had us singing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” which is not easy to lead for somebody as inexperienced as myself. I dragged that wonderful hymn into next week! It really felt like I was doing a solo, and I had never sung a solo. The congregation loved to sing, but with so many elderly members, the volume did not match their enthusiasm. My own timidity constricted my voicebox. We survived from February to about August or September when we finally hired a new music minister. Periodically I would serve as the worship leader because of not having a music minister and I would eventually get comfortable in that role. I did grow in that area and showed signs of improvement. I absolutely loved planning and leading worship; it is a little taste of heaven, even with as few talents in that area as I have.
There are the inevitable goofs that occur as you lead the singing. Straying off key, missing a note here and there, losing time. My favorite mistake was to skip or repeat a verse by accident. That’s good, I’m not even paying attention in worship and I am the one leading it! Another good one is to have the piano or congregation playing/singing a different song from what I am singing.
One of my favorite things to do with a hymn was to tie the hymn in with a scripture verse, a prayer or to give the history and background of the hymn. I had seen a lot of worship leaders tie in a scripture, a prayer or testimony with songs, but only rarely had I heard a worship leader tie in the history of the hymn. In my first 14 years of pastoring I did this rarely, but in my final year, in a last desperate attempt at rekindling my own enthusiasm, I started researching the hymns and including something just about every worship service. This exercise may not have blessed anyone else in the congregation, I received no yea’s or nay’s either way, but it did light the flame in my heart.
Every week that last year, as my minister of music gave me the list of hymns on Wednesday, I would take 2-3 hours to research the hymns and prepare for worship. I really wish I had done this the whole time and it is something I absolutely miss today. There are several books on the market that provide the background for the hymns and even a lot of the modern worship songs. I would strongly encourage every believer to obtain 1-2 of these books like the Handbook to the Baptist Hymnal :
http://www.lifeway.com/e2/shop/?R=779316
And if you are a minister, a couple of these kinds of books will be of immediate help in your worship planning and can liven up any worship service.
One of the stories the church members told me early in my pastorate, was about what happened in worship under the previous pastor. The church as I have already described it, was a traditional church in every way, and that means they only use the Baptist Hymnal, piano and organ. No modern music allowed, with the exception of some of the solos that were accompanied by tape (and many did not like that, but tolerated it). In the last couple of years before my arrival there had been an effort by the previous pastor and music minister to change the worship style of the congregation. From the tales of the survivors, it happened sort of like this: one Sunday morning the congregation shows up at church just like always and the music minister has his computer system hooked up to the speakers and he is playing all new worship songs and choruses that nobody knew, that nobody was ready for. The music was loud and a little bit rowdy.
The younger folk loved it, but the older folks were reaching for their nitroglycerin tablets. This sudden change had not been discussed before the church or deacons and led to the dismissal of the music minister, a split in the church that reduced the number down from about 130 to about 65-70 and eventually led the pastor to leave. Those who remained were permanently scarred and the distrust between laymen and clergy deepened. This was one of those traumatic events that can kill a church. Though this church had been in serious decline since about 1968, I am convinced this incident was the mortal wound. My ministry for the next 15 years was essentially performing CPR. This was the immediate background of the church when I came as pastor in 1992. It was a broken, wounded church.
Needless to say I was warned repeatedly by deacons and members to never stray from the hymnal. Choruses were forbidden. However, the few remaining younger people in the church were telling me a slightly different story. They had loved the change and longed for a worship style to which they could relate. The younger people never ceased asking for change in worship. Thus, there was an increasing tension in the church over music and worship styles. When visitors came to the church, the younger visitors would frequently bring this up and basically let me know that they could not join a church with “old fashioned” worship. In my last couple of years I even had a couple in their sixties tell me that our worship was too old, too slow, and too dead. But, as you will see, just about every effort at changing our worship failed.
One of the wonderful blessings we had in the music department was one of our deacons who was a masterful musician. Bob had a Master’s in Music from Baylor and had retired from the US Air Force band after over 20 years. He had marched in President Kennedy’s funeral procession and had played for several Presidents at the White House. Bob could play just about any instrument, but the flute and piano were his favorites. When I arrived he was the church’s part time organist. By part time I mean not only was he paid only a little bit for his services, but he could only play the organ every other Sunday due to his work schedule. He would not only accompany the congregational singing of hymns, he would play for the prelude, the offertory and postlude as well. In the afternoons at the church I would be working on my evening sermon and Bob would come to the church and practice with the organ or the piano and I would be in heaven listening. His music soothed me, relaxed me and greatly assisted my worship. Even when he would play one line of music over and over to get it perfect I loved it.
