The Big Idea of Biblical Worship: The Development & Leadership of Expository Services

By David A Currie

The purpose of The Big Idea of Biblical Worship: The Development and Leadership of Expository Services is to help preachers and other worship leaders focus on shared biblical content that everyone, regardless of denomination or theology, holds in common. The result? True communion and unhindered relationship with God and fellow worshippers.

The components of worship emerge from its content as filtered through a complex variety of contexts: denominational, cultural, ethnic, regional, generational, seasonal, theological, and more. If those involved in worship are in agreement about its basis in Scripture, then they can bring that common biblical content to their particular set of contexts. This book will help worship coordinators and ministry leaders develop worship services that fully reflect what God is saying in his word in ways that can be received and reechoed in the uniqueness of particular communities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
• Release date: Apr 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781683072751

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The Big Idea of Biblical Worship: The Development & Leadership of Expository Services (ebook edition)

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ebook ISBN 978-1-68307-275-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Scripture quotations contained herein are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Due to technical issues, this eBook may not contain all of the images or diagrams in the original print edition of the work. In addition, adapting the print edition to the eBook format may require some other layout and feature changes to be made.

First ebook edition — May 2019

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Cover design by Karol Bailey

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

1. Defining Biblical Worship

2. Expository Services: Selecting & Studying the Passage

3. Expository Services: Forming Liturgical Ideas

4. The Shapes Expository Services Take

5. Leadership of Expository Services

Conclusion

APPENDIX A: Liturgical Ideas Worksheet

APPENDIX B: Worship Evaluation Form

APPENDIX C: Case Studies

Recommended Resources

Endorsements

For Susan,

in gratitude for worship shared, planned, and led together

and of course

"Not to us, Lord, not to us

but to your name be the glory,

because of your love and faithfulness."

(Psalm 115:1)

Acknowledgments

Just as You never walk alone—and, as I’ll make a case for later on, You never worship alone—so too you never write a book alone. Even though my name is the only one on the cover, many others over many years have helped me develop my approach to biblical worship and put it into print.

As the title suggests, this book on worship is dependent upon the seminal work of Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages. When I first discovered this book as a new preacher, I remember my profound gratitude that someone had laid out a clear process for what I was floundering around trying to figure out on my own. My gratitude grew as Haddon moved from author to associate later on in my life as we came to share leadership of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and he encouraged me personally and professionally to apply his preaching approach to worship.

Haddon’s colleagues in Gordon-Conwell’s Preaching Department—Scott Gibson, Jeff Arthurs, and Matt Kim—have patiently guided me further along in my understanding and appreciation of the nuances of the Big Idea method. They each have also played key roles in the Evangelical Homiletics Society, which provided me with opportunities to try out the ideas that now form some of the sections of this book (on the lectionary and on lectio divina) through papers I presented at annual conferences.

While we taught the Pastor as Preacher residency of the Pastoral Theology in Practice DMin track together, Scott heard me teach more of the material in this book, and he began regularly and insistently encouraging me to translate it from oral to written form. If I had listened to him more responsively, this book would have appeared years earlier. Our co-mentor for this track, Ken Swetland, added his voice to the chorus of encouragement, highlighting what many of our students shared with me: I can’t find this stuff any place else. When are you going to write this up as a book?

The Biblical Worship DMin track that I developed and taught with my colleague Gary Parrett compelled me to think through what I had been doing as a pastor in far greater depth. Gary’s consistently thorough and thoughtful feedback shaped my approach as we taught together, and his ongoing prayers since then have shaped this work for the better. The amazing students in the two cohorts who completed this track also refined my thinking and encouraged me to pursue publication. They field-tested this approach in a wide variety of contexts—from Singapore to India to Taiwan to Springfield, Missouri; and in Pentecostal, Congregational, Anglican, Baptist, and Korean Presbyterian churches—confirming its flexibility and applicability far beyond how it originated in my own ministry. I am delighted that one of the graduates of this track, Randal Quacken­bush, and Gordon-Conwell’s new professor of worship, Emmett Price, will be taking over the track from Gary and me.

