From Worship Wars to Biblical Consensus:
Doxological Commitments and Commonalities for the PCA

There was a time when Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregational, low-church Episcopal, Methodist and independent Bible church worship services looked very much alike. Today, however, the person who visits among churches is likely to experience as many worship styles as there are churches. Even within the same denomination, there may be a wide variety of worship practices.

However, if we were to commit to just five basic components in our public worship, and adhere to the general principle that the Bible instructs us in both the form and content of our public worship, then eighty percent of the issues in what is often called “the worship wars” would be settled in the PCA.

What Worship is (and isn’t)
What is worship? Well, the Psalmist tells us succinctly. It is giving unto the Lord the glory due his name (Psalm 29:1-2). Jerry Bridges, noted author of The Pursuit of Holiness and Transforming Grace, recently asked this very question and answered as follows: “In Scripture the word worship is used to denote both an overall way of life and a specific activity. When the prophet Jonah said, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God heaven, who made the sea and the land “(Jonah 1:9), he was speaking about his whole manner of life. In contrast to Jonah’s words, Psalm 100:2 says, “Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.”  The psalmist there speaks of a specific activity of praising God. This is the sense in which we normally use the word worship today. These two concepts of worship—a broad one and a more narrow, specific one—correspond to the two ways by which we glorify God.  We glorify God by ascribing to Him the honor and adoration due to Him because of His excellence—the narrow concept of worship. We also glorify God by reflecting His glory to others—the broader, way-of-life manner of worship.”1

To say it a little differently, worship is declaring, with our lips and lives, that God is more important than anything else to us, that he is our deepest desire, that his inherent worth is beyond everything else we hold dear. Lou Giglio has recently, and provocatively, explained: “Think of it this way: Worship is simply about value. The simplest definition I can give is this: Worship is our response to what we value most. That’s why worship is that thing we all do. It’s what we’re all about on any given day. Worship is about saying, ‘This person, this thing, this experience (this whatever) is what matters most to me . . . it’s the thing of highest value in my life.’ That ‘thing’ might be a relationship. A dream. A position. Status. Something you own. A name. A job. Some kind of pleasure. Whatever name you put on it, this ‘thing’ is what you’ve concluded in your heart is worth most to you. And whatever is worth most to you is—you guessed it—what you worship. Worship, in essence, is declaring what we value most. As a result, worship fuels our actions, becoming the driving force of all we do. And we’re not just talking about the religious crowd. The Christian. The churchgoer among us. We’re talking about everybody on planet earth. A multitude of souls proclaiming with every breath what is worthy of their affection, their attention, their allegiance. Proclaiming with every step what it is they worship. Some of us attend the church on the corner, professing to worship the living God above all. Others, who rarely darken the church doors, would say worship isn’t a part of their lives because they aren’t ‘religious.’ But everybody has an altar. And every altar has a throne. So how do you know where and what you worship? It’s easy: You simply follow the trail of your time, your affection, your energy, your money, and your allegiance.  At the end of that trail you’ll find a throne, and whatever, or whoever, is on that throne is what’s of highest value to you. On that throne is what you worship. Sure, not too many of us walk around saying; ‘I worship my stuff. I worship my job. I worship this pleasure. I worship her. I worship my body. I worship me!’ But the trail never lies. We may say we value this thing or that thing more than any other, but the volume of our actions speaks louder than our words.”2

So worship is rooted in our deepest desires, and reflects those deep desires outwardly. This is important to note because of misconceptions of what constitutes “worship.” It is not uncommon to hear someone distinguish, for instance, between “worship” and the sermon. “We had a great time of worship this morning, and then the pastor gave a really practical message,” someone might say, with utter innocency of spirit, not realizing that the statement reveals that he doesn’t know what worship is. In that sentence, “worship” stands for “experience” and probably for music. The songs and singing leading up to the morning message were moving, made him “feel closer to God” and thus that portion of the service is associated in the heart and mind with “worship.” But this is to confuse the meaning and action of worship with the effects or byproducts of worship. We do not come to a congregational service of worship in order to “experience worship” or to be deeply moved by the time of singing or to have some kind of an emotional catharsis. We come to meet with God and to give to him the glory due his name.

If one has any other goal in worship than engaging with God, coming into the presence of God, to glorify and enjoy him, any other aim than to ascribe his worth, commune with him and receive his favor, then one has yet to worship. For in biblical worship we focus upon God himself and acknowledge his inherent and unique worthiness.