Bob had been a very athletic outdoorsman all his life, but by the time I arrived at the church his body had been wrecked by one disease after another. He had survived cancer a couple of times, picked up a blood borne disease from one of his surgeries that required some serious medicines to counter. This led to some other complications which required him to take more meds that led to other complications, etc. But Bob was one of those kind of guys that the Lord sends into your life to encourage you. He was a constant encourager. His example of persevering in serving the Lord with excellence while enduring pain and illness was unmatched by anyone I have ever personally known. He was the consummate gentleman. He was one of the few who actually enjoyed my preaching and “got” what I was trying to do.
But Bob was not well liked nor respected by many in the church. I was told that directly and repeatedly. I cannot figure that one out either. It may have been because he was educated. Bob was one of the few with an education, and he was a perfectionist with a little bit of the musician’s ego. But he was meek and humble in a lot of ways too. He was so good on the piano that he could have played at any one of the big churches in town for a salary. He retired out of the Air Force at the local base and lived in our neighborhood, so he attended the local Baptist church- ours. I think Bob is an example of God giving a church a hidden jewel, and the church not having a clue of how valuable that jewel was.
The first clue I had that Bob was not respected by the church came in my first 3-4 months as pastor in 1992. In one church council meeting a couple of the ladies brought up a request that I start looking for a new church organist. This startled me so I asked if Bob were leaving. The answer was that No, Bob wasn’t leaving, but since he worked another job and could only come to church every other Sunday, he was only filling in until we could get a regular organist. (This should have also given me a clue about the church’s attitude towards bi-vocational ministers…but I was a little slow to pick up on that) Unfortunately, I believed them and agreed to begin looking for an organist. The next week I spoke to Bob and told him the church council wanted me to begin looking for an organist. He agreed and said that he really was a poor organist and it was not his primary instrument and the church deserved an organist who could be there full time. He tendered his resignation.
This whole situation was a total rookie mistake on my part. 1) I should not have believed what the women told me without checking out all the facts and thinking it through. 2) I should not have talked with Bob about it until I had checked out everything. What I ended up doing was going to Southwestern Seminary and inquiring about the availability of church organists. I quickly realized that they are a dying breed, very few churches have an organist anymore, and what we were paying our organist was laughable ($200 a month). I was able to go back to the church council and tell them what I had discovered. The ladies still wanted me to search for a replacement for Bob, but this time I told them that for what we are paying, and looking at how wonderful an organist Bob was, and looking at the church finances, I thought that keeping Bob was the our best option and I am going to ask Bob to rescind his resignation. This was one of the few times that I told this group of ladies what to do and got away with it. Bob agreed to continue playing the organ, and our church received a blessing every two weeks as he played.
It took me a long time to figure out that a lot of the old regulars in the church just did not like Bob and would rather go without an accompanist of his caliber. Out of all the funerals I have done, the only time I have lost it and just broke down was when I was doing Bob’s funeral a couple of years ago at the National Cemetery in Grand Prairie. Heaven’s music got a lot better the day that Jesus called Bob home.
To be contined…
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Worship Wars5: Stand Up, Sit Down, Fight, Fight, Fight
Wednesday, January 2, 2008— This series of posts deals with my misadventures as a bi-vocational pastor of a small, elderly, traditional Southern Baptist Church from 1992-2007. I am attempting to think through some of the goofy things that happened and see what my mistakes were, what stands I properly took, and provide some guidance to any young ministers out there who are taking on a similar burden. Last time I looked at the physical property and how it related to worship by providing an inviting appearance and welcoming in the visitors. I discussed the fights we had over the church sign due to different views of the purpose of a sign. Today I want to examine some of the physical things we do in worship and how even something as simple as sitting down in the wrong seat can cause a problem.
“Pastor, if you rope off those back 4 pews we will leave this church and never come back!” the woman said angrily after storming into my office minutes after the conclusion of a surprisingly “hot” business meeting in my 3rd month as pastor. All I had done is offer up an idea that I thought would make our worship setting more attractive and appealing to the visitors whom the Lord sent our way. I had not told the congregation to do this, I merely offered it as an idea for them to consider. Yet the backlash was instantaneous and ferocious. I had caused an uproar.
