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- Herausgeber: IVP Academic
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Serie: Dynamics of Christian Worship
- Sprache: Englisch
At its best, all Christian worship is led by the Holy Spirit. But is there a distinctive theology of Pentecostal worship? The Pentecostal church or the renewal movement is among the fastest-growing parts of the body of Christ around the world, which makes understanding its theology and practice critical for the future of the church. In this volume in IVP Academic's Dynamics of Christian Worship (DCW) series, theologian Steven Félix-Jäger offers a theology of renewal worship, including its biblical foundations, how its global nature is expressed in particular localities, and how charismatic worship distinctively shapes the community of faith. With his guidance, the whole church might understand better what it means to pray, "Come, Holy Spirit!" The Dynamics of Christian Worship series draws from a wide range of worshiping contexts and denominational backgrounds to unpack the many dynamics of Christian worship—including prayer, reading the Bible, preaching, baptism, the Lord's Supper, music, visual art, architecture, and more—to deepen both the theology and practice of Christian worship for the life of the church.
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Contents
AS CHAIR OF a worship arts program at a Pentecostal university, I have focused a lot of my thought and study around renewal worship. After recognizing the lack of academic resources for renewal worship, I felt inspired—even called—to write on the subject. As I embarked on this mission, I knew God would supply many voices to encourage, challenge, and even correct my thinking along the way. God did, and this book wouldn’t be possible without their insight.
I’d first like to thank my colleagues and students at Life Pacific University, my primary dialogue partners who helped me work out these ideas. I would particularly like to thank Luci Sanders, Eric Lopez, Ryan Lytton, Josh Ortega, and Marlene Muñoz for reading through parts of the manuscript and offering feedback. While their insights undoubtedly made the book better, any mistakes found throughout these pages should in no way reflect on them. I would also like to thank the good folks at the Society for Pentecostal Studies for giving me a platform to test out these ideas.
I’d like to extend my gratitude to Amos Yong for his encouragement and for connecting me with the folks at IVP, and to the Dynamics of Christian Worship advisory board members for choosing this book to be a part of the series. What an incredible honor! I would like to thank the incredible staff at IVP, and especially my outstanding editor, David McNutt. His steady hand and brilliant guidance made this process extremely rewarding.
Finally, I’d like to thank my personal support system, which includes my wife, Connie; daughter, Mila; and all my friends and family who encouraged me along the way. It is my hope and prayer that professors, students, and worship pastors will find this book illuminating, with both theological and practical insight.
Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come before him.
Worship the LORD in holy splendor;
tremble before him, all the earth.
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice,
and let them say among the nations,
“The LORD is king!”
THE PASSAGE ABOVE is part of King David’s famous psalm of praise recorded in 1 Chronicles 16. After bringing the ark of God to Jerusalem from Obed-Edom, David quickly commenced with a ceremony commemorating the installation of the ark in a temporary tent he made. The ceremony included burnt offerings, a feast distributed to every adult in Israel, benedictions, a call to remember God’s covenant with the Israelites, and of course, a psalm of thanksgiving. David’s psalm indicates broadly what worship is all about—ascribing worth to the worthy God. For David, worship is our universal response of adoration to God. This response is eternal, stretching across the entire earth, engaging every nation, and even reaching to the heavens. Worship connects people with God and others in the worshiping community. It animates the relational vitality of the people of God.
Worship is, before all else, the most appropriate response we can give to God who has been revealed to us by the Son and through the Holy Spirit. But while we can easily understand that Christians should worship, we might find ourselves asking how worship corresponds with our understanding of God and the Christian faith, and what God’s self-revelation really means. Because these questions are theological by nature, the best way to fully answer them would be to heed a theology of worship. But what exactly is a theology of worship? If Christian theology concerns the study of God in relation to humanity and the nature of Christian faith, then a theology of worship studies how religious devotion to God (worship) bears upon Christian faith and doctrine (theology). To be sure, worship and theology are necessarily bound together. They affect each other in a person’s holistic expression of faith, so a “theology of worship” naturally encloses the full expression of Christian spirituality. Furthermore, theologies of worship reflect the theological commitments of worshiping communities, so as worshiping communities differ in their spirituality and ecclesial traditions, so do their theological understandings of worship. Hence, a distinct theology of worship could be written for any Christian tradition that forms and sustains a worshiping community. This book looks at how renewal worship—which particularly emphasizes the renewing presence of the Holy Spirit in its reading of Scripture, its theology, and its practice—works in Pentecostal and charismatic traditions. While we could certainly zero in on specific denominations within the renewal tradition, we will look at the movement of Pentecostalism broadly, endeavoring to uncover the common language voiced by renewal worship.
This chapter is our prelude—the short opening section of music that establishes the key, tempo, and feel for our principal composition. It serves as the introduction to our study on renewal worship. The first section looks at the hermeneutical approach this study takes. Not only does it explain the method used in this book, but it also makes an argument for developing hermeneutical approaches whenever studying cultural customs or practices. The next section profiles the global Pentecostal movement in its varied, multifaceted context. It makes an argument for studying renewal worship while also defining and situating pertinent terms and concepts used throughout the book. Finally, the last section briefly outlines the structure of the book’s content. Because of renewal worship’s pervasive influence on contemporary worship around the globe, crafting a theology of renewal worship is both needed and consequential. When we better understand renewal worship, we can better understand what God is doing globally through contemporary worship.1
A HERMENEUTICAL APPROACH FOR UNDERSTANDING WORSHIP
Christian worship has two principal aims: to glorify God and to help people enter into God’s presence. It accomplishes these aims by continually reinforcing the gospel narrative both privately to the individual worshiper, and communally to the gathered worshiping community. There is a single story that unites every Christian throughout history, and Christian worship sustains that gospel message as its guiding narrative. As author and worship pastor Zac Hicks states, “The vast witness of the history of Christian worship across traditions agrees that the gospel is the story we should tell. And a truly Christian worship service should tell this story.”2 So, while Christian worship unilaterally proclaims and reinforces the gospel narrative, Christian traditions differ, and particular worshiping communities emphasize different aspects of the same Christian narrative. Here we can be encouraged by Paul’s teaching of the one body and many members (1 Cor 12:12-27). Each Christian community can be viewed as a different member of the same body, but they are all ultimately unified by the same Spirit of God. Paul emphasizes both the unity of the church as every member of the body has a function and mutually contributes to the body, and the diversity of the church as each member has a different function. One of the main points of the body metaphor, which Paul uses in several areas (Rom 12:3-9, 1 Cor 6:9-20, Col 1:15-20, and Eph 4:11-16), is that every member of the body is equally valuable. The church is intimately united with Christ, and even in its diversity Christ is the head of the universal church. Before anything else, Christian worship is a devotional practice that unites the church toward intimacy with God. This does not disregard the various expressions of worship found throughout different Christian traditions, but it does indicate they are all united by the same Spirit even in their differences.
