Ep 1 | Core Value 1: Biblically-Ordered, Congregational Worship

Welcome to Knowing God, conversations about God, his word, and the Christian life. This podcast is a ministry of Church of the Good Shepherd in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Visit us online at goodshepherdws.com. Welcome everyone. Thanks for tuning in.

My name is John Aiello. I'm here with Pastor Alex DiPrima, one of the pastors at Church of the Good Shepherd. We're starting a new series on our core values at Church of the Good Shepherd Winston Salem. Alex, could you just explain how these core values function in the life of our church? What's the purpose that they serve?

Dr. Sure. Well, you know, it's pretty common now for churches, you know, it used to be that the primary way churches would express what they believe was through a statement of faith, confession of faith, which we do affirm a statement of faith, you know, as a church and many churches still do. It's become more common. I don't know when this started to happen, but it's more common nowadays for churches also to try to express some things that are especially dear to them in the form of core values or ideals or they might call it different things like that.

And different churches might do different things, you know, with those core values. In our case, what we're doing is we're trying to identify things that aren't necessarily the most fundamental and important things about our Christian faith. So, of these core values certainly touch on them. But we're trying to identify what are some things that are part of the sort of the culture and flavor of our church. Values and ideals we especially hold dear.

That in some cases maybe kind of distinctive of who we are as a church. And they kind of serve I kind of see them as serving two basic functions for our church. One would be kind of giving a curbside view of who we are. So, if you're looking this up online, you're trying to understand, okay, just give me the rundown of the things that that what's what's the culture and flavor of your church? What what do you value?

What's important to you? This would be a great way, a kind of a kind of front door to the church. These these are the things I'm gonna pick up if I were to attend your church. And then also, I see them serving an important place in the life of our members as kind of big things we wanna regularly, you know, teach our people, disciple them in. Oh, so even in our new members class, we start by going through our seven core values which help people understand some of the things that are again, not all of them are the most important things, but they are some very important things that we wanna make sure all of our members grasp and identify with and affirm.

So, that's kind of what we're doing there with those core values and distinctives.

And like you mentioned, we have seven core values: biblically ordered Congregational Worship, Expositional Preaching, Confessionally Reformed and Baptist, Biblically Qualified Elders, Meaningful Membership, Christian growth through discipleship, and then lastly, missions, evangelism, and mercy ministry. Today, we're gonna be looking at number one, and the plan is to have one episode per core value. We're gonna look at number one, biblically ordered Congregational Worship. Alex, let's start with the last word, worship. How would you define worship and perhaps touch on what we've talked about before is the distinction between individual worship and corporate worship?

Yeah. So I've liked the way I've heard you describe it or define worship, which is all of us responding to all of God. I think that's really helpful or a handy way to think about it. It is recognizing that we are God's creatures, that he is the creator, and that as such, we owe to him devotion. We owe to him worship.

This is his world. We are his creatures made in his image. That places a certain dependency and contingency on us. He is absolute. He is the creator.

So right there, I think you have the beginnings of worship. And then also, as he saved us from our sins and made a way of redemption for sinners like us, as redeemer, how much more so we owe him our worship. So, yeah, it is it is worship is our response to God. It is Godward in its direction. It's about what we make of him, adoration, praise, devotion, singing, giving him glory, these sorts of things.

And, yeah, like you've said, I think in the Bible, you do see worship expressed in different ways. You know, theologians have developed, you know, two kind of broad categories that I think we can see in the Bible itself. One would be worship. We can say as all of life. So everything that we do, everything that we are is meant to bring worship to god.

And happily, we can worship god every day. We can worship god individually. We can worship god through our obedience and through our work and through our relationships and those sorts of things. But also, you do see a category in the Bible for a special kind of worship, which is all of God's people coming together in a gathering together in communities, in churches to worship God. You see this in the Old Testament in in various meetings of God on on mountains where people would come to a mountain or an altar or the tabernacle, the temple.