Picture the worship setting: our sanctuary held about 200, yet we were averaging about 65 on Sunday mornings, and those 65 were sitting all spread out with about 10-12 in the choir and the others sitting from the back row to the second row, piano side and organ side. I explained to the church that from a visitor’s viewpoint the way that we sit communicates a lack of warmth and interest. I suggested that we rope off the back 3-4 rows of pews as I had seen done in some other churches and sit a little bit closer to the front and closer together. What was I thinking? I must have been demon possessed (or so some of them say).
One objection was that one or two people may sit on the back row due to a health problem, like a bad prostate, and need to get to the restroom quickly. I can understand that, but the main reason voiced was that people had sat in the same pews for years and did not want to change. And it was these folks who were threatening to quit the church. This mode of thinking was so alien to me that I almost choked, laughed out loud, and cried all at the same time. To threaten to quit a church over a position on a pew seemed a bit…I dunno…juvenile? infantile? I have heard of saving seats before, but here I was wondering if the occupants were saved. Welcome to the ministry!
The problem with where to sit extended into Sunday School. My mother came to live with us in 1992, a couple of months after this episode in the business meeting. Her first experience in my church was to sit down in a chair in the older ladies class, and then be told to move because that was somebody else’s chair. After she had moved over to the next chair, somebody else told her to move because that one was not her chair. She stood up and asked where she could sit and somebody told her that nobody sat on the pew in the back of the classroom so she sat there. Everybody, let’s welcome the preacher’s mother to our church!
Lest you think this only happened because she was my mother, a few years later we had another family visit the church for a few Sundays. It was a young lady, her mother and step dad, and eventually, after much prayer and witnessing, the young lady’s husband. The young lady came to my class for Sunday School and the mom went into the older ladies class, once. She sat down in a chair and, you guessed it, was summarily asked to move as that was not her chair. She never came back to Sunday School, and they quit coming to our church after a few more weeks. They ended up at the big church on the highway. The mom told me this story when I asked her why they had quit coming to our church.
The son-in-law started coming to church and did get saved due to my old car. Initially he would not come to church at all, he would just drop off his wife and children and leave. His wife said that he didn’t trust preachers because they were all in it for the money. One day I was just getting out of my car when he pulled up to drop off his wife. He saw me getting out of my old beat up ’86 Pontiac and he turned off his car and came to talk to me. I kid you not, this is what he said, “Are you the preacher?” I answered yes I was and shook his hand, introducing myself. He asked, “Is this your car?” I said, “Yeah, it looks like a piece of junk and drives like it too!” He came into the church that Sunday evening for services and his wife told me later that he had said “Any preacher that drives a beat up old car must not be in it for the money so I can go and listen to what he has to say.” After a few weeks, he prayed to receive Christ and repent of his sin. Shortly afterwards is when they left for the other church where he was baptized.
This problem of knowing where and where not to sit extended to the choir robes. My wife had joined the choir immediately after we started pastoring in 1992. The choir did not wear robes except for the Easter and Christmas Cantatas and even then, sometimes the choir would choose to not wear the robes. Easter of 1992 they did not wear the robes because we did not do a choir cantata, we had no music minister. Although I or one of the deacons could lead the singing, I certainly could not direct a choir. The deacon could a little bit, but that story is best told another time. We got a music minister in time to do a Christmas cantata and the choir wanted to wear the robes. A choir member had graciously had the robes cleaned at her expense, I think a couple of other ladies chipped in too. Notice the emphasis on outward cleanliness- a good trait.
After many rehearsals the big day arrived and the choir members all left Sunday School early to “robe up” and warm up. My wife and mother were by the robes and asked one of the ladies which robe should they each wear. They were told just choose any robe. They both picked robes that seemed to be the right size when another lady came up and said, “You can’t wear that robe, that is my robe!” taking the robe out of my wife’s hands. A second lady did the exact same thing to my mother. 0 for 2. My wife and mom told me the story after church and stated how hard it was to worship that morning.
With an elderly congregation, the act of standing in worship can be problematic. One of the early complaints I received was that we stood in worship too much. The church wanted to stand up only for the offertory hymn and prayer, then again at the invitation. Many of the elderly faced the ravages of arthritis and it was quite painful to stand up or sit down. The less movement the better. Thus we would sometimes sing “Standing on the Promises” while “sitting on the premises” (I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist that one.)
I had an elderly deacon who was a gifted and trained musician with a Masters Degree from Baylor. He played the organ when I first came to the church (more about that sad story later), then, when his deteriorating condition prevented him from operating the pedals on the organ, he moved to the piano. In his last years his hands were so bad that he had to give up the piano and he moved to the choir with a fine bass voice. He had sung for a few years in the Oratorio Chorus at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Finally he could no longer stand up. One of the other men in the choir literally carried him into the choir loft every Sunday. When the choir sang, they all stood. But this fine man, who was giving his all just to praise his Lord, could no longer stand. He sang in the choir while seated.