Almost every Christian tradition utilizes Scripture reading, praying, preaching, music, offering, and the observance of Communion and baptism in their worship. Some traditions, however, observe additional sacraments, and formally incorporate other rites like processionals, the reading of creeds, responsive prayers, and benedictions in worship. Furthermore, some traditions informally integrate other practices such as testimony, dance, drama, prophetic art, and footwashing as acts of worship. Every tradition utilizes many of these elements but de-emphasizes or discards others. Rather than looking at “the right way to do” worship, it is more helpful to simply examine how different traditions contribute to the body of Christ in their own ways. Here one can take an inclusive, interdenominational approach that simultaneously focuses on the unity of the global church while underscoring the worship practices of a particular worshiping community. This sort of approach can be accomplished by utilizing hermeneutical tools to both understand and situate a particular worshiping community in the broader global milieu. Before we discuss different approaches to understand and evaluate Christian worship, however, let’s take a moment to define worship as a unified concept.
Worship is constantly talked about in the Bible but is never actually defined. In fact, the Bible has more than six hundred references to worship, with at least eighty-seven different Hebrew and Greek words used to describe it.3 But in its multiplicity, something that is consistent is that God is the one glorified, and worship begins with God.4 Some scholars use these distinctions to define worship as reflecting back God’s self-revealed worth.5 What’s good about this definition is that it recognizes the fact that worship begins with and returns back to God. The problem with this definition, however, is that it implies passivity in the human response. With this definition the worshiper is like a mirror, merely reflecting something back to God. Humans become purely passive vessels, and worse, God emerges as a vain self-aggrandizer. But if we adopt a definition that focuses on an active response, we’ll accentuate God’s relational character and avoid human passivity. I suggest that we define worship as turning our hearts toward God as a response to God’s self-revelation. Here worshipers are relational, responding to a relational God. This definition sees worship as active and participatory, and recognizes both the human and divine elements involved in worship, while firmly establishing its beginning and end with God. As worship scholar Constance Cherry writes, “True worship is the experience of encountering God through the means that God usually employs, a conversation built on revelation/response. Viewing worship as a conversation implies a relationship.”6 Emphasizing relationality indicates that worship is not something worshipers make, but is a response to who God is. It implies that worship necessitates the church’s response to God’s self-revelation. To this point liturgical theologian Ruth Duck adds, “A relational theology of worship holds together the conviction that God truly is present, revealing Godself in worship, and the conviction that worship is not complete without the church’s response in faith and love.”7 Worship is a two-way street that requires reciprocal action, and the human response to God happens both individually and communally.
The Bible uses several words in both Hebrew and Greek to form a broad understanding of worship,8 but there are two primary groupings of words in the Old and New Testaments that describe worship exclusively.9 Worship is known as “reverence” with the Hebrew word shakhah, which means to depress, to bow down, or to prostrate oneself, and with the Greek word proskyneo, which means to bow down and kiss, as in to kiss the hand of a superior. These words convey that worship is an expression of active reverence as a person literally bows down and reveres a subject. Worship is also known as a work of “service” with the Hebrew word ’abad, which means to work for another or to serve another by labor, and with the Greek word leitourgia, which means the service or work of the people. Both of these words are commonly attributed to priests and clergy, and convey worship as an act of service. Using these groupings as a guide, this book will look at worship as both an expression of reverence and as a work conducted by the people. In so doing, this book looks at worship both abstractly as a concept and concretely as a social activity.
Having defined worship we can determine what approach we’ll use to study renewal worship. Prescriptive nonfiction books are like how-to books that teach and guide readers to learn about or improve skills. Many books about worship are prescriptive, explaining how to lead a congregation in worship, or how to enter into God’s presence, or how to foster spiritual formation through worship. While these books are practical and helpful in their own ways, the more foundational books about worship are not prescriptive, but hermeneutical, discussing what worship is (abstractly) and how worship works (concretely). This approach helps us understand some of the underlying mechanisms behind worship practices before their proper administration is ever prescribed. I have chosen to use a hermeneutical approach because prescriptive approaches are often too exclusive and regulatory. Some worship styles or traditions will inevitably be left out or unfairly rebuked when a single author prescribes how worship should be done out of his or her convictions. Alternatively, discussing how worship works in a particular tradition or community avoids unnecessary prohibitions and allows us to take a step back and recognize formative roles in worship. Because these roles are unavoidably contextualized, we have a better view of what these worship practices mean for that culture. Practical suggestions and normative propositions can henceforth be determined as fitting within the narrative framework of the worshiping community. But what does a hermeneutical approach to study worship entail? To answer this, let’s first define hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics is the field of study that deals with interpretation. When one thinks of hermeneutics one might think of “biblical hermeneutics,” which utilizes exegetical techniques and principles to uncover the meanings of biblical texts. The broader field of hermeneutics, however, is utilized when interpreting any meaningful human action or byproduct. Anything can be “read” as a text. When people choose particular styles of clothing, for instance, they are helping us determine how to read or categorize them. If an American male wears a cowboy hat, belt buckle, and boots he has put himself in a narrative of “cowboy” or “southwesterner.” He has chosen, knowingly or not, to be in dialogue with all the formal aesthetic, history, social impact, and presentational awareness that goes along with that sort of dress. In other words, he has chosen which narrative he’d like to be associated with. The same can be said for someone wearing a cashmere sweater with flats and a Gucci bag, or a LeBron jersey with Jordans and a snapback hat. Hermeneutics looks at all of these clues to see how meaning is made in a culture. These particular examples are about fashion, but hermeneutical approaches or methods can be applied to any cultural phenomenon.
