Enjoy Your Worship
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ENJOY YOUR WORSHIP This issue has a tremendous amount of help in un- derstanding and running our worship services at the local church level in a way that is both honouring to God and edifies the saints. John MacArthur has given a great analysis on the different types of hymns and songs and choruses and while tracing their history has also given us a good understanding of their content. Our hymnology does affect our theology and our worship of God. Nathan Busenitz has made a good contribution in his article that teaches how to choose the songs we sing and the questions one should ask when organising a church worship service. I trust you readers and especially pastors will find these very practical. I want to invite our readers to recognise that we have great resources for your use. Our tapes and books by an able and spiritually committed John MacArthur are geared to help you both learn the Word of God more accurately and be brought up-to-date on the latest theological aberrations with the correctives given, as well as to give you practical aids to run your local churches and fel- lowship groups. Feel free to use them and make sure you share these resources with others. One additional way is for you to invite us to conduct a workshop or Conference in your region or local church to teach your people face-to-face. We are associated with The Pastoral Training Institute and the teachers of this Institute are prepared to come to your city and conduct a weekend or one or two days programmes. Several of the teachers from John MacArthur’s local church and seminary are also willing to come for the same. Write to the GTI office if you are serious about doing this. May I share a few thoughts that are germane to true worship? In Romans 12:1- 2 the exhortation is to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to the Lord. This, says the text, is our reasonable service. Other translations use the word “worship” instead of “service”. The biblical idea is that worship includes true service. The point I want to make, however, is that true biblical worship can only arise out of a life that is totally abandoned to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the thought David had in 2 Samuel 24:24 when he said, “I will not offer to the Lord my God a sacrifice that costs me nothing.” Pastors must be committed to a life of total abandonment to God. Then, through teaching God’s Word, lead your people to such devoted commitment to God. Remember the words of Jim Elliot: “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he will never lose”. Together with the ideas John MacArthur and Nathan Busenitz present this kind of sacrifice will lead you and your con- gregation to enjoy a worship that is what God the Father seeks – a worship that is in spirit and in truth. Chris D. Williams 1 Great Hymns of Our Faith Choice of 3 CDs (each with a bonus book) (1) What Wondrous Love Is This Christ the Lord is Risen Today What Wondrous Love Is This Were You There? He Was Wounded for Our Transgressions Jesus Paid It All Beneath the Cross of Jesus And Can It Be That I Should Gain Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood Up from the Grave He Arose When I Survey the Wondrous Cross Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness Each CD comes with a bonus book (2) O Come All Ye Faithful and features 12 songs, performed by O Come, All Ye Faithful John MacArthur, Joni Eareckson Tada, Once in Royal David’s City Robert & Bobbie Wolgemuth and Angels We Have Heard on High The Master’s Chorale. Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus What Child Is This Choice of 3 Wonderful CDs: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel O Little Town of Bethlehem 1. What Wondrous Love Is This Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence 2. O Come All Ye Faithful Silent Night! Holy Night! 3. When Morning Gilds the Skies Hark! the Herald Angels Sing Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming Angels, from the Realms of Glory (3) When Morning Gilds the Sky Each CD with Book : Lead On, O King Eternal Rs. 300.00 My Jesus, I Love Thee How Firm a Foundation Limited Copies! Add postage charges : Amazing Grace Rs. 50.00 When Morning Gilds the Skies Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah Love Divine, All Loves Excelling Total to Send for each More Love to Thee, O Christ CD with Book: Rs. All the Way My Saviour Leads Me Holy, Holy, Holy 350.00 When He Cometh, When He Cometh He Leadeth Me: O Blessed Thought! Send M.O./D.D. in Post Box 1626 favour of 818-C Bhawani Peth, Pune 411 042 (020) 26350107 GRACE TO INDIA Phone : Fax : (020) 26343126 We do not accept cheques. NOTE: Please write your name and complete address in CAPITALS on the back of the Money Order Forms. 2 With Hearts and Minds and Voices By John MacArthur A few years ago I collaborated on a book about some of the greatest hymns of the Christian faith [1]. My task in the project was to write a doctrinal synopsis of each hymn we selected. It was a fascinating and enlightening exercise, causing me to delve more deeply than ever before into the rich heritage of Christian hymnology. As I researched the history of those hymns, I was reminded that a profound change took place in church music sometime near the end of the nineteenth century. The writing of hymns virtually stopped. Hymns were replaced by “gospel songs”—songs generally lighter in doctrinal content, with short stanzas followed by a refrain, a chorus or a common final lyric line that was repeated after each stanza. Gospel songs as a rule were more evangelistic than hymns. The key difference was that most gospel songs were expressions of personal testimony aimed at an audi- ence of people, whereas most of the classic hymns had been songs of praise addressed directly to God. A New Song The style and form of the gospel song was borrowed directly from the popular music styles of the late nineteenth century. The man most commonly regarded as the father of the gospel song is Ira Sankey, a gifted singer and songwriter who rode to fame on D.L. Moody’s coattails. Sankey was the soloist and music leader for Moody’s evangelistic campaigns in America and Britain. Sankey wanted a style of music that would be simpler, more popular, and better suited to evangelism than classic church hymns. So he began to write gospel songs—mostly short, simple ditties with refrains, in the style of the popular music of his day. Sankey would sing each verse as a solo, and the congregation would join each refrain. Although Sankey’s music at first provoked some controversy, the form caught on worldwide almost immediately, and by the early part of the twentieth century, precious few new hymns were being added to modern hymnbooks. Most of the new works were gospel songs in the genre Sankey had invented. It is noteworthy that in most hymnbooks even today, the only well-known hymn with a copyright date after 1940 is How Great Thou Art [2]. And to classify that work as a twentieth-century hymn is stretching things a bit. How Great Thou Art doesn’t really follow the form of the classic hymns. It includes a refrain, which is more characteristic of gospel songs than of hymns. Moreover, it is not even really a twentieth-century 3 work. The first three stanzas were originally written in 1886 by a well-known Swedish pastor, Carl Boberg, and translated from Swedish by British missionary Stuart Hine not long before the outbreak of World War II. Hine added the fourth stanza, which is the only verse in the popular English version of that hymn that was actually written in the twentieth century [3]. In other words, for more than 70 years virtually no hymns have been added to the popular repertoire of congregational church music. That reflects the fact that very few true hymns of any enduring quality are being written. My remarks are by no means meant as a blanket criticism of gospel songs. Many familiar gospel songs are wonderfully rich expressions of faith. Although Ira Sankey’s most popular song, The Ninety and Nine is almost never sung as a congregational song today, it was the hit of Sankey’s era. He improvised the music on the spot in one of Moody’s mass meetings in Edinburgh, using the words from a poem he had clipped earlier that afternoon from a Glasgow newspaper. Those lyrics, written by Elizabeth Clephane, are a simple and moving adaptation of the Parable of the Lost Sheep from Luke 15:4-7 [4]. A more enduring favourite from the golden age of gospel songs is Grace Greater than Our Sin [5]. The song is a celebration of the triumph of grace over our sin. Its refrain is familiar: Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse within; Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin! Songs like those have enriched the church’s expressions of faith. Frankly, however, many of the classic gospel songs are terribly weak in content by comparison to the hymns sung in earlier generations.