Three pastors—Chris Edwards, Doug Forsberg, and Chris Ziegler, who still welcome me as one of their own despite a decade primarily in academics—have not only cared for my soul twice a year on our prayer retreats, but they also prayed this book into reality when I was tempted to keep postponing it or even to give up. They also read the manuscript with pastoral eyes to make sure that what I’ve written reflects the realities of congregational life.

Julie Tennent provided musician’s eyes to reflect that perspective as well. My lame humor remains despite her wise counsel. However, I did catch her passion for reviving the use of the Psalter, which embodies the approach to biblical worship in this book.

The congregation I was privileged to serve as founding pastor for over a decade, the Anchor Presbyterian Church, provided a laboratory for me to experiment with the process presented in this book. My parishioners and coworkers exhibited great forbearance through much error and trial, surrounding me with love and prayer. Their openness and eagerness to let the Scriptures shape our worship, which in turn shaped our lives, reflected our vision to seek the fullness of Christ for the fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom everywhere in the world and in every area of life. Most of the examples in this book are drawn from my ministry at The Anchor.

A grant from the Kern Family Foundation allowed me to get away on my first sabbatical to begin writing during several weeks at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, where Vice Principal Simon Vibert extended exceptional hospitality. The faculty and trustees of Gordon-Conwell also approved several additional writing weeks to enable me to finish the book, and the seminary president, Dennis Hollinger, and vice president for academic affairs, Rick Lints—my bosses—strongly encouraged me to take this time away to write, despite the press of urgent administrative tasks. Bridget Erickson, who provides operational oversight of the DMin Program and the Ockenga Institute, not only freed me up to be away multiple times, but she also volunteered to read the manuscript and provide unfiltered Vermont feedback from a layperson’s perspective. Bill and Lane Anderson opened up Birdsong Lodge, their getaway in the Smoky Mountains, for one of these writing weeks, and my mother, Elinor Currie, let me take over her dining room table in Florida for another one.

Sean McDonough expressed initial interest in having Hendrickson publish this book, connecting me to my editors Patricia Anders, Maggie Swofford, and Carl Nellis, who have worked patiently to help this new author see this work through the editorial and publication process. Randall Rhodes, my graduate assistant, compiled the index, an act of service not only to me but also to readers who want to find something in particular.

Most of those mentioned above have read all or part of this book in manuscript form, greatly improving it—with my resistance to changing some parts preventing it from being perfected. One person has not only read this book but lived it with me for almost four decades: my wife, Susan. Together we have sought to live out Psalm 119:54: Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge.

David A. Currie

Foreword

Preaching is worship. At least that’s what John Calvin and other Reformers advocated. The preaching of the sermon is nestled in the midst of the entire service of worship. For a few decades now, Haddon Robinson’s philosophy of preaching—that sermons have a central idea derived from the biblical text—has been a hallmark of much evangelical preaching. Yes, there are books on preaching and there are books on worship. But a book about preaching in the wider context of worship? This book brings the two together in a compelling way.

Finally, someone has leveraged Haddon Robinson’s approach to preaching and applied it to the context in which preaching is done—worship. David Currie skillfully draws from Haddon Robinson and extends the application of the sermon’s biblical text to designing worship services that emphasize the idea of the text on which the preacher preaches.

Currie instructs us, What blueprints are to builders and recipes are to cooks, liturgical ideas are to worship leaders. The Big Idea of Worship, or the liturgical idea, as Currie calls it, is based on the exegetical idea and the subsequent homiletical idea found in Robinson’s ten steps to sermon development. The liturgical idea provides a needed new dimension to Robinson’s philosophy, a dimension worth noting, and one that rounds out Robinson’s approach practically for the church—in sermon and in service.

Liturgical ideas help listeners of the sermon, as Currie notes, to respond to what God has revealed in his word in the midst of worship.

Some may have wondered how to develop worship services that reflect the thrust of the text. And many may have attempted to do so with limited success. Whether you come from a more relaxed or informal style or a formal kind of worship tradition, this book will help you to consider the ways in which the idea of the biblical text can shape the church’s worship, not in a manipulative or entertaining manner, but by walking the pastor and worship assistants—and ultimately the worshiping congregation—through steps that will provide Godward worship.

