I. Introduction

A. Illustration – In his book Touch and Live, George Vandeman wrote: "A young stranger to the Alps was making his first climb, accompanied by two stalwart guides. It was a steep, hazardous ascent. But he felt secure with one guide ahead and one following. For hours they climbed. And now, breathless, they reached for those rocks, protruding through the snow above them--the summit. The guide ahead wished to let the stranger have the first glorious view of heaven and earth, and moved aside to let him go first. Forgetting the gales that would blow across those summit rocks, the young man leaped to his feet. But the chief guide dragged him down. ’On your knees, sir!’ he shouted. ’You are never safe here except on your knees.’" (as cited on SermonCentral.com)

B. Context – What Vandeman is talking about isn’t a form or style of worship, it’s an attitude that results in changed behavior. In a sense that’s what we’re talking about today as we continue our series on principles of renewal, based on Pastor Michael Slaughter’s book Spiritual Entrepreneurs. Today we’re looking at the Liturgical Principle. For those who don’t know, liturgical means forms and rituals associated with public worship. (NEW SLIDE) The Liturgical Principle states that we need new wineskins to hold new wine. We’ve got to relate worship forms to the needs of the unchurched, and make sure that worship is relevant to lifestyle. I want to start out by looking at a picture of worship in Revelation 4:1-11, and I’m reading from the New Living.

I. Scripture Passage

A. Revelation 4:1-11 (from the New Living) – (NEW SLIDE) Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in heaven, and the same voice I had heard before spoke to me with the sound of a mighty trumpet blast. The voice said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after these things.” (NEW SLIDE) 2 And instantly I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne in heaven and someone sitting on it! 3 The one sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones—jasper and carnelian. And the glow of an emerald circled his throne like a rainbow. (NEW SLIDE) 4 Twenty-four thrones surrounded him, and twenty-four elders sat on them. They were all clothed in white and had gold crowns on their heads. 5 And from the throne came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder. And in front of the throne were seven lampstands with burning flames. They are the seven spirits of God. (NEW SLIDE) 6 In front of the throne was a shiny sea of glass, sparkling like crystal. In the center and around the throne were four living beings, each covered with eyes, front and back. (NEW SLIDE) 7 The first of these living beings had the form of a lion; the second looked like an ox; the third had a human face; and the fourth had the form of an eagle with wings spread out as though in flight. (NEW SLIDE) 8 Each of these living beings had six wings, and their wings were covered with eyes, inside and out. Day after day and night after night they keep on saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty— the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come.” (NEW SLIDE) 9 Whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanks to the one sitting on the throne, the one who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the one who lives forever and ever. (NEW SLIDE) And they lay their crowns before the throne and say, 11 “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.”

III. Glimpses of Heaven

A. That’s a powerful glimpse of heaven, and to be honest, it scares me a bit. Think about it – strange creatures, thunder, lightning, and the unimaginable presence of the holy God. The 24 elders definitely have the right idea as they fall down before God every time He is praised and His holiness declared. They lay their crowns before Him over and over again, giving up any and all authority and reward they may have for the joy of being in the presence of the holy God. Powerful picture! Pioneering missionary David Brainerd once told Jonathan Edwards, "I do not go to heaven to be advanced but to give honor to God. It is no matter where I shall be stationed in heaven, whether I have a high or low seat there, but to live and please and glorify God.... (NEW SLIDE) My heaven is to please God and glorify Him, and give all to Him, and to be wholly devoted to His glory" (as cited on SermonCentral.com).

B. Brainerd had the right idea. It’s easy to get hung up on our own ideas of how to worship, instead of focusing on the One we’re worshipping. It’s very easy to get hung up on our own emotional involvement in worship and forget the One we’re worshipping. And it’s also very easy to begin to dissect the worship experience mentally and analyze it instead of allowing ourselves to get caught up with our whole beings in the worship of God. We had an experience kind of like that at the pastors’ prayer summit I went to. During one of the evening sessions we were singing and crying out to God and His presence was almost palpable. All of us could tell that God was speaking and ministering to us. But then all of a sudden it was gone. We talked about it the next morning, and decided a couple of things. First, that most of us had started trying to figure out what was going on instead of merely enjoying God Himself and calling Him closer. Second, most of us knew that there was something more, but didn’t know how to get there.