This irregular behavior highly irritated the older ladies of the choir. Even though his voice remained strong, unaffected by his disease, they wanted me to tell him not to sing. I refused. I couldn’t care less if he sang while standing on his head. The man could sing, and he was singing with a smile on his face though suffering much pain. Eventually he gave up the choir because he was afraid the man carrying him up the stairs into the choir loft would be injured while carrying him. He moved down to the congregation in his electric cart and sang from the middle aisle.
A similar situation in the choir happened in my last couple of years at the church, but this time it was the youth. One of the teenagers who occasionally sang in the choir was going through a time period of not feeling very well, but we did not know what was wrong with him. He reached a point that while singing in the choir he, at times, did not even feel well enough to stand. So he sat. That was not the problem. The other 2-3 youth sat with him too, as an act of support for their ill friend who felt a little bit embarrassed about it.
Well, as you might imagine, a delegation of older women came to me complaining about how disrespectful the youth were in not standing while singing in the choir. I was unaware of the problem since I sat on the stage facing the congregation, so I told the ladies I would investigate the situation to see what was going on. The youth told me what they were doing and why. My answer to them was that I appreciated their support for their sick comrade but that they all needed to stand even if he could not. It turned out that the young man had diabetes and it really took a long time to get it halfway under control. The youth all left the choir, but for various other reasons besides this one.
On many occasions I asked the congregation to kneel with me in prayer. It was my custom to kneel in prayer during our Wednesday night “Prayer Meeting” (more on prayer later). Maybe one or two of the younger folk would kneel with me, but not one of the older folk would. Very few times on a Sunday morning I would ask people to kneel in prayer as we prepared for a revival or faced some other big spiritual crisis. Not one would kneel. Ever. I was not used to this. Every church I had ever been in since I was a kid would kneel in prayer at times. I had grown up seeing my elders kneel in prayer. The thought never occurred to me that this request was too hard or strange.
Nobody ever complained to me about my requesting them to kneel. No deacon came up to me and told me to stop asking this of the congregation. I heard a few joke about being too old or too crippled with arthritis, etc. But nothing mean or critical came my way on this issue. I would see the same older people working around the church on a work day climbing ladders, on their hands and knees cleaning the Lord’ s house, doing all kinds of hard work to keep the place presentable. Notice the emphasis on outward cleanliness- a good trait. But to never once kneel in prayer? To this day I am perplexed by this.
At my present church where my family and I are just members, not ministers, we kneel frequently in prayer. During worship the whole congregation stands for every song and many of the readings. I have never been told “Move, that’s my seat.” But then, this congregation’s average age is around 30 I think. There are a lot of young couples and children. At 49 I am one of the older 10% of the church I think.
One final story about physical placement in the worship service. This story is both sad and funny. I tell it not to be cruel or to make fun of anybody, but to let any young ministers out there who may read this blog know that weird stuff will sometimes happen in a worship service and you have got to keep your cool. We had up to two or even three of our elderly folk in wheelchairs or these electric scooters at any one time. These scooters are a great convenience to people who can no longer walk except for a very short distance. One day we had a lady in a wheelchair in the back center aisle, organ side, and in front of her in the aisle was another lady in a scooter, piano side of the center aisle. Services had already started, I was giving the announcements I believe. The doors swing open and a visiting family comes in, but the dad, who appears to weigh in the 6-700 lb class, is riding one of those electric scooters. Now this was no ordinary scooter. It looked to be as big as one of those 4 wheelers hunters use these days. It may have been street legal. It was massive.
He hesitated at the beginning of the center aisle and checked out his options. I kept on giving the announcements, then proceeded to begin reading the morning Scripture. He gunned his 4X4 forward, swerving around the wheelchair. In my mind I was saying, “Oh no! Don’t do it!” But he did it. As he accelerated past the stationary wheelchair he ran full force into the corner of a pew. There was a loud crunch, the pew was rocked, shards of wood from the crushed pew went hurling through the air like so many grenade fragments. No blood was shed, but people within the bursting radius had wood chips in their hair and on their clothes. I finished the Scripture verse and said, “Let us pray.”
As I prayed I could hear this electric armored personnel carrier moving down the center aisle towards the pulpit. I hoped he would stop. He turned to his right (my left) and proceeded to back into position complete with the beeping that comes with placing this vehicle in reverse. I finished my prayer. The visiting family was all seated now, no further incidents.
