Keeping Spiritually
Fresh
Sometimes
things just come together – what I am reading, what I am listening to, and what
I am discussing with others.
This
week I have been catching up on the White Horse Inn podcasts, listening to the
excellent current series on Worship:
I
have also been listening to an excellent address given by the Rev Ian Hamilton
at a fraternal this week in Glasgow. His
theme was “What is the Church For?”, and his emphasis was that the church is
the gathered assembly of God’s people engaged in glorifying God collectively in
their worship. This was in
counterbalance to an inaccurate evangelical idea that the church assembled in
worship is of somewhat secondary importance, and the main purpose of Sunday worship
is to teach God’s people and encourage them.
Ian emphasised that it is when we are worshipping God and glorifying him
in our collective devotion that we will be most blessed.
Then
I was at a local church meeting where the theme was “Keeping Spiritually Fresh.” The video and teaching materials, (from an
Anglican source), suggest that there are six ingredients for a healthy
devotional life:
- Keep an
open Bible.
- Be
ruthless with sin.
- Think
much of Christ.
- Pray
often.
- Make the
most of other Christians.
- Maintain
a regular quiet time.
Now
these in themselves are excellent things, and I commend all of them. But they are essentially individualistic and
pietistic. What is missing? The very emphasis that Ian was underlining,
the place of corporate worship on the Lord’s Day – the ministry of the Word,
Sacraments and Prayer. We sometimes call
them the ordinary means of grace.
In
Reformed theology and practice it is more usual to speak of piety than
spirituality. In Reformed practice piety is not merely individualistic, it is
rooted in our union with Christ and the expression of that union in the
collective worship of the church:
“We
believe that the way in which Christ communicates the benefits of His mediation
to those who are united with Him “are all his ordinances; especially, the Word,
sacraments, and prayer” (WLC 154). That is to say, the means of our spiritual
growth—the very engine of Presbyterian piety—is worship.”
Modern
evangelicalism is essentially individualistic; it struggles to find a place for
the corporate worship of God’s people on the Lord’s Day, sitting under the authoritative
preaching of the Word and celebrating the Lord’s Supper. This is why in the USA among so-called
evangelicals church attendance averages once or twice a month. Church worship
services are side-lined - twice a month rather than twice on Lord’s Day.
What
we need to keep us spiritually fresh and maintain biblical piety is not an
either/or approach but a both/and approach.
Commitment to and worship in the local church each Lord’s Day is the
primary and essential means to maintain spiritual health.
