Worship: It’s More Than Music
Pastor Rick Henderson
July 1-2, 2023
There are so many good things going on in a church that we should celebrate. Our church is growing. ARC 1:8 was awesome. I’m looking forward to the upcoming baptism event. Let’s be honest with ourselves. Sometimes, not everyone feels like they can celebrate everything that’s going on in the life of our church.
In case anyone doesn’t know, our church has 2 distinct kinds of services: 2 of the 3 are more modern, and one is traditional. Back in November, the pastor who led our traditional worship service transitioned to another church. We celebrate that for him and for that church. Since then, we’ve been praying and carefully studying, evaluating options, wanting to follow God’s lead for what should come next at Autumn Ridge. About two weeks ago, we announced that this process led us to the realization that maintaining two distinct types of services can’t go on indefinitely.
If you are hearing this for the first time, that means you didn’t get our weekly newsletter. We’ve published articles about this for the last 2 weeks. I want you to be in the know about everything happening around here. So, if you’re not getting that, please sign up on our website. Or someone at the Connection Desk would love to set that up for you after the service.
We are not making any changes right now. And yet, we recognize that change is eventually coming, as it does for every church, everywhere. We will eventually transition to unified worship. What that means is that all 3 services will be identical. We’re going to sing old songs and new songs. Basically, what we do right now. We will use diverse instruments. Basically, what we do now. We will pursue excellence and beauty musically. Basically, what we do now. There will be a choir. Pastor Ian and I have wanted to implement a multi-generational, multi-cultural choir in the modern services for a long time. We’re excited that everyone is going to get that experience. I hope you join the choir!
For the vast majority of you, if we implemented the changes that we are going to eventually make but didn’t tell—you probably wouldn’t even notice. For those who only attend the traditional service, it will be easier to spot some musical differences. My expectation is that the overwhelming majority will say, “This doesn’t feel disruptive at all. I like this.” There have been many, many, many churches that have already gone through this transition. And they are telling us that they experienced greater congregational unity after pivoting to unified worship. We should expect the same.
It would be weird if you didn’t have questions, maybe even urgent questions about this. We’ve put together an FAQ sheet for you. You can get that at the Connection Desk today. If we run out, we’ll have more next week, and it will be included in the weekly newsletter that goes out on Tuesday. And we are going to have a church family meeting on Sunday night, August 13. You will get to hear more from elders and pastors. And we will answer your questions. Don’t miss that.
Please don’t shortchange yourself by not taking advantage of this information and the church family meeting that’s coming. If you feel grief over this decision, I do too. That’s understandable and even healthy. If any of you are feeling so troubled that you’re thinking of leaving our church, I don’t want that. Would you meet with me? Could we talk together? I would love to meet with you; I would love to meet with you and anyone else you want to invite. I want to hear more and answer the questions that are most important to you.
For some, this is no biggie. For some, this feels like a collision of different cultures in our church. It may even feel like our identity is shifting. This is a natural question for our church.
QUESTION: What is the gospel prescription for the turbulence that comes from colliding cultures and shifting identities?
This isn’t new. At least one church in the New Testament had to navigate major turbulence from colliding cultures and shifting identities. Before we can read and understand how the gospel answers that, we first must understand a little history.
ACTS 18:1-2 After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them.
After an experience like COVID lockdowns, with some people able to come back to church sooner and others needing much more time before gathering in large crowds—we may be better able to understand than ever before. The church in Rome took a major hit. Jewish people were forced to leave the city. Jewish Christians were forced to leave the city.
That means that house churches all over the city lost the majority of their members. The churches across the city lost the majority of their leaders. That must have felt devastating. This isn’t just recorded in the New Testament. Suetonius was a Roman historian, and he wrote about this decree.
Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [the Emperor Claudius] expelled them from Rome. –Suetonius (Divus Claudius 25)
This took place in the 40s AD. The Book of Acts hadn’t been written yet. Rome didn’t quite understand that Christianity was a new thing. He misunderstood Christos and wrote Chrestus. Jewish communities in Rome were disrupted by many turning to faith in Jesus. So, Claudius’ response was to kick all the Jews out of the city.
Not too many years later, Jewish people were allowed to return to Rome. Many Jewish Christians returned. And they returned to their former churches. What do you think that was like? I have no doubt that they celebrated. But they also experienced major conflict.
The word Gentile means not Jewish. The only Christians left were Gentiles. They now made up the majority of the churches. Many Gentiles had come to faith and joined the churches. Gentiles were now the ones leading the churches. Do you know what else that means? There was a major cultural shift in the Roman churches. It didn’t feel like Jewish culture expressing faith in Jesus. It felt like Gentile culture expressing faith in Jesus.
