True Worship: Community, Church, and Service Structure

I had an epiphany yesterday while in the shower. Okay, “epiphany” may be a strong word, but I did come to a…shall we say…a conclusion. I was listening to a sermon by Sam Storms, one of my favorite speakers and pastors, the Senior Pastor of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City. Storms is a wonderful speaker and it dawned on me just how many wonderful speakers that I can listen to right at the touch of my fingertips. I can download podcasts and sermons from some of the best speakers in the world, particularly American speakers. There is literally so much free biblical content out on the web, it is amazing. As far as biblical knowledge is concerned, there has never been a time in the history of the world when so much knowledge is available at the touch of a button. Why is it then that America continues down a moral slide that seems to show no bottom? While I do believe that some of the statistics and other historical facts may be skewed from the past as to how “moral” of a society we once were and if we were really founded as a Christian nation, any good student of history knows that America at one time was at least one of the most religiously civilized countries in the history of the world. But yet we continue to spiral downward. The answer I think comes from a flawed misunderstanding of what the church is and how it should be.


I was not able to attend church services this past week due to having some family in town. It’s the first week I’ve missed in a while, mainly because I have been the one preaching. One thing that struck me this week is how much I missed church. And honestly, it wasn’t the preaching that I missed, although the church we have been attending has great preaching (and I’m not talking about me). It wasn’t even the music that I missed, although that is good also. It was the sense of community.

I watched part of a documentary this weekend on serial killers. Criminologists are trying to figure out what causes these men and women to want to kill numerous people and why this phenomenon, while being present in other times and cultures, really increased during the mid-20th century. One of the criminologists said he believed it was because of a lack of community. There was no community, in many cases for many of these people, no family even, to solve problems in that context. Instead, they pushed down whatever it was, and eventually, it drove them to kill numerous people. That’s a startling statement. The 20th century trend of fatherless and motherless households lead people to begin to withdraw from many social networks, like church and community organizations, and eventually drove some of them to such a radical individualness, that they sought to solve their own perceived and perverted needs through violence. In one startling statement a criminologist who was an expert on serial killers estimated that there were 200 active serial killers right now!

I live in a small town that is connected to a larger town that is connected to an even larger town. For those of you keeping score, I live in the town of Navarre, Ohio, population about 1400 people. We are right next to a larger city, Massillon, Ohio, population just over 30,000. Massillon is connected to a much larger city, Canton, Ohio, population about 80,000. To be very honest with you, I love Navarre. It is a quaint little place with a small-town feel to it, but with the convenience of living next to a larger city. On Fridays, when I go to the bank, I know almost all of the tellers there. When I drive up the street and pick up a pizza for dinner, I know the owner (at least by face). On Sunday mornings, when my wife and I stop at McDonald’s for breakfast before church, we know most of the workers (again, at least by face). I even have family that own a coffee and candle shop in town and if I am there on a Saturday morning, I usually know most of the people in there, too. It is not unusual to drive around town, for whatever reason, and see people that you know and wave to them. It’s even not unusual to see people you know at Walmart as you buy your groceries. To be honest, especially as I am officially now in my mid-30’s, I like that. On Sunday, I missed the opportunity to connect with people that I share what is the most important part of my life with, my relationship with Christ. I didn’t get greeted at the door. I didn’t get to check in with people to see how they’re doing or sing any songs as a community of believers. And I missed that. Monday morning, in the shower, I felt a little bit sad and even a little disconnected as I began my work week. It is indeed a wonderful and blessed thing to be able to share with other people your hopes, fears, praises, prayer requests, tears, and laughter knowing that they are going to share theirs, too.

I am not saying that if you do not go to church, you will turn into a serial killer. What I am saying is that it is time we turn our attention in a greater way toward community, and I mean intentional community. The radical individualness of the 20th century turned many of our churches into mega-churches which were sometimes cookie-cutter versions of saccharin Christianity. It is very possible for a single person to walk into one of these mega-churches and sing the songs and listen to the sermon and walk out and never speak to a single soul. I know this because I have done it. Again, hear what I am not saying. I am not saying that all mega-churches are bad. I have belonged to at least two of them and my experiences have been mixed, but mostly good, and the mostly good part was because I took the time to find where it was that I should serve, based upon my spiritual gifts and natural talents. Indeed, many mega-churches are very biblically-based and do actually engage their community which may be part of why they have experienced such explosive growth. However, I am beginning to wonder why churches are so intent on gathering thousands of people to a given location, usually in the suburbs, and why they are not trying to intentionally sending those people out to plant other churches in urban areas, in other suburbs, and even in rural areas, right here in America. Our whole American church structure seems to have fallen victim to the American culture which is much more about being entertained than about actually worshipping God. Worshipping God is not all about coming to a church to sing great songs and listen to a great speaker. Francis Chan references this in Forgotten God. Often, people will leave a church service and talk about how good the singing was and how good the pastor’s sermon was but never encounter or worship God. Perhaps it is time we re-examine how we are doing church. While preaching is important, indeed vitally important, to how we worship as a community, it is certainly not the only thing and it does us no good if we do not take a moment to help our church community engage what they have just heard. Are we really willing to walk alongside someone, for example, who was just convicted by the preaching of the Word that they are living in a relationship that is not pleasing to God and/or that violates Scripture? Are we willing to walk alongside that person, as a community of believers, and help them do what is necessary to rid their lives of sin and to begin the often tough walk of being a living sacrifice?

