The Pastor's Book: A Comprehensive and Practical Guide to Pastoral Ministry

ISBN-13: 9781433545870

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Crossway

Publication Date: 10-31-2015

Pages: 592

Product Dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d)

R. Kent Hughes (DMin, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is senior pastor emeritus of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, and former professor of practical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hughes is also a founder of the Charles Simeon Trust, which conducts expository preaching conferences throughout North America and worldwide. He serves as the series editor for the Preaching the Word commentary series and is the author or coauthor of many books. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Spokane, Washington, and have four children and an ever-increasing number of grandchildren.Douglas Sean O’Donnell (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is the senior vice president of Bible editorial at Crossway. Over the past twenty-five years he has helped train people around the world to read and teach the Bible clearly. He has pastored several churches, served as a professor, and authored or edited over twenty books, including commentaries, Bible studies, children’s books, and a children’s curriculum. He also wrote The Pastor’s Book with R. Kent Hughes and The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition with Leland Ryken.

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CHAPTER 1

Sunday Worship

By Douglas Sean O'Donnell

In this opening chapter, we will consider various aspects of what is undoubtedly the highest calling of the church — worship of our great God.

I should warn you — Kent has Quaker roots, and I Roman Catholic. What a former Quaker and Roman Catholic might together say about worship in the free-church evangelical tradition warrants careful and cautionary reading. Kent's first memory of Christianity is the 1949 Los Angeles Billy Graham crusade. His Southern Baptist grandmother took him to the huge tent set up on the corner of Washington and Hill Streets. "The dressed-up crowd, the young evangelist's blue eyes radiating in the spotlights, and cowboy Stuart Hamblen singing 'Just a Closer Walk with Thee'" are a few of the memorizes etched in his mind. After the crusade, Kent attended Vermont Avenue Presbyterian Church. Of that experience, he recalls, "It was there, hushed and seated with my mother along with other reverent worshippers in the dark, Scottish-kirk ambience of that old church, that I began to sense the transcendence of God and to be drawn to Christ."

Christ drew Kent to himself in a saving way as a teenager through the Christians at Granada Heights Friends Church. While this was a Quaker congregation, the worship style was eclectic, blending aspects from free- church traditions such as the Methodists, Nazarenes, and Baptists. The church's "liturgy" looked like that of many evangelical services today: a season of congregational singing (including gospel songs and choruses, with perhaps a hymn and a choir number) followed by a sermon. It did, however, include a short time of silence, a vestige from the Quakers' traditional silent meetings. One aspect of worship this congregation was not silent about was evangelism! And like his church, Kent regarded evangelism as the Christian's highest calling. However, this emphasis, as God-ordained and honoring as it was, deemphasized, as least in Kent's mind, the purpose of corporate worship. He reflects: "I certainly never gave any thought as to the purpose of our Lord's Day gatherings, other than as a venue for preaching." Even his embrace of Calvinism before seminary never led him to theological reflection on worship.

It was only after seminary, as Kent served as a youth pastor and then church planter, that serious reflection began. Hughes described the atmosphere from which his many thoughtful questions, such as, "Is this authentic worship or entertainment?" arose:

Irreverence became widespread. Congregational prayers were often a mindless stream-of-consciousness offered in a "kicked-back" cannabis tone. Mantra-like music was employed to mesmerize worshippers, and preachers were replaced by "communicators" who offered bromides strung together with a series of relational anecdotes.

During his twenty-seven years as the senior pastor at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, Kent's philosophy and practice of congregational worship was honed. He has thought long and hard about answers to questions such as:

• What do the Scriptures have to say about corporate worship?

• Is our worship Christ-centered and God-honoring?

• How should the Bible be read, sung, and preached?

• Should we use creeds?

• How do we celebrate the sacraments?

In what follows, I have summarized some of his thoughts and added my own.