Even though almost all of us are Gentiles, let’s do our best to imagine and empathize with the returning Jewish Christians. They were outcasts from their Jewish community because of their faith in Jewish. That must have been easier at first because church felt Jewish. But church didn’t feel Jewish anymore. Don’t you think that many of them must have felt alienated, like maybe they didn’t belong anywhere? Don’t you think it was tempting to them to set up Jewish Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches? Don’t you think it would have been easy to segregate and divide over cultural differences and preferences?
Think about how different their Saturdays were before gathering for church the next day. Jewish Christians observed the Sabbath. Gentile Christians were free to hang out and enjoy dinner parties. The cultural differences would have seriously impacted how people from the same church socialized. Think about how differently they experienced the birth of a son. Jewish Christians would have held a bris to celebrate circumcision. Gentile Christians wouldn’t have done that.
It is impossible to overstate how turbulent the cultural collision was, how turbulent the identity shift was. This is, in part, why Paul wrote a letter to the Roman churches. Grab a Bible and turn to that. It’s in the second half of the Bible, called the New Testament. It’s the fifth book: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and Romans.
Romans is the Apostle Paul’s magnum opus. It’s massive. The average letter in the first century was less than 100 words—it was a tweet. This was like a book. It was time-consuming and difficult to write. It was expensive. This was him explaining what the gospel is and how it impacts everything, how it applies to all that they’re experiencing. If we don’t understand the collision of cultures that was the context, we are never going to adequately understand what Paul intended to communicate with this letter. We’re going to read this section. Later, I’ll put some of it on the screen. As I read, think about the cultural turbulence they were experiencing.
ROMANS 11:11-36 Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring! I am talking to you Gentiles.
He’s addressing Gentiles in the church. Yes, a lot of Jewish people have rejected Jesus. Disruption from that led to Jews getting kicked out of Rome. That was good for you Gentiles, because the gospel was shared with you exclusively for a time. But God still deeply cares about Jewish people. Hope remains for them also.
Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
This is how awesome God is. He used Jewish people rejecting Jesus to share the gospel with Gentile people. And God is using Gentile people accepting Jesus to draw Jewish people to faith in Jesus.
If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
I love this. Look at this. All of God’s people are imagined like a tree. God’s plan for salvation began with the Jews. They are his chosen people to represent him and bring his message of salvation to the world. They are the base, the trunk of the tree. Gentiles are like branches from another tree that have been grafted in.
This tree has branches that have been grafted into it. This tree is a living metaphor for what God has been doing and is still doing. And if it’s hard to see a clear mark between the original and the grafted in part—that’s the point. We are all supposed to become one.
Jewish people that rejected Jesus are like branches that have been cut off. Not by God but by their own disbelief. They can be grafted back in, too, if they believe in Jesus.
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved.
God has a plan. It’s a mystery because we can never understand all of it. But we can understand enough of it. God wants to bring all people to himself in Jesus. And God wants us all to be united in Jesus. Let’s jump to how he ends the chapter.
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Let’s return to our original question.
QUESTION: What is the gospel prescription for the turbulence that comes from colliding cultures and shifting identities?
ANSWER 1: Understand our PLACE in God’s plan for salvation.
All of us are late to the party. We all stand on and dance on the shoulders of countless men and women who came before us. Specifically, to Gentile Christians, we were included second. And we should all be grateful for how God brought benefit to us, at the expense of those who came before us, and ultimately at the expense of Jesus on the cross.
ANSWER 2: Understand our ROLE in God’s plan for salvation.
God has a plan that he is working out so as to include many, many, many more people in Jesus. We can’t know all of it. We can understand enough of it. This is the highest, most urgent priority for every follower of Jesus. Join Jesus, join together to share the gospel, and lead as many people as possible to be fully devoted followers of Jesus.
Is that really the same for every Christian? Yes! How we engage in this mission is going to change as things in our lives change. It is anti-gospel for any Jesus follower to stop prioritizing inviting others to follow Jesus. This is my guy, Don.
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He is a retired missionary in our church. Nobody ever explained to Don what retired means. He is a non-stop, share Jesus with everybody machine. Every night this week, he was at ARC 1:8, serving and loving people. Now, not everybody can do that. It’s not going to look the same way for everyone.
Recently, I visited a dear woman from our church at her home. She’s in a wheelchair, she’s battling the aftermath of a stroke. She told me, “I thank God every day that I can serve him from my wheelchair.” She told me, “When I had my stroke, I asked God to use it for his glory.” And my eyes got a little watery as she talked about all the healthcare workers who come to her home now. She’s passing out Bibles, talking about Jesus, and praying for all of them. She’s my hero.
God has a plan; he has a mission that I’m never going to know exhaustively. But we can understand enough.
God has a mission that’s GOOD for me, yet BIGGER than me.
God has a mission that’s GOOD for us, yet BIGGER than us.
I want us to see today what our response should be when we rightly understand this.
ROMANS 11:17-18, 20b If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you…Do not be arrogant, but tremble.
We’ve got two observations.
Reject an attitude of ARROGANCE and SUPERIORITY.
