While on vacation a number of years ago, I visited a church for Sunday worship but left questioning whether I had worshipped at all. I took in the full complement of announcements, shook hands with several greeters, viewed a skit, and enjoyed something of a concert. Though a rote prayer was offered, there was no congregational singing, Scripture reading, or sermon. I left puzzled, frustrated, and with a sense of loss. I felt like I had visited a restaurant but was not served a meal.

What should a church do during its time of corporate worship? Or, perhaps better asked, why do churches do what they do during worship? These questions are necessary enough, but ask them in the typical church and they will elicit puzzled looks and confused answers.

What a church is to practice during corporate worship is not a new consideration. In fact, it was a pressing concern in Reformation Europe, and its answer continues to shape the 21^st century church.

The Regulative Principle Considered

The ordering of worship for Protestant churches has followed two general patterns over the past five centuries. Martin Luther advocated what became known as the normative principle, arguing the mass—as celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church—should basically remain intact, sans the aspects of RCC worship that clearly violated Scripture. The Pandora’s box-like openness of the normative principle—that worship is free to incorporate what is not forbidden scripturally—is its most obvious and vexing liability.

The regulative principle, advocated by John Calvin and the Reformed tradition, argued the church should essentially start over, only permitting into corporate worship that which the New Testament explicitly calls for. Over time, the regulative principle became common practice in much of the Free Church tradition, including Baptist churches.

Based upon what is specifically prescribed in the New Testament, the regulative principle includes four features in public worship: Scripture reading, corporate prayer, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and the preaching of God’s Word.

Historically, the public reading of Scripture, mandated in I Timothy 4:13, has served as a scriptural call to worship—a reminder the church has gathered to hear from God. Often the congregation stands as it is read, showing reverence, deference, submission, and a physical reminder the Bible is the Word of God.

Prescribed in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs have always marked the worship of God’s people. The psalter served as a Jewish hymnbook, and the New Testament records early church hymns.

In I Timothy 2:1, Paul instructed the church to practice corporate prayer. Whether praying for one’s nation and governmental leaders, the infirmed, the church’s ministries, the lost, or for God’s blessing on the service, every time God’s people gather their prayers are to be offered.

In II Timothy 4:2, Paul instructed Timothy to preach the Word, explaining and applying the Scriptures for God’s people. The preached Word is one of the central recoveries of the Protestant Reformation, even effecting church architecture with the pulpit becoming the central feature of the worship center and the main course of the worship service.

Additionally, observing the ordinances are always welcome when an individual is ready for baptism or the church elects to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Moreover, the regulative principle does not preclude making announcements, greeting visitors, or collecting an offering, but it does so mindful of the worship service’s flow and where such ancillary matters are best positioned.

Biblically Faithful, Practically Helpful

While the regulative principle helps ensure the worship service is biblical, it also brings many practical benefits. As a pastor, one will often be asked for special promotions, features, or emphases to be made in the worship service. Some of these are especially cringe-worthy, sure to distract from the worship service, if not downright unbiblical. If the congregation has a general awareness of why the church does what it does in the worship service, then the pastor can point to the regulative principle as an objective criterion. This depersonalizes the denial of the request and avoids the appearance of playing favorites.

Practicing these four elements brings other benefits as well, including keeping the church in the stream of believers from previous generations. It also sets the worship service on higher ground—thus avoiding worship wars—and it ensures a certain baseline quality and spiritual vitality in the service.

This doesn’t preclude a Sunday evening concert, a Bible conference, or a service exclusively for prayer; rather, it means we might best think of those events as concerts and conferences, as opposed to formal worship services. We might also more intentionally guard the integrity of corporate worship, especially when God’s people gather on Sunday morning.

Conclusion

I once frequented a restaurant that had fabulous food, but it always seemed just a bit much. The entrée, which was hard to beat on its own, always had an added sauce splattered on the top or a garnishment protruding from the steak. The chef intended the additives to complement the meal, but they wound up distracting—and detracting—from it.

Sometimes we do the same thing in public worship. Our attempts to improve Christian worship may, in fact, distract from it. Often, less actually is more. There can be a beauty in simplicity. We might do well to de-clutter our worship services.