When looking at Christian worship through a hermeneutical lens, we are first seeking to understand the worship practice before we prescribe any commendations or suggest any corrections. Theologian David Tracy sees the hermeneutical work of a theologian as one who seeks to “retrieve, interpret, translate, mediate the resources—the questions and answers, form and content, the subject matter—of the classic events of understanding of those fundamental religious questions embedded in the classic events, images, persons, rituals, texts and symbols of a tradition.”10 Put differently, theologians seek to interpret all the sources, practices, and materials that surround the most pivotal events that define the Christian faith. In our case, we are seeking to understand the Christian response of worship to classic events such as Christ’s redemption, the universal outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, and the commission of the church to extend the kingdom of God as we await the coming king. We are seeking to understand these events on theological terms from a particularly Pentecostal perspective and examine how they are embodied in Pentecostal spirituality.
Another issue with prescriptive books is that they often claim to be the biblical approach to worship. The problem with this claim, however, is that biblical theologies derive from scriptural interpretations. Biblical texts are understood through several unavoidable contextual lenses like our traditions and religious experiences.11 Even the language we use to read the texts contextualize our understanding of them. As David Taylor points out, “Starting points in Scripture are never neutral; terms are never neutral; exegesis is never neutral. And to say that worship must be in ‘accord’ with Scripture is far from self-explanatory.”12 So, what is it that makes one approach to worship more biblical than another if the starting point (the biblical passage) was interpreted, and the worship practice derived from that particular interpretation? One could arguably find, after all, a biblical basis for every varying worship practice across Christian traditions. There is a biblical basis for full immersion baptism (Mt 3:13-16), and for sprinkling (Ezek 36:25). There is a biblical basis for transubstantiation (Jn 6:54), consubstantiation (1 Cor 10:15-18), and for symbolic understandings of the Eucharist (Mt 26:26-28; Mk 14:22-25). There is a biblical basis for spontaneous musical worship (Ps. 96:1), and for the restriction of instruments in the church (Hab 2:20). There is a biblical basis for high church, sacerdotal liturgies (Rev 4–5), and for low church, evangelical traditions (Acts 2:42-44). There is a biblical basis for fostering spiritual gifts in and through worship (1 Cor 12:4-11), and for the cessation of the extravagant gifts (1 Cor 13:8). And the list goes on. While some biblical interpretations are certainly stronger than others, this book does not make arguments for a particular tradition’s superior reading of a text. Nor does it compare the liturgies of different traditions and determine which practices are more biblical. Instead, our hermeneutical approach begins by acknowledging at the start the biblical lens that shapes renewal worship and its practices. In other words, we are not arguing for but assuming an exegetical lens from start to finish. We will see in the following chapters that Pentecostals and charismatics, while engaging the whole Bible, particularly view the gospel narrative through the lens of Acts 2. It is here where the Spirit is poured out on all flesh and the church is empowered and mobilized to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. This biblical lens shapes all the worship practices of renewal worship, and so will predicate the theological method used throughout this book.
When we seek to understand the worship practices of a particular worshiping community, in our case Pentecostal and charismatic worship, we can look at which particular biblical passages are interpreted and emphasized, and how the worship practices reinforce those biblical ideas. After assessing the cultural artifacts of renewal worship, commendations can be offered if the worship practices line up with the implications of the passages they’re based on, and corrections can be suggested if the practices veer away from the renewal interpretations of the text. This is not merely a prescriptive approach to a theology of worship, however, because it uses a methodological measuring stick that’s evaluated against the tradition’s own narrative lens. By adopting Acts 2 as the biblical lens of our theology of renewal worship, I am following a general consensus (among contemporary Pentecostal scholars) that Pentecostal theologies are characterized by a biblical hermeneutic that’s informed by Luke-Acts, and Acts 2 in particular.13 Nevertheless, my findings will bear my own inevitable biases as an interpreter. I am, in fact, an insider of this discourse—a Pentecostal scholar, educator, and practitioner. As a theology, this book is ultimately confessional. But to avoid off-the-cuff prescriptions on matters of renewal worship, we’ll use a theological method for renewal worship as a measuring stick for gaining the meaning of the “texts,” both scriptural and cultural.
PENTECOSTALISM AND THE GLOBAL LANDSCAPE
So, why renewal worship? To answer that question, let’s begin by defining some key terms, including the Christian renewal movement, Pentecostalism, and renewal worship. Clarifying terms up front aids our understanding by helping us avoid vagueness and ambiguity later on. The Christian renewal movement consists of interdenominational Christian groups around the world that place special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God. The term renewal movement can be interchanged synonymously with Pentecostalism if Pentecostalism is defined broadly as the global movement, comprising denominational “classical” Pentecostals, Neo-Pentecostals, and charismatics. In other words, the renewal movement refers to any stream of Christianity that exhibits Pentecostal and charismatic features in their worship, doctrine, and spirituality. Whenever I use the terms “renewal” and “Pentecostal,” they will be used in this manner unless otherwise stated or qualified. Renewal worship refers to the worship and liturgical practices of Pentecostal and charismatic communities around the world, which are particularly attentive to the renewing power of the Holy Spirit.