Oddly, I received no negative comments about the incident. It turns out that the damage to the pew sounded worse than it was. After church I was able to laugh out loud about the situation.
Lessons learned: People become possessive of the darnedest things, like pews or chairs. We hold on to things that are not ours to begin with, that are temporary and not all that valuable. Then we let those things, like a seat in a classroom, get in the way of the Kingdom of God. People become rude when they are possessive of what is not theirs, and hurt those around them, inhibiting any potential growth, spiritually or numerically. I have talked with several people who visited a more formal church where they were always standing up and sitting down and then kneeling as if on cue. The newcomer felt strange, not knowing the cues. But even in a simple, traditional worship service, knowing when to sit, when to stand, and when to run away, is very important.
Though we long for genuine worship, to worship the Father in spirit and in truth as Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, the physical will always intrude into the spiritual while we remain in this sinful world.
If I had it to do over again, I would not try to rope off the back pews without first talking it over with the deacons and the older ladies. I would try to raise a point from a visitor’s perspective about how it looks from a newcomer’s eyes and then ask for their suggestions. Somehow though, I don’t think things would have changed.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Worship Wars4: A Sign of the Times
Tuesday, January 1, 2008– In this series of posts I am discussing the issues pertaining to worship that I experienced as the pastor of a small, elderly, bi-vocational church that had a traditional Southern Baptist style of worship.In my last post I addressed a reader’s question about “What Is Worship?” and the post prior to that dealt with issues in worship surrounding the public reading of the Bible. Today I am going to discuss some of the physical/material issues of worship.
The physical structure of our church was of fairly recent construction due to a devastating fire in 1981. The church was of an off white brick construction with white wood trim and a white steeple. There was no paved parking, just gravel and grass, when I arrived in 1992 but we did construct a concrete parking area for about 20 cars alongside the street in 1995 I think. The first major renovation I instigated however, was a new church sign.
The old sign was a simple metal sign, painted with the church’s name, address and phone number along with the preacher’s name. The sign was old, rusty and faded; it looked terrible. I recommended that since we had gotten the new hymnals in 1993 (my first big, expensive project that I discussed in a previous post) that for 1994 we ought to purchase a new, lighted sign that allows you to place a message on it every week. The church loved that idea and, being a very giving people, they quickly raised the $4-5,000 needed for the sign. We looked at a few options that fit within our finances and chose a sign that a local company installed very quickly. It looked great.
Here is where the problem happened though: I had failed to adequately talk through with the deacons and the church a philosophy of what to put on the sign every week and assign the duty to any particular person. This was a major problem.
Being a servant leader, instead of recruiting someone to take care of the sign, or getting a sign committee together, I just started doing the sign each week. This was a real chore and a time eater. It took a couple of hours each week to do the sign. And being bi-vocational I was at work 40-48 hours a week, and I had three sermons and a Sunday School lesson to prepare each week, plus a multitude of other duties as well as a family that needed some attention once in a while.
To do the sign required that I 1)plan out what I wanted to say on the sign, 2)make sure I said it within the constraints of the number of letters I had available and insuring that it would fit on the 4 lines per side of the sign. 3)I would get the box of plastic letters out and lay out the message on the floor, double check all spelling, and then 4) stack the letters in proper sequence and finally, 5)carry them outside and place them on the sign using a long pole with a suction cup on the end- a very cumbersome process.
My philosophy of what to put on the sign was to emphasize my sermon titles for the morning and evening services on Sundays. I would put the Bible reference and the title to the morning sermon on one side, then the evening title and text on the other side. When we had special events I would place that message on the sign, inviting the community. I really did not, and still do not, like the cute sayings approach to church signs. Things like, “Need A Faith Lift?” really turn me off. I wanted the emphasis to be on the Word of God that we were studying each week.
One problem was coming up with good sermon titles to go with my texts. Of course coming up with titles that were attractive sounding was difficult and frequently they sounded no better than the cute sayings I despised. Another problem was keeping the sermon title short enough to actually fit on the sign and not having enough of the right kind of letters was a constant problem. Another problem with using my sermon titles on the sign had to do with timing. I had a pretty good sermon plan that would extend for several weeks, but the actual main idea of the sermon, and, hence, the title, often would not come to me until I started studying the text which was the week before I preached. If I wanted to do the church sign on Monday or Tuesday so that the public driving by could see the sign all week in preparation for Sunday, then I had to have my text and title ready by Monday or Tuesday. As a bi-vocational minister, this was not always possible. This too caused the congregation some anxiety. If I had not changed the sign by Wednesday night, people would be asking me why I hadn’t.
