Our Worship, chapters 1, 4–5, 9–12 If, as my last Outlook series claimed, our culture’s crises of identity, community, and tradition threaten the survival of the Reformed church in the twenty-first century, what part can a small and vulnerable community of faith such as ours play in stemming such a mighty flood? We have already discussed some possible answers to this question in patterned ways of living that affirm Christ’s kingdom in all areas of life: families patterning their homes on gracious hospitality, employees patterning their labor on a weekly model of work and rest, and individuals patterning their lifestyle on sacrificial involvement in the local church. But what about the patterns of our life together as a community of faith when we gather each week to worship God? How does the rhythm of corporate worship offer a joyful and winsome response to the deterioration of culture and community around us? If last year’s series centered on the somewhat problematical word “tradition,” this year’s series adds another problematical word: “liturgy.” By liturgy I am not referring to vestments, candles, incense, and other high-church traditions. Nor do I mean to broaden the term, as do some Christian philosophers, to include all of life.1 At its root, liturgy merely means “public service” (leitourgia), and what concerns us here is the specific practices that constitute the public worship of God. Simply put, liturgy is the pattern of our life in God’s house. Patterns communicate what matters in a relationship, and the patterns of our corporate worship communicate what matters in our relationship with the Lord. Every church has a liturgy— even if the liturgy is nothing but a vehement protest against structure and tradition. And the form of our liturgy says something about our identity as believers and the content of our faith. It is uncommon to describe a Reformed church as liturgical or to call a Reformed worship service a liturgy. And yet, if you visit several URCNA congregations around the continent, you will see (despite some variations in practice) a fairly large degree of congruence in how they worship. In contrast to the freeform style of a typical nondenominational American church, the Reformed tradition possesses a relatively consistent liturgy reflecting a specific set of beliefs about worship. But why do we worship as we do? Too often the scriptural, historical, and practical reasons for our liturgy escape us. And if we fail to reflect on our patterns of worship, we neglect a beautiful and integral element of the Reformed tradition. Unawareness of the Reformed liturgy is not a new problem. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Dutch theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) penned a series of articles for the Reformed magazine De Heraut to defend the practices of corporate worship against ignorance and abuse. Kuyper later enlarged the articles and collected them into a book, Onze Eeredienst, which was translated into English and published in 2009 as Our Worship.2 With theological richness, pastoral warmth, and frank practicality, Kuyper’s commentary on the Reformed liturgy fills a need that is still felt today.3 My purpose in writing for The Outlook this year is to explore the practical dynamics of Reformed worship with Kuyper’s book as a guide. I hope such a discussion will offer encouragement and insight for pastors, office bearers, and musicians—those who lead and facilitate worship. Even more, however, I hope this series will inspire all Reformed Christians with a greater appreciation of the communion of saints and the holy dialogue between the Lord and his church that takes place each Sunday. For those who wish to follow along in Kuyper’s original (Our Worship is available from Eerdmans for $32.00), I will note the chapters I am drawing from at the beginning of each article. I have grouped the thirty-nine short essays of Our Worship into six general themes: Form and Content, Gathering and Dialogue, Confession and Forgiveness, Prayer and Song, The Word Read and Preached, and Sacraments and Offices. Since Kuyper’s magazine-series-turned-book is naturally somewhat scattered in organization, I will often need to jump from chapter to chapter (even within a single article) in order to present a coherent survey of his thought. We begin, nevertheless, with chapter 1.    

Liturgy Resists Individualism

Although we tend to think of individualism as a recent and distinctly American attitude, Kuyper discerned its first seeds in the Dutch culture of his own time. Individualism recasts worshipers as consumers who choose a church based on the products and services it offers, with no awareness of the larger institution in which they participate.4 Kuyper describes a “free-reining spirit” that turns a congregation into “an independent business run by the minister, without any confessional forms and without connections to other churches” (7). Such a gathering severs itself from the continuity of Christ’s church dating back to Pentecost, violates God’s commandments about worship, and harms the spiritual health of the worshipers (5).