Some would argue that the major stream of renewal in world Christianity comes from the global Pentecostal movement.14 In fact, Pentecostalism has been identified as one of today’s fastest-growing global religious phenomena,15 and many reasons have been cited for the advancement of Pentecostalism around the globe. For instance, Allan Anderson writes that Pentecostalism’s main expression is pneumatological (centered around the doctrine of the Holy Spirit), making its interpretation broad and ecumenical16 as it pertains to the whole Christian church.17 As such, Pentecostalism is easily adopted and adapted throughout the world.18 William K. Kay suggests that Pentecostalism “assumes that practice is theology” in its ability to combine belief and practice.19 It is experiential and practical, making it more approachable than formal dogmatic approaches to Christianity.20 As the popular moniker states, Pentecostal experience is “better caught than taught.”21 Amos Yong states that its message of Spirit empowerment is attractive to diverse and marginalized groups around the world. Pentecostalism offers a desperately needed message of hope to people who struggle through lower socioeconomic statuses.22 Recent literature, however, presents the embodied worship culture of Pentecostalism as another possible reason for its global impact.23 Anderson, Kay, and Yong’s assessments are not wrong because there are many factors that determine the reasons behind the rapid growth of any religious or social phenomenon. Likewise, there are many ways to evaluate religious identity and its impact on human experience on a global level.
Nevertheless, I suggest understanding the movement’s nature and appeal by examining Pentecostalism not through creedal formulae, but by its culture of worship. Instead of shoehorning the actual praxis of the faith back into an earlier doctrinal formula, this approach allows the renewal practices themselves to guide the way we come to understand Pentecostal spirituality. Because renewal spirituality, by definition, seeks a fresh, replenished expression of the historic Pentecostal traditions, studying the contemporary culture of worship hermeneutically elucidates the Spirit’s present activity in the movement. That’s not to say that doctrinal formula should altogether be avoided; there are still guiding motifs in renewal spirituality that must be identified (I will contend that the universal outpour of the Holy Spirit motif is the prevailing renewal guiding narrative). Rather, this hermeneutical approach seeks to understand what dogmas arise from the communal (worshipful) confessions of the guiding narrative.
A great part of what defines Pentecostalism is how its doctrinal and liturgical distinctives flow from religious experience. Religious or spiritual experiences are subjective encounters that cannot be comprehended through the five senses and are thus interpreted through religious frameworks. Pentecostal theologian Keith Warrington defines Pentecostalism’s “heartbeat” as the experiential encounter of God.24 Many other distinctives have been suggested to define Pentecostalism,25 but Warrington believes that they are too restrictive because they are either too closely related to a particular denomination or tradition, or too vague because they are variously interpreted around the world.26 A focus on spiritual encounter avoids confinement to a particular denominational understanding of Pentecostalism and makes room for diverse interpretations of other characteristics commonly associated with Pentecostalism. This does not prevent us from approaching common theological distinctives like Spirit baptism or speaking in tongues; rather it allows us to speak of those distinctives broadly without foregrounding any reading that is too closely tied to a particular tradition within the global Pentecostal movement.
I will primarily consider the global Pentecostal movement as it is today in the twenty-first century. Numerous excellent books tracing the revivalist origins of Pentecostalism already exist,27 so my primary focus will be to exegete the contemporary worship practices that are culturally significant today. A major premise of this book is that renewal worship incubates and cultivates the experiential spirituality that defines Pentecostalism. Thus, studying Pentecostalism’s culture of worship allows us to see what formational mechanisms already exist and how the stimuli implicitly or explicitly support a Pentecostal community’s lived spirituality and doctrinal positions. In this way, we can see the Pentecostal ethos at work as it highlights the impact of its religious experience. I will be exegeting the worship culture of Pentecostalism, which will, in turn, help us to better understand the movement in general.
So, let’s try answering the question again: Why renewal worship? Studying renewal worship allows us to grasp the meaning and significance of both the global Pentecostal movement and of Pentecostalism’s influence on contemporary worship. Consequently, this theology will not only be important for Pentecostals, but for anyone engaging in contemporary forms of worship of which Pentecostalism has a significant impact.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK
Numerous practical and theological consequences arise when addressing what renewal worship is and how it works. To properly address these issues, the remainder of the book is broken up into two parts. Part one is titled “Profiling Renewal Worship,” and answers the “what,” “who,” and “how” of renewal worship by mapping out a theological method and addressing pertinent implications. Part two is titled “Renewal Worship in Context,” and fleshes out further implications that concern structure and spontaneity in renewal worship, the narrative and prophetic aspects of renewal worship, and the reconciling witness and global appeal of renewal worship. Finally, there is a conclusion that brings all the themes discussed in the book together.
Each chapter begins with a short exegesis of a pertinent scriptural passage. An important principle of Pentecostal theology is for it to be biblically based, and one of the main reasons this book adopts a hermeneutical approach to understand worship is to see how the renewal worshiping community bases its worship practices on Scripture. Scripture thus informs and catalyzes the concepts that follow. Each chapter also ends with a doxology in the form of a poetic stanza that captures the ideas presented. Taken all together, these doxologies form a nuanced “Pentecostal doxology” that gives insight into a pneumatological theology of renewal worship.
Chapter one begins part one with a chapter titled “What Renewal Worship Is: A Biblical and Theological Method.” This chapter establishes our study’s theological method by identifying the Acts 2 account of Pentecost as the guiding biblical narrative. The implications of this passage see worship experientially as an inbreaking of what is to come. This inbreaking comes to us as a charism, or gift given for the good of the church, from God when the Spirit is poured out on all flesh.28 This pouring out flows from the initial outpouring at Pentecost and is perpetually reciprocated as a response from God’s people. Because this response is active and not passive, real affective hope is possible. This is indebted to the theological idea that the kingdom of God is “already and not yet”—already present since Jesus inaugurated the kingdom while on earth, but not yet fulfilled as we await the second coming of Christ. This rightly points Christian hope to the return of Christ and allows us to let that future hope proleptically29 break into and form our present circumstances. This model emphasizes the pneumatological component involved, especially as it pertains practically to a theology of abundance.