Why do we worship? There is more than one right biblical answer. Surely at the top of the list is “for his own glory” (1 Corinthians 10:31, Psalm 29:1-2). There is no higher answer to “why do we worship?” than because the glory of God is more important than anything else in all creation. The chief end of the church is to glorify and enjoy God together forever, because the chief thing in all the world is God’s glory (Philippians 2:9-11). There are other answers as well: because God said to, because God created us to worship, because God saved us to worship, because it is our natural duty as creatures and joyful duty as Christians to worship, because our worship is a response of gratitude for saving grace, because those with new hearts long to hear his word and express their devotion, because God wants to bless us with himself, because God has chosen us for his own inheritance and seeks to commune with us in his ordinances, and more.

Hughes Old points us to the Psalms and Paul for the answer: “We worship God because God created us to worship him. Worship is at the center of our existence, at the heart of our reason for being. God created us to be his image—an image that would reflect his glory. In fact, the whole creation was brought into existence to reflect the divine glory. The psalmist tells us that ‘the heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork’ (Psalm 19:1). The apostle Paul in the prayer with which he begins the epistle to the Ephesians makes it clear that God created us to praise him.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace... (Eph. 1:3-6)

This prayer says much about the worship of the earliest Christians. It shows the consciousness that the first Christians had of the ultimate significance of their worship. They understood themselves to have been destined and appointed to live to the praise of God’s glory (Eph. 1:12).”3

The Goal and Meaning of Public Worship
Our aim, as the congregation gathers to meet with God in public worship on the Lord’s Day, is to glorify and enjoy God, in accordance with his written word. That is, the very purpose of assembling together as the people of God in congregational worship is to give to the Lord the glory due his name and to enjoy the blessing of his promised special presence with his own people, in obedience to his instructions set forth in the Bible.

Corporate worship (so-called because the body or corpus of Christ, that is, the people of God, the Church, is collectively involved in this encounter with God) is sometimes referred to as “gathered,” “assembled” “public,” or “congregational” worship. All of these names are helpful, and bring out different dimensions of this important aspect of biblical worship. Though the Bible indicates that there are, in addition to public worship, other distinct and significant facets of Christian worship (like family worship, private worship and life worship), the importance of public worship is featured in both the Old and New Testaments. When Psalm 100:2 and Hebrews 10:25 speak of “coming before the Lord” and “assembling together” they are both addressing public or gathered worship.

The great distinctive of our whole approach to public worship is that we aim for the form and substance of our corporate worship to be suffused with Scripture and scriptural theology. An apt motto for this approach is: “Read the Bible, Preach the Bible, Pray the Bible, Sing the Bible, See the Bible.” Committing to a regular diet of these five components would revolutionize congregational worship in the evangelical churches in general and the PCA churches in particular. It would also contribute to doxological unity (without imposing uniformity).

What our worship ought to look like
Let us elaborate on this aspiration for congregational worship. If Bible reading, Bible preaching, Bible praying, Bible singing and biblical observance of the sacraments are at the core of what we do in public worship, it will mean the following for our services.

We will read the Bible in our public worship. Paul told Timothy “give attention to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13) and so, a worship service influenced by the teaching of Scripture will contain a substantial reading of Scripture (and not just from the sermon text!). The public reading of the Bible has been at the heart of the worship of God since Old Testament times. In the reading of God’s word, He speaks most directly to His people.

We will preach the Bible in our public worship. Preaching is God’s prime appointed instrument to build up his church. As Paul said “faith comes by hearing” (Romans 10:14, 17). Faithful biblical preaching is to explain and apply Scripture to the gathered company, believers and unbelievers alike. James Durham put it this way: “This is the great design of all preaching, to bring them within the covenant who are without, and to make those who are within the covenant to walk suitably to it. And as these are never separated on the Lord’s side, so should they never be separated on our side.” This means expository and evangelistic preaching, squarely based in the text of the word of God.

People who appreciate the Bible’s teaching on worship will have a high view of preaching, and little time for the personality driven, theologically void, superficially practical, monologues that pass for preaching today. “From the very beginning the sermon was supposed to be an explanation of the Scripture reading,” says Hughes Old. It “is not just a lecture on some religious subject, it is rather an explanation of a passage of Scripture.”4 “Preach the word,” Paul tells Timothy (2 Tim 4:2). “Expository, sequential, verse by verse, book by book, preaching through the whole Bible, the ‘whole council of God’ (Acts 20:27), was the practice of many of the church fathers (e.g., Chrysostom, Augustine), all the Reformers and the best of their heirs ever since. The preached word is the central feature of Reformed worship.”