And then in the New Covenant, churches. In fact, the word church, the Greek word that's used for church is ecclesia. That word means gathering or assembly. And so and you see in the New Testament, God's people gathering all throughout the book of Acts to worship God in a special way when they all come together. Numbers of of New Testament epistles make reference to when the church assembles and gathers to worship God and how they're to worship God.

So I would just want people to to recognize, yes, all of our lives are worship, but there is also a special category in the bible for gathered worshiper, congregational worshiper, corporate worship. That's what we're talking about in this core value. And just if I could just add one more thing, John, I would say that I think in our evangelical climate today, our contemporary evangelical climate, I

think

that people have not made enough of this other category of worship. That there is a sort of special disclosure of God's presence that comes in the context of God's people gathering together. Getting together on Sunday mornings for worship is not like us all having our individual devotions in our pews or our seats, whatever. This is about all of us coming to God. And there's special things in order to attend and characterize that kind of worship.

Even the Lord himself promises a special expression of His presence among us when He says in Matthew 18, where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am with them also. First Corinthians, we talk about when God's people assemble and God's Spirit is with them. So, I think we should recognize something special about that. That's not to say God can't be with us privately in our individual devotional life. But it is to say there is something special going on with gathered worship, where the focus now is about all of us coming to God.

Not just me coming to God, but all of us as a corporate body, His blood bought people coming to Him and rendering to Him the worship that He alone is doing.

Well, you got ahead of me, Alex. You touched on the congregational aspect of things. And I I actually want to go ahead and read this core value as I get in my other questions, particularly thinking about how our corporate worship is to be biblically ordered. So let me go ahead and read the core value itself. It says, We believe the Church is called to worship triune God in the specific ways he has revealed in his word.

God alone has the right to determine how he should be worshipped. Therefore, his people ought to worship him according to his word alone. The heart of the church's worship is found in its weekly gatherings as a congregation on the Lord's Day. The focus of such gatherings is to be upon the glory of God and the edification of his people. In keeping with the expressed prescriptions of God's word and the practice of his saints throughout the ages, we purpose to worship him together by engaging in the public reading of Scripture, corporate prayers, the singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, the preaching of the Word, participation in the sacraments of baptism, and the Lord's Supper.

In the congregational worship, God's people should eagerly seek the presence, power, and blessing of the Holy Spirit. They should come into the worship with expectant hearts, seeking the experience of genuine fellowship with the living God. So one thing that's that's emphasized a

Can lot I just interrupt you there? Sure. Just just for just a little plug, pet peeve, hobby horse thing for me. You know, obviously, we we put a lot into that paragraph, and we do for each one of these core values. Yeah.

One of the things we were preparing our church website, one of the things that bothers me a lot is when church websites are very thin and light on information. And so I you you go to all the church websites nowadays, like, I've learned almost nothing distinctive about your church. There's very little to what they believe. And I just wanna make a bid on this podcast for more church put more out there. Truth in advertising, tell us who you are, tell us what you believe, go on the record, say some stuff.

And, you know, it's it's only reason why we thought it was important to probably say more, not less. We tried to define for people, you know, who we are and what we believe. Yeah. Anyway.

We're not into just vague statements.

That's for sure.

Yeah. And you could say we're church website maximalist.

Yeah. Sure. That's fine. Yeah. Maybe we write a book on that or something like that.

Yeah. But no, it is helpful for people who are when my wife and I are trying to find a church from out of town, we will look on the website to try to discern, okay, what kind of church is this? It's so often we can't tell. Unless it was like a whole sermon, you know. But we often don't have time to do that.

So just, yeah, say more, not less.

Yep. So we've already touched on what is worship, and you already touched on the congregational aspect of things that we as a body are coming to the Lord and responding to the Lord. And what you're not doing is you're not saying the individual worship is not important, but we're doing this core value is saying, we're talking about the worship of God on the Lord's Day as

a body. That's right. And I would wanna emphasize private worship is an utterly necessary part of the Christian life. It's so sweet. I've also one of my favorite verses is in Matthew six where the Lord himself says that he's talking about not praying out in public and being ostentatious and displaying all your piety and all of that.

