Our Worship, chapters 6–8, 21, 31 Within the last few years, two important books for United Reformed worship have appeared: the Trinity Psalter Hymnal and the Forms and Prayers. As Abraham Kuyper’s discussion of liturgy suggests, these publications demonstrate a fundamental commitment of Reformed worship: providing a distinct and definite vocabulary with which the assembly of believers can express their grateful obedience to the covenant God who calls them into his presence each week. This article will consider several chapters from Our Worship in which Kuyper addresses prayers, songs, and offerings.

Challenges of Corporate Prayer

The Heidelberg Catechism calls prayer “the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us.”1 Of course, prayer should be an everyday practice, and its most natural form is what Kuyper calls “free” prayer, in which “each child of God . . . calls upon God in Christ with words prompted by the Spirit” (29).

But prayer in the assembly of believers serves a unique purpose (30). It is not an individual enterprise but a communal activity. Corporate prayer requires congregants to practice attentiveness and even self-denial, renouncing their own diverging trains of thought in order to pray together. It would be impractical and disorderly for all the church members to pray spontaneously out loud at the same time (1 Cor. 14:26–32), so most churches assign the responsibility of prayer to a single leader.

Leading corporate prayer presents challenges. “Without offending anyone,” Kuyper says, “it is safe to say that the art of leading meaningfully in public prayer is the gift of only a few people” (31–32). Such a leader must possess (a) “true priestly heart” that allows him to intercede for the congregation while forsaking his own preferences, (b) the ability to enter a “prayerful frame of mind on the spur of the moment,” and (c) the gift of poetic language to provide appropriate expression to the congregation’s requests. When these gifts are lacking, the intercessor may merely “demonstrate” a prayer rather than allowing the congregation to pray through his words. However, good prayer leaders may become so entranced by their own “beautiful praying” that they cease to offer a genuine sacrifice before God (Matt. 6:5–6).

With these dangers in mind, churches should structure corporate prayer in a way that provides strong leadership while enabling the congregation to participate meaningfully. In some Christian traditions, congregants participate with patterned responses like “Lord, hear our prayer.” Other churches include times of silence within corporate prayers for individual communication with God. According to Kuyper, Reformed worship can offer a third alternative which provides a less obvious but equally rich experience of congregational participation in prayer.

Lessons from Liturgical Prayer Christian parents often teach their children to pray through a simple and direct “form” prayer. At first the child merely learns to repeat the words, but soon the prayer becomes an internalized and vital part of the child’s personal relationship with God. The same childlike simplicity and directness resonate in the prayer Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 6:9–13. “The Lord’s Prayer is a liturgical prayer that has been used throughout the world and throughout the centuries. . . . [T]he Lord’s Prayer puts the stamp of the Savior’s approval on liturgical prayer” (34). With the Lord’s Prayer as a template, Kuyper supports the idea of composing other simple, beautiful, and heartfelt prayers to be recited in the Reformed service. What makes a good liturgical prayer? Kuyper identifies four elements: confession, adoration, thanksgiving, and supplication (35). The church should make use of prayers from its history that address these elements. Most importantly, however, “the congregation should be able to sense the reason for praying” (36), and the prayer must be genuine. Every prayer is a request for Christ to give his people a taste of the water of life. Although the minister typically offers this prayer alone, his delivery must invite the congregation to understand and join his prayer in spirit.2

At the same time, Kuyper is less than thrilled with the traditional Dutch set of liturgical prayers. He wishes the sentences were shorter and the themes were simpler. It is worth noting that the URCNA’s new Forms and Prayers book provides not only simpler revisions of these historic Dutch prayers but also additional historic contributions from other Reformed churches around the world.

The Problem of Posture in Prayer

Absent from this discussion are Kuyper’s recommendations on where prayer belongs in the order of worship.3 He does, however, devote a chapter to the “how” of prayer by addressing the controversial practice of kneeling, often shunned for its associations with Roman Catholicism. Yet even at the time of the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618, kneeling in corporate prayer remained common (141). Kuyper quotes the prominent Reformed theologian Gijsbert Voetius (1589–1676), who defended kneeling in church on multiple accounts: godly people in the Old and New Testaments modeled it, the early church and the martyrs continued it, and the obligation of “assuming a meek and humble attitude when approaching the face of God” can leave no objection to it (144). For these theological, historical, and pastoral reasons, Kuyper encourages Christians to readopt the habit of kneeling during prayer in corporate worship.