But the bigger problem was that the outspoken people in the congregation simply had a difference of opinion with what ought to go on a church sign. These folk wanted to have the cute sayings on the sign and constantly criticized whatever I put on the sign. Even after I gave up doing the sign in 1996 and allowed the youth to do the sign (and their method was to put Bible verses on the sign, a very good choice) the older adults criticized the sign. Finally, in about 2001, the youth gave up the job and the older adults started doing the sign with their cute sayings. And everyone said “amen!” End of the sign controversy.
Another physical aspect of the church grounds that assisted in worship was the flower plots. A couple of senior saints who were talented in this area planted some flowers and took excellent care of them all year long. In the hot summer the planters were facing the south and west, so they would get the full heat of the sun all day long. They would usually plant a tough desert rose kind of a flower that looked nice and did not need quite as much water as other flowers. In the spring or fall they went with something like begonias, marigolds or mums. And in the winter they would stick with pansies. Everyone who came to church was greeted with some of God’s beautiful flowers as they walked up, and this was a genuine act of love and worship towards God by this older couple. The first church met in the Garden of Eden as Adam and Eve worshipped God in the midst of all the beauty of nature that God had provided. Flowers then, can be a useful part of the physical surroundings for a worship service, inside or out.
The church had a large yard where once stood the two story education wing that burned down in 1981. By the time of the fire the church had already declined from its height of about 300 in 1968 to about 60 in 1981. So when the church rebuilt they went with a smaller structure, paid for completely by the insurance which paid off the building debt, rebuilt the new, smaller facility and left the congregation with some money in the bank as well (more about all that sad story later). This large yard, about 1 acre, had to be mowed. The church hired one of its members back in the 1970’s to be the janitor and he volunteered to mow the yard and tend the grounds for no charge. He was a workhorse! He kept that church yard looking very nice. (Again, there is another sad, dark story along these lines that I will have to tell later). The bottom line is that the church provided a fairly attractive environment for worship as you drove up and walked to the entrance.
Once inside the church sanctuary a visitor would see a very simple but attractive place for worship. With plain white walls, deep blue carpet and very nice wood work at the front the sanctuary received many compliments from visitors. The only two areas that could be faulted were the pews, leftover from the fire and were still in good shape but the gold upholstery looked a bit old, and the stained glass windows that were cheap, simple colored panels that did nothing for anyone. The lighting was attractive and adequate and the ceiling was a slight A frame so it was not too close nor vaulted. With a grand piano and nice organ the interior worship setting was very nice, pleasant and soothing.
Let me close this chapter with a brief discussion on church architecture. I believe that the church is the people and the church can meet in a home, a barn, outside, in a tent, or wherever. But the Tabernacle and Temple in the Bible show us that God does enjoy using His talented, artistic servants to construct a beautiful place to house the church. I believe that all the arts can be used for the glory of God, including architecture. I love the old cathedrals and basilicas of the ancient and medieval church. I have worshiped in the National Cathedral in Washington DC and loved it. One of the most beautiful churches in Fort Worth is Broadway Baptist Church. Just walking inside that church gets me in an attitude of worship. Our architecture speaks of our souls and tells what our values are. To be merely functional and utilitarian just does not quite satisfy me. I long for beauty that speaks of the truth of God. If a church can afford it, building a beautiful facility with classical architecture and utilizing the fine arts should be a priority.
In my next chapter I will look at how we sit, stand and do worship in the physical sense.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )What Is Worship, questions
Sunday, December 30, 2007—One of the readers of this blog sent me a very honest question about worship. Here is part of that e-mail and my response:
Hello Bryan,
I have been reading your blog on Mark12ministrie’s and I have a question about “What is Worship” definition.
The definition that you gave was no doubt accurate, but it was not a definition that I could relate too. So… I was wondering if you could expound a little on what worship really is? I think what I really want to know is what does God want from us? All our heart, all our mind and all our strength. How can I give these things to Him in the course of my simple life. It is an everyday thing, not just a Sunday exclusive is it not?
So I’ll put to you the question of What is Worship? What is the actual act of worship? How did Abraham worship God? How did David? How did Joseph and Mary worship God? How did Peter, Paul or John worship? How did Jesus worship the Father?
What I want to know is do I worship God or am I just fooling myself?