The answer to this, as radical as it might sound, is to limit the sizes of our churches. Again, hear me out. I am not saying that we deny people the ability to know Christ. Heaven forbid. If your church is preaching the gospel and has experienced phenomenal growth because of it, praise God! Keep ‘em coming! However, it may be time for you to think about the community aspect of your church. Some churches that never grow beyond, say 200 or so people will not struggle much with this, but others, as they grow into 500+ people will have to have a way to connect. What are you doing to foster community? For a church to have a “community feel” to it, you have to somehow break it up into smaller groups. You could use the term “small groups,” “community groups,” “life groups,” or another term. It doesn’t really matter what you call them. But you need to have a place where a member of your church community can pray, praise, laugh, cry, celebrate, or mourn with a group around them offering mutual support. If you don’t have this, and your church is larger, say 500+ members, you need to ask yourself what is keeping the people there? Is it the personality of the pastor? Are they being entertained? Are they only coming for the “programs” that might keep their kids out of their hair for a few moments? Generally, the way to identify this is to think if your church ceased to have this thing, whatever it is, would the church stay afloat? For example, if the pastor resigned, would people stick around for awhile or would they just leave to find the next entertaining pastor? I use this example because I know of a church a decade or so ago that lost their pastor and almost immediately, church attendance fell to half and then the church split. Apparently, the church was built on the personality of the pastor. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an entertaining, passionate, articulate and well-spoken pastor, but if that is all your church has and the majority of the people come just to hear the pastor speak, you are not being a biblical church. Awesome worship music is great, but it isn’t true worship if it doesn’t lead you to lay your life down for God. Programs are pointless unless they are fostering community and spiritual growth.

But when I say “limit the size of our churches,” I think it may mean an even more radical step. How about taking a portion of your church, say 25-50 people, who may be in another part of town and driving out to your church, and let them leave and start another church? Or simply another campus? I am encouraged by the latest trend of satellite churches which offer a pastor speaking from a centralized location that is beamed via satellite to other campuses that are spread out in other areas, some in the suburbs and some in the other parts of the city. Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church, in the Seattle area, recently became the first church (to my knowledge) to become a multi-state satellite church, having planted a church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In turn, each of these churches generally have what is called a “campus pastor” that is able to walk people through their responses to the sermon and help them engage them. In addition to that, each of these satellite campuses offers their own times for worship that include allowing the campus pastor to speak on issues that may be for that congregation only. While I say I am encouraged by this, I think that maybe this is not being done quick enough. Now, I have very limited ministry experience, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but instead of setting up another campus when your church reaches 2500 people, how about thinking about it when the church gets to be around 200-300 people? Are there 25 people in a church of 300 that are willing to commit to leaving to start another congregation in another part of town or even another town altogether in order to reach other people, to foster community, and to help grow people spiritually? The only time I have ever seen this done is in a small independent, fundamentalist Baptist congregation in Michigan. They intentionally had a relatively large group of people (in comparison to the size of their church) leave to start a new congregation in another part of their metro area.

One more aspect of this that I think has not been lost on some of the satellite church leaders but may have been lost on some of the smaller church leaders is that it may be time to think about changing up the traditional order of service. Many of the larger satellite churches will have start with one or two songs, go into the sermon time, and then have an extended worship set that will allow the church community to respond to what they have just heard. This way, the service climaxes with an extended time or our response to God’s Word rather than an invitation that is tacked on to the end of a service and it gives the church community a chance to identify people who need special ministry time and offer it to them. As a preacher, I do not like to give a sermon unless I give the people that are listening a chance to respond. Perhaps it is because of the tradition that I grew up in where you would give an invitation to just about anything; I’m not really sure, but I feel uncomfortable in simply preaching and leaving and sometimes even the one song that we sing for the “invitation” or “ministry time” just doesn’t feel like enough time for a person to really engage what they have just heard.

Okay, I have to confess-I didn’t get all of that from an “aha!” moment in the shower; it is something that I have been thinking about for awhile. What struck me different this time was the aspect of church attendance that I missed, that particular aspect of community. Again, I’m just a guy with limited ministry experience, so perhaps I am being too idealistic or something. Feel free to comment and tell me so. Am I on to something or did I completely miss the boat?

