'Hoc est corpus meum? Blimey, Harry.'
In ye olde days, evangelicals had to fight against ye Roman Catholics, who thought you came to God by human works, and especially by re-sacrificing Jesus every week in the Mass. This was a Ron Weasley (i.e. halfway done) transfiguration job: it gets turned into the real actual kind of gross body and blood of Jesus - it just looks like bread and wine. It's Jesus in disguise. But of course Jesus offered himself 'one sacrifice for sins forever' (Heb. 10:12) - you can't do it again, and it undercuts Jesus' grace if you try. So the guys who believed that you were saved by grace through faith alone had to fight hard in the form of the church service for the correct understanding of grace to be communicated and understood..
That's right: liturgy is actually important, because what you do in church says a lot about how you think you get right with God.
In ye moderne tymes, we still have to fight the battle against the idea that humans co-operate with God in salvation. But I think there is another battle to be fought - against the idea that 'worship' is primarily music. Now of course we do worship God through music, but it's only one of lots of ways. And when we over-stress the idea that worshipping God = singing, we get into all kinds of trouble. Your relationship with God becomes tied up with the quality of the singing, and what you feel as you sing. The 'worship leader' (stay tuned for more on this hateful term) and band become the priests who create the right conditions for access to God. Needless to say, this is no good. Only Jesus gives us access to God.
So, whilst I like the idea of a big block of songs, I don't think we should put it at the front of the service. Hillsong opens with a 15 minute block of 'worship' (i.e. music). I reckon that copying this runs the risk of creating the impression that we lead people into God's presence at the beginning, and, having come to him by experiencing him in 'worship' (singing), we can now speak to him in prayer and hear from him in his word. This is not an impression we want to create. Jesus gives us access to God any time, any where, by his sacrificial blood. We sing because Jesus has brought us close to God, not to get close to God.
So where should the singing go? I think maybe it should come in a big block right after the sermon. After hearing about God's mercies towards us, we can then express our thanks and praise to him in song. What do you reckon?
Anyways, I think that there is a really important nexus between the song leader/music director, service leader/MC, and preacher/speaker. More to come.