And here is my reply:
Thank you for the e-mail and the good question. You have always been used by God to encourage me with your honest questions. The very fact that you ask such a question, what is worship, shows to me that you are, once again, on the right trail indeed. Most people just kind of blindly stumble along and do worship out of habit. You have paused long enough to ask yourself the hard questions.
Just this morning at our church, Pastor Tim ended a sermon series that has examined what our church should be. His first point was that our first priority should always be to be Glorying in God. If worship is giving praise and glory TO God, then in order for worship to be genuine, spiritual worship, we must first be glorying IN God. We have to Be before we DO. A lost person can attend worship and go through the motions of worshiping God, but someone who is born again, who has that relationship with Christ, can glory IN God.
Well what does that mean?
It doesn’t take anyone who meets you very long to learn about her daughter; she is your pride and joy, you love your daughter and are very concerned about her well being. You glory in your daughter.
Or think about a young couple deeply in love, just married. They are so in love, so concerned for one another, bragging about one another to all they meet, their love is just obvious. They glory in one another.
Or think about an older couple that have lived and loved for many decades. They are inseparable. They glory in each other.
To glory in the Lord then, to truthfully worship him with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength, is to be so enthralled, so in love with Him, that he is our all in all, our first priority. We long for him, we desire to please him, we grieve when we sin because we failed him.
Knowing you for several years, I sort of think I know what is going on in your head. You have a longing for a perfect, spiritual worship and are keenly aware of your own sinfulness and failures. You see your own phoniness and insincerity at times. That drives you crazy because you know it shouldn’t be such a struggle to worship him. I think that again proves you are on the right track. I feel the same way. I have the same weaknesses. I see my own insincerity and phoniness and all my sins and then the sin of despair tempts my soul to say, “What’s the use?” Deep within our souls as believers we know that worship should be purer, richer, deeper, and that we just don’t measure up. But this is exactly where God’s grace comes in. When we admit our inability, our sinfulness, our own insincerity, God gives us the grace to worship Him anyway and He is pleased. Real worship is continuing to praise and obey and love even though we fail time and again.
When we glory IN Him, all of life becomes a worship service. 1Cor. 10:30 “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” For the Christian, simply doing household chores can be an act of worship if we are in a right relationship with Him and simply thank God for a house that has chores in it that need doing.
We can worship him when we sit still and read our Bibles and say a quick prayer for our family and praise Him for the beauty of the day. God desires that we worship him corporately too, as the local body of Christ. So we go to church and sing, pray, give and listen.
Do not let your longing for perfect worhsip be a hindrance to you in the imperfect here and now. Understand and accept your shortcomings, but press on to worship Him as your all in all.
You ask “How can I give Him these things in the course of my simple life?” It is actually harder the more complex your life becomes! Simply understand that He is with you in your simple life. What did Jesus do for his first 30 years? He lived the simple life of a village carpenter and at the end of that period God said, This is my beloved Son! In Him I am well pleased. Welcome the fact that Christ is with you in the Holy Spirit all day everyday, in all the simple, mundane things.
The actual act of worship is simply telling God, I love you, I trust you, what will you have me do? We can do that at home, as we drive, at work, and corporately on Sundays as we sing, pray, give and listen.
As far as how Abraham or David worship…they did practice animal sacrifice, blood was shed. But we can remember and glory in our Savior who shed his blood for our salvation. We do that by trusting in Him for salvation and not our own good works. David composed hymns, poems, psalms. We can sing, read, pray, give and serve. But Abraham’s most notable acts of worship occured in Gen 12 when God tells him to leave his homeland and family…and he obeyed. Or in Gen.15:6 when Abraham believed the Lord and He counted it to him as righteousness. Or in Gen.22 when the Lord required Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Radical obedience, rooted in a loving trust. That is worship. But keep in mind that Abraham spent 99% of his time waiting on God to fulfill his promise. All that time herding goats and camels, eating dust, not having a bath in the desert. hmmm…worship? Yeah.
We can get all caught up in the big things, like going to the mission field, or in the big feelings like we had at some church camp as a teenager, but most of our lives are spent like Abraham’s…wandering around in the desert, eating dust while waiting on God. But trusting in him, and that is worship.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Worship Wars3: Problems With Bible Readings
Sunday, December 30, 2007– So far in my writings on the Worship Wars I witnessed in a small, elderly, bi-vocational SBC church I have given a definition of worship (which needs more work) and a brief history of the development of diversity in worship and then I described the worship at the church where I pastored for 15 years along with all the key conditions present. Today I will get into the Problems we had, some of the mistakes I made, and discuss the issues revolving around worship.