When it comes to the regulative principle, I am not legalistic. I still facilitate an offering, greet visitors, and make announcements. But a broad recovery and commitment to these four elements might revive our services. Let’s be intentional about our worship services and privilege these four biblical aspects of worship.

“And they Took Knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus” by C. H. Spurgeon (Morning and Evening, February 11, Morning)

“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13 ESV)

A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ. You have read lives of Christ, beautifully and eloquently written, but the best life of Christ is his living biography, written out in the words and actions of his people. If we were what we profess to be, and what we should be, we should be pictures of Christ; yea, such striking likenesses of him, that the world would not have to hold us up by the hour together, and say, “Well, it seems somewhat of a likeness;” but they would, when they once beheld us, exclaim, “He has been with Jesus; he has been taught of him; he is like him; he has caught the very idea of the holy Man of Nazareth, and he works it out in his life and every-day actions.” A Christian should be like Christ in his boldness. Never blush to own your religion; your profession will never disgrace you: take care you never disgrace that. Be like Jesus, very valiant for your God. Imitate him in your loving spirit; think kindly, speak kindly, and do kindly, that men may say of you, “He has been with Jesus.” Imitate Jesus in his holiness. Was he zealous for his Master? So be you; ever go about doing good. Let not time be wasted: it is too precious. Was he self-denying, never looking to his own interest? Be the same. Was he devout? Be you fervent in your prayers. Had he deference to his Father’s will? So submit yourselves to him. Was he patient? So learn to endure. And best of all, as the highest portraiture of Jesus, try to forgive your enemies, as he did; and let those sublime words of your Master, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” always ring in your ears. Forgive, as you hope to be forgiven. Heap coals of fire on the head of your foe by your kindness to him. Good for evil, recollect, is godlike. Be godlike, then; and in all ways and by all means, so live that all may say of you, “He has been with Jesus.”

In recent days, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary launched the Midwestern Training Network, a strategic partnership with churches and individuals to train the next generation of gospel ministers. The Midwestern Training Network originally began as a St. Louis initiative with The Journey church, but quickly metastasized throughout the region.

Though it is only a few days old, we have been absolutely astonished by the response we have received. We have been inundated with positive feedback and interest, surpassing our most optimistic expectations. Yet, the collective enthusiasm off campus is yet to catch up with the enthusiasm on campus. I, along with the entire Midwestern team, am thrilled with the Midwestern Training Network. Here’s why.

Missiologically Right

From the first moments the Midwestern Seminary Presidential Search Team reached out to me in the summer of 2012, God gave me a vision for Midwestern Seminary to exist for the Church. This vision is why I uprooted my family and moved across the country to Midwestern Seminary. Over the past many months, it has been a joy to see “for the Church” mutate from being my vision to being our vision to now being the vision of Midwestern Seminary. We exist for the Church.

Thankfully, this is not a vision I had to inflict upon the institution. The aspiration to serve the church already existed, and now our faculty and staff take it up with renewed intentionality and joy. We are implementing this vision across every square inch of the campus and throughout every aspect of our academic program. Training pastors, ministers, and evangelists for the Church is a vision our faculty celebrates, our constituency appreciates, and that animates our entire seminary community.

Midwestern Seminary has trimmed its sails to be the seminary in North America known to exist for the church. There are many healthy seminaries in North America, most especially our sister SBC seminaries; however, we have a particular passion and feel a unique sense of calling to serve the church. The Midwestern Training Network is the natural extension of this vision; thus, it enables us to even better fulfill our calling as a seminary.

Biblically Right

To best serve the church, we are pushing theological education as close to the local church as possible. You cannot get any closer than within the church; that is why the Midwestern Training Network allows us to fulfill our vision of being for the Church by being in the church and with the church.

The New Testament makes clear that a seminary’s only rationale for existence is to serve the local church. In Matthew 16, Christ promised to found and build his church, and then he died for his church. The church is birthed in the book of Acts, and throughout that book we see churches planted, growing, and multiplying. The New Testament Epistles each speak to church life, church doctrine, church government, church growth, and maturing saints within the context of the church. The New Testament concluded with the specter of Christ returning to judge the world and gather home his church.