We will pray the Bible in our public worship. The Father’s house “is a house of prayer” said Jesus (Matthew 21:13). Our prayers ought to be permeated with the language and thought of Scripture. Terry Johnson makes the case thusly: “the pulpit prayers of Reformed churches should be rich in biblical and theological content. Do we not learn the language of Christian devotion from the Bible? Do we not learn the language of confession and penitence from the Bible? Do we not learn the promises of God to believe and claim in prayer from the Bible? Don’t we learn the will of God, the commands of God, and the desires of God for His people, for which we are to plead in prayer, from the Bible? Since these things are so, public prayers should repeat and echo the language of the Bible throughout.”5 The call here is not for written and read prayer, but studied free prayer. Our ministers spend time plundering the language of Scripture in preparation for leading in public worship.

We will sing the Bible in our public worship (Psalm 98:1, Revelation 5:9, Matthew 26:30, Nehemiah 12:27, 46; Acts 16:25; Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). This doesn’t mean that we can only sing Psalms or only sing the language of scripture, though this tremendous doxological resource of the church should not be overlooked. What we mean by “sing the Bible” is that our singing ought to be biblical, shot through with the language, categories and theology of the Bible. It ought to reflect the themes and proportion of the Bible, as well as its substance and weightiness. Terry Johnson, again, provides this counsel: “Our songs should be rich with Biblical and theological content. The current divisions over music are at the heart of our worship wars. Yet some principles should be easy enough to identify. First, what does a Christian worship song look like? Answer, it looks like a Psalm. The Psalms provide the model for Christian hymnody. If the songs we sing in worship look like Psalms, they will develop themes over many lines with minimal repetition. They will be rich in theological and experiential content. They will tell us much about God, man, sin, salvation, and the Christian life. They will express the whole range of human experience and emotion. Second, what does a Christian worship song sound like? Many are quick to point out that God has not given us a book of tunes. No, but He has given us a book of lyrics (the Psalms) and their form will do much to determine the kinds of tunes that will be used. Put simply, the tunes will be suited to the words. They will be sophisticated enough to carry substantial content over several lines and stanzas. They will use minimal repetition. They will be appropriate to the emotional mood of the Psalm or Bible-based Christian hymn. Sing the Bible.”6

We will “see” the Bible in our public worship. That is, we are to observe the appointed visible ordinances or sacraments in public worship. When we say that we are to “see” the Bible, we do so because God’s sacraments are “visible words” (so said Augustine). The sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper) are the only two commanded dramas of Christian worship (Matthew 28:19, Acts 2:38-39, Colossians 2:11-12, Luke 22:14-20, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). In them we see with our eyes the promise of God. But we could also say that in the sacraments we see/smell/touch/taste the word. In the reading and preaching the word, God addresses our mind and conscience through the hearing. In the sacraments, he uniquely addresses our mind and conscience through the other senses. In, through and to the senses, God’s promise is made tangible. A sacrament is a covenant sign and seal, which means it reminds us and assures us of a promise. That is, it points to and confirms a gracious promise of God to his people. Another way of saying it is that a sacrament is an action designed by God to sign and seal a covenantal reality, accomplished by the power and grace of God, the significance of which has been communicated by the word of God, and the reality of which is received or entered into by faith. Hence, the weakness, the frailty of human faith welcomes this gracious act of reassurance. And so these “visible symbols of Gospel truths” are to be done as part of our corporate worship. They will be occasional, no matter how frequent, and so we are reminded that they are not essential to every service. This is not to denigrate them in the least. After all, they are by nature supplemental to and confirmatory of the promises held out in the word, and the grace conveyed in them is the same grace held out via the means of preaching.

Radically Biblical Worship
Our aim then is to have a public worship service that is according to Scripture: that is, a service rooted in the Bible’s teaching about the form and substance of congregational worship. Presbyterians often call this the “regulative principle” in arranging our public worship — the axiom that we ought to worship God in accordance with the Bible’s teaching about the public worship of God. This axiom applied, in turn, helps us with the whole scope of worship. How we go about corporate worship is the business of the second commandment, but it is also a central concern for the New Testament church as well (see, for instance, John 4, 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, and Colossians 2).

For our worship to be biblical in all its aspects means, among other things, (1) that its content, parts and corporateness are all positively in accord with Scripture; (2) that it is simultaneously a communal response of gratitude for grace, an expression of passion for God, the fulfillment of what we were made and redeemed for, a joyful engagement in a delightful obedience, as Scripture teaches; (3) that it is a corporate Christ-provided, Spirit-enabled encounter with the almighty, loving and righteous Father, and thus always has in view the Triune God, again in accord with the Bible’s teaching; and (4) that it aims for and is an expression of God’s own glory, and contemplates the consummation of the eternal covenant in the church triumphant’s everlasting union and communion with God.

