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Strategies for Building a Reverent Church · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  One final time we dip back into the online controversy into the Brew haha.
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  It was called Pastor John. In September thirtieth, you tweeted about coffee posted
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  Hebrews twelve twenty eight, which says, let us offer to God acceptable worship
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  with reverence and awe. And in light of that reverent vision for our worship,
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  you posted this open question to all of us, quote can we reassess
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  whether Sunday coffee sipping in the sanctuary fits? End? Quote? The tweet
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  was loved, the tweet was hated. The tweet was spread all over the
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  Internet, to the point that after a couple of weeks it had over one
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  thousand retweets, fifteen hundred comments, three thousand likes, two point seven million
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  views, and feature articles online from Fox News and The Daily Mail. None
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  of what you saw that tweet led to this little series on the podcast.
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  In part one in APGA twenty eleven, you got to the crux, saying,
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  quote, the heart of the matter is not the coffee mug in hand.
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  It's the absence of kind of experience with God that would make a Christian
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  soul long for regular encounters with God and his people that are so profoundly satisfying
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  in the depth of their being, with His majesty and his sweetness, and
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  the seriousness of their joy and the weightiness of His glory, that a coffee
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  mug would simply feel strangely out of place. End quote That was in part
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  one in APGA twenty eleven. And then last time you dropped into the nitty
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  gritty with five appeals to preachers on how to move a casual church towards a
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  more reverent and more deeply satisfying encounter with God on Sundays. That was an
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  APGA twenty twelve. But fostering such healthy reverence on Sunday mornings requires more than
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  just sermons. Right, We've talked about coffee, We've talked about preaching now,
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  but what about dress codes and music and announcements and all the other factors
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  at play here on Sunday mornings. One of my points so far, Tony,
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  has been in this which is turning out to be a three part series
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  on a sense of reverence and transcendence in worship. One of my points has
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  been that we will never out entertain the world, and therefore it's it's not
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  only foolish to try, we shouldn't try, because we have something better,
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  far far better than entertainment to offer our people something our souls were made for,
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  something profoundly stabilizing, strengthening, refining, satisfying at the depths of our
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  being that we experience in moments of reverence and awe in the presence of God.
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  That's been one of my main points. So I began last time to
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  point what I hope is a way forward for pastors especially, but churches,
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  or people in general in churches, a way forward to move a church gradually
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  from the atmosphere of a casual chipper coffee sipping, entertainment oriented gathering to a
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  more seriously, joyful, reverent, deeply satisfying encounter with God. And I
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  started by referring to the preaching of the pastor, and today I simply want
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  to give a few suggestions about the rest of the service. I know this
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  is not the only way that we meet God, that is, to meet
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  Him in a joyfully serious moment of reverence and awe. I know that it's
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  not the only way we encounter each other and God. We used to say
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  at Bethlehem, where I was pastor for thirty three years, we used to
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  say that Sunday morning is the Mount of Transfiguration, and Sunday evening we had
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  Sunday evening services. Sunday evening was the Mount of Olives. On the Mount
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  of Transfiguration, the disciples met the majesty of Christ, and they fell on
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  their faces speechless, or they began to say foolish things. On the Mount
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  of Olives. Luke tells us Jesus got away with his disciples customarily, and
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  I picture them on the Mount of Olives, sitting on the grass with each
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  other, talking about life and ministry, getting help from Jesus, telling them
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  the problems they've had, and trying to heal the sick. These are two
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  very different ways of meeting Christ. And my argument was namely to my church
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  when we talked about these things, that one hour out of our entire week
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  to devote to a serious meeting with God in a more transcendent and reverent way
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  was not excessive. The whole world, all week long is urging us to
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  equate pleasure with casual happiness with entertainment. But on Sunday morning, our people
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  can taste in corporate reverence and awe something far deeper, far better, far
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  more satisfying. So on the mounds of transfiguration, I wore a suit.
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  I stood behind the pulpit, big wooden pulpit representing God's word, and the
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  whole service was designed with a relentless vertical God focus. In the evening,
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  I did not wear a suit. I dressed differently. I came down out
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  of the pulpit, I used an overhead projector, there was interaction with the
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  congregation, and so on. You get the difference in the difference between the
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  amount of olives and the amount of transfiguration. So, in all my pleading
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  for a sense of reverence and awe and wonder and transcendence, for the sake
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  of God's glory and for our own hungry souls were starved for transcendence. I
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  think, in all that pleading, don't hear me denying the preciousness of meeting
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  Jesus together in informal, interactive, casual ways. God is for us in
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  both of these encounters. Our hearts need both, and we don't live in
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  a day where there's an excess of reverence and transcendence. So here's just a
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  few suggestions for the rest of the service. The Sunday morning service, where
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  I think it more naturally adapts itself to this kind of experience with God.
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  Number One, the pastor can lead the way in how the leaders and the
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  people up front or in the carregation how they dress. We never prescribed a
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  dress code for our people, and there was a lot of variety, but
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  we did for those who lead. Clothing speaks. What you wear says something
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  about your understanding of the situation. A wedding, a funeral, interviewing for
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  a job, meeting the President of the United States, playing tennis, sleeping,
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  addressing the United Nations, attending a fundraising gala. What you wear speaks,
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  It does, you cannot avoid it. It sends a message about your
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  understanding of the event. And the message of clothing in the last forty years
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  in the church has largely become God does not require any particular dress or nice
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  clothes. God accepts us as we are. Both of those messages are true,
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  and it's not a sin to send those messages, but they're not the
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  only message worth sending. The upfront leaders of the service will have to decide
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  what do we want to say about God in the various gatherings of the church.
