Sunday mornings

Have you ever wondered why we have the order of worship as we do on Sunday mornings? We Pentecostal types take great delight in sharing that we do not have rituals as others do - but we do. Anything that is done on a constant basis without a thought to why or how we are doing something - to me it is a ritual.

Tertullian, a third-century theologian once wrote, "Custom without truth is error grown old."

Why do we do what we do?

In most Protestant churches the order of worship is the same with some minor variations.

Even amongst so-called "fresh approaches to worship" and emergent churches, the order is basically a greeting, prayer or Scripture reading, song service, announcements, offering, sermon and the closing prayer.

This order has been observed for the last 500 years.

Let me give you some "breaking news." That order is found nowhere in the Bible. Is it wrong? No, I am not saying that.

I am saying that you can read your Bible from Genesis to Revelation and you will never find anything that even remotely resembles our order of worship.

In the book of Acts the meetings were unpredictable, fluid gatherings.

It's interesting to me that our Protestant order of worship has its basic roots in the medieval Catholic Mass (read about this in the book "Pagan Christianity" by George Barna), begun by Gregory the Great (540-604), the first monk to be made pope.

He writes, "Significantly, the Mass did not originate with the New Testament; it grew out of ancient Judaism and paganism. According to Will Durant, the Catholic Mass was "based partly on the Judaic Temple service, partly on Greek mystery rituals of purification, vicarious sacrifice, and participation."

Martin Luther came along and tried to blow all of that up.

IN 1523, Luther set forth some revision to the Catholic mass, the revision that are the foundation for worship in most Protestant churches.

The biggest chance was this: Luther made preaching, rather than the Eucharist (communion) the center of the meeting.

The pulpit, rather than the communion table became the central element.

That's one reason that pastors many times are called "preachers" a term that is not palatable to me for it gives off the idea that is all that we do.

Luther made the following changes to the Catholic Mass.

He performed the Mass in the language of the people rather than in Latin.

He gave the sermon a central place in the meeting.

He introduced congregational sing

He abolished the idea that the Mass was a sacrifice of Christ

He allowed the congregation to partake of the bread and cup (rather than just the priest).

Yet, in spite of these major changes, Luther kept the same order of worship as found in the Catholic Mass.

Ulrich Zwingli (a Swiss reformer (1484-1531) came along and made his own reforms. He replaced the altar table with the Communion table that you and I are familiar with. He also had the bread and cup carried to the people in their pews using wooden trays and cups.

Zwingli also recommended that the Lord's supper be taken quarterly.

John Calvin came along (1509-1664) and stressed the centrality of preaching during the worship as Luther did. He believed that each believer had access to God through the preached Word rather than through the Eucharist.

Probably the feature that affects us the most from Calvin (for better or for worst) is the fact the he led most of the services himself form his pulpit. We still do that today. Today, the pastor is the MC and the CEO of the Sunday morning church services which is in big time contrast to the church gatherings of the early church.

Barna writes, "Another feature that Calvin contributed to the order of worship is the somber attitude that many Christians are encouraged to adopt when they enter the building."

In Puritan New England churches there was added the added "tithingman" who would wake up sleeping congregants by poking them with a heavily-knobbed staff (not that's not a bad idea).

The message today is still today, "Be quite and solemn, for this is the house of God." "Don't run in the church." All of that comes from tradition, not from God.

Going back to the Puritans, they began the order of three hymns, scripture reading choir music, union prayers, pastoral prayer, sermon, offering and benediction."

Again, familiar, but not in the bible.

George Whitefield came along (1714-1770) and gave us the idea that Sunday Services should be geared toward winning the lost. Choral music was designed to soften the hard hearts of sinners.

Invitational hymns were created by men such as Charles Wesley.

Altar calls were started. This practice began with the Methodist in the 18th century, specifically by a Methodist evangelist by the name of Lorenzo Dow.

Later in 1807, the "mourner's bench" was created in England, where people receive prayers and could spend time on their knees.

What are the hindrances to all of this?

1. It repressed mutual participation and the growth of Christian community.
2. It strangles the headship of Jesus Christ
3. The Sunday morning service is boring. It is without variety or spontaneity.
4. It allows you to sit through every Sunday, year after year, actually hindering your spiritual transformation. It encourages passivity, limits function, and implies that putting in one hour per week is the key to the victorious Christian life.

Okay, now that I (and Barna's book) have totally confused and maybe even pushed the anger level a little, let me say that at Stone Church we will not do away with Sunday morning service. We will not be making drastic changes in our order of service. We will still encourage people to experience God around "the altar".

But it is to say that one of the ways that we do get back to the spontaneous, free-flowing, everyone participating type of worship that the early church experienced is through small groups, home groups, life groups where spiritual transformation of a deeper level can take place.