To say something of my path to serious reflection on the topic of corporate worship, I will simply add that the nineteen years I spent at St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Parish, two years at Willow Creek Community Church, and nearly twenty years as a pastor/church planter with College Church all influenced me, with the emphasis of influence falling on the latter. My times at College Church and its church plants — Holy Trinity in Chicago, Christ the King in Batavia, Illinois, and New Covenant in Naperville, Illinois, where I helped develop various orders of service, write a philosophy of music, and plan and execute special services — refined my own thoughts on the matter. To see if I'll advocate a blend of the sign of the cross, a splash of holy water, smooth jazz soloists, comfortable auditorium seating, expository preaching, and "A Mighty Fortress" on the organ, you'll have to read on.

WORSHIP — ALL OF LIFE AND EVERY SUNDAY

Kent and I have both been to Oz and back — the island of Australia, that is. In fact, I am there now, serving as a lecturer at Queensland Theological College in Brisbane. Our major Oz influence, however, comes from the Sydney Anglicans, especially those associated with Moore Theological College. Kent credits Graeme Goldsworthy, William Dumbrell, Peter Jensen, and Phillip Jensen, among others, for clarifying his view that worship is more than what happens on Sunday. In the New Testament, worship clearly embodies all of life!

The biblical evidence is conclusive. Jesus's coming fulfilled Scripture's promise of a new covenant (cf. Jer. 31:31–34). And it is most significant that the entire text of this substantial prophecy is recorded in Hebrews 8:7–13, in the midst of a section (Hebrews 7–11) that asserts there is no longer any earthly sacrifice, priesthood, or temple because all have been fulfilled in Christ. There are no longer any sacred times or sacred places. Under the new covenant, Christians are thus to worship all the time — in their individual lives, in their family lives, and when they come together for corporate worship. Corporate worship, then, is a particular expression of a life of perpetual worship. This is what worship is: "Day-in-day-out living for Christ, the knees and heart perpetually bent in devotion and service."

Thus, with the New Testament perspective in mind, as Christians we must center our worship on Christ as the temple, priest, and sacrifice; and we must reject traditions that advocate for sacred spaces — "sanctuaries," "tabernacles," and such — as well as for an ordained "priesthood," along with any elements of the levitical cultus of Aaronic vestments, altars, and bloodless sacrifices.

That said, the designated place where Christians worship is, in some sense, set apart. It is not a sanctified place, but it is a special place — whether it is St. Paul's London or the DuPage Children's Museum (where my church worshiped for a number of months before we moved into another rented space). Moreover, while we embrace the priesthood of all believers, we recognize that a church is not a church without appointed leaders (elders and deacons), as the Pastoral Epistles make clear. Lastly, individual devotion does not negate gathering on the Lord's Day to worship the risen Lord until his return. We should make it our habit to gather to encourage one another (see Heb. 10:25), each person prepared to build others up (1 Cor. 14:26), knowing that Sunday through Saturday, as brothers, we are called "to present your [plural] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your [plural] spiritual worship" (Rom. 12:1).

But why do we gather on Sunday? The New Testament, perhaps surprisingly, speaks little on this issue. The emphasis of the New Testament is on mutual edification, as is clear in Hebrews 10:25 ("encouraging one another"), 1 Corinthians 14:26 ("When you come together. ... Let all things be done for building up"), and the gatherings described in Acts. Evangelism is also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14. The hope of a Spirit- filled assembly would be the "unbeliever or outsider ... falling on his face," worshiping God, and declaring that "God is really among you" (vv. 24–25). Beyond edification and evangelism is the obvious: exaltation! If the church's desire is that the unbeliever "worship God" (v. 25), then there is little doubt the believers should be on their faces before God as well. Views that advocate that corporate assemblies are merely to edify believers or evangelize unbelievers miss the plain fact that if Christ is not lifted up in praise, no believer is edified and no unbeliever is saved. When the New Testament speaks of God's people gathering to pray (to God), sing (to God), and preach (God's gospel), it assumes exaltation. Christian worship encompasses the threefold goal of edification, evangelism, and exaltation. And those three aspects of public worship intersect and support each other on many levels. From our acclamation of God, the church is built up, and unbelievers tremble and (Lord willing) trust! As Hughes puts it:

I have come to see that while all of life is worship, gathered worship with the body of Christ is at the heart of a life of worship. Corporate worship is intended by God to inform and elevate a life of worship. In this respect, I personally view how we conduct gathered worship as a matter of life and death.

