Back in the 1970s, my wife and I were part of an inner-city church in Philadelphia that met in a classic church building. You know, steeples, stained glass windows, solid red doors, and musty smells. Walking into one of our Sunday services as a guest, you might expect creeds, hymns, solemnity, and an appreciation for traditions that had been passed down through the centuries.
But that's not what you would have found.
We were a Pentecostal-turning-charismatic church, caught up in the current outpouring of the Spirit. Our repertoire included a few hymns, but more frequently you'd find us belting out choruses, line-dancing around the pews, sharing testimonies, and listening for the voice of God through prophetic words. We were never certain where the Spirit would lead us or when the meeting would end. But one thing was sure—church was alive!
Our architecture and our enthusiasm were an unusual juxtaposition of old and new. Our structure said "history." Our meetings said "now." Many churches today combine old and new in ways that reflect more than architecture. Decisions about which historic traditions to keep, change, limit, or abandon have caused heated arguments, and even led to church splits.
I've spent three decades as a worship leader and two decades as a pastor trying to figure out how the "old" fits in with the "new," how to value both tradition and innovation without idolizing either.
Here are some of the things I'm learning.
The value of traditions
Traditions are fixed beliefs and activities passed from generation to generation that both express and encourage biblical faith. Some are man-made, and some are God-given (Deut. 6:6-7). Christianity wouldn't exist without them. Our faith is rooted in God's redemptive history and fueled by the retelling of that history through the preached word and repeated practices.
In the Old Testament, God instituted the Passover meal for his people and told Moses, "Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever" (Ex. 12:17). That's a tradition.
Faith is fueled through the preached word and repeated practices.
The Israelites were given rules at Mount Sinai about offering sacrifices, keeping the Sabbath, and attending annual feasts. More traditions.
When Nehemiah returned with the exiles from Babylon, he led them in celebrating the Feast of Booths as "the LORD had commanded by Moses" (Neh. 8:14). Traditions were an ongoing part of life for God's people.
When Jesus arrived, he warned against putting new wine in old wineskins (Mt. 9:17), but he never intended to abolish all traditions. His early life was shaped by the traditions of the synagogue, but he had no problem redefining traditions. He gave new meaning to the Passover meal when he commanded his followers to "do this in remembrance of me" (Lk. 22:29). Paul said to celebrate the Lord's supper until Christ comes again. So far, that's been a 2,000-year tradition.
The early church, energized by the outpouring of the Spirit, devoted themselves to specific activities: "the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42, ESV). In the midst of healings, miraculous escapes, and widespread spontaneous conversions, they still thought it important to continue in repeated and historically rooted practices. Prayer. The Lord's supper. Fellowship. And passing along the authoritative teaching of the apostles.
Since those days, the church has developed many other traditions, not all of them helpful or even biblical. But at their best, traditions can help protect doctrinal purity, regulate a comprehensive theological diet for the church, and strengthen unity through group repetition.
In addition to tradition
The greatest traditions, even biblically rooted ones, can grow overly familiar. They can seem disconnected from daily life. In every age we have to fight the tendency to grow mechanical in our worship. Spirit-inspired practices of previous generations can become the dead, unexamined practices of the next.
Scripture contains numerous examples of innovation in corporate worship that have not only been allowed, but encouraged. For instance, before King David, there are few scriptural references to music accompanying sacrificial offerings, although it might have taken place. David changed all that. He appointed singers, instrumentalists, and choirs to praise God in public worship, and even made instruments for that purpose (1 Chron. 15:16-24; Amos 6:5).
Ever since then, music has been a vital part of God-glorifying corporate worship.
In the Book of Acts, the gospel touched people from every nation, and the Spirit moved in powerful ways. In response, the apostles added to, improvised on, or abandoned long-held Jewish traditions. The church started meeting on Sunday, rather than Saturday, to honor the day Christ rose from the dead. Circumcision was no longer required to be a member of God's family. Proclaiming "Jesus is Lord" became an identifying mark of the church. New traditions were established.
But there was more. The outpouring of the Spirit introduced a greater element of spontaneity when Christians gathered.