But rather, he says, go into your room and shut the door and talks about there about your father who is in secret. He'll see you. And you'll meet with him and well, so that's an utterly necessary and precious part of the Christian life. But we but but but by recognizing that it doesn't diminish that to recognize there is this other sort of special environment where we're together now as the family of God with one another in the presence one another, the presence of God. And so, yeah, trying to emphasize that aspect of what worship is meant to be that I think we see in the Bible itself.

And one of the reasons I wanted to read the core value is kind of going to the beginning of the name of the core value, Biblically Ordered. It's one thing that strikes me when I read this is the emphasis on the Bible. Should worship him specific ways he is revealed in his word. God alone has the right to determine how he should be worshipped. Therefore, his people should worship in accordance with his word alone.

And later, in keeping with the expressed prescriptions of God's Word. So could you explain, like, is this saying

that there's an important point to that language?

Yeah, so why are we saying biblically? Are there people who have a different understanding of things as far as the worship of God? Regrettably, there are.

I don't think a lot of people identify themselves as people who we we do unbiblical or non biblical, you know, worship. But one of the things we're trying to get at with that language, one of the things we're trying to get at there is that we believe, we're convinced that the Bible lays out for us how the worship of God has to be organized. God has told us in His Word how He wants to be worshipped. We don't think he's silent on the issue. In fact, he's lot to say about it.

But in the Old Testament and the New Testament, I mean, there were all kinds of prescriptions under old covenant worship. You know, how god is worshiped and approached and all that kind of stuff. And in the new covenant, though it's not as elaborate as old covenant worship, there are prescriptions given. God tells us through his spirit and through his apostles how he wants to be approached and what the elements of the worship of God ought to be. So, I think we feel blessedly constrained by the scriptures to worship God according to his prescription, what he requires.

So so we could say, in a sense, that the worship of God is regulated by the Bible. So there there was, and and some people listening may know about this, that that in the Reformation era, there was a principle that emerged out of this very idea we're talking about. The reformers, many of them were so discouraged and so disillusioned by the way God's worship was profaned in medieval Roman Catholic churches, and how far worship had gotten from the very simple picture we see in the New Testament. So all these hundred years on, it just did not look like what we see in the Bible. And so, the reformers developed, to many of them, what was called then or has come to be called the regulative principle, which is basically what I just described, the idea that the Bible is to regulate the worship of God.

It was framed in different ways by different reformers, different groups. And among the continental reformers, they would have expressed it by saying that we only do in worship that which the Bible warrants. The Puritans and those in England would have said we only do a worship that was the Bible, prescribed. So, slight difference there. Warrant prescribed.

We tend to be more continental in our thinking about this. But the point is to say the Bible sets the standard. The Bible regulates worship of God. God tells us how he wants us to worship him. And what we see when we look at New Testament worship is that numbers of pastors lay out, what ought to be the elements of the worship of God.

When gospel gather, what are they to do? We're not free to just say, well, what would, you know, Gen Zers in Winston Salem want to do? And we'll do that. If they want videos or if they want a certain kind of performance or they want, you know, a good conversational kind of back and forth Q and A time. We'll we'll just do whatever appeals to them.

What we think will be most effective in getting people in the door. We do not have that freedom. The Bible does not give us that kind of freedom. We worship God not according to our own devices and our own imaginations, but according to what he's laid out in his word. And when we turn to the word, passages like, books like first Timothy, second Timothy, first Corinthians, we see laid out those elements of worship, which are the reading of God's word, the preaching of God's word, prayers being offered up for all men everywhere.

First Timothy two, songs, hymns, spiritual songs, the sacraments, fellowship, these sorts of things, which are identified in the Bibles without characterize the gatherings of God's people when they come together to worship him.

Yeah. What what we mentioned is exactly what you just said. Reading of scripture, corporate prayers, singing of psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, the preaching of the word, participation in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Alex, I could put a text by each one of those elements, where there's an express command given that we engage in that particular element of when we gather together.