The Sound of Theos is now Living Justified

The blog formerly known as "The Sound of Theos" has now been moved to a new blog, Living Justified.  This is an effort to avoid any confusion as to how the blog may be related to the podcast.  As of now, The Sound of Theos is a podcast only, with the option to add a blog later, if warranted.  "Living Justified" is the new look and feel of my blog and all posts have been archives since the beginning days, way back in 2003.  What a journey!  Thanks for stopping by and feel free to come by often for updated content.

God bless,

David McDowell

When Does Theology Go Bad? Part 1--Defining Correct Theology

I was theologizing this morning in the shower (the best place to theologize). My thought was, “When does theology become bad?” To say that is becomes bad simply because it is incorrect is not going far enough because so-called good theology can become bad when it is applied wrongly. It is true that incorrect theology will lead to bad theology. So maybe it is best to define our terms at this point.

How does one define correct theology? I think there are at least three ways to determine this:

1. For theology to be correct, it must be correct biblically. In other words, the theology must not violate Scripture. I also that this is the most important criteria for determining correct theology.

2. For theology to be correct, it must also be historically accurate. In other words, is this how the church has historically defined this issue? This can be a tricky one, because many denominations have historically defined some doctrinal issues differently, but on the essentials of Christianity (I define the essentials as those listed in the Apostles’ Creed) the church has generally had one historic interpretation. An example of where theology can go wrong historically is the doctrine of the Trinity. Historically, the Trinity has been defined as one God in three persons, but certain sects of Christianity, Oneness Pentecostals for example, teach that it is God in three forms, not persons. This is historically incorrect and thus leads to incorrect theology.

3.

For theology to be correct, it should generally fit neatly into your system of theology. I have often viewed theology as a head of hair (ironic, don’t you think?). On one extreme, you can have George McFly hair, flawless and slicked back. At the other extreme, your theology can be like Alfalfa from Our Gang with that one large portion of hair sticking straight up in the air. It is not necessary that your theology fit into a neat box. Pre-packaged Christianity is not what we are after. Even the best theologians can be rough around the edges. But if part of your theology sticks out as inconsistent with the rest of your theology, it is most likely incorrect and can become very bad if you do not address it.

I'm Still Making Changes

Hey everyone. I'm still making changes to the blog to make it easier. This will serve as a notice that this blog is always a work in progress and a test to see if the new sharing function is truly working. Peace...in Him.

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The Legacy of Clark Pinnock

I learned today of the death of a great, but controversial theologian, particularly those of us from a Southern Baptist background.  Christianity Today announced it this way, “Clark H. Pinnock's life journey is over. The influential and often controversial evangelical theologian died unexpectedly August 15 of a heart attack. He was 73. In March, the long-time professor of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, had announced he was withdrawing from public life and revealed that he was battling Alzheimer's disease.”  The article goes on to describe some of Pinnock’s contributions: “Pinnock came to the United States in 1965 and taught at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he became an influential figure in the Southern Baptist Convention's battles over biblical inerrancy. From 1969-1974 he taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and from 1974-1977 at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia.”

            The article elaborates further on what Pinnock became primarily known for:  “The trajectory of his thinking also took him from a Reformed to a neo-Arminian view of salvation. Early on he had maintained ‘that Calvinism was just scriptural evangelicalism in its purest expression.’ But by the late 1990s theologians like R.C. Sproul and J.I. Packer were denouncing him. Pinnock kept pushing the envelope, championing the concept of ‘open theism,’ which emphasizes God's self-limitation in dealing with humans, including his vulnerability. He argued that God could be surprised by events and persuaded to change a decision.

“This positioning was anathema to many in the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), who insisted God knows and has even planned the entire future, and that open theism undermines confidence in God. The controversy bubbled along for nearly a decade, and came to a head in 2002 when Pinnock was nearly expelled from the ETS. His membership situation was satisfactorily resolved a year later. Even his opponents acknowledged that Pinnock considered the Bible the primary source for theology, and that his arguments were anchored in Scripture.”

I remember when Open Theism was the big hot topic right around my senior year at William Tyndale College.  I also remember being very much appalled by it.  At the time, I openly (no pun intended) called it heresy.  I was much more dogmatic in my theology back then.  I take a bit more lenient view now and try to temper my arguments with love and grace in response to my own weird spiritual journey, but I can say at this point, that I do not embrace this theology.  Perhaps I will write more on that later.