Chapter two, titled “Who Renewal Worship is For: The Object of Worship,” discusses the relational nature of renewal worship by advancing a theology of abundance. This chapter maintains that renewal theology and renewal worship focus on the Spirit as abundant Gift. This suggests that God is both the operating Giver and the Gift that is given to humanity. Not only does God foster divine relationality through God’s own nature, but God also invites us into relationship with God and each other through the revelation of the Son and by the mediation of the Spirit. God’s presence is available abundantly as the Spirit is poured out on all flesh, and it is through this gracious Gift that we are drawn back to God. In this way, we understand that the object of renewal worship is the relational God.
Chapter three, titled “How Renewal Worship Works: Worship as a Shaping Narrative,” explores the ways in which the Pentecostal worship experience is emplotted and interpreted by the worshiping community.30 In particular, this chapter looks at how music demonstrates and reinforces the Pentecostal story aesthetically, helping people discover their own part in the broader narrative. From Pentecostalism’s birth as a revivalist movement, music has been ubiquitous to every expression of its worship. Music is so important to Pentecostal spirituality that it is regarded sacramentally as an occasion to encounter God in the midst of the people’s praises.31 Music scores the other liturgical elements of renewal worship, adding a powerful affective dimension to the ritual reinforcement of the Pentecostal narrative.
The book then switches gears with chapter four, titled “How Renewal Worship Flows: Between Word and Spirit.” As part two of the book seeks to hermeneutically approach particular practices within renewal worship, all of the remaining chapters help to uncover what these worship practices mean and how they affect renewal communities and Pentecostals worldwide. Chapter four explains the “flow” of renewal worship and how worship is navigated spiritually in a service. Renewal worship oscillates between the creative (formational) power of the Word, and the refining (deconstructive) power of the sanctifying Spirit. Although distinguished here by role, Word and Spirit are unified and work together in the life of a Christian and are always in tandem in worship, but renewal worship is unique in the way that this oscillation plays out through notions of structure and spontaneity, and triumph and lament. These ideas were inspired by Irenaeus’s understanding of the Son and Spirit as the “hands of God” and how the formational power of the right and the deconstructive power of the left work in tandem to bring about growth and renewal.32 In renewal worship, ambient music and improvisational words and prayer often create that charged space where spiritual formation takes place. Because renewal worship is sensitive to the Spirit, ministers have the ability to navigate the spiritual needs of the community through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The main point of chapter five, “What Renewal Worship Says: The Prophetic Functions of Renewal,” is to discuss the ways in which renewal worship functions prophetically in both the local and global church. This chapter discusses how spiritual alignment through worship is necessary for understanding God’s will for worshipers and for worshiping communities. Once aligned, worshiping communities come to understand the Spirit’s ministry in their community and the world. This requires both knowing the worshiping community’s social context and discerning what new work the Spirit is doing in the public arena. Because the Spirit indwells the church, the prophet no longer acts as God’s only mode of communication to the people. Pentecostals believe Christ’s sacrifice allows every believer to have the ability to communicate directly to God through the ever-present Spirit. Renewal worship also works prophetically on a global scale. In recent years, some renewal worship songs have broadcasted singular messages to the universal church. Global distribution and the mimetic quality of songs allow unifying messages to shape whole generations.
Chapter six, “Who Renewal Worshipers Are: The Renewed Global Community,” claims that the universal outpour motif demonstrates the Spirit’s work for global unity and reconciliation as the Spirit is poured out on all flesh. Reconciliation is made available by Christ’s redemption, and the Spirit creates the appropriate space for people to be reconciled back to God and with each other. This chapter argues that Pentecost and the Azusa Street Revival both demonstrate how a universal outpour of the Spirit must precede true reconciliation, and how renewal worship helps spread this unifying message. This chapter also looks at some ways renewal worship has approached global engagement, promoting unity while respecting cultural differences. The main argument of this chapter is that renewal worship must be understood as a global reality, and we should celebrate its diversity, acknowledging the different ways people around the world honor God.
The conclusion, “Where Do We Go from Here?,” draws together all the themes of the book and succinctly outlines the book’s theology of renewal worship. By answering the “what,” “who,” and “how” of renewal worship, part one introduces a theology of renewal worship that sees God’s Spirit flowing abundantly from the universal outpour. Worship in a theology of renewal is both the reception of and response to the Spirit’s overflow, and the visualization of what is to come. Part two shows how this theology works out practically in a worship service (chap. 4), how this theology speaks to and affects the local and global community (chap. 5), and how the church has implemented these ideas around the world to foster reconciliation and unity (chap. 6).
Studying renewal worship is a worthy pursuit whether you consider yourself a devoted constituent of the Pentecostal movement or an inquisitive outsider. Because Pentecostalism is one of the fastest growing religious movements in the world, and because its influence spreads far beyond denominational lines, it is vital that anyone concerned with the global church come to know the biblical and theological commitments behind renewal worship practices. Doing so will help you learn a little more about your own worshiping community, and it will help you understand what God is doing today through the renewal movements. While we are united by the same Spirit, and every part of the body of Christ is significant, let us, then, come to understand and celebrate what the Spirit is doing through the renewal worship practices of Pentecostalism.
In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
THE PASSAGE ABOVE takes place on the day of Pentecost after the Spirit came upon those who gathered in the upper room (Acts 2:1-4).1 As crowds gathered, Peter stood and declared the partial fulfillment of Joel 2’s prophecy concerning the Day of the Lord,2 and more than three thousand people welcomed the message and were baptized (Acts 2:41). This is Pentecost—the culmination of Christ’s earthly ministry and the birth of the church.3 Peter’s discourse ties together at least three pertinent themes that we see expressed again and again in renewal theology and spiritualty. First, we see priority given to the outpoured Spirit. This is God impelled upon creation to mobilize and motivate the increase of God’s ministry on earth. Second, we see an emphasis on the egalitarian distribution of charismatic gifts. Everyone—man and woman, young and old, slave and free—will be enlisted and equipped to become God’s active agents to carry out this ministry. And third, this whole event bears an eschatological imprint. The outpour occurs in the “last days,” presumably to usher in the kingdom of God. Every part of this—the outpour of the Spirit, the commissioning of God’s people, and the expansion of the kingdom—was inaugurated by Christ during his time on earth and points forward to his return. The goal of this book is to mine this account and see how renewal worship is both informed by and reinforces this narrative and its many implications.