The question of kneeling directs our attention back to Kuyper’s basic presuppositions about the relationship between form and content. Reformed churches may fall prey to formalism, in which meaningless repetition saps faith of its value. But Reformed churches may also err by severing any connection between physical actions and their spiritual significance. This dualism is blatantly unbiblical, denying the fundamental unity of body and soul in the story of redemption. Although kneeling may represent an attempt to merit God’s favor or to gain people’s admiration, when practiced biblically it may also “deepen and strengthen the action of the soul through the harmonious cooperation of body and soul” (142). As such, kneeling is a helpful practice in worship—not commandable, but commendable. It illustrates the fully restored harmony of body and soul which we are promised in the new Jerusalem. The Content of Congregational Singing Given the unpopularity of liturgical prayer in his context, Kuyper finds it ironic that congregational singing shows exactly the opposite trend. Few churches, then or now, would encourage a musician to stand up in the middle of a service and lead the congregation in a spontaneously composed song. Many churches oppose composed prayers yet favor composed hymns—even though hymns often function as prayers set to music (37).

That last observation is particularly significant in regard to the history of hymns in the Dutch Reformed liturgy. For centuries, the only hymns appended to the Dutch Psalter were a collection called Eenige Gezangen. And besides musical settings of biblical passages such as the Lord’s Prayer and the Song of Mary, the only songs in the collection were a musical version of the Apostles’ Creed, a morning prayer, an evening prayer, two prayers for meals, and a prayer before the sermon. In other words, the only uninspired songs intended for use in Dutch Reformed public worship served specific, existing liturgical functions of confession and prayer.4

In fact, the accepted practice in most Reformed churches for centuries was exclusive or almost-exclusive psalmody,5 and Kuyper attributes the 1807 addition of a larger collection of hymns into the Dutch Reformed liturgy to “unlawful ecclesiastical might” (37). Kuyper begins by assuming that psalm singing should constitute the backbone of Christian worship, but he also concludes that hymns have a legitimate place in the liturgy. He does not spend much time on the theological grounding for this position, but his basic case for hymnody springs from his earlier argument for liturgical prayer. If the church possesses freedom to formulate its own spoken prayers, then this freedom extends to “sung prayers” as well (38).

Kuyper wishes for the composition of a thoroughly Reformed hymnal containing “songs of great poetic beauty, written by thankful and prayerful sinners” (42). The character of a hymn’s author is extremely important: “only a person who lives close to God and who by his grace is Reformed in heart and soul would be able to write songs for a Reformed church” (42). And the purpose of this collection would be not merely to enrich the devotional life of the worshipers but rather to provide congregations with a spiritual vocabulary to pray together in worship on the wings of beautiful and appropriate music.6

Yet Kuyper finds it necessary to come back to the centrality of psalm singing (39). He makes six statements: (a) the Book of Psalms provides a distinct collection of inspired songs, whereas no such collection of inspired prayers appears in the Bible; (b) the Psalms far exceed hymns in spiritual depth; (c) historically, the introduction of hymns in churches tends to crowd out the Psalms; (d) the Psalms strike “the enduring, eternal keynote of the pious heart,” whereas hymns tend to reflect current religious fashions; (e) hymns lend themselves to the presence of choirs in worship, which discourages congregational singing; and (f) pious saints throughout the centuries have historically contended for the importance of the Psalms in worship. Thus, Kuyper concludes that psalm singing is a biblical, historic, and prudent practice for Reformed churches, worthy of careful attention in a liturgical context that often privileges hymns.