Liturgy, Kuyper suggests, offers an antidote to individualism. Neither the minister nor the members get to dictate the elements of worship—this is the prerogative of Scripture alone (6). Liturgical awareness combats individualism by promoting biblical faithfulness, honoring the historical rationale for Reformed worship, and linking the church across space and time with past and future generations (7). Liturgy Reflects the Faith Kuyper’s contributions to “liturgical awareness” can be summed up in two major principles. The first is the relationship of form and content: what we say and how we say it. As has already been stated, liturgy communicates. And the form of our worship can communicate as much or more as the actual words uttered within it. Throughout its history, the church of Jesus Christ has rarely achieved a harmonious balance between form and content. At times it has fallen into an empty formalism in which the content of the faith is all but lost. At other times it has focused exclusively on content while claiming that form does not matter, or worse, that artful forms are necessarily evil. Kuyper warns against both extremes, but it is the latter danger to which Reformed churches have historically fallen prey (48–50). In seeking to avoid idolizing beauty, Reformed Christians have sometimes opted for a model of worship that is not merely plain, but downright ugly. But insofar as form and content are related, ugly worship—even in tiny details—communicates a spiritual problem. More than once Kuyper mentions a particularly hideous stovepipe that cuts across the sanctuary of one of the Reformed churches in Amsterdam (47). Careless construction communicates carelessness about worship. Because form and content are related, Kuyper finds it unsurprising to enter “a crude and rough building, hideously painted, badly equipped . . . cold, chilly, and repulsive” and to encounter in that building “a sermon without elegance, movements without grace, and singing that sometimes sounded like clearing one’s throat” (54). Beautiful forms are no guarantee that genuine worship is present, but ugliness in church may be a telltale sign of its absence. In contrast, genuine worship should naturally produce beautiful forms in service to the glorious content of the gospel (49). This is not to say that congregations ought only to worship in beautiful buildings. Kuyper acknowledges that in times of persecution and hardship “people must assemble wherever they can” (48). And here, too, form communicates. For a church plant that meets in a storefront or school, the informal and functional surroundings can communicate an earnest commitment to worshiping God together even when material resources are scarce. But whether in hardship or in abundance, we should strive for a physical context that conveys something of the beauty due to our heavenly King. Liturgy Relates the Material to the Spiritual This brings us to Kuyper’s second major principle: the relationship between the spiritual–invisible and the material–visible. The spiritual–invisible should direct what goes on in worship, and the material–visible should provide that worship with a beautiful and fitting form (24–25). This harmonious relationship is dishonored not only when the sensory aspects of worship drown out its spiritual character, but also when the spiritual leaves no room for grace and beauty in the service (24). When artistic considerations such as architecture and music become ends in themselves, they oppose and contradict the explicit purposes of the assembly of believers (53). So the church is duty bound to exclude sculptures, paintings, architectural ornamentation, and instruments as soon as any of these artistic elements begins to obscure or overshadow the holy dialogue at the heart of Christian worship (55–57).

However, if such artistic endeavors are presented in a way that serves and supports the spiritual–invisible character of worship, Christians ought not to dismiss them outright. Kuyper writes, “Insofar as art is willing to lend itself to this humble service of assistance, the Calvinist too will welcome art in the realm of the sacred” (54).5 The physical space should serve and support the spiritual character of the divine meeting that occurs in the service.

Liturgy Reorients Physical Space

So far, Kuyper has taken great pains to emphasize that the form of our worship matters and that the physical elements of our churches ought to affirm and support the spiritual character of worship. Before turning in future installments to consider how these two principles inform specific aspects of worship, it is worth summarizing Kuyper’s comments on three prominent facets of the visible church.