Too often the church has taken its cues for worship from influences other than theology. We hire musicians who know how to play an instrument well, or get someone who is good up front. But we miss the key component: that the person has a solid theological foundation. We need more Asaphs. Asaph was King David’s worship leader. A theologically trained Levite, Asaph led the Israelites in worship. This David—David Currie—reminds us how churches can develop Asaphs or help worship leaders become more Asaph-like and thus provide biblically based worship shaped by the word.

This book answers a lot of questions preachers and worship leaders may have advanced. Among some of these are: Why do we do what we do when we worship? How are we to understand biblical worship? How are biblical texts chosen? What are the practical—functional—ways in which this word from God can be understood and applied? What are the steps to developing worship with one big idea?

David Currie provides rich practical examples of what a service looks like when it’s shaped by the preaching text. There are case studies that help pastors and worship teams wrestle with the practical—and theological—elements of worship and what it means to be biblical.

Yes, preaching is worship. But preaching is only one component—albeit an important one—of a worship service, and all the other elements in the service can serve to reinforce the thrust of the text in a well-developed and God-honoring way. This book adds value and depth to Haddon Robinson’s contention that in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, the preacher aims to confront, convict, and comfort men and women through the proclamation of biblical concepts. People shape their lives and settle their eternal destinies in response to ideas.[1]

By marshalling all the aspects of a worship service under the big idea of the biblical text, there is a unity of emphasis that can confront, convict, or comfort listeners as they come under the authority of the Scriptures and bend themselves to the sway of the Holy Spirit. This book will aid you in this process, to the glory of God.

Scott M. Gibson, DPhil

Haddon W. Robinson Professor of Preaching and Ministry

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

South Hamilton, Massachusetts

Notes

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[1] Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2014), 39.

Introduction

As the preacher closed his sermon with Amen, my heart and mind overflowed with awe at the picture of the cosmic Christ he had masterfully painted through his careful exposition of the first chapter of Ephesians. A worship leader came to the microphone, and I waited with eager anticipation to join with my fellow worshipers in attempting to give voice to praise such magnificence. The worship leader opened her mouth and began to lead us in singing: I am a C/ I am a C-H/ I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N/ And I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H-E-A-R-T/ And I will L-I-V-E E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y!

R-E-A-L-L-Y? I thought to myself. That was the best we could do to sum up our response to the supremacy of Christ as just proclaimed so eloquently from one of the most majestic passages in all of Scripture? It just didn’t make sense to me. Why wouldn’t biblical preaching inspire equally biblical worship?

I reflected on the contrast with the church that I had grown up in. Preaching there had devolved into comments about the latest cover story of Time magazine or an op-ed piece in The New York Times. I used to joke that a good sermon was one that mentioned the Bible, and a really good sermon was one that mentioned the Bible in a positive way. Yet the worship that surrounded these mainly Bible-less sermons had been saturated with Scripture. I hadn’t realized how much until I read the Bible for myself and passages jumped out at me with unanticipated familiarity from the Psalms, Gospels, Epistles, even the book of Revelation. Oh, that’s where that prayer or response or hymn or song came from! I always liked that bit. I just never knew it was in the Scriptures.

I wondered if I had to choose between biblical preaching and biblical worship. It seemed liked an utterly unnecessary and illogical choice. Why wouldn’t those who affirm with Jesus that the words of Scripture are the words of God want all the words in the service to flow out of the Bible?

As I began my own ministry, I struggled to preach the way I heard that preacher unpack the first chapter of Ephesians. I wanted to take all the exegetical tools I had acquired in seminary and use them in such a way to make the Scripture passage clear and applicable to my hearers’ lives. Thankfully, as I was fumbling around trying to figure this out on my own, I discovered Haddon Robinson had recently provided a rationale and methodology to do exactly what I wanted to do in his book, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages.[1]

Working step-by-step through Robinson’s process and making it my own made my preaching much more biblical and accessible as the Big Idea of the text became the Big Idea of the sermon. But I found less help with putting together biblical worship services than I did with biblical sermons. Why wasn’t there a companion volume to guide me in having the Big Idea of the text shape not just the sermon but the whole service?

After thirty years of working on this problem—twenty primarily as a preacher and worship leader in congregations, and the past ten teaching preaching and worship to Doctor of Ministry students—I decided it was time to produce such a companion volume myself. This decision reflects the repeated comments of worshipers after a service, "This morning was