C. Most of us here in this room suffer from one or the other or both. And that’s why we tend to get comfortable in knowing what’s coming next, in knowing that there won’t be any surprises in our service, because we won’t know what to do about it. (NEW SLIDE) We’ve got to learn to live with our own uncertainty, because when God comes down to renew us, He’s going to do things differently than we’re used to. Let me tell you a little story about Martin Luther. As he was sitting in a German beer garden, his heart went out to all the college students there. He wanted to share God’s love with them, but didn’t know how to cross the cultural gap between Jesus and the young people who were more interested in their culture than God. One afternoon, he listened as they sang a college song, and on the way home he couldn’t get the tune out of his head. A light bulb went on, and he began to take melodic phrases from popular songs and put new words to them. The German culture was transformed. His music became the cultural norm for Germany. As Slaughter writes, (NEW SLIDE) “Renewal gives birth to new worship forms, which relate to the needs and culture of unchurched people rather than to the preferences of the churched.”

I. Relating to the Needs of the Unchurched

A. Let me share another story, this time about John Wesley. He was comfortable with and committed to the formal, liturgical worship of the Anglican Church. But because of his radical conversion and emphasis on salvation by grace, he was kicked out of more and more Anglican Church pulpits. So he had to preach to the working class wherever he could gather them. But they were unchurched and jeered and shouted obscenities at the traditional forms of worship. So John told his brother Charles something like, “Chuck, that German music is too heavy and not melodic enough for the English coal miners. Go out and listen to the workers sing as they go back and forth to the mines, and then sit down and write something that will reach their hearts.” Charles put the gospel message into what we would consider a “Top 40” type of format. The institutional church never accepted his style, but the Methodist renewal was born out of contemporary music forms and the accompanying message of grace.

B. The same principle holds true today. The unchurched begin to flood the church as the gospel becomes relevant to them through their own cultural forms. As Slaughter writes, “The informal then replaces the formal and becomes the new liturgical form. This is a critical renewal principle. (NEW SLIDE) The church always adopts the worship forms of the last renewal movement. It is currently using worship forms that are 125 to more than 250 years old. We may update the words and images in the new book of worship, but the wineskins are still old and brittle. It is time to get new wineskins!”

C. I’ve got to tell you that I’m not exactly comfortable with that truth. I listen to a lot of different styles of Christian music, from pop to rock to hip-hop and rap. But I’ve seen some musicians in worship teams with various facial piercings, and that kind of bothers me a bit. I still can be a bit conservative in my preferences for appearances, and I’m struggling some with that. Why? Because those folks have been truly worshipping God, so whether or not their nose or lip or anything else is pierced shouldn’t matter. I become guilty of judging someone whom God finds acceptable. (NEW SLIDE) We’ve got to remember that people are longing for the presence of God in their lives, and when we adapt our music and methods to reach them and learn to worship in those forms ourselves, we will reach them for Christ. For our area, that may mean adding a bluegrass service. Or maybe an alternative service for younger folks. Or maybe something entirely different. As Slaughter writes, “Jesus didn’t come to cater to the preferences of the churchgoers. He came to meet the needs of the unchurched.”

I. Worship that Makes Sense

A. What does all this mean? We’ve got to get back to a biblical understanding of what worship is all about. (NEW SLIDE) We’ve got to remember that we were created to worship, that worship is meant to be at the heart of life. The worship experience at church has to be connected to the every day lives of the unchurched. What everyone is looking for is something fresh and vital, an experience that makes sense to them. As Slaughter writes, “Worship must relate to the nitty-gritty places of ordinary people in everyday life. We cannot make sense of what we have not experienced.”

B. During America’s expansion west, many of the pioneers were rough, unchurched folks. But the Methodists and Baptists were masters at using folk music, which was the popular form of the day, to reach these settlers. That’s why you can find a Methodist or Baptist church in most of the counties of the United States. The frontier music was vastly different from the rigid, more formal services of the churches in the eastern U.S. These pioneer ministers adapted the form to fit the needs of the unchurched. The form of worship connected with the people’s everyday lives. Think about it. Slaughter writes, (NEW SLIDE) “Worship is one of the most important experiences we have as a community of faith. It must be vital and relevant to people in the context of their life situations.” It worked for the pioneers and it will work for us.