The Building Architecture communicates through “the language of stone and wood” (90). The Old Testament temple proclaimed that God dwelt with his people in an earthly sanctuary. A Roman Catholic cathedral asserts the presence of two sanctuaries: one in heaven and one on earth. A Reformed church ought to affirm that our sanctuary is in heaven alone. For this reason it would be more appropriate to call our sanctuaries “forecourts,” since our worship consists in “observing what is happening above, and identifying in [our] experiences and feelings with the sacred ceremony in heaven above” (65–66). The most fitting historical model for church buildings, then, is not the temple but the synagogue (89). Kuyper offers two major questions for designing a church building: how it will serve the needs of the meetings that will occur there, and how to reflect the nature and purpose of the assembly in the architectural style (70). His recommendations are ordinary and practical: Design entrances to be large and welcoming. Ensure good ventilation, plenty of natural light, and a reliable heating system. Provide ample seating, arranged so that members can see one another and hear the minister easily (71–72). Avoid designs that privilege some seats over others, which would destroy the unity of the Spirit (88–89). A great deal of spiritual damage, Kuyper observes, can be accomplished by poor church architecture alone (73).

The Altar Area

An altar communicates the notion of sacrifice. The Reformed church has no altar, because Christ, our perfect sacrifice, has already offered himself for us. “Our priest is no longer a sinful human being, but Christ in heaven. And our sacrifice is no longer what we offer to God, but rather what God offers us in the Lamb that was slain, who died for us and conquered” (23). Typically, Reformed churches replace the altar with the communion table. And Kuyper encourages both the table and the baptismal font to be central along with the pulpit at the front of the sanctuary, in order to communicate the centrality of the two sacraments in Christian worship (76–84).

The Attire of the Minister and Worshipers

Clothing communicates a variety of ideas, such as status and office (59). Dressing up for church can communicate that worship is a unique and reverent activity set apart from the ordinary labors of the week. However, it can also veil a conceited heart (60–61). “[N]othing forbids us to appear in the gathering of believers in distinctly suitable clothing and to come to some agreement on that subject,” writes Kuyper. “The evil in all special vestments lies in the distinction,” when we assign human importance to the caliber of one’s clothing (62). So Kuyper encourages Christians to observe the following general guidelines: ministers ought not to dress like priests in ceremonial garb; ministers need not dress differently than their congregants; believers may adopt “symbolic attire” in order to differentiate themselves from the world, but not from one another; and churchgoers should generally aim to be “decent, becoming, and proper” in their choice of clothing (63).

Kuyper’s case is simple: physical aspects of worship communicate no less than spiritual aspects. Our appearance and our meeting place communicate the nature of our faith and our relationship with our heavenly Father. For believers assemble within a world that is at times hostile, at other times disinterested, but sometimes even curious. If liturgy means “public service,” liturgical awareness offers a public service announcement: Christ is King! Be reconciled to God! Join us with the church of all ages as we assemble before him! Because our liturgy communicates, we can go on to examine each facet of our worship in the light of Scripture so that in form and in content God’s holy name will be honored and praised.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. How would you describe your church’s liturgy? What is the most important thing it communicates? What is the first thing a newcomer would notice?

2. What is front and center in your church’s worship space? What does that communicate about priorities in worship?

3. Who built your church’s present building, and when? What might its style and design communicate to passersby?

4. Is it possible to come to an agreement on how to dress in church? What are some scriptural principles for appropriate attire?

1 The classic statement of this position is James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009). 2 Abraham Kuyper, Our Worship, ed. Harry Boonstra (1911; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). I will refer to Our Worship throughout this series with page numbers in parentheses.

3 There are, of course, plenty of resources on the theological and historical background of Reformed worship, but comparatively little is available on the specific liturgy that developed in the Dutch Reformed tradition. One of the best general introductions is Hughes Oliphant Old, Worship That Is Reformed According to Scripture (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1984).

4 The effects of individualism on institutional religion are a common concern of social commentators both inside and outside the church. See Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, The Good Society (New York: Vintage, 1992), 179–219; Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 20th anniversary ed. (1985; reprint, New York: Penguin, 2005), 114–24. 5 Kuyper uses the term “art” to refer to a wide range of artistic media such as sculpture, painting, architecture, and music. He is not endorsing the presence of images of Christ or statues of the saints in worship, and he explicitly warns against the tendency of sculptures and paintings to encourage idolatry (55). 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.