CLARIFYING CORPORATE CHRISTIAN WORSHIP

"Life and death"? Those are strong words. What does it matter how we conduct our Sunday worship service? As long as "all things [are] done decently and in order" (1 Cor. 14:40), aren't all aspects of our edification/evangelism/exaltation liturgy acceptable? Before I answer that important question, a history lesson is necessary. (You can blame this excursus on me and my church history obsession and education, or on Kent, whose work I'm hanging the following thoughts upon.)

The free-church tradition — of which the majority of our readers are a part (just an educated guess) — grew from a protest against Protestant traditions ungrounded in Scripture. In early seventeenth- century England, groups labeled "Puritans" and "Separatists" desired to worship according to the Word. Even though Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer bled Bible, there was reason for reform. "What does the Word of God say about worship?" was a legitimate question. The Puritans wanted to explore what God's pure revelation said; Separatists (some Anglican Puritans included) wanted to separate from England's official but not God-ordained religion. The Church of England was not the church. Their critique, summarized with seven points, involved divergent views of (1) preaching, (2) Scripture, (3) prayer, (4) singing, (5) sacraments, (6) simplicity, and (7) vestments. In brief, they advocated the following changes:

1. As opposed to simply reading the Prayer Book homilies on diverse topics and for various occasions within the church calendar, they argued that preaching should be a plain, passionate, and orderly exposition of a biblical text created by the preacher and applicable to every congregant.

2. Instead of the few small assigned readings for the day from the lectionary of the Book of Common Prayer, larger sections of Scripture should be read. On most occasions, these passages should relate directly to the preacher's sermon.

3. Instead of reading the collects (short prayers) from the Prayer Book, ministers were encouraged to offer their own (often lengthy) prayers, which were either written down or prayed extemporaneously.

4. As opposed to having a professional choir singing choral pieces on behalf of the congregation, the voice of the congregation was desired, and thus simpler, singable congregational hymns were introduced and sung.

5. Dismissing extrabiblical traditions such as kneeling for Communion and giving the baptized child the sign of the cross, an emphasis on Paul's words of institution (1 Cor. 11:23–25) for the Lord's Supper and a return to the connection of faith to baptism were advocated.

6. Against the pomp of the high-church liturgy and the extravagance of Anglican ecclesial architecture, there was a call for simplicity in liturgical and architectural styles.

7. While not completely or in totality (some Puritan pastors wore the simple Geneva gowns), clerical vestments were rejected in favor of more simple attire, if any special attire at all.

Those of us in the free-church tradition worship in the liturgical world created by these reformers. While we should be respectful and appreciative of other Christian traditions (Cranmer's Prayer Book is incredibly thoughtful and rich), we should also celebrate these changes. The freedom to dress like the people in our congregations, structure the service with biblical simplicity, pray our own heartfelt words, preach our own expositional sermons from Bible texts, and administer the sacraments according to the clear dictates of the Word are reasons to rejoice.

However, there is little doubt today that these freedoms have been abused, and the freedom to worship according to the Word has deteriorated into the freedom to do what works. Pragmatism, not Biblicism, rules the day! From Charles Finney's "new measures" revivals of the nineteenth century to Bill Hybels's seeker-sensitive services of recent years, many evangelical churches do what is right in their own eyes. The regulative principle (that we worship based on biblical prescriptions) regulates few independent evangelical churches today. Between the new cultuses of authentic spontaneity and programmatic anthropocentrism, we must find a scriptural center.