I. Vital Worship

A. Roger Palms wrote, Worship is not just personal introspection, or we would worship our feelings. Worship is not even a warm glow, or we would worship that. We worship One outside ourselves. We concentrate on him, we praise him, we adore him, we hear his Word for he is announcing it to us. We listen in holy awe to the word of God, for it is a part of that "all" of Scripture which is given by the outbreathing of God and is personally necessary for "my" correction and "my" instruction in righteousness (as cited on PreachingToday.com). What Palms is saying is that all of us have got to be players, and not spectators, in the worship experience. That’s hard, because we all of us have times in our lives where we get used to just sitting and soaking, relaxing and enjoying, instead of involving ourselves wholeheartedly and sharing what God has given us with others. Slaughter writes, “The Bible says that each person should bring a unique gift to offer to God in the worship experience. One can bring a hymn, another can share a prayer, and someone else can offer a word of testimony.”

B. God has given all of those who have a personal relationship with His Son Jesus Christ spiritual gifts for use in the ministry of the church. We are all ministers. (NEW SLIDE) We are all called to use our gifts to worship God, to share with others what God has given us. He wants all of us to be actively involved in worship, whether that means coming up front to share or pouring yourself out heart and soul to God where you’re at. People are looking to see whether or not the way we worship lines up with the way we talk, and while we don’t want to be self-conscious during worship, they can tell if we’re being sincere.

C. We don’t have to compromise the truth of God’s word to reach unchurched folks for Christ. We just have to change our methods, and not our message. Slaughter writes, “The churches that will offer new life and hope to this age will be the churches that have relevant worship styles, Christ-centered prophetic preaching, and social sensitivity.”

I. What Makes Worship Vital?

A. So what is it that makes worship vital and alive and celebratory and attractive to people? What makes them want to come back and keep coming back? (NEW SLIDE) Worship that is experiential and relational will attract people a whole lot more than worship that is informational and ritualistic. Words that people use to describe vital worship experiences include feeling, experiencing the Holy Spirit, action, love, relationships, enjoying, freedom, exhilarating, healing, exciting, sharing life, and in His presence. They’re talking about experiencing God and celebrating His presence.

B. As Slaughter writes, (NEW SLIDE) “Vital worship must speak to the whole of human experience. It must reach into the physical, spiritual, relational, emotional, and rational dimensions of who we are as the people of Jesus, in a real world context. This kind of worship continually calls us back to authentic living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.” Vital worship will mean something a bit different for us than for Slaughter’s church, but the principle remains the same. New wine needs new wineskins. Our worship service has got to continually evolve as the Spirit works within us and transforms us. As I said before, God will probably be calling us to add new services with different worship formats soon, in addition to changing the one we already have. More prayer and more testimonies may need to be worked in.

C. To be honest, I have some ideas but am still praying for direction. I’m not going to try something new just to say I tried something new. Everything will have to be done intentionally – with God’s purposes and principles in mind. (NEW SLIDE) We’ll have to revise and revamp in order to bring more and more people to Jesus Christ. That is why we exist – to make committed and transformed disciples of Jesus Christ. As Slaughter writes, “The agenda of Jesus is not the preference of the churched, but the needs of the unchurched. If the church is to experience a new movement of the Spirit, we need new worship forms to hold the new wine.”

D. Illustration – Clark Cothern writes, The US standard railroad gauge – that’s the distance between rails – is 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches. Why such an odd number? Because that’s the way they built them in England, and American railroads were built by British expatriates – that is, people who used to live in Britain. Well, why did the English use that particular gauge? Because the people who built the pre-railroad tramways used that gauge. They in turn were locked into that gauge because the people who built tramways used the same standards and tools they had used for building wagons, which were on a gauge of 4 ft, 8-1/2 inches. Why were wagons to that scale? Because with any other size, the wheels did not match the old wheel ruts on the roads. So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance highways in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been used ever since. The ruts were first made by Roman war chariots. Four feet, 8-1/2 inches was the width a chariot needed to be to accommodate the two rear ends of war horses. Maybe “that’s the way it’s always been” isn’t the good reason some people believe it is. (Clark Cothern, “Leadership”, Winter 1998 – as cited on SermonCentral.com) (NEW SLIDE) Let’s make sure that the reason we do things is because God calls us to do it that way. Let’s make sure that we reach the unchurched because we worship in a vital and celebratory way.

VIII. Conclusion

A. Please bow your heads and close your eyes out of respect for each other’s privacy. What’s God been speaking to your heart this morning? Let’s spend a few quiet moments listening to His Spirit speak to our hearts.

B. Again, what has God been whispering to your heart this morning? If you’re willing to surrender to the Spirit’s leading in helping our church attract unchurched people and lead them to Christ through our worship services, please raise your hand as a sign of that surrender. Then I’ll pray. So if you’re surrendering this morning to His leading in this vital area of worship, please raise your hand. Let’s pray.