Determining that the Bible will guide our worship, helps the church ensure that the elements of worship (like singing, praying, reading Scripture, preaching, administering the sacraments, making solemn vows, confessing the faith and giving offerings) are unequivocally and positively grounded in Scripture, and that the forms of worship (how you go about singing, praying, reading Scripture, preaching, administering the sacraments) are in accord with Scripture and serve the elements they are intended to help convey, and that the circumstances of worship (incidentals like whether you sit in pews or chairs or stand, whether you meet in a church building or a storefront, what time you meet, how long you meet, etc.), are maximally helpful in assisting us to do what the Bible calls us to do in worship.

Why the manner of congregational worship is important
Presbyterians have not been concerned with forms and circumstances so much for their own sake as much as for the sake of the elements and substance of worship, and for the sake of the object and aim of worship. The Reformers (from whom Presbyterians have learned much about Scripture) understood two things often lost on moderns. First, they understood that the liturgy (the set forms of corporate worship), media, instruments and vehicles of worship are never neutral, and so exceeding care must be given to the “law of unintended consequences.” Often the medium overwhelms and changes the message. For example, if you sing “Amazing Grace” to the tune of “Gilligan’s Island” (the meter works, but the tune doesn’t – a light, quasi-sea-shanty, with comedic associations, coupled with gravely serious words) it changes the whole tone of what one is doing in singing that text, and easily becomes a sacrilege. Second, they knew that the purpose of the elements and forms and circumstances of corporate worship is to assure that you are actually doing worship as it is defined by the God of Scripture, that you are worshiping the God of Scripture and that your aim in worshiping Him is the aim set forth in Scripture.

So Presbyterians care about how we worship not because we think that liturgy (the order of service) is prescribed, mystical or sacramental, but precisely so that the liturgy can get out of the way of the gathered church’s communion with the living God. The function of the order of service is not to draw attention to itself but to aid the soul’s communion with God in the gathered company of the saints by serving to convey the word of God to and from God, from and to His people. C.S. Lewis puts it this way: “As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t have to notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God” (from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer).7 This is why the great Baptist preacher Geoffrey Thomas can say: “In true worship men have little thought of the means of worship; their thoughts are upon God. True worship is characterized by self-effacement and is lacking in any self-consciousness.” That is, in biblical worship we so focus upon God Himself and are so intent to acknowledge His inherent and unique worthiness that we are transfixed by Him, and thus worship is not about what we want or like (nor do His appointed means divert our eyes from Him), but rather it is about meeting with God and delighting in Him. Praise decentralizes self.

Worship, Culture and Reverence
By the way, Presbyterians do not have the same interest in cultural accommodation as many modern evangelical worship theorists do. We are against culture-derived worship, and are more concerned to implement to principles of Scripture in our specific culture (and even to emulate the best of the Bible-inspired cultures of Scripture), than we are to reclaim current cultural forms for Christian use. This is precisely one of the areas productive of the greatest controversy in our own age. Many pastors and churches think that, in order to reach people, you must use the church’s worship “style” to position the church for evangelism. Hence, pop-contemporary forms or the distinctive ethnic forms of a particular sub-culture are employed in order to reach an audience that likes that particular “style.” This is exceedingly dangerous and turns the focus of corporate worship on its head, and opens the door to encouraging participants to view themselves as consumers rather than as worshipers. This is a significant problem in our consumer-oriented context.

And we Presbyterians believe that worship ought to be reverent. If worship is meeting with God, how could it be otherwise? It is precisely the reverence and awe of the greatness of God that should characterize worship at its best. We agree with Hughes Oliphant Old who says “The greatest single contribution which the Reformed liturgical heritage can make to contemporary American Protestantism is its sense of the majesty and sovereignty of God, its sense of reverence, of simple dignity, its conviction that worship must above all serve the praise of God.”8 That’s why we aim for a worship service that is Scriptural, simple, Spiritual, historic, heartfelt, majestic and reverent.

The Qualities of Biblical Worship
So, with these principles in mind, we aspire to the following qualities in our congregational services of worship. We strive to help the congregation offer scriptural, simple, Spiritual, God-centered, historic, reverent and joyful, mediated, corporate, evangelistic, delightful, active and passive, Lord’s Day worship to the living and true God.

SCRIPTURAL
We want our worship to be biblical, that is, ordered by God’s own word. One of the distinctives of Presbyterian worship is that it aims to be completely guided by Scripture. It is, in fact, worship that is according to Scripture. This is known as “the Regulative Principle.” This approach to how we worship is aptly summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1: “The light of nature shows that there is a God, who has lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and does good to all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture.”

Since our worship is for God, our first question is not, “What do we want to do?” or even “What would others like to do?” but “What does God want us to do?”  For direction we look to the Bible where God directs by command or approved example how to worship Him. In the Bible we find God accepting these acts of worship: singing, praying, reading the Bible, preaching, celebrating sacraments, giving offerings, confessing the faith, and making holy vows.