TWO OLD TESTAMENT PICTURES: PARADIGMS, POSTURES, AND PURPOSES

What does God's Word say about corporate worship? We also can ask the question this more focused way: What scriptural characteristics help control Christian worship? The answer can be a hundredfold! There are many scriptural principles, practices, and paradigms we should use to guide us, such as: our worship should be Trinitarian ("Father-focused, Christ-centered, and Spirit-enabled"), reflective of God's transcendence and immanence in balance, and salvation-celebratory as we focus on the life, death, resurrection, and return of Christ. Moreover, our worship should be exclusive (we worship Yahweh alone, not alongside other gods), dependent on God's initiative (we love God because he first loved us), eye-opening, heart-expanding, and mind-renewing. Or we can simply follow Terry Johnson's excellent summary that worship that is reformed according to the Bible is simple, spiritual, and substantial:

[It is] simple because the New Testament does not describe a complex ritual of service as is found in the Old Testament; spiritual because when Jesus removed the special status of Jerusalem as the place where God was to be worshiped (Jn 4:7–24), He signaled the abolition of all the material forms that constituted the typological Old Testament system including not only the city, but all that gave the city significance — the temple, the altars, the priests, the sacrificial animals, and the incense; substantial because the God of the Bible is a great God and cannot be worshiped appropriately with forms that are light, flippant, or superficial; He must always be worshiped with "reverence and awe" (Heb 12:28).

With all that is said above duly noted, perhaps the two most glaring omissions in the contemporary free-church tradition are (1) the fear of God and (2) the Word of God read, sung, prayed, and preached. When you can bet your Cadillac that there will be greater reverence ("godly fear," Westminster Confession of Faith 21.5) and more Bible reading(s), songs, and prayers at the local Roman Catholic Church than at the Bible church, you know something is terribly amiss. A new reformation is in order! We must protest all Protestantism that will not tremble before God as we listen to his voice proclaimed. We must return to bibliocentric, God-fearing worship that exalts, edifies, and evangelizes.

If by God's sovereign grace liturgical reformation is to sweep through the contemporary free churches, a return to their Protestant liturgical traditions (which is a return to the Word) is in order. In Worship Reformed according to Scripture, Hughes Oliphant Old lists fifteen of "the most valuable worship traditions at the heart of the heritage of Reformed Protestantism." The first involves preaching the Bible: "At the head of the list should certainly be expository preaching. This has always been the glory of Protestant worship." The final valued tradition, but certainly not the least, involves our attitude: "The greatest single contribution that the Reformed liturgical heritage can make to contemporary American Protestantism is its sense of the majesty and sovereignty of God, its sense of reverence and simple dignity, its conviction that worship must above all serve the praise of God." For these two often neglected characteristics of worship under the new covenant — (1) bibliocentric, (2) God-fearing worship — I will, ironically enough, explore two Old Testament texts. We will then conclude by answering how these characteristics and others listed above play out in our Sunday gatherings. We begin with Ecclesiastes 5:1–7.

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Table of Contents

Cover Page,
Title Page,
Copyright,
Dedication,
Detailed Contents,
Preface,
Acknowledgments,
PART 1 CHRISTIAN GATHERINGS,
1 Sunday Worship,
2 Annual Services,
3 Weddings,
4 Funerals,
Enrichment: Poetry to Enhance Preaching and Worship,
PART 2 PARTS OF THE WORSHIP SERVICE,
5 Public Prayers,
6 The Historic Christian Creeds,
7 Hymns and Songs,
8 Baptism,
9 Communion,
PART 3 MINISTERIAL DUTIES,
10 Pastoral Counseling,
11 Hospital Visitation,
Appendix: Sample Wedding Services from Various Churches,
Books for Further Reading,
Downloadable Resources,
Index,
Back Cover,