Tuesday, July 17, 2007

3) A Free and Unordered Worship Service

This is the third part of a 5-part essay on why I will not be (and you should not be either) joining the Evangelical Presbyterian Church any time soon.


3) A Free and Unordered Worship Service


While this critique is probably the weakest and most contingent on a church-by-church and locational motivations it is still the one I notice most when attending services at an Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

One of the hallmarks of Reformed Orthodoxy is the presentation during worship of a standard and ordered worship service. This critique along with the criticisms of the EPC's views on the charismata arise primarily from personal experience with EPC Churches I have attended and/or had friends who attended them. I'll deal more in depth with this critique in the next bullet point dealing with the passe nature of "Reformed" theology in the EPC.




2 comments:

Bill Crawford said...

I'm loving this! hope you are not getting my comments wrong as I'm being terse due to time constraints!

The bible the bible the bible!

Great be reformed but to the Word of God - where is this highly ordered worship in the bible?

Ephesians 5:19 19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord,

There is one and the other "decenly and in order" refers to the exercise of spiritual gifts in worship particularly tongues.

Last year following TPUP while I was at the GA I became very frustrated with all the reactionary movements - because they all seemed to be pointing back to some point in history when things were right with Presbyterianism - bact to: Calvin, Beza, Westminster, etc.

But the watchwords of reformation are not so much about being truly "reformed" but being truly Biblical.

Highly ordered worship is a style preference not a biblical mandate.

Anonymous said...

Was the church in Fredricksburg,VA EPC? If so then I would agree that i felt like I had been to a good Sunday School class but not "church".