General Assembly Worship & Culture
Terry Johnson regularly asks questions about why PCA General Assembly worship looks and sounds the way it does even as he calls us to be faithful to our principles.
In my previous article, I reflected on the public worship often offered at PCA General Assembly in contrast to my experience of public worship in local PCA congregations. Worship at the General Assemblies typically seem more like concerts with performers than Presbyterian worship services.
Presbyterian worship services ought to be God’s people interacting with their Covenant Lord, as RE Brad Isbell explains about a typical PCA worship liturgy:
The dialogical pattern of God speaking by his Word and his people responding in prayer, praise, and confession is obvious.
While many General Assembly worship services may have a liturgy that reflects a dialogue, that dialogue is often eclipsed by the complexity of the forms of the worship service
Worship & Presbyterians
Worship is the most important thing we do; worship is the reason we were created. Worship is one of the three crucial markers of the true church:
This catholic church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less, visible. And particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them. (WCF 25:4)
Occasionally PCA candidates for licensure and ordination will be asked “What are the three marks of the Church,” and they will respond incorrectly with the three marks of the Belgic Confession.1 In our Westminster Standards, the PCA confesses the three marks of the true church to be:
The Preaching of the Gospel
The Administration of the Sacraments
Public Worship
Since the PCA confesses public worship to be one of the three marks of a true Church, we ought earnestly strive to offer pure worship, biblical worship in all our public assemblies. And General Assembly ought to serve as a model, an exemplar of biblically ordered, confessionally faithful Reformed worship.
Worship & the Congregation
In the worship at our General Assemblies, the congregational singing is typically drowned out or emaciated. As I reflected on that assessment initially I thought perhaps that was the result of poor acoustics in the convention halls. But then I remembered the hymn and psalm singing during the assembly business is typically quite powerful as TE Larry Roff simply accompanies the Assembly on the organ.2 The problem, it seems, is not one of acoustics; the problem is one of complexity and form.
This was also noticed by TE Kyle Brent who took to Twitter to highlight both where the Memphis Assembly did well and where there were opportunities for improvement in terms of public worship:
As TE Brent observes, this is not a matter of “old versus new,” but a matter of treating public worship as a service in which the congregation participates or as a performance in which the congregation watches while the professionals serve.
While I ordinarily prefer the old tunes over the new, this is not about a matter of style. I am not asserting General Assembly worship should only feature old hymn and psalm tunes. There is a place for new tunes, but new tunes should be introduced in a circumspect manner. TE Sean Morris recently noted regarding worship in Scotland that it was the rural churches there who were demanding new tunes for the psalter.
Whether we sing old or new tunes, my concern is that General Assembly worship ought to manifest our Reformed Principles of congregational participation and covenantal dialogue with God. Hart and Muether sum up this point well:
Because God is the audience for our singing, music should not have a performance component to it, as in special music where the choir or soloist is singing music that one might hear in a concert.3
While TE Brent observed one of the worship services at the Memphis Assembly showed a marked departure from the usual complexity, this was indeed a notable, and laudable, exception from what usually happens: the congregation is typically drowned out by the “up front” amplified people and musicians. It seems like GA Worship is designed to be watched rather than something in which we participate.
Reformed Worship & Culture
The concerns regarding General Assembly worship are not matters of taste and style, but of principle. I am advocating for simplicity, biblical simplicity in General Assembly worship. A number of years ago TE Johnson raised concerns regarding the complex, “liturgical chaos” of General Assembly worship. And a young church planter dismissed TE Johnson as simply trying to impose his own cultural preferences on the General Assembly:
I like black licorice, and Dr. Johnson doesn’t like GA worship. Neither opinion should trouble the conscience of our denomination.
Interestingly, when I was in college I took a “Theology of Worship” course and the professor made the same criticism: i.e., that TE Johnson argues for a worship that is largely reflective of 19th Century Savannah. But that is simply not accurate. See TE Johnson’s reply at the bottom of the page here.
It is not about culture or taste or preserving what is familiar. Reformed Worship, Biblical Worship, worship that is reformed according to Scripture transcends culture and is portable from one culture to another. Why is this the case? Because it is simple. What is required for Reformed Worship? A Bible, a bit of water, wine, and bread, something to sing from, and maybe something to lean on while preaching.
In a recent General Assembly seminar TE Richard D. Phillips made the very important point that Reformed worship is not only portable, it is not a reflection of “European culture,” but transcends culture.
If any worship style is a reflection of Anglo-Saxon, upper middle class American suburbanite sensibilities, it is the worship style that has characterized the worship of recent General Assemblies: massive production costs, highly choreographed performances and singing, overpowering sound systems and lights, little congregational singing all in a darkened room.
The “Host Committees” for future General Assemblies could do worse than to solemnly consider the questions TE Johnson regularly asks regarding the worship services of our General Assembly.
If the PCA wants to be more welcoming, culturally diverse, and less “anglo-centric,” perhaps we should consider planning for simpler, more Reformed worship services rather than a hybrid concert-suburban-megachurch-worship-service.
What if General Assembly worship services were characterized by the simple beauty of thousands joining together to praise our Covenant God for who He is and what He has done? What if General Assembly worship services were simply the saints gathering to “read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible” as we meet with God and His people?4
Unlike in the case of the Sabbath, there is a difference between the Continental position and the Westminster position on the “Three Marks of the Church;” the Continental Reformed confess the right preaching, right administration of the sacraments, and the right exercise of church discipline to be the three marks (See Belgic Confession Article 29 and contrast WCF 25:4).
Yes, I am aware of Dr. Dabney’s objections to pipe organs. I share his concerns, but an organ is much better suited to accompanying corporate worship than a full orchestra or even medium-sized ensemble.
D. G. Hart & J. R. Muether, J. R., With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2002), 166.
Ligon Duncan, “Foundations for Biblically Directed Worship” in Give Praise to God, ed. P.G. Ryken, D.W.H. Thomas, and J. L. Duncan III (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2003), 65.
The fact of the matter is that most in the PCA, and that includes most TEs, don't really want to be historic Presbyterians. They want to have the polity, but not worship of our forefathers. Let's face it, even using language like "traditional" to describe music and hymnody in the P&R context is a little oxymoronic.