The Corinthians had this one down, or at least they thought they did. Paul had to address their abuses and excesses, but he never told them to "stick to the program" when they met. Instead, he told them that all spiritual gifts—from prophecy and tongues to administration and helps—were a "manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (1 Cor. 12:7, ESV). He anticipated that an individual could receive a revelation from God while someone else was speaking (1 Cor. 14:30). Spontaneous prophetic impressions were to be tested, not forbidden (1 Thess. 5:20-21).
Getting rooted
People who value innovation and spontaneity can view tradition as boring, rigid, insensitive, and irrelevant. They can become impatient with others who look to the past for inspiration and direction.
I should know. Thirty years ago I thought I was on the cutting edge of what God was doing. I had grown up in a church that used formal liturgies, but was now part of a church experiencing the active presence of God's Spirit during worship. Who needed 2,000 years of church history? We were finally getting it right, blazing a trail for those who would risk all to follow the Spirit.
I was blazing a trail, all right. But it was through the forest of arrogance and presumption. I was forgetting the long line of saints who walked this road before, usually with greater wisdom, humility, and faithfulness to Scripture.
My appreciation for patterns of the past was deepened one summer when I sang through a hymnal. As much as I enjoyed current worship songs, I realized certain hymn writers had a knowledge of God and a way of expressing it that far surpassed most current offerings. So I began to rework some of the hymns and incorporate them in our worship.
I also began to read the liturgies of different denominations, corporate confessions, calls to worship, and benedictions. I also realized that every church has a liturgy, even if it's the "never doing the same thing twice" liturgy. Our liturgy consisted of beginning the meeting with two fast songs, moving to a medium tempo song, and then finishing with two or three slow songs. It was painfully predictable.
So we tried using elements that are not part of our normal experience. Occasionally we incorporate different aspects of historic liturgies: reciting the creed, confessing our sins together publicly, starting with a call to worship. And you know what? People are actually encouraged and edified.
We also began to see the value of preparation. I learned that the Spirit could lead us not only during the meeting but beforehand as well. Planning wasn't necessarily a sign of trusting in the flesh. I used to think that truly spiritual leaders didn't need preparation. Wrong. For years, that attitude only helped justify the random and unfocused thoughts I shared from the stage.
In an effort to grow, I started writing down what I was going to say between songs. Amazing things happened. I started making sense. I didn't go off on as many tangents. It took me less time to say what I wanted to share.
And as my senior pastor, C.J. Mahaney, promised, my spontaneous comments became more effective because I was spending time in advance prayerfully crafting the best way to express my thoughts.
We used to have individuals share testimonies of how God was working in their lives. While the intentions were good, their execution usually wasn't. In front of a group, people tend to ramble. So we started asking people to write what they were going to say, and then edited the content for them.
What we lost in spontaneity, we more than made up for in substance, specificity, and clarity.
Pursuing creativity
While my Christian roots are charismatic, others follow deeply rooted traditions that haven't changed for decades, if not centuries. The idea of doing anything different is completely foreign. How do we introduce life and creativity and spontaneity in contexts where innovation has the potential of alienating half the congregation?
We start by recognizing that biblical traditions aren't up for reconsideration, only more thoughtful execution. When the Savior gave us baptism and communion as signs and seals of the new covenant, he wasn't asking for or anticipating alternate ideas.
In fact, if we spend the majority of our time simply doing what God has commanded us to do when we meet (sing, pray, preach the Word, fellowship, rehearse the gospel), we're less tempted to be distracted by the latest fads.
Still, every generation faces the question of how to incorporate traditions, both biblical and historic, in a way that makes them meaningful to their culture. Three principles have helped us address this:
- Do what God commands in Scripture.
- Don't do what God forbids.
- Use biblical wisdom for everything else.
As we've applied these principles, we've found many ways for Spirit-led creativity and spontaneity to encourage worship that is Christ-exalting and God-glorifying.
Reading Scripture is one example. It's may be traditional for the pastor to read Scripture each week, but we can present God's Word in multiple ways.