Yeah. We talk a lot about those are the biblical mandates. So what we want to do in corporate worship is create an environment so that the whole congregation can fulfill these things. For example, in singing. Could you just explain what that looks like?

Maybe touch on the form of worship and why it's important to have certain forms to be able to obey these commands?

Dr. Aiello John, you're using that language of form. I assume you're familiar with these debates and how different folks have thought about this over the years, though often distinguish between forms and elements. So I think that the Bible is very clear on what the elements ought to be. And then there's some freedom, I think, within certain constraints, some freedom in terms of what form those elements might take.

So for example, when you're talking about forms of worship, you're talking about, okay, let's say we all agree there should be preaching. Well, how long should the preaching be? Fifty minutes? Twenty five minutes? Depends who's preaching.

Yeah. Sure. How good they are. Right? You know, the singing.

Okay. Well, the only command given that I'm aware of in the New Testament with respect to music and singing in the new yeah, the New Testament is that we do sing. That all of God's people, the congregation sings. It's a command given. All of us are to sing whether we're musically inclined or not, whether we think we have a good voice or not.

It's actually, I think, the most frequent command in all the Bible that God's people sing. So if you listen to this podcast and you're not singing in church, you're a disobedient disciple. It's enjoyed on all of us. There's nothing about musical instruments. At least not in the New Testament.

That doesn't mean you can't have them. But they better be serving the congregational singing. Well, should we sing five songs, four songs? Should we have organ or guitar? These are forms.

Right? So, how many prayers should we have? Should they be extemporaneous? Should they be prepared beforehand? Those are the kinds of questions you're going to ask.

I think there's some freedom in the forms. But one thing I wanna say is even with the forms, you ought to be thoughtful. There are biblical principles we ought to apply. So, the way that works at Good Shepherd is, you know, our worship service, it's just a series of of prayers, scripture readings, songs, preaching and teaching, the sacraments, you know, those elements are all gonna be laid out there. Very traditional, you know, liturgy that we have, form of worship that we have.

But in terms of, like, if I'm thinking about what instruments we're gonna have to accompany the singing. Ours is very simple, piano and guitar. Well, it could have been in other instruments. But what I'm thinking there is, okay, the the big value in the New Testament that that the where the apostles are putting all the chips is on all of God's people singing. That means men and women, young and old, musically inclined and not.

So I'm thinking the the scorecard for me is is is that older man singing? Is this 12 year old singing? Is is everybody, you know, I I know she's a very gifted vocalist. He's not. But can they all sing?

You know? Because that's what God wants. Congregational singing. So are we gonna have music that's very loud and overpowers the singing? And suppresses the singing?

I say no. I so I I don't think it's an irrelevant it's not a point of indifference, the forms. They can either serve the element itself and help help help invite it, you know, in this case, the singing of God's people or they could suppress it. Similarly, it's common for a lot of traders now to turn the lights down low in the gatherings. I assume that's because like in concert settings they do that.

I don't know. Creates the mood or something

like that. Well, maybe you can have a more authentic worship experience.

Yeah, sure. Well, but that's a good point. In the New Testament, music is not about a privatized me and Jesus experience. It's about us coming to God. Right?

That's the picture we got in New Testament worship. So I don't wanna do anything that's going to try to make it feel like or look like, but anything I might be doing in terms of how organize the room or the service, to try to communicate. This is about a privatized individual experience. I wanna emphasize corporate experience. So, leaving the lights on, turning them up even, is to emphasize, this is all of us.

I want to see my brothers and sisters. Ephesians five and Colossians three say, we're not to sing only to God, but to one another. So, I'm going have this awareness of the people around me. If I turn the lights on, I can't see the people around me. But it's more than that.

I think it kinda imitates, you know, kind of concert culture. You go to a concert, all the lights turn down among the audience and all lights turn up once we're on the stage because the emphasis is on the performance, not on the people out there in the audience. I So think when we do that, immediately now all of sudden we're looking at the people on the stage in a new way. What they're doing becomes the point of emphasis and focus. It becomes more performative.