The whole biblical narrative rises to a crescendo with Christ, and while some may see Christ’s ascension as the crux of this apex, Pentecostal theologian Frank Macchia reasons convincingly that the biblical narrative actually climaxes at Pentecost because it is here where Christ pours the Spirit out on all flesh.4 Through Pentecost, redeemed people become agents of the kingdom of God. Macchia writes that Pentecost “is the event where the Spirit Baptizer pours forth the Spirit on all flesh and incorporates us into himself—into the life and mission of the triune God.”5 If theology is the study of God in relation to humanity, the Pentecost event should be seen as supremely theological because humanity is brought back into God’s life and mission. At Pentecost, Christ pours out the Spirit on the newly commissioned humanity to help bring about God’s redemptive plan for creation.
For Macchia, what began as a biblical theology of the account of Pentecost in Acts turned into a theological method for understanding Christian, and particularly Pentecostal, faith and doctrine through the lens of Pentecost. The benefit of such an approach is that we can fix our theological interpretations to a centralized point of narrative contact. It helps us comprehend our Pentecostal spirituality in light of a greater, cohesive, biblical narrative. Such a method would be appropriate for rooting a renewal theology of worship. Even though Christian worship can be understood as a social phenomenon, concepts that pertain to faith traditions cannot merely be understood sociologically. Sociology helps us understand social relations between peoples and cultures but cannot adequately explicate the spiritual and theological significance of religious concepts. As Pentecostal theologian Mark Cartledge points out, “Theological texts need theological contexts to make sense of them.”6 In order to truly understand how a community worships, we must get a sense of what worship means theologically for that community and how this meaning fits within the community’s contextual framework. To this end, this chapter seeks to determine a theological method that is biblically based and pays close attention to the hermeneutical, text-context negotiation that concerns the meaning and practice of renewal worship. Beginning with the Acts 2 account of Pentecost, our method makes the “universal outpour” motif the keynote biblical image through which everything else is observed.
As the title of this chapter suggests, we will answer the question “What is renewal worship?” by articulating a theological method for renewal worship that is biblically rooted in the Acts 2 account of Pentecost. Following Frank Macchia, this method connects the universal outpour of Acts 2 to the return of Christ and helps us understand future hope as proleptically breaking into and forming our present circumstances. This chapter also differentiates the Pentecostal understanding of worship from evangelical and sacramental views, especially as it concerns the immediate presence of God in worship and the gifts that are bestowed by God through worship. Finally, this chapter demonstrates practical considerations of this method, highlighting the significance of healing in renewal worship, and displaying how this might work out in individual, communal, and societal levels. It is my hope that this theological method will be thoroughly biblical, thoroughly Pentecostal, and useful for understanding Christian worship in a renewal context.
GROUNDING A BIBLICAL THEOLOGICAL METHOD
The expression biblical theological method is not a highbrow term for merely reading Scripture but denotes a method for interpreting Scripture and evaluating the doctrinal implications of the interpretation. Developing a theological method for renewal worship that is biblically based must, therefore, be indicative of the way Pentecostals read Scripture. That’s not to say Pentecostals read a different Bible or practice things that are extrabiblical, but it does mean that Pentecostals bring some theological commitments to the text before reading a passage. This shouldn’t be alarming, though, because every Christian tradition brings some of their own theological commitments to the biblical texts. This is an inescapable fact of our bounded reality. No one comes to a text from a totally neutral or completely objective position. Pre-text commitments are often inherently formed through the religious practices of the Christian tradition.7 What’s unique about Pentecostalism is that worship, and particularly musical worship, is one of the great determining factors of Pentecostal theology. In other words, renewal worship helps shape the Pentecostal pre-text. While many theologians have historically viewed a faith tradition’s emotions and attitudes (pathos) as flowing from Christian action (praxis) that was initially informed by belief (doxa), Pentecostal theologian Kenneth Archer flips the script, claiming that worship is the primary way Pentecostals do theology. Archer writes,
Our theological explanations can become a critical reflection upon our doxology with our acts of worship always informing and transforming our official dogma; and, in turn, our dogma informing our doxology. Orthodoxy has more to do with our primary way of doing theology, which is worship, than the secondary critical reflective activity—the production of official dogma or right believing (orthopistis).8
What this means is that we can’t look at the foundations of renewal theology through a strictly linear lens. Doxa does not necessarily come before praxis and pathos in Pentecostal traditions. Rather, these modes of conduct commingle and inform each other through communal expression. When discussing renewal worship, we can appreciate belief and action together in concert, eschewing any chronological priority. Taking this into account, we can take a closer look at how theology informs worship and vice versa.
Uncovering theological commitments. The aural makeup of a liturgy is formative for a community’s theology.9 What is expressed, verbally and artistically, accents particular theological commitments of the community’s outlook. We often hear of worship scholars, particularly ones writing prescriptively, discussing the “theological soundness” of a worship song. Soundness, in logic, refers to a statement being both valid and true, so if something is theologically sound it makes sense and speaks truly of the Christian faith. The problem with finding the theological soundness of a song is that often people disregard a song’s implicit theology because it does not agree with their own theological commitments. But theologically different does not mean theologically unsound. In fact—and this is important—most published worship songs are theologically sound; they just portray contrastive theological commitments.