Kuyper makes two practical suggestions about how to sing the Psalms effectively in worship. First, churches must be careful to maintain “the fundamental idea of the unity of each psalm” (44).7 This is a challenge when the full texts of many psalms are far longer than would fit comfortably within the appointed times for singing in a typical service.8 Kuyper recommends planning fewer times for singing in the liturgy and devoting them to longer portions of a psalm, as well as breaking up a psalm into multiple sections to be sung throughout the service. Second, Kuyper encourages the use of multiple tunes for a psalm, in contrast to the old practice of the Genevan/Dutch Psalter, in order to reflect more fully the emotional and thematic changes manifested in the Psalms. The Nature of Offerings Besides prayer and singing, there is another important action of the congregation in corporate worship which is often assigned a secondary role: the offering.9 Although the church’s offerings must not be confused with the Old Testament idea of bringing a sacrifice for sin, Kuyper stresses the continued importance of presenting firstfruits to God (212–13). Kuyper cites a variety of existing methods for collecting the offering, none of which he finds particularly suitable. At the bare minimum, he says, churches should pursue “the goal of setting apart a time in the service for the offering” (214). In other words, he wishes this time to be kept distinct from other liturgical movements, so that the offering is not collected during an arbitrary transition or as an afterthought at the door.

The offering, like prayers and songs, forms the basis of the congregation’s responses to God in public worship. Together, these three elements of the liturgy should provide a rich spiritual vocabulary to direct the humility and grateful energy of assembled believers who stand before the face of their holy and loving heavenly Father.

 

  Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. Who should be responsible for leading corporate prayer in worship? 2. Kuyper focuses almost exclusively on congregational singing as a form of prayer. What other biblically commanded functions of worship might singing fill? 3. How might a greater awareness of the fundamental unity of a psalm change our experience of congregational singing? 4. How can we underscore the spiritual significance of bringing offerings during worship?  

1. Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 45, Q&A 116.

2. Throughout Our Worship, Kuyper’s preference is always toward greater congregational involvement in the liturgy, and he praises Anglican chant for its harmonious and unified method of including the congregation’s voice (38, 137). However, recognizing the tendency toward monotony and discord in spoken congregational readings, Kuyper recommends the sole voice of the minister in prayer as somewhat of a practical compromise (cf. 136–38). 3. The editor of Our Worship identifies two specific places for prayer (besides the confession of sin) in Kuyper’s “ideal” liturgy: (a) a prayer for illumination between the Scripture reading and sermon and (b) a prayer for the needs of Christendom after the sermon and offering (xl).

4. I hope to examine the history of hymn singing in the Reformed liturgy in a future Outlook article, since the Eenige Gezangen are often misunderstood as proof that hymns have always been a part of Dutch Reformed worship. The story is far more complex.

5. D. G. Hart, “Psalters, Hymnals, Worship Wars, and American Presbyterian Piety,” in Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing for the Twenty-first Century, ed. Joel R. Beeke and Anthony T. Selvaggio (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010), 61–76. The practice of exclusive psalmody (plus the Eenige Gezangen) in the Netherlands is confirmed throughout P. Biesterveld and H. H. Kuyper’s Ecclesiastical manual, including the decisions of the Netherlands synods and other significant matters relating to the government of the churches, ed. and trans. R. A. de Ridder (Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1982).

6. For an articulation of this concept of musical corporate prayer in practice, see Gert van Hoef, “Many Gifts, One Spirit: Dutch Organist Virtuoso Profiled,” interview by Michael R. Kearney, Christian Renewal 38, no. 11 (May 2, 2020), 24–28. 7. See Nick Smith, “Singing the Whole Psalm,” Christian Renewal 34, no. 12 (May 25, 2016). 8. I have heard several people express this as a particular challenge of the new Trinity Psalter Hymnal. Since the book places more emphasis on complete metrical versions of the Psalms than did earlier editions of the Psalter Hymnal, it is common to find seven or ten stanzas in a Trinity Psalter Hymnal selection where there would have previously been only three or four. Pastors and church musicians should think creatively about ways to build familiarity with the psalm settings in this book while preventing their sheer length from becoming burdensome and monotonous.

9. Again, Kuyper does not specify where the offering belongs in the order of worship, but the editor infers that Kuyper would have placed it directly after the sermon (xl).

Michael R. Kearney is a graduate student and research assistant in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He is a member of Covenant Fellowship Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPCNA) in Wilkinsburg, PA.