Where does the Trinity Show Up in our Worship Music?

This semester at Duke Divinity School I am taking Introduction to Christian Worship with Lester Ruth, who has written prolifically about Christian worship practices past and present. One of his current research emphases is the corpus of contemporary worship songs that have topped the CCLI usage rankings since they began keeping records in 1989.

In a recent article in Artistic Theologian, Dr. Ruth compares the content of these newer worship songs with those of evangelical hymns that were published in American hymnbooks between 1737 and 1969. Since there was no licensing agency to track which songs were actually sung back then, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the methodology for creating these two similar lists from different eras is quite sound.

One of Ruth's main findings is that both eras of worship music -- the older evangelical hymns as well as the newer contemporary songs -- emphasize the person of Jesus over the other persons of the Trinity. Christianity Today wrote a profile of these findings titled "Yes, Jesus Has Always Been Our Boyfriend." There is much one can say about deficiencies in today's body of popular worship music, and many people argue that the songs in American churches were better in previous eras. As the CT article title hints, some complain that there is an overly-familiar tone in today's music, making God seem too chummy. But we have never been that great at worshiping God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and our song choices show that a close and personal Jesus has consistently been more important to us. Ruth's study shows that American evangelical churches are actually being quite consistent in their song choices over several hundred years.

Ruth delves into several possible reasons for this emphasis on Jesus. He notes that the very nature of the incarnation makes Christ more tangible than the abstract notion of three-persons-in-one. Indeed, Jesus is a personal name, which makes him approachable, and his role as savior has been a cornerstone of theology in America since the beginning. I have written elsewhere about the earnestness that pervades most contemporary worship. Dr. Ruth has shown us that this tendency to project emotion toward God, through Jesus, is nothing new.

Why I Love the Rural Church

Another school year begins at Duke Divinity School next week -- my third of four years in the M.Div. program. One of the things I most look forward to every August is the addition of an important entry on my student account statement -- one that reads "Rural Ministry Fellowship," followed by a large four-digit dollar figure. That is thanks to the Thriving Rural Communities Initiative of the Duke Endowment, the organization that covers the full cost of my tuition. James B. Duke set up this endowment in 1924 to benefit four main areas of emphasis in North and South Carolina. Rural United Methodist Churches are one of those beneficiaries. My commitment to the Endowment's TRCI program is to serve in a rural UM church after I complete my degree.

Why would I want to serve a rural church? Because I love the rural church. Why is that? For the same reason that I love my parents. I was born and raised in a rural church in western Pennsylvania. That's where I learned to live in a Christian community. At Sheakleyville UMC I was taught to read the scriptures, pray, and sing hymns in a congregation that rarely had a Sunday attendance of over 50 people. It was there that I first felt the call to cross-cultural ministry, and it was that group of people who affirmed my calling to ordination as a pastor. I'm not sentimental or naïve -- small churches certainly have their share of problems. But I love this church in spite of its imperfections.

I also love the rural church because I love the church, period. Rural churches are not just important for their collective historical value. These are congregations that constitute the actual living church of Jesus Christ. They aren't primarily sentimental curiosities or problems to be solved. Every Sunday millions of people gather at small churches to pray, ask for forgiveness, take Communion, and baptize new members into their fellowship. Most rural churches are small, and when they are at their best small churches care for everyone in the congregation. Carl Dudley describes this work of the small church as the "single caring cell." (See his book Effective Small Churches in the Twenty-first Century.) Everyone knows everyone else in a small church, and this is both a strength and a weakness. It's a strength because members enjoy a high sense of belonging. But it can be a weakness when the small cell of members becomes afraid to adopt new members for fear of growing beyond its capacity to care for everyone. Check out Dudley's book to read how this desire for togetherness defines much of what happens in a small congregation.

Thankfully, I don't have to wait to serve a rural church sometime down the road. I am already the pastor of two great churches. I can't wait to worship with them again on Sunday.

Grumbling Can Turn You Into Nothing

This week I attended a conference where Christine Pohl shared insights from her book Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us. The four main practices she describes -- gratitude, promise-keeping, truth-telling, and hospitality -- all have deformations that weaken a community's ability to thrive.