A theologically unsound song must deny or at least confuse primary doctrinal beliefs. Primary Christian beliefs are fundamental and broad—the types of beliefs one must confess in order to be considered a Christian. These primary beliefs are creedal, having been mostly scrutinized and formalized by the fourth century. Many of these beliefs were nicely encapsulated in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and affirm basic Christian beliefs: God is the Creator of all things, Christ and the Spirit are coeternal with the Father, Christ died and rose again for the redemption of fallen humanity, the Scriptures are holy, Christ will return to judge and set all things right, Christ inaugurated the kingdom of God, which has no end, and God established the confessional church for witness. If a worship song denies or confuses any of these statements, then indeed, it is theologically unsound. But most songs affirm these statements, either outright or implicitly. The matters of theological difference in these songs are usually secondary or even tertiary issues that illustrate particular theological traditions. To make this point, let’s consider three ways contemporary worship music expresses theological commitments lyrically and by its structure.
Keith Getty and Stuart Townend’s contemporary hymn “In Christ Alone,” for instance, is about finding one’s identity in Christ, but like many hymns this song traces the whole gospel message from the incarnation through the death, resurrection, ascension, and second coming of Christ. But the line “Till on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied,”10 suggests a particular commitment to the penal substitutionary theory of atonement. This is a theological view of atonement that’s held by many evangelicals today but rejected by several mainline traditions. In a nutshell, this view states that Jesus’ sacrifice satisfied divine justice and that God was unable to forgive sin without someone or something assuming its penalty. My point here does not concern the theory’s theological propriety; I simply want to demonstrate the presence of a theological pre-text commitment in a worship song. In this case, the implicit commitments of penal substitution align with Reformed theology. Reformed theologians will likely want to include penal substitution as a primary belief, but that would mean millions of Christians around the world that hold to a different view of the atonement are denying a primary Christian doctrine, which leads, inevitably, to heterodoxy, or at worst heresy. But, as stated above, primary Christian beliefs are broader and more foundational. The creedal, primary belief that’s affirmed here is simply that Christ atoned for our sins, not which theory of atonement explains this assertion best. In other words, people who reject the particular theory of penal substitutionary atonement have not committed heresy, but people who reject the broader belief that Christ has atoned for our sins have.11
Similarly, Hillsong Worship’s song “So Will I (100 Billion X),” is about creation bowing down and worshiping God. Although the song’s main theme isn’t controversial, one of the lines is
And as you speak
A hundred billion creatures catch your breath
Evolving in pursuit of what you said
If it all reveals your nature so will I.12
The lyrics are poetic and do not offer an explicit commitment to the theory of evolution in God’s act of creation, but by using the word evolving in a context that also describes nature and science in the line prior, Hillsong has left open the possibility for concepts like theistic evolution, which is popular in theologically progressive and post-evangelical traditions. The creedal, primary belief that’s affirmed here is simply that God created all things, not the manner in which God created. Those who profess a particular theory of how God created everything have not committed heresy, but people who reject the broader belief that God created everything have.
One final example can be found with gospel artist Tasha Cobbs Leonard’s song “I’m Getting Ready” through lyrics that state,
Eyes haven’t seen
And ears haven’t heard
The kind of blessings
The kind of blessings
That’s about to fall on me.13
One could see a commitment to the prosperity gospel or at least to a theology of abundance.14 This sort of theology is expressed across many charismatic traditions, but also viewed (and rejected) by many other traditions, including some Pentecostal traditions, as a justification for greedy consumerism.15 To really understand the positive and negative implications of this theology we must handle these commitments with more nuance—a task that will commence in the next chapter. For now, let’s settle on the less contentious notion that worship song lyrics are not theologically neutral, but expressive of a particular faith community’s theological tradition.
While worship song lyrics regularly demonstrate and reinforce theological commitments, the structure of worship also helps to shape theology. To shed light on how worship influences spiritual and communal formation, worship scholar Glenn Packiam differentiates between a service’s “espoused” and “operant” theology.16 Espoused theology considers the words that are expressed through songs, preaching, prayers, and so on, whereas operant theology is what is encoded in the worship. Uncovering what’s encoded requires analyzing the structure and form of the worship practice, and the way it’s performed or enacted.17 For instance, when worship is sacramental, the presence of God is emphasized through a covenantal understanding of ritual. When the worship service utilizes a lot of intercessory prayer and focuses on healing and abundance, the community’s theology is shaped by paradigmatic lived experiences. What a community does when they gather to worship demonstrates and shapes the community’s theological commitments as well.18 And not only are theological commitments implied and shaped by worship, theological principles for understanding worship are also implicit in the worship service.
Differentiating evangelical, sacramental, and Pentecostal worship. Gordon Smith, in his book Evangelical, Sacramental & Pentecostal, constructively distinguishes between the evangelical, sacramental, and Pentecostal principles19 found in worship, arguing that the universal church should synchronously inhabit all three attributes. While each tradition affirms a holistic approach to worship, each of these principles emphasizes a different aspect of God’s “ecology of grace.”20 We will look at how these principles are defined and use them typologically to organize pertinent theological outlooks in and around the renewal movements. It should be noted that any form of codification has drawbacks because the categories are inevitably painted with broad strokes. Worshiping communities will undoubtedly reflect multiple facets of each of these principles. Nevertheless, organizing these experiences by abstraction will help us recognize to which proclivities a worshiping community is drawn.