The first complaint I received about worship after I started pastoring was that I included too many Scripture readings in the order of service. This took me aback somewhat so I asked how many Scripture readings they were used to having. No more than 1-2 was the answer. I was using 4-6 readings per service. This was probably a rookie mistake on my part, but here is what I was trying to do: I would begin the service with a scripture that would relate to some aspect of the sermon or that pertained to the church calendar. I would frequently read one of the verses that one of the hymns was based upon so as to demonstrate the scriptural theme and foundation of our hymns. I would include a responsive reading for the congregation and would read a verse about offerings, sacrifices or God’s abundant provision just prior to the offering. Just before the sermon the sermon text would be read and I would then close the service with a scriptural benediction from the back of the hymnal.
On Sunday nights there would be only 2-3 readings: at the beginning of the service I would read our way through a New Testament book one chapter or portion of a chapter at a time but in the middle of the song service we would take a break for some testimonies and prayer requests and we would sometimes have another reading then, For several months we would read from Proverbs and have a brief explanation of the verse (we called this portion of the service Proverbs to Live By) or at other times we read through some of the great Baptist Confessions of Faith which would frequently include some Scripture. Then I would read the sermon text prior to the sermon. We read through most of the New Testament over the 15 years on Sunday nights.
The problem was that I had disturbed what the congregation believed to be the proper order of service with adding these extra readings on Sunday mornings. In my travels around the country and being a member in Baptist churches in Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington, plus watching some TV churches, I had observed that while Baptists claim to be a “people of the Book” and were called “Bible Thumpers” by some, our worship services did not include nearly as many scripture readings as the more “liberal” churches and Catholic churches did. I even noticed that the charismatic churches, including a couple of Assembly of God congregations I had visited did not include the Scripture as a significant part of the worship other than in the sermon. And even in the sermons I heard through the years there tended to be more jokes, stories and personal opinions than scriptural content.
Maybe my youthful enthusiasm led me astray; my eagerness to “do worship right”. Or perhaps I took Jer. 15:16 too seriously, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.” I suppose that maybe, just maybe, I took 1Tim.4:13 a little bit too literally, “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” And I am reasonably sure I totally misinterpreted Rev. 1:3 “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.”
Do not get the idea that there was a competetition to see if I could get more Scripture in the service than any of these other churches. My driving idea was that I wanted the Bible to be the basis for every aspect of our worship. I wanted to open the worship service with something like a “Thus saith the Lord!” The Word of God is God’s revelation to us and we should begin worship with a revelation from God’s Word. Our hymns’ ought to be Bible based, therefore I would use a verse conveniently placed at the top of the page for each hymn in the hymnal. (Here I thought I should be scored with a twofer- I was using the Bible and the Hymnal at the same time!) As we prepared to give the offering I thought it would be good to hear from the Lord’s Word about sacrifice, giving, and the Lord’s provision. The responsive readings were for the congregation to actively participate in the Word as a part of worship. The sermon text was not to be merely a jumping off place for my personal opinion, it was to be examined, explained and applied in the light of all of Scripture. The closing benediction (another twofer since it came from the back of the hymnal) was to be a blessing from the Lord to the people as they departed.
But, being sinners, it appears that we do not want some blessings. The objections to my modification of the order of service in the first few months of 1992 were loud, forceful and unrelenting. I backed down and compromised with 4-5 readings. I kept the opening readings, responsive readings, sermon text and benediction. I occasionally included a verse from one of the hymns. Essentially then, I only gave up the offertory reading; so maybe we made some progress after all.
I could go into the objections and arguments directed at my Bible based sermons at this point since that deals with issues regarding the Word and worship. But the sermon issues were so huge and so numerous, that it would be better to reserve that for another posting.
Let me conclude this posting with a summary of the problems and some recommendations. When I came into the pastorate in 1992 I properly identified a weakness in our worship (that is widespread in Baptistdom)- a lack of Scripture in our regular worship. As a rookie I improperly and arrogantly suddenly changed the way our church worshiped without preparing the congregation. I should have gradually brought in these extra readings. To paraphrase Cornelius Ryan, I went a Bible verse too far.
If you are not a church planter and starting a church from the ground up where you can set the worship style from the beginning, and you are instead a minister going to an established church that has a set pattern for their worship, go a little bit slower than I did. Pace your changes in worship to bring the people along in a slow, steady manner. If we are going to be a “people of the Book” we desperately need more of God’s Word in our hearts and lives and including more Scripture in our regular Sunday worship is a good beginning.
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