We want to assure that our corporate worship is Bible-filled and Bible-directed, that the substance and structure are biblical, that the content and order are biblical. To put it slightly differently, we want to worship “by the book” in two ways: so that both the marrow and means of worship are according to Scripture. We want the form and substance of corporate worship to be suffused with Scripture and scriptural theology.

SIMPLE
Christian public worship ought to be simple. It requires no elaborate ritual, no prescribed book of common prayer, on the one hand, nor does it have need for some high-tech, electronic, technologically sophisticated setting on the other. True Christian public worship is merely based on the unadorned and unpretentious principles and order found in the Bible, by precept and example, which supply the substance of new covenant worship. Everything that is claimed to be essential or key or important to thriving Christian congregational worship (whether it be sound and lighting, instruments, clerical vestments, or prescribed liturgy based upon some fixed form of the past) must pass the test of the catacombs. Is this essential to the faithful corporate worship of persecuted Christians huddled away in some hole worshiping God together in Spirit and truth?

SPIRITUAL
Christian congregational worship is Spirit-gathered, Spirit-dependent, Spirit-engendered, and Spirit-empowered, because left to ourselves we will not worship the right object, according to the right standard, for the right motivation and to the right end. It is God the Holy Spirit who creates, enables and energizes our desire and capacity to worship. By his ministry we are ushered into God’s presence and commune with him.

GOD-CENTERED
Christian worship is all about God. He is the object of our worship, the focus of our worship. We gather as a congregation, not to seek an experience but to meet with God and give him praise. The whom of worship is central to true worship (see John 4:22, 24). It is what the first commandment is all about. We aim to worship the God of the Bible. Many Christians leave Sunday services asking the “what did worship do for me?” Yet it is more helpful and biblical to think just the opposite. “What did I give to God in worship?” “How did I encourage the brothers and sisters to praise Christ for his grace?” “How did I take advantage of the means of grace in order to glorify God?” Ask not what this service will do for you, but what you will give to God through this service — the rest will take care of itself. Don Carson puts it this way: “Should we not remind ourselves that worship is a TRANSITIVE verb [a verb that requires a direct object]? We do not meet to worship (i.e. to experience worship): we aim to worship GOD. ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only’: there is the heart of the matter. In this area, one must not confuse what is central with byproducts. If you seek peace, you will not find it; if you seek Christ, you will find peace. If you seek joy, you will not find it; if you seek Christ, you will find joy. If you seek holiness, you will not find it; if you seek Christ, you will find holiness. If you seek experiences of worship, you will not find them; if you worship the living God, you will experience something of what is reflected in the Psalms. Worship is a transitive verb, and the most important thing about it is the direct object.”9

HISTORIC
Many churches are aspiring, first and foremost, to be “contemporary” and “seeker sensitive” in their worship. Thus sermons, pastoral prayers, hymns and psalms are out, and sharing, skits, talks, videos, technology, praise teams, choruses and “CCM” (contemporary Christian music) are in. The churches who take this approach sincerely see this as the best way to reach people for Christ and as the best way to cater to the preferences of their own congregants. However, we in the PCA don’t share this philosophy of congregational worship. We aim for a worship service that would be recognizable to the Apostles – an historic form of Christian worship.

Interestingly, there is much evidence to suggest that this is more attractive to “seekers” than some of the contemporary forms that are so popular in many churches today. W. Tullian Tchividjian, son-in-law of Billy Graham has observed: “Because the modern world is in a constant state of flux, … people in the modern world are open to, and desirous for, things traditional and historical, ancient and proved. They are up to their necks in ‘up-to-date’ structures and ‘cutting-edge’ methodologies. …Their cry is for something completely unique to this world, something otherworldly, something only the Church can truly offer… We should be encouraged and challenged by the historical reminder that the Church has always served the world best when it has been most counter-cultural, most distinctively different from the world.”10
“By historic we do not mean old-fashioned, quaint, or traditional for the sake of tradition. We mean that we do not try to re-invent worship as though we were the first Christians ever to worship. We seek to learn from the church through the ages as it has sought to offer God-centered, Biblical worship.”11

REVERENT AND JOYFUL
In some churches, there is such an emotional display in worship that reverence is lost completely. In other churches, the congregation appears to have been caught at a stranger’s funeral. Deadpan and flat, they go through the customary motions. Both of these tendencies reflect serious deficiencies in the practice of true Christian worship of God. Our aim, then, is to worship God with both reverence and joy.