One of the corruptions of gratitude is grumbling. God's people have always struggled with this sin, perhaps most memorably in the desert between Egypt and the promised land. Remember when the people complained about not having meat to eat, so God sent so many quail that they were overwhelmed by the sheer mass of them? (See Numbers 11.)

Pohl used one of my favorite books to illustrate the spiritual danger of grumbling. In The Great Divorce (which is not about marriage), C.S. Lewis describes a woman who grumbled so much that she actually transformed into what she did -- she moved from being a grumbler to being the very essence of the sin itself -- a "grumble." This danger shows the negative side of what Pohl teaches: what we do makes us into different people. We can choose to do things that make us more like God, such as offering gratitude. Or we can choose to do things that make us whither away to nothing. Let me use Lewis' own words here (from pages 74-75). The questioner sees this miserable woman on a bus of people coming from hell. He asks the teacher about her condition.

Questioner: I am troubled, Sir, because that unhappy creature doesn't seem to me to be the sort of soul that ought to be even in danger of damnation. She isn't wicked: she's only a silly, garrulous old woman who has got into a habit of grumbling, and one feels that a little kindness, and rest, and change would put her all right.

Teacher: The question is whether she is a grumbler, or only a grumble. If there is a real woman--even the least trace of one--still there inside the grumbling, it can be brought to life again. If there's one wee spark under all those ashes, we'll blow it till the whole pile is read an clear. But if there's nothing but ashes we'll not go on blowing them in our own eyes forever. They must be swept up. 

Lewis' view of hell is not embraced by all. But his larger point -- that grumbling can actually destroy our souls -- is an important warning against neglecting to be grateful. Let's be so thankful that our very souls turn into a "thanks."

Eat and Do Laundry

The book of Revelation has been a puzzle to the church since John first recorded it. His visions contain many images and symbols about God and creation, and people over the years have offered different interpretations of the book's most difficult passages. For example: What are Gog and Magog, exactly? (Rev. 20:8) When is the thousand-year break from Satan going to happen -- or did it already come and go? (Rev. 20:3) What will the mark of the beast look like? (Rev 13:16-18) Who are the two witnesses described in chapter 11? Then there are questions about end-times events that don't even come up in the book, such as the rapture and the Antichrist.

John knew that the images from his prophecies would be hard to understand. So all throughout Revelation he places short reminders and wake-up calls about his main points, such as:

"This means that God's holy people must endure persecution patiently, obeying his commands and maintaining their faith in Jesus" (Rev. 14:12).

"Worship only God" (Rev. 19:10 and 22:9).

As we try to read Revelation today we too can get caught up in the meanings of current events, searching the scriptures for how they might fit into predictions about the end of days. But when it comes down to it, God's requirements are not that difficult to understand. The final chapter of Revelation describes the Christian life in terms of two main activities: doing laundry and eating.

All throughout Revelation John mentions the importance of keeping one's clothing pure and spotless: "Blessed are all who are watching for me, who keep their clothing ready" (Rev 16:15). The countless number of worshippers before the throne are wearing white robes (Rev. 7:9). In the book's final verses John sums up faithfulness in this way: "Blessed are those who wash their robes" (Rev. 22:14). This is clearly a call for purity and holiness. Each one of us knows there are certain activities, people, and places we should not be tied up with. But how do we resist these daily temptations? We do our laundry. That is, we stay busy with the tasks at hand. God has given you a job, or a role in your family, or a position in your church. If you pour yourself into these roles, then you won't have time left over to chase after temptations. You also won't have much energy to fret or worry about the circumstances of life.

The second activity listed in Revelation 22 is eating. To those who stay busy and keep their robes clean, God says: "They will be permitted to enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from the tree of life" (Rev. 22:14). God has always described fellowship in terms of food. The Garden of Eden was designed to be a place where humans could eat in God's presence and in fellowship with one another (Genesis 2:15-16). Eating together is one of the most holy aspects of our earthly existence, and it foreshadows the kind of relationship God intends to have with each one of us. Do you eat regularly with others? Does your family sit down to share meals on a regular basis? Does your church congregation? Do you invite other people to come and eat a meal that you have prepared?

