SO IT'S GOODBYE, MARK AND DI

Dear Mark & Di,

My conversation with Jim was very informative. He tells me that you “get nothing” out of worship. So, this is the third issue I have to respond to.

I want to begin with a very serious question: what do you expect to “get out of” worship? Please think about it; it is not a flippant retort. I believe one of the biggest failings in the church is to understand what worship is, and what worship is for, and what worship does, and what worship is about. Can you answer these questions? Surely, as critics of our services, you know the answers.

When I was 16 I received a gentle but effective rebuke from a minister’s wife. She was an Anglican; her husband a Presbyterian pastor. I happened to say in her hearing that I got nothing out of an Anglican service that I had attended. Very quietly Muriel asked me, “Were there scripture readings in the service? There should have been if it was the Church of England.” I replied that indeed there had been. Equally quietly she responded “In that case the only person who can be blamed for getting ‘nothing’ out of the service was you for only someone who is spiritually dull would get nothing out of hearing the Word of God”. What brought me up most sharply was not that quiet, gentle Muriel should have spoken to me like this, but that I had revealed my own spiritual weakness.

It is easy for us to find fault in a worship service. If we are awake for more than 50% of the time in any service we will find flaws and imperfections. But if all you are there for is to identify the weakness and imperfections of others I would suggest you have forgotten something that Jesus said about specks and planks in the eyes.

I have to say I don’t want to enlist in those worship wars which endlessly discuss the date of composition and instrumental arrangement of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Such arguments are too often just debates about taste. The Romans had a motto: de gustibus non disputandum – there’s no point arguing about taste. I read articles by Christians where they bite and devour each other over questions about worship and yet when you read carefully you see that all they are doing is saying “I am right because I like plainsong/baroque/Wesley/ Sankey/21st Century Christian music and you are wrong because you like plainsong/baroque/Wesley/ Sankey/21st Century Christian music.” (Delete where applicable). I think I am most grieved that those whose musical taste is closest to mine and who often express the most arrogant and elitist attitudes to brothers and sisters in Christ.

If you want to know what scripture teaches about worship then we could look at it but frankly I am not sure you want to do that. Anyone who talks about “feeling” that they “get nothing out of” a service is not interested in biblical theology.

So, Mark, Di, what do you look for in our services: big band modern praise? Sorry – we do not have the personnel or the skills for that; we’re a small church. Times of free praying and sharing? You don’t come to the prayer meeting or the evening service where there are such opportunities. We do have - in the services you have decided to abandon - an eclectic mix of singing ranging from the 5th to the 21st century - all characterised by having stood the tests of time and the common acceptance of Christians of many traditions. We have public reading of the Bible; prayer that is contemporary in form yet connects with a long liturgical tradition; preaching which is warm, expository and contemporary in its application; children’s work by dedicated and gifted volunteers; the beauty of a fine building combined with the comfort of modern facilities. A small church can do these things; it can even, with commitment, do these things well. It is such a pity that none of this is for you.

Yes, I can see – you are right to leave us. Do let me know where you find what you are looking for.

Neil