The Bible makes it clear that when we worship the one true we must come with reverence: “…offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” says Hebrews 12:28-29. But reverent worship does not mean dull, emotionless, boring worship, for God wants us to come also with joy: “Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs” (Psalm 100:2). Our worship is to be whole-souled and heartfelt. At some times our hearts and eyes will fill with tears of gladness or contrition, at others we’ll quietly rest in the peace of the Lord, then again we’ll sometimes feel that we can hardly contain our praise and thanksgiving to God. The outward expression of emotion must never be confused, one way or another, with the real state of the heart – but true Christian worship emanates from the heart, and is characterized by the whole range of godly affections and sanctified emotional responses of the soul to the truth and glory of the living God.

It is our desire that corporate worship will be characterized by true heart-worship of the living God, according to His word, that is reverent, substantial and joyful. Our ideal is not stuffy formality, nor is it a liturgical or “high-church” approach, nor is it to emulate a contemporary or charismatic format, nor is our approach designed to promote emotionalism or to be anti-emotional. We are not interested in emotional manipulation (by either suppressing or producing certain outward effects), but rather aim to promote an environment in which the congregation naturally responds to God in expressions of godly reverence and joy.

CHRIST-BASED (OR MEDIATED)
Sinners (and that’s what we are) are incapable of approaching a Holy God directly. We need a mediator, a stand-between, a reconciler, an advocate who will represent us before God and make us acceptable to God. In the Old Testament, human priests symbolically fulfilled this function, but Jesus Christ is the only real mediator for the people of God. It is he who has paid the penalty for our sins and opened the way to God. Though human priests are no longer necessary for true worship, Jesus’ mediation is absolutely essential. Through him, and him alone, we can approach God with confidence. As the Westminster Divines remind us “Religious worship is to be given to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and to him alone; not to angels, saints, or any other creature: and, since the fall, not without a Mediator; nor in the mediation of any other but of Christ alone.”12 By the way, once we have said that worship is God-centered, Spiritual with a capital S, as in Holy Spirit, and Christ-based, we have thereby said that Christian worship is Trinitarian.

CORPORATE
We believe that it is important that we worship corporately, for God has made us for his worship and for community with other worshipers. Worship is the one thing he “seeks” (John 4:23). Corporate worship is not evangelism, nor is it even mutually edifying fellowship. It is a family meeting with God, it is the covenant community engaging with God, gathering with his people to seek the face of God, to glorify and enjoy him, to hear his word, to revel in the glory of union and communion with him, to respond to his word, to render praise back to him, to give unto him the glory due his name.

The New Testament makes clear that the congregation of Christians, this family, this body, this community, is the place where God is especially present in this world. In the days of the Old Covenant, the place where God manifested his special presence was “the tabernacle” or “the temple” or “Jerusalem.”  In the New Covenant, that special “place” is now “wherever the Lord’s house, that is, his people, is gathered.” Jesus stresses this to the Samaritan woman (John 4:21) and to his disciples in addressing congregational discipline (Matthew 18:20, surely a solemn component of the life of the gathered church). The place of new covenant worship is no longer inextricably tied to a geographical location and a physical structure but to a gathered people. This is why in the old Scottish tradition, as the people gathered to enter a church building, it would be said that “the Kirk goes in” rather than as we often say “we are going to church.” The new covenant locus or place of the special presence of God with the church militant is in this gathered body, wherever it might be—whether the catacombs, or a storefront or beautiful colonial church building. This makes corporate worship extremely important.
     
EVANGELISTIC
As we have noted already worship is not evangelism (even though many churches confuse them). Nevertheless, evangelism is one important by-product of true worship. Paul expected that unbelievers would come to the worshiping assembly of Christians and declare that “God is certainly among you!” (1 Corinthians 14:25). Consequently, we are always mindful that not all those who attend our worship services are believers. We welcome them, speak in language they can understand, preach the Gospel clearly and boldly, and pray, as did Paul, that they experience the presence of the living God and find the way of salvation in our public worship.

DELIGHTFUL
True Christian worship is filled with delight—the delight of the believer’s heart in God himself. The congregation delights in God because he is God. Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “True saints center their attention on Christ, and His beauty transcends all others; His delight is the source of all other delight; He in Himself is the best among ten thousand and altogether lovely. These saints delight in the way of salvation through Christ, because it demonstrates God’s perfection and wonder; they enjoy holiness, wholeness, while they take no pleasure in sin; God’s love is a sweet taste in their mouths, regardless of whether their own interests are met or not. They rejoice over all that Christ has done for them, but that is not the deepest root of their joy. No, they delight merely because God is God, and only then does their delight spill over onto all God’s works, including their own salvation.” John Piper puts it this way: “The authenticating, inner essence of worship is being satisfied with Christ, prizing Christ, cherishing Christ, treasuring Christ.  . . . [This] is tremendously relevant for understanding what worship services should be about. They are about ‘going hard after God.’ When we say that what we do on Sunday mornings is to ‘go hard after God,’ what we mean is that we are going hard after satisfaction in God, and going hard after God as our prize, and going hard after God as our treasure, our soul-food, our heart-delight, our spirit’s pleasure. Or to put Christ in His rightful place—it means that we are going hard after all that God is for us in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.”13