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  Is there one gathering anywhere in the life of our people, in the
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  life of this church, just one where it would be worth saying, with
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  our clothes, and in every other way something about the respect and reverence and
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  awe that we have for God. Clothing is not a big thing, it's
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  not the main thing. It's just one part of what church leaders can do
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  to move a church toward a serious joy of reverence and awe. Number two,
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  give serious attention to the godward flow of the service. Strive to linger
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  in the presence of God, focused on God, on interrupted for a significant
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  time, for example. Avoid unnecessary spoken sutures the way different acts of worship
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  are connected, how you move from one to the other. If you're just
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  finishing the song I love you Lord, and I live my voice to worship
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  You, and the next planned act of worship is a pastoral prayer. The
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  one who comes to pray does not need to say, let's pray. We
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  are praying. That's what we're doing. When we say I love you Lord,
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  We as a congregation are loving God. We're praying to God, we're
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  telling God. So the aim of the one leading the people in the pastoral
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  prayer is to catch that powerful moment when the Holy Spirit is that we're carrying
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  our people God world, and he picks up on it, and he helps
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  the people just stay right in the prayer and carries them into communion with God
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  in the pastoral prayer. Another example would be work hard to do the necessary
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  horizontal acts like announcements or word about the offering in a God Word way.
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  I spent hours preparing my announcements and preparing other things in the service that you
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  have to do as a pastor. If something's happening in the life of the
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  church, that we do to tell the people it's happening, and you can
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  do it in a worshipful God Word way that doesn't jolt anybody out of the
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  sweetness of the communion with God that they were just enjoying in the hymn.
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  You don't need to joke about things. You don't need to ramble with trite
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  words that you'd say over and over because you didn't prepare anything with a bunch
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  of you knows and alms and ers, and everybody's now defla from where they
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  just were in their moment of worship. Suppose there's gonna be a fire drill.
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  We did this recently at our church. You get a fire drill for
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  the kids right in the nursery and during the service, you got to train
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  them for what you're gonna do if there's a fire. And the people you
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  know in the church are gonna see their kids walking up the stairs and they're
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  gonna be panicked, like what's going on here if they don't know there's gonna
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  be a fire drill. Now, this is a worship service, right,
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  how do you do that? What do you say? What you get on
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  your knees at home and you ask God show me how to take this word
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  about the fire drill and make you the center of it. So you conclude,
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  I'll say this, Jesus loves our kids. You know that he loves
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  kids. Jesus threatened terrible things for those who would make our children stonemach.
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  So we take good care of our kids for Jesus' sake. And you're going
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  to see them filing out here on a fire drill, and you have a
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  big smile on your face. But you're gonna joke here. You're not gonna
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  turn this into a joke. You're gonna say, let's give thanks, Let's
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  give thanks when we see those kids. What a gift from God? They
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  are to us. What a weighty responsibility. God is sufficient. Oh how
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  he loves and we love our children. That's the way you do it,
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  or something like that. There is always a sweet, good, deep,
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  powerful, wonderful alternative to slapstick. And most of our pastors, I mean,
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  that's not fair. Lots of pastors and other worship leaders have no idea
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  what I'm talking about when I say, you just don't need to turn everything
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  into lighthearted jokey Okay, that's enough on that number three. Let the sound
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  of the congregation singing be the main sound of the music in worship. Don't
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  let the instruments or the lead worshipers dominate the sound. That's what entertainment does.
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  Let every song be singable. It needs to have a melody that people
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  can grasp and enjoy. And make sure that the song is keyed so that
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  the men can sing all the notes. It's crucial that the men of the
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  church sing, and they will sing. They'll seem like an army if the
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  musicians choose the songs and calibrate the songs and the range of the notes so
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  that the men can sing. If half our songs are singable only by women,
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  we are saying to the men, this is not for you, and
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  you might as well grab your coffee. So let the songs be singable,
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  and let the congregation singing be the main sound of worship, not the worship
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  team, and not the instruments. Finally, number four, saturate the song
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  lyrics, the prayers, the readings, the confessions with scripture and with rich,
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  deep sound doctrine. This will communicate that nothing here is random or careless.
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  It's all designed to help the people sustain a relentless focus on God.
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  And that's the focus that will make coffee sipping seem increasingly out of place.
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  So I end Tony where I began in the first episode on this couple of
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  episodes ago. Coffee sipping in the worship service is not the heart of the
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  matter. The heart of the matter is Hebrews twelve twenty eight. Let us
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  offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. Is there in the church
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  a longing for this glorious thank you, Pastor John. The whole world all
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  week long is urging us to equate pleasure with casual, happiness with entertainment.
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  But on Sunday morning, our people can taste in corporate reverence and awe something
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  far deeper, far better, far more satisfying. Quote. What a hope?
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  What a promise? What a prayer? What a vision of what our
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  Sunday morning gatherings could be? Thank you Bestor John for this three part series
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  on building reverence into our Sunday worship gatherings and for expanding on what was behind
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  your popular and controversial tweet. I appreciate you taking time to address it.
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  If you want to ask Pastor John, type out your question in an email
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  it to me at Askpastor John at desiring Good dot org. That's our email
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  address, Ask question John at desiring Good dot org. I'm your host,
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  Tony Ranky. We will see you on Thursday.