Sunday Mornings

Sunday Mornings: An Introduction to Biblical Worship by Brian W. Phillips

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A colleague and pastor in North Carolina wrote this wonderful introduction to what worship should be. While there are more academic treatments of covenant renewal worship, which is characteristic of my denomination the CREC, this one is easily readable and meant to address the average church goer.

Phillips first attacks the problem, critiquing the typical church’s approach to worship today. It is too casual when we should cultivate reverence and awe. We exalt sincerity and give any and every worship experiment a pass in its name. The Nadab and Abihu incident from Leviticus 10 rebukes this attitude in force. We also remove our children from worship and cater a more entertaining program to them until well into their teen years. Then we wonder why they don’t like “adult worship” when they are brought in later on.

Phillips argues instead that there is a biblical pattern of worship, principles we still should follow found in the most specific instruction God ever gave His people on worship, in Leviticus 9, which Hezekiah follows in 2 Chronicles 29:20-36. I’ll leave the details of this for another time.

Phillips also argues for bringing the children to Jesus in the corporate (all together) worship service. A generation ago (maybe a bit less), this was known as family-integrated worship. The label has fallen on hard times, due to legalistic excesses and scandals in the movement, but the idea is still a good one: stop segregating God’s people by age and instead train the children in the thing you want them to arrive at: mature worship. I think a valid case can be made against this: why not teach to children at the level they can understand (Nehemiah 8:3)? But there’s a better case for the inclusion of children (they eat the Passover lamb, Ephesians 6:1 is addressed to them, etc.). An analogy might be teaching a foreign language using the immersion method early on when they don’t get it all yet, instead of teaching them the grammar and vocabulary later on.

Phillips addresses other hotly debated topics even more briefly:
We should give our baptized children communion with everyone else.
The Sabbath is an ongoing commandment but shouldn’t become a burdensome obligation.

The whole book will either turn people off early on and they’ll dismiss it, or it just begs for more study if Phillips’ assertions are taken seriously, as I heartily believe they should be. One place to go next is The Lord’s Service, by Jeff Meyers.

Highly recommended for thinking through what your church experience should be.



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