I'm not saying everyone who does this has that motivation. But when they do it, it subtly signals that to people. This is performative. And I don't want to do that at all. Because, again, I'm not emphasizing a band on a stage or a soloist or something like that.

The picture we get in the Testament is all of us coming to God as a congregation and all of us together singing. So, why would I do things in terms of how I I I, you know, acclimate, you know, arrange the furniture in the room, or in this case the lighting, that's going to work against the vision we have in the Bible? So, even the forms, though they're I'm not going to prescribe forms as clearly as I'm going to be the elements, because the Bible prescribes the elements. I do think church should be thoughtful about the forms, and how they package those elements. Because I think they can do things that either suppress the purpose of the various elements of worship and what the Lord's ideals are with those elements, or they can do things to enhance and promote them.

So that goes into a lot of decisions we make at Church of the Good Shepherd.

So it's not what I'm hearing so far, biblically ordered, meaning it's not just preference.

And how has God told us He wants us to worship?

And so you have those non negotiables, and therefore the forms have to serve them.

That's exactly right. Yeah, the decisions we make about how to organize the worship service, I want to bring to life and bring to light the things we see in God's word, the vision we see in God's word for what what the the the worship of the congregation ought to be. And I think there are things we could do that either diminish that and suppress that, or the things we could do that that enhance it and elevate it.

Yeah. So in biblically ordered Congregational Worship, one thing we say here is that it's this worship is not only for worshiping God, but it's also for the edification of the people. That's right. Could you speak more on that? And what I'm thinking in the back of my mind is what's been called the seeker sensitive movement.

Sure. Could you explain that and then explain why we think this is the biblical model?

John Yeah. Well, maybe start with the seeker sensitive movement, as I understand it, movement seventies, eighties, nineties, that we still feel the effects of today, as some people are still bought into that philosophy. It's a diverse movement, but I think the basic idea, not true of everyone that would maybe identify with that movement, but the basic idea was that we should have primarily unbelievers in mind when we organize our gatherings, particularly our Sunday morning worship gatherings. And so, the meeting should be acclimated to people who are visiting, people who are maybe not Christians outside of Christ. And the goal is to try to invite their interest in the things of God and in the worship of God.

And so we have an eye primarily to them. Well, you know, again, don't want to impugn anybody's motives. You know, if there there's an evangelistic kind of fervor that's backing that, I certainly commend evangelistic fervor. But I think they're making a category error there. You know?

You know, that's like saying, you know, we want to be friendly to our neighbors. So, let's open our marriage bed to all of our neighbors. Well, no. You you you're you're marriage is a sacred place and a particular type of relationship and you don't invite everybody into that relationship. Well, yeah.

I think the worship of god has a specific purpose. The worship of god is for the worship of God and for the edification of believers. And I'm not just pulling that out of thin air. I'm not pulling that on my hat. Numerous texts make this point.

God cares about how he's to be worshiped, and it's a feast for the believer. First Corinthians 14 verse 26, for example, says that, all of worship, everything we do is to be done for the building over the saints, for the edification of the believer. All things are redone on edification. So, in fact, a really great book on this. Don Carson edited a book called Worship by the Book.

And in his definition of worship, he emphasizes this. This is about magnifying and glorifying God, and building up believers in the faith. Mutual edification is the goal. So we see that in the New Testament. So I do think when we're organizing worship gatherings, we ought to be thinking in terms of exalting the Lord and worshiping him and bringing him the praise that he alone is due, and building up the saints in the truth and in their love and devotion and obedience to Christ.

And so, that's the main the main kind of entree. Now, you do see in the New Testament, and it's this way happily in our church. You will often have people among your gatherings who are not believers. And I think it's only sensitive and right and good that those leading the services be aware of those people. Paul certainly seems to think that the Corinthians ought to be aware of those types of people.