One time we recited portions of Psalm 103 between the verses of the hymn, "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty." The effect was a growing crescendo of faith, joy, and hope as God's Word filled out and fueled the song lyrics.
Other times we've put together videos of Scriptures or projected Bible verses between songs. On Easter and Christmas, we sometimes present dramatic recitations of Scripture. There are dozens of fresh ways to use God's word in our meetings.
We can be creative with singing, too. Ephesians 5:19 tells us to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another. But it doesn't specifically say we're all supposed to sing at the same time. Although singing is usually corporate in the Bible, we can also worship by listening to a choir or soloist, or singing responsively. We can vary the instrumentation, revise the arrangements, or sing a cappella.
We aren't simply trying to keep people entertained. Musical variety enables the congregation to hear words differently, to express to God a wider range of emotions, to more fully appreciate the multi-faceted glory of God.
Because Scripture doesn't specify the flow of our meetings, we can be flexible there as well. We might place an extended time of singing after the message rather than before. Or we can spread songs throughout the meeting.
Although we generally follow a singing-announcements-preaching format, one Sunday we modeled the meeting after a traditional Presbyterian order of service. It gave us a fresh perspective on what we were doing each Sunday.
Of course too much innovation in a liturgy can be counter-productive. You can switch things up so much that church members never know what's coming next. That's neither wise nor helpful, and often leads to worshiping creativity rather than the Savior.
As Hughes Oliphant Old puts it: "Forms are a means to an end, and if they are constantly changing, they obscure the end rather than lead to it."
Expect the unexpected
We want the Spirit to manifest his power through us in as many ways as possible so people's hearts and lives can be affected. Spontaneity can be a means to that end.
You don't have to be an improv actor to step out in an unplanned direction. It can be as simple as singing a phrase between lines of a song, or repeating the last line for emphasis. You can start with the chorus instead of the verse. You might slow down at the end of a song, or end a song with a line from another one.
Spontaneity is hindered if I overplan or if I'm trying to squeeze eight songs into 25 minutes. That doesn't leave me any room to repeat parts of songs for emphasis, and no one will have time to actually think about what we're singing.
Spontaneous elements can include reading a Scripture, praying when you hadn't planned to pray, taking time to honor someone in the congregation, sharing a testimony of God's faithfulness, or asking the church to respond in a specific way.
Spontaneity is being prepared, and then responding to the need of the moment, seeking to follow the Spirit's direction as he opens our eyes to what he's doing.
Plan while relying on the Spirit
Even though I've been stepping out in unplanned directions for years now, I still have to fight the tendency to rely more on my plan than the Spirit's leading. Part of that is a fear that I'll look stupid, aka "the fear of man."
But here's what I've realized: If I make a mistake, I'll be humbled. If I'm humbled, then I'll receive more grace (James 4:6). And that's exactly what I need to lead God's people faithfully.
Isaac Watts captured the balance between spontaneity and planning when he said in A Guide to Prayer: "A man ought not to be so confined by any premeditated form as to neglect any special infusion, he should so prepare himself as if he expected no assistance, and he should so depend upon divine assistance as if he had made no preparation."
The same applies to leading worship. We should take great pains to plan carefully and thoroughly. But our preparation can never replace an active dependence on the Spirit as we lead.
No fruit without roots
I'm grateful to God that I was converted during the charismatic outpouring of the '70s. For most of my Christian life, corporate worship has been characterized by freedom, spontaneity, and joy. But I've learned that a tree without roots is easily blown away. So I'm more grateful than ever for the saints who have faithfully passed on the gospel and God's Word through planned, repeated, thoughtful traditions.
No liturgy—formal or free, planned or spontaneous—can insure that God's people will worship him with faith. That takes the power of the Holy Spirit, working through humble, faithful, skilled leaders.
Our goal isn't to have the best order of service, to idolize our traditions, or to experience nothing but unhindered freedom in our meetings. Our goal is to use every tool God has provided to help our people magnify Christ in their mind, heart, and will, "offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5). That's a goal I'll gladly pursue the rest of my life.
Bob Kauflin is director of worship development at Sovereign Grace Ministries in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Worshipmatters.com
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