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE
Worship is both active and passive, in this sense: we come to bless and to receive God’s blessing (Psalm 134), to give and receive. In PCA churches, then, we want the congregation to appreciate that Christian worship is both something that we do and something that is enabled by God. And that Christian worship is both something that we give to God and in which God showers his favors and presence upon us. Worship is offered to God by believers but that does not mean that there is “nothing in it for us.” True worship is both God-glorifying and soul-satisfying. Christians who approach it rightly will find that public worship is not only the most important thing they do, but also the happiest and most fulfilling thing they do, as God pours out upon them His blessings – which are abundant, substantial, lasting, and deeply satisfying.14 Samuel Rutherford once said: “I never run an errand to the throne of grace when I do no fetch back a blessing for myself.” That is true of worship as well.

LORD’S DAY
In the PCA, we believe that every Lord’s Day (Sunday) worship is God’s discipleship plan for the church, and that Lord’s Day morning and evening worship is vital. If we believe, with the majority of Christians in all ages (and with the Westminster Divines!), that the Old Testament Sabbath command has a weekly new covenant fulfillment in the Christian Lord’s Day, then we will also believe that the whole of that day (following the explicit one-day-in-seven pattern of the old covenant of grace) is to be spent in worship, deeds of mercy, necessity and witness, and rest. If that is the case, then both prudential factors and the testimony of history indicate that the best way to help the Lord’s people keep the Lord’s Day (as opposed to the Lord’s hour or the Lord’s morning, or even the Lord’s Saturday night!) is to frame the first day of the week with gathered praise: morning and evening. And such is not without biblical precedent or justification.

The importance of Lord’s Day corporate worship is established by four tremendous realities set forth in the New Testament: (1) the resurrection of Christ, which is foundational to the re-creative work of Christ in making a people for himself (Mark 16:1-8, cf. verse 9, 2 Corinthians 5:14-17, Galatians 6:15-16; Colossians 1:15-22, (2) the eternal rest foreshadowed in the Lord’s Day (Hebrews 4:9); (3) the Lord’s Day language and observance of the New Testament church (Revelation 1:10, cf. Matthew 28:1, Luke 24:1, John 20:1, 19-23, Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:2); and (4) the New Testament command to the saints to gather, Christ’s promise of presence with us when we do, the faithful example of the gathering of New Testament Christians and Jesus’ express command that we disciple new converts in the context of the local church (Hebrews 10:24-25, Matthew 18:20, Acts 1:4, Matthew 28:18-20).

Consequently, regular and faithful congregational Sunday morning and evening worship (even in a culture where the latter, especially, is disappearing) is a major emphasis here at First Church. We view the whole Lord’s Day as “the market day of the soul” and aim for the whole congregation to anticipate Lord’s Day worship with relish.

Preparing for Public Worship
Because weekly, Lord’s Day, corporate worship is both our great privilege and responsibility, every mature believer will want to prepare for it. If you were told that you were to be given the privilege of having a personal audience with the President of the United States, you would prepare for it ahead of time. You would make plans for the meeting. You would put thought into what you will wear, how to get to the designated location, what you will say, and you would be sure to have adequate rest so that you are at your very best.

Such preparations would not strike us as strange given the unique honor of meeting the most powerful man in the world. But gathering with God’s people to meet with God Almighty is a far greater privilege. Hence, Christians will joyfully and carefully and expectantly prepare for this.

Whole-Life, Personal and Family Worship
Preparation for public worship begins with worship in all of life. That is, we prepare to bring our praise to God in the company of his people by living a life, 24/7, that says that we exist to glorify and enjoy him. People who live as if God did not exist, who make their own rules, who fail to love their neighbor, who are ruled by their own pursuit of satisfaction and fulfillment apart from God are not ready to come into God’s presence with praise. David says: “O LORD, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy hill? He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, And speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, Nor does evil to his neighbor, Nor takes up a reproach against his friend; In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, But who honors those who fear the LORD; He swears to his own hurt and does not change; He does not put out his money at interest, Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken” (Psalm 15). So, when we are living in accordance with God’s standards of uprightness, we are worshiping God in all of life, and thus preparing to come into his presence.