Although I was aware of Pinnock’s beliefs on open theism, I was sadly not aware of his contributions earlier on during the inerrancy debates of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.  Even though in his later years, Pinnock moved away from some of his inerrancy positions, he was a major contributor in favor of biblical inerrancy.  Russell Moore says this about Pinnock: “A list of his former students during that time is amazing to anyone with any grasp of the history of Southern Baptists and the inerrancy controversy: Paige Patterson, Jerry Vines, Adrian Rogers, and on and on. I cannot think of a single figure of crucial importance in the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention who is more than two steps away from Pinnock’s direct influence.” I have had the privilege of hearing all the men listed above preach in person.  The influence that he had on Southern Baptists is immense.

I trace my own salvation back to an autumn day in 1994 when I drove off of the campus of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia and up Candler’s Mountain Road to smoke a cigarette.  I popped a tape in that my mother had sent me of Evangelist Bailey Smith, a one-time President of the SBC.  As I pulled back into the gravel pit parking lot at Liberty, I felt the Holy Spirit tugging on my heart and I bowed my head and gave my life to Christ.   If there ever is a Southern Baptist Hall of Fame, you would put Bailey Smith’s name in there.  My point is that if you can trace Pinnock’s influence to the men listed above, and surely those men have influenced their contemporaries like Smith, then I have Clark Pinnock to partially thank for leading me to Christ. 

It is strange indeed that a man that so many on the far right consider a heretic had such a major influence on fundamental and evangelical theology.   Christianity Today acknowledges this theological slide and the vitriol that surrounded it, but still places him among a school of theologians that left an indelible mark on theology today.  Pinnock’s unique look at this is worth of note.  According to the article, he is quoted as saying, “Not only am I often not listened to, I am also made to feel stranded theologically: being too much of a free thinker to be accepted by the evangelical establishment and too much of a conservative to be accepted by the liberal mainline."  I can relate as I have often described myself as too conservative for my evangelical friends and too liberal for my fundamentalist friends.  It’s a tough line to walk.

I think it is sad that while we cannot ignore the teachings of Pinnock that we disagree with, some people will insist on reviling him.  One of the comments on Moore’s blog said (and I have not edited any of the typos):

It is nonsense like this that explain the decrepit condition of modern American Christianity. True Christians have NOTHING to be thankful for regarding this false teacher.

By Biblical standards, Clark Pinnock was an apostate, a blasphemer, and an idotalter. He spat in the face of the God of the Bible, and endeavored to create his own pathetic “god” out of the imaginiations of his depraved heart. And then he did everythign he could to pullute the church with his vile teachings.

There are people burning in hell today because they forsook the Word of God to follow the Satan-inspired nonsense of Clark Pinnock. And now he has received his just due reserved for all of those of such ilk.

It is blatant ignorance on this responder’s part not to recognize that he could not take the stand that he does on the inerrancy of the Word of God if it was not for Pinnock.  Thankfully, someone reminded this anonymous blogger named Tom (he cowardly left out his last name) about David’s response when he heard of the death of Saul:

Dr. Moore’s article reminds me of David’s lament for Saul (and Jonathan) in 2 Samuel 1. I am sure many in David’s army thought that David’s words about Saul were nonsense. Saul’s disobedience was serious; so serious, God rejected him as King. Yet, when David learned that Saul had died, he wrote his gracious lament that the mighty had fallen and focused on the good that Saul had done. A lesser man than David (or a man of lesser faith than David) could not have written that lament. I don’t know Dr. Moore, but it seems to me that the gracious faith that moved David so long ago helped Dr. Moore write this article yesterday.

Below is that lament from the New International Version and I think it is appropriate to remember the legacy of Pinnock this way.  He was a great theologian that I did not always agree with, but I believe he was simply a believer trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.  Some vilified him for it and some praised him for it, but he was left stuck in the middle.  Theology may just be the most overlooked and dangerous profession of them all.

"Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights.
       How the mighty have fallen!

  "Tell it not in Gath,
       proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon,
       lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad,
       lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice.

  "O mountains of Gilboa,
       may you have neither dew nor rain,
       nor fields that yield offerings of grain .
       For there the shield of the mighty was defiled,
       the shield of Saul—no longer rubbed with oil.

  "From the blood of the slain,
       from the flesh of the mighty,
       the bow of Jonathan did not turn back,
       the sword of Saul did not return unsatisfied.

  "Saul and Jonathan—
       in life they were loved and gracious,
       and in death they were not parted.
       They were swifter than eagles,
       they were stronger than lions.

  "O daughters of Israel,
       weep for Saul,
       who clothed you in scarlet and finery,
       who adorned your garments with ornaments of gold.

  "How the mighty have fallen in battle!
       Jonathan lies slain on your heights.

  "I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;
       you were very dear to me.
       Your love for me was wonderful,
       more wonderful than that of women.

  "How the mighty have fallen!
       The weapons of war have perished!"