First Corinthians 14, where there we have a description of a worship service. And Paul says, you know, everything's supposed to be orderly and be it's supposed to be done decently and and and truth is to be very clear. It's to be intelligible so that if an outsider is among you, he he'll hear the truth. He will sense that God is among you, and he'll he'll know he's a sinner. He'll fall on his face.

He'll repent. So he has an eye that to to the outsider who comes in among them. But but the goal there is not, okay, now let's acclimate the whole service to suit that unbelievers preferences. No. Let's let's try to excite him with the worship of God.

Help him to see these people have something I don't have. The power of God is among them. The presence of God is among them. And in God's presence, I know I'm a sinner, and I need this very thing they're preaching about and talking about. That's what, you know, Paul is after there.

So, I'm fine with having an awareness that believers are there. Excuse me. Believe oh, certainly the believers are there, but awareness that unbelievers are there. Every week, we have unbelievers, And we will say things directly to unbelievers. And we'll explain elements of our worship service to unbelievers.

What I what I don't want to do though is to sort of set the spiritual temperature to sort of make the unbeliever feel comfortable. And to orient everything toward his his maximal comfort. And we're not so different. And you can come on in. You're you belong here and that kind No.

I wanna say, no. That you you've walked into an insider's meeting. You've walked into the worship of God. That's what we've come here to do today. And we're happy to kind of walk you through the progressions that help you understand what we're doing.

But our hope, my friend, is that you too become a worshiper of God, a worshiper of God. And that you too embrace the things that we have believed and that we celebrate and exalt and rejoice in here as we've gathered. So that's I think it's some the problems with the secret sensitive movement. More importantly, I do think we see in the New Testament a clear priority placed on exalting God and edifying the people of God through the means of grace, through the elements of worship.

It reminds me one thing you say a lot is what you win them with is what you win them to.

Yeah. Not original to me for sure,

but yeah. Yeah. It's actually I came up

with that. Yeah. I mean, phrase, what you win people with is what you win them to. If you win them with really high production music, well, they'll stay for as long as you have high production music. And I sort of provocatively tell my kind of megachurch friends, hey, would all the people stay if you just unplugged all the instruments this coming cycle?

Like you're sang acapella, would they stay? If they're not willing to stay simply because you've gotten rid of the drums, or moved from an electric guitar to acoustic guitar, What does that tell you about why they're coming? Is that a good sign? You know? So, that's a little and kind of made me provocative there.

But but yeah. No. I mean, if you win people with content and with truth and with substance, with the presence and power of God and the means of grace, they'll stay for that. And that's who you want to ultimately build the church with and win people with. We don't have to build with straw.

We're to build with bricks and build with spiritual power. And the spiritual power is not in the instruments. The spiritual power is not in whether the pastor wears jeans or a tie. The spiritual power is not in the decor in the foyer. The spiritual power is in the preaching of the word of God, in congregational singing, sacraments, coming to God in prayer, all of our hearts being united, God will come in those things.

That's where God makes Himself known, and that's how He works in the lives and hearts of people. That's how churches are built.

Amen. Alex, any other thoughts on Biblically ordered Congregational Worship?

Well, no, just the main thing I want to emphasize is that the Bible speaks to this. And that's what I think a lot of people miss. I think people think we're free to just organize our Sunday gatherings however we want. And that tends people toward seeker sensitive stuff, and it tends people toward trying to nurture privatized individual experiences. And I I would just encourage people, if you search this out in the Scriptures, the Bible has a lot more to say, not just in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, about what the worship of God is to be like, and to think God has a right to tell us how he wants to be worshiped.

Give thought to that, and then seek to organize the gathering of worship according to what we find there in the word. God has an interest in this, and we will find that if we worship God by the book, if we worship him according to his word, we will be blessed. Our worship will be glorious, and there'll be real spiritual power that comes to us in the context of such worship services. So search it out in the Bible, worship God according to his word, and, yeah, there's just a glory about congregational worship, I think, when done according to the Bible.

Let me end by reading Hebrews 12 verse 28. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. Thanks for joining. Next time, we'll be looking at our second core value expositional preaching.