Gentiles didn’t get to feel superior because they were now in the majority. That didn’t make them more important. Jews didn’t get to feel superior because they were there first. That didn’t make them more important. All Christians should always be humble. None of us should ever feel superior to anyone inside or outside of the church because none of us are superior.
Embrace and express GRATITUDE for our INCLUSION.
I’ve discovered, and I bet you have, too, that nothing has a greater impact on attitude than gratitude. Nothing has such a powerful effect on our perspective as gratitude. Let me tell you about my own sin. When I start feeling superior, when I’m drifting into arrogance—it almost always corresponds to an absence of thankfulness in me.
ROMANS 11:33-36 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Respond with WORSHIP.
That’s what they did. We know that Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians gathered together. They remembered the gospel together. They worshiped together as one people. One of the reasons that we know that they grew in unity, embracing a shared identity in Christ that superseded their ethnic and cultural identities, is that in just a few short years—they were recognized by the emperor of Rome as a distinct community, with an identity that transcended all the previous cultural labels.
Just over a decade later, Nero began persecuting Christians. He didn’t target Jewish believers. He didn’t target Gentile believers. He targeted Christians. That persecution was brutal and heartbreaking. And yet, it’s astounding that in a short time that Christians of all cultures were so united that they were identified by a new identity, a new culture that superseded all their cultural backgrounds and previous distinctions.
Jesus followers in Rome experienced for themselves what Paul described in Galatians 3 and Colossians 3. In Christ, there is no Jew and Gentile, slave or free, male and female. We are all one in Christ.
Let’s talk about our unity. We aren’t united by what we believe. We aren’t united by what we do. We aren’t united by music styles and preferences. Our unity is better than that. Just like all the believers in Rome, we are united by being in Jesus. There are things about us that are different. In Jesus, differences stop being divisions. We can understand why the Christians in Rome experienced a collision of cultures. Do we understand why we sometimes feel that in our church?
What I’m about to share with you doesn’t describe African American churches or churches that have historically been multi-cultural. This does describe predominantly white evangelical churches in America.
After WW2, the strengthening economy and rise of suburbia created something new in human history: youth culture. Teenagers had more free time and increasing amounts of discretionary income. That had a major impact on the music industry. New music genres began to emerge. And over the coming decades, they would emerge more rapidly. This meant that with each decade, there was a wider and wider gap between youth culture and their parent’s culture.
Today, we see this happening so quickly, there are widening cultural gaps between older siblings and younger siblings. In the 1970s, another new development emerged. Youth culture started to produce new worship music. That disruption was experienced positively and negatively by different people. I don’t know if anyone was a bigger champion of this new expression of worship music than Billy Graham.
Even with his acceptance of it and his monumental influence, churches still experienced something called Worship Wars in the 80s and 90s. Fighting over music is unfortunate, and it shouldn’t be acceptable to Christians. And yet, it’s understandable. Music styles and expressions shape culture. I do not believe that God considers one style to be superior to another. He accepts all worship that honors him. Whether they realized it or not, people were fighting over cultural differences and preferences.
It was in the 1990s that another trend began to take hold. Instead of fighting over music styles, many churches began offering multiple service styles: traditional and contemporary. Our church was one of the thousands of churches that joined that trend.
Books were written about it. Conferences encouraged it. Articles were written about it. Fascinatingly, the last book or article that I’ve been able to find that encourages churches to offer distinct service types was published in 1999. There may be some that came after that date. I just haven’t been able to find them. Not only did it stop being promoted, but after 2000, there has been a steady stream of churches abandoning that approach and only offering one service type.
One of the big reasons why is that offering distinct service types divides church resources and multiplies the work of church staff. Some churches have been able to keep up with those demands longer than others. But it eventually catches up with every church and becomes unsustainable. Recently, our church has had to come to terms with that. Change is not happening right now. But we know it’s coming.
To a lesser degree than what Christians in Roman churches experienced, we are experiencing turbulence from colliding cultures and shifting identities. The prescription for us is the same as it was for them. Remember the gospel. And when we do, we will be ready to unite in worship. I want to show you what the Apostle wrote next. This came immediately after what we read today.
ROMANS 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
True worship is offering ourselves to him. Maturity and growth come by changing our thinking to match God’s way of thinking. Renewing our thinking and changing the way we think is what makes us able to know and agree with God’s will. With that in view, could this be our prayer? Not just in this moment, but all moments, could we pray this?
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER:
Heavenly Father, is there a renewed way of thinking that’s needed in me individually or in this church collectively that will enable us to know and agree with your good, pleasing, and perfect will?
We’re going to keep this tree as a reminder for us of the unity we have in Jesus. We have all been grafted in. None of us are the trunk. We are all new branches, included by his grace. The reason that we can be like this tree is because Jesus literally hung on a tree.
Jesus stood in our place so that we could stand in his place. He took what we deserve so that we can have what he deserves. We have been given everything because he gave everything. That’s what we remember and celebrate when we participate in communion.