Do you want to fulfill God's plans for your life and be ready for the next life? Then be faithful to do your laundry -- that is, what God places before you -- and invite others to eat with you.

What Scouting Taught Me About Ministry

Summer reminds me of the great times I had as a Boy Scout. It was during summer breaks from school that we did most of our camp-outs and completed much of the work towards our merit badges and rank requirements. While visiting my parents recently I came across my old Boy Scout books from the 1980s (see photo). It was fun to flip through their well-worn pages and reminisce about my days in Troop 78 in Hadley, PA.

These memories got me thinking about how Scouting is great preparation for life as an adult. The Boy Scouts also taught me a few things about ministry. Here are some ways that being a Scout has helped me as a missionary and a pastor.

1. Packing. Most people associate Scouting with camping. Sure, it's great fun to swim in rivers and hike through the woods. But those experiences are only possible if you bring the right gear. Scouting taught me that camping is 90% preparation. Most of the work happens before the campout. A Scout has to pack his own personal effects, but the troop also works together to pack and load up shared materials such as tents and cooking equipment. The 1983 Handbook has a template for an individual packing list (see photo to the left), which is how I learned to pack from a checklist. At one point in my career as a missionary I traveled more than 15 weeks a year. If I hadn't used a list, which I printed out before every trip, I would have spent a couple of extra days each year just figuring out what to pack.

Packing for a campout is a concrete way of learning the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. Leading worship on Sunday mornings is similar -- 90% of the work comes before the event. Picking songs, working on sermons, and practicing the scripture readings all have to happen prior to Sunday at 10:00am.

2. Paying Attention.  In order to earn the Environmental Science merit badge (at least back in my day) we had to sit in the woods for a total of 8 hours (over 4 different sessions). Then we had to write a 500-word essay about the animals, plants, and geological features that we observed. At that point in my life this was the longest, most boring activity I had ever undertaken. Never before had I sat in one place for so long with nothing to do. But it taught me to pay attention to what is going on around me.

It is easy to make ministry into a list of things to get done each day. But unless you take a break from working through your to-do list, you will miss some of the most important things that go on around you. The spiritual disciplines of prayer and Sabbath-keeping are meant to keep us focused on what is happening -- and especially on what God is doing in our midst. Here are some quotes on this topic from theologian Karl Barth. These statements are found on pages 162 and 163 of his book Evangelical Theology. (I modified them slightly to make them more gender inclusive.)

The purpose of the Sabbath is not to eliminate the working days or to divest them of their proper tasks, but rather to obtain for them precisely the light from above which they lack.

For in prayer a person temporarily turns away from his or her own efforts. This move is necessary precisely for the sake of the duration and continuation of one's own work.

A person prays, not in order to sacrifice the work or even to neglect it, but in order that it may not remain or become unfruitful work.

3. Actions create habits that build character. To kids the thrill of Scouting comes from all the new experiences: sleeping out under the stars, playing Capture the Flag in several acres of forest, canoeing across miles of lakes. These things are all great. But Scouting is actually about using these experiences to form character and to nurture virtues. When I was a teenager I wasn't excited about packing or sitting in the woods alone for hours on end. At the time those activities were just something to endure on the way to the "real" fun. But I realize now that those very activities built skills of patience and preparation that have made me into a better person.

This is not unlike what congregations do every time they come together for worship. I came of age in an era when children were not encouraged to take communion. We were taught that we should be old enough to understand the sacrament before participating. I still respect parents who make this decision for their children, but I've learned to see it differently. Instead of waiting until someone can grasp the significance of Holy Communion (and who can, at any age?), I see it as a way to form who we are. By taking Communion regularly we are creating habits that help us become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. The order of worship leads us in actions that teach forgiveness (passing the peace), gratitude (the prayer of thanksgiving), and hospitality (the invitation). A child who participates in these liturgical practices is learning virtues by doing them and by watching others do them. In this way their actions precede and create understanding.

It's true that going to church doesn't by itself make someone into a Christian. Faith is required for that. But in response to the gift of faith, participating in worship services helps us to form habits, which in turn create virtues that make us into better followers of Jesus.