The church is God’s primary kingdom work, and in this age, Christ is calling out pastors, teachers, and evangelists to serve the church. Herein is the strength of the Midwestern Training Network. We enable students to parallel their biblical and theological formation with local-church ministry praxis. Theological education and church service is a match made in heaven. Why would one separate the two?

Practically Right

The Midwestern Training Network is accessible, affordable, fully accredited, and through its practicum offerings gives special emphasis to the church’s key needs—leadership, church planting, and preaching and pastoral ministry. It is synchronized with residential classes and conferences, thus integrating on- and off-campus opportunities. Moreover, every class can be applied to the Master of Divinity degree, which we will strongly encourage students to do.

We have not sought to be innovative for the sake of innovation, but, in the final analysis, there is nothing else quite like the Midwestern Training Network and the MATS degree it facilitates. We removed every barrier that might preclude one called to ministry from pursuing theological education and strategically hardwired the degree to the local church. To learn more about the Midwestern Training Network, I encourage you to visit www.mbts.edu/trainingnetwork.

Conclusion

Growing up on the Gulf Coast meant one of my father’s recurring assignments for me as a boy was holding the boat by the dock. A small boy holding the side of a big boat is a tall order. Add a strong current or a stiff wind and it is all but impossible. The key is to hold the boat as close to the dock as one can. The farther the boat drifts from the dock, and the more outstretched the arm, the more tenuous the hold. Disaster can quickly strike.

So it is with a seminary and the local church. The further a seminary drifts from the local church, the more likely it is for theological and missiological disaster to happen, and the more tenuous the church’s oversight becomes. Herein lies the beauty—and the security—of the Midwestern Training Network. In the church, with the church, and for the church—we are Midwestern Seminary.

“Being Born Again, not of Corruptible Seed, but of Incorruptible” by C. H. Spurgeon (Morning and Evening, May 4, Evening)

“Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God…” (1 Peter 1:23 ESV)

Peter most earnestly exhorted the scattered saints to love each other “with a pure heart fervently” and he wisely fetched his argument, not from the law, from nature, or from philosophy, but from that high and divine nature which God hath implanted in His people. Just as some judicious tutor of princes might labour to beget and foster in them a kingly spirit and dignified behaviour, finding arguments in their position and descent, so, looking upon God’s people as heirs of glory, princes of the blood royal, descendants of the King of kings, earth’s truest and oldest aristocracy, Peter saith to them, “See that ye love one another, because of your noble birth, being born of incorruptible seed; because of your pedigree, being descended from God, the Creator of all things; and because of your immortal destiny, for you shall never pass away, though the glory of the flesh shall fade, and even its existence shall cease.”

It would be well if, in the spirit of humility, we recognized the true dignity of our regenerated nature, and lived up to it. What is a Christian? If you compare him with a king, he adds priestly sanctity to royal dignity. The king’s royalty often lieth only in his crown, but with a Christian it is infused into his inmost nature. He is as much above his fellows through his new birth, as a man is above the beast that perisheth.

Surely he ought to carry himself, in all his dealings, as one who is not of the multitude, but chosen out of the world, distinguished by sovereign grace, written among “the peculiar people” and who therefore cannot grovel in the dust as others, nor live after the manner of the world’s citizens. Let the dignity of your nature, and the brightness of your prospects, O believers in Christ, constrain you to cleave unto holiness, and to avoid the very appearance of evil.

Last week Dick and Rich Bott, from Bott Radio Network, hosted me on their show “The Complete Story.” The Botts and I talked about the importance of training faithful preachers of God’s Word, my vision for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the role of theological education in the local church, and the importance of confessional integrity in seminaries. We also visited about how one knows if they are called to ministry and what steps a person who feels called to ministry should take in order to confirm that call. I also shared a bit of my own journey, which included my conversion, call to ministry, and my role as a husband and father. Finally, we spoke about the various marks of health one should look for in a local church. I had a delightful time visiting with the Botts, and I hope that you will find the conversation as encouraging as I did. You can listen to the entire program below.