The evangelical principle affirms Scripture as the “animating role in the life of the church.”21 Scripture here becomes a primary means by which God is present in the church. Evangelicals, therefore, seek a dynamic theology of the Bible.22 This principle highlights the emphasis on the Bible, especially in didactic forms found in evangelical worship, where worship songs are evaluated by their ability to faithfully articulate biblical truths. For instance, consider how evangelical worship leader Matt Boswell describes the role of the worship leader: “If we are to teach and admonish one another through song, then the people choosing or writing the songs need to be well-versed in the emphasis, movement, and contours of the Bible. We must become singing theologians whose aim is to teach and proclaim the truth of God with accuracy and skillfulness.”23 This agenda regards Scripture highly but is didactically geared toward the edification of the mind, conceivably at the expense of engaging the holistic, formational powers of worship and the arts. Rather than forming people’s affections through the liturgical arts, the arts are used secondarily as a tool to convey biblical truths. Furthermore, when this principle is followed dogmatically, poetic and contextual expressions of biblical truths in worship can be disregarded or even derided.24 In a worst-case scenario, the Bible can take precedence over the Spirit, leaving no room for a direct, experiential encounter with God. This is particularly dangerous because anything that takes precedence over God becomes an idol.25 The idolatrous homage of the Bible is called “bibliolatry.” As Richard Foster notes, “To avoid the heresy of bibliolatry, we would do well to remember the classical formulation of Christian theology: Christus Rex et Dominus Scripturae. ‘Christ is King and Lord of Scripture.’”26 We cannot allow the Bible to be proclaimed more than Christ who is Lord of all, even Scripture. We also cannot allow the Bible to precede the actual presence of God. As will be discussed further in chapter three of this book, even something good like the Bible can become an idol.
Conversely, the sacramental principle emphasizes ritual as a symbolic means for receiving God’s grace and animating the Christian faith in the lives of believers.27 The rich Christian symbols of baptism and Eucharist “integrate heart and mind in our bodies.”28 The sacraments engage us holistically, and are significant because they are symbols directly ordained by Christ. These symbols also carry spiritual power as they “locate Christ’s presence here and now.”29 The presence of Christ is, in a mysterious way, enfleshed through the sacraments. The sacramental principle seeks to faithfully practice the rituals of worship described and authorized in Scripture. The sacramental principle becomes dangerous, however, when the rituals fossilize and become mere tradition. When this happens, the relational principium behind the sacrament is lost, and the symbols become the ends rather than the means that point to deeper realities. In a worst-case scenario, the rituals themselves are worshiped rather than God. Once again, the basest pitfall of all is idolatry, but instead of bibliolatry, this principle can perpetuate the idolization of ritual.
Finally, the Pentecostal principle affirms the church in the power of the Spirit. Here the Spirit is viewed as being immediately and graciously present in worship.30 While the evangelical principle claims to experience the presence of God primarily through Scripture, and the sacramental principle claims to experience the presence of God primarily through the sacraments, the Pentecostal principle claims to experience the presence of God directly through the constant and gift-giving Spirit. The worshiping community experiences what Packiam calls an “I-You encounter” with God, where the person and community (the collective I) meets God in song and prayer.31 This direct, experiential encounter of the Spirit epitomizes what Pentecostals see as renewal worship. The Bible is not disregarded, nor are the sacraments neglected, but each is understood as a testament to the actual, concomitant relationship a believer has with God. Christ’s promise of the Spirit (Jn 15:26; 16:7-15; Lk 24:49) is taken at face value, and believers experience God as Spirit in worship. All Pentecostals believe that God still reveals new things to believers today, but typically Pentecostals believe that these revelations should align with Scripture.
The Pentecostal principle becomes dangerous when experience trumps Scripture. In this regard, a Pentecostal or charismatic may believe a personal conviction is as significant as Scripture, or worse they may defend a personal conviction that goes against Scripture because they’re convinced it came as a special and personal revelation. Since God is not duplicitous, personal revelations should always be in sync with what God has already revealed through Scripture. The worst-case scenario for the Pentecostal principle is similar to the evangelical and the sacramental principles. Instead of idolizing the Bible (evangelical) or idolizing ritual (sacramental), the biggest snare of the Pentecostal principle is the idolization of experience. Pentecostal biblical scholar Melissa Archer warns against this: “For Pentecostals, the temptation towards false worship might seem irrelevant; after all, Pentecostals seek above all an authentic and experiential encounter with God. Pentecostals, however should constantly discern whether or not they are unwittingly engaging in false worship.”32 For Pentecostals, idolatry might come in the guise of propping up charismatic pastors or leaders to a status of devotion, or elevating a technologically equipped physical atmosphere or style of worship to a point of veneration.33 In these cases something has taken precedence over God, even if the intention was, ironically, to foster the atmosphere for encountering God.
While the Pentecostal principle puts the worshiper’s personal and communal relationship with God front and center, Scripture and sacrament are still necessary for rightly knowing God. As Smith writes, “In our worship, it should be clear—evident and obvious—that both Word and sacrament are supremely charismatic events, means and moments wherein the Spirit of the Living God is present to the world.”34 As Scripture and sacrament render the Spirit present in the world, the Spirit is personally and directly present in the lives of the believers before and outside Scripture and sacrament. Since the Pentecostal principle reveals a theological commitment to experiential encounter, renewal worship renders every encounter of the Spirit an act of worship. Deeming worship as every encounter of the Spirit means that both the extravagant and the “mundane” experiences with God constitute worship. While renewal worship is experienced through ecstatic praise, miracles, and tongues, it is also experienced by hearing God’s voice in the quiet of prayer, devotion, and Scripture reading. Worship can happen in solitude, at the table, and in the streets—whenever and wherever God is present. Anywhere God is present becomes “holy ground,” and is thus fit for worship. This sentiment can be found in the lyrics of Christopher Beatty’s praise chorus “Holy Ground,” which affirms that holy ground is wherever the Lord is present, and “where He is, is holy.”35 There is no sacred space apart from God, and any space becomes sacred when God is present. Of course, God is omnipresent, so part of what makes a space sacred is the worshiper recognizing the presence of God in the space. Sacredness is thus dependent on a reciprocal acknowledgment of God’s presence in a space. In other words, sacred spaces occur at the location where the worshiper turns his or her heart toward the ever-present God.
It should be noted that stating worship happens wherever God is present is not saying “all of life is worship.” Stating all of life is worship becomes a mere platitude when it is not understood theologically.36 To say that one thing is entirely something else renders the initial term meaningless. Words embody difference in meaning, or else distinctions could never be made. So, while it is tempting to say all of life is worship because it seemingly elevates worship’s significance, its lack of contextual framework makes the phrase ambiguous and unclear. If all of life is worship, then worship is both everything (all of life) and nothing