Second, we prepare for public worship through our private worship, or devotions (sometimes called “quiet times”). Jesus often withdrew to pray, and rose early to pray. The Psalmist also sought the Lord in solitude. He said: “O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1). If we are not reading and meditating on the Scriptures, and spending time with God in prayer, daily, you will be ill-equipped to come into his presence in the assembly of the saints.
 
Third, if the Lord has made you the head of a family, you ready yourself and your family through family religion. As parents teach their children the truth and live it before them, the whole family is readied for public worship. Moses speaks of this responsibility when he says: “You shall teach [God’s commands] diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Additionally, daily family worship will prepare you for the corporate worship that takes place on the Lord’s Day with the Lord’s people in the Lord’s house. As the head of the family reads Scripture, and leads in prayer and singing, each member of the family is readied for public worship.

Saturday Night Preparation
One key to getting ourselves ready to worship God on Sunday is our Saturday night routine. It is not too much to say that anything we do on Saturday night that negatively effects our active participation in worship should be avoided. Practically speaking, that means we should strive to get enough physical rest. To the best of our abilities, we should arrive in the pew with a sharp mind, ready to be thoughtfully engaged in worship.

We should also set aside some amount of time for biblical meditation on our upcoming involvement in worship. Reflect on and pray through the attributes of God. Consider what makes Him worthy of our worship. Consider yourself, and spend time in confession of sin. Pray that God would prepare your heart to hear the proclamation of His Word.  We should pray for the ministers, and for those who will join us in worship. We should pray that God would be honored by our congregational worship, that the gospel would go forth powerfully, convicting and convincing sinners, and that the people of God would be built up and grown up in grace.

A Family’s Sunday Morning
The Christian’s Sunday morning preparations will be helped by doing what can be done the night before. By limiting the number of activities that have to be accomplished before church, many of the things that lead to stress can be avoided. Prepare the whole family for worship by listening to Christian hymns or some other sacred music. Make a commitment to be at church on time (or even early). Tardiness is not conducive to one’s own participation in public worship, and it also disturbs others. Do your best to have your family in the building with time to spare.

Sanctuary Preparation
By arriving early for worship, a participant is able to spend a few moments quietly preparing for worship to come. As we walk into the sanctuary before the start of worship, there should be a sense that we are coming to meet with the Almighty God.  Members and visitors alike should remember to “show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29). 

Our Directory for Worship, found in the PCA Book of Church Order, offers a helpful suggestion for us as we gather together.  “Let the people upon entering the church take their seats in a decent and reverent manner, and engage in a silent prayer for a blessing upon themselves, the minister, and all present, as well as upon those who are unable to attend worship.”

Conclusion 
This brief paper has made it sufficiently clear that God does care about how we worship congregationally, and that the Bible should guide and provide the substance of our public worship, in both form and content. Denominational unity is always tied to doxological practice, because public worship creates a culture and shapes Christian discipleship. Lex orandi, lex credendi (as we pray, so we believe) said the ancients. And it is no less true today. How we worship determines not only how we believe, but also who we become. That being so, the PCA should work towards having a shared theology and practice of public worship.

Suggested Reading:

Give Praise to God: A Vison for Reforming Worship – Celebrating the Legacy of James Montgomery Boice, Phillip Graham Ryken, Derek W. H. Thomas and J. Ligon Duncan III, editors (P&R, 2003).

Reformed Worship, Terry Johnson (Greenville, SC: Reformed Academic Press, 2000).

Worship – That is Reformed according to Scriptures, Hughes Oliphant Old (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1984).

End Notes

1 Bridges, Jerry. I Exalt You, O God: Encountering His Greatness in Your Private Worship. Waterbrook Press, 2001, 3.
2 Giglio, Lou. The Air I Breath: Worship as a Way of Life. Multnomah, 2003
3 Old, Hughes Oliphant. Worship: Reformed According to Scripture. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2002, 1.
4 Old, Hughes Oliphant. Guides to the Reformed Tradition: Worship (eds. John H. Leith and John W. Kuykendall; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1984), 60.
5 Johnson, Terry L. Reformed Worship: Worship That is According to Scripture. Greenville: Reformed Academic Press, 2000, 37-38.
6 Johnson, ibid., 37.
7 Lewis, C.S. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Harvest Books, 1973.
8 Old, Worship, 176.
9 Carson, D.A. Worship: Adoration and Action. Baker Academic, 1993, 15.
10 Tchividjian, W. Tullian. IIIM Magazine online, volume 3 #8, February 19-25, 2001.
11 Smith, William.  Worship at Westminster: Why Do We Do What We Do?
12 Westminster Confession of Faith, 21.2.
13Piper, John. Brothers, We are not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry. Broadman and Holman, 2002, 236.
14 I am again indebted to William Smith for some of these thoughts and words.