What You Gonna Do When Your Well Runs Dry?

I try to write now and again because writing helps me think and gets the creative juices flowing.  I think I write sermons more efficiently when I have something to blog about first.  Usually, I blog about a bee in my bonnet --but maybe there are less of those now than there used to be, or maybe I just have said everything that can be said about the things that bug me most!  

So what do you do when you feel driven to write but you don't have anything cooking in your mind and heart to write about?  I think about Harper Lee, who wrote one great novel.  One.  Nothing else.  When asked by a friend why she never wrote again, she said, 

"Two reasons: one, I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again."

Reports are that Miss Lee is now aged, frail and forgetful.  She will not write again.  Some suggest that her perfectionism kept her from doing more, that she started projects but never finished them.  As an aside, it just struck me that this is my second post in a row (in a time of very sparse posting) about someone walking away from that for which they were well-known.  I don't want to read into that.  But, I digress, which is maybe why I shouldn't write.  Too many digressions...

If a pastor is worth anything, he is involved in a great and exhilirating and frustrating and nerve-wracking creative enterprise likely more than once a week. His work requires heavy spiritual, mental and emotional investment.  He has to keep grazing over a lot of material that is not germane to his immediate task, to keep his reservoir of creativity full.  If he does not do this, he will become boring and repetitious.  This is above and beyond saturating himself with Scripture and theology and the primary and important things.  He must read and watch and listen and observe to understand people.  What is their cultural currency?  What are their deep aches?  What things plague them?  What are their idols?  

The great danger in this is being superficial --treating sin as if it is a matter of mere behavior and not epistemic rebellion deep within us that we may hate, but find impossible to root out ourselves, for instance.  Or, erecting straw men and then burning them down, to the delight of his congregation, who are thus confirmed in their self righteousness.  Or, denouncing all the sins of which he himself, and his hearers, are likely not personally tempted to do --once again, feeding the furnace of self-righteousness within every hearer.  The temptation to be plastic and simple is a strong one. You can satisfy yourself that you are thoroughgoingly orthodox.  Your hearers will love you because you're against all the right things, and you've simply affirmed everything they believe.  You've become an afternoon talk radio host with a Christian veneer and a simplistic gospel tacked on the end of your message.

The danger on the other side is viewing a sermon as a literary set-piece, a work of performance art, art for its own sake, carefully crafted and spoken but utterly lacking in connection or reality --the sort of sermon that might read well in a book in fifty years (assuming that anyone would read a book of sermons, particularly yours, fifty years from now).

And the danger on yet another side is that, in seeking to be prophetic and real, you become overly gritty and offensive, either because you are trying to shock people awake (which only works so many times, as the movies find, the first curse word shocks , the five hundredth  one isn't even heard), or because you are trying to slap people upside the head whom you perceive to be indifferent, and you, if you accomplish nothing else and may awaken to find your bags packed for you when you return home for Sunday lunch) at least grabbed their sorry selves for a moment and perhaps made them think.

And I'll refrain here from critiquing the sort of preaching that reduces the plain sense of the Biblical text to a gnostic puzzle, sorted out by the indispensable mystic cleric, and from which Jesus is conjured out of every rock or sneeze.

None of this is good.

So what then should you try to do?  You should try to say what the text says in the way the text says it, in such a way that the hearer is drawn in, and brought along to his own conclusions, which are the right conclusions because they're the conclusions pressed upon your soul from the text, without manipulating him into getting there.  That seems to me to be how Jesus preached.  And let me tell you, it is impossible.  it's one of those perfect things like a chimera on a distant hill, that you see for a moment, and grasp at it, and then it's gone and you're back to three points and a poem.  You hear it in the voice of others, and you want it desperately for yourself.  

Preaching is too rarely viewed as an art, as a craft.  The pressure of doing it every week forces the preacher to think far more about content than form.  Yet, form is the vehicle for the content --and the ideal form recedes completely into the background, so that the hearer cannot escape hearing the Divine voice, and have impressed upon him in that one existential moment --a decision.  Whether believer or unbeliever, he is faced with an inescapable decision.  He is brought to a fork in the road, and he must say "All the Lord says I will do," or "Do not let this God speak to us again."  He is always faced with the choice --towards life by the narrow road that is difficult and which few find, or to death by the broad and easy road.  

The believer faces this, not with the danger of losing his salvation, but with the choice of the abundant, godward life that comes from humble contrite following of Jesus, or the choice to dine in the sewer of the world and its rotting delights, and to starve himself.  

The true preacher preaches because he can't but preach.  Many times he would far rather make rivets than preach.  Many times he sits at his desk, proverbial pen in hand, writes, and then grieves because he doesn't have it --he hasn't yet grasped what the Spirit would have him grasp, and it is agony.  Many the preacher has said "I love to preach, I loathe preparing to preach."  Alas, often true.  Handling holy things with dirty hands makes one feel dirty.  The truth works you over before you employ it to work others over.  There are texts I would rather avoid preaching because I fear that I will live out whatever temptation or struggle they addresses.  God works his prophet over to keep him humble, and so the sermon is not just a matter of academic interest, but has captivated his whole being.

Well, I guess I did have something to say after all...Thank you for your time!

Whatever Happened to Bobbie Gentry or Why Don't Christians Sing Like They Used To?

The lovely Delta chanteuse with the dusky voice might be all but forgotten if it weren't for her biggest hit "Ode to Billy Joe."  That would be tragic, but understandable.

Bobbie Gentry was a big star in her day, even for a time co-hosting a network prime-time show with Glenn Campbell.  She incorporated the blues of her native Mississippi Delta into a true crossover art form --she is hard to peg as country, rock or blues.  And her voice is utterly arresting.

So what happened to her?  At one point, she just stopped singing and she walked away.  Details of her subsequent life are sketchy at best.  Why?  Nobody knows.

One of her lesser known hits is "Glory, Hallelujah, How They'll Sing!"  It is a slice-of-life poem about being carted to an all-day country sing:

Up at five and done with the chores, the family piles in the pickup
Meetin' at the church house all the folk's from miles around
And packed between mama and daddy and all of the kids is a bushel basket
Heading for an all day country singing and dinner on the ground
Where they'll sing, glory hallelujah how they'll sing...

Ladies dab their throats and brows with hand embroidered linen
Cool their dampened feedsack bodices with cardboard fans
Fans that advertize on one side Lanie's funeral parlor
While Jesus on the other side out stretches nail-scarred hands
And they sing, glory hallelujah how they'll sing...

Do me so, la so me do
Do re me, fa ti do
Do me so, la so me do
Do re me, fa ti do

A Deacon in a white nylon short sleeve shirt leads the singing
A book of matches in his pocket, and a ball point pen
Inside the cover of the matches is the deacon's name and address
Enroll him in a course thats offered to outstanding men...

And he sings, glory hallelujah how he'll sing

Now lets turn to page three forty in our Broadman hymnals
A pinned roll banded hand prepares to strike the opening chord
A small boy whispers to his mama, do natives* go to heaven?
And they lift their voices to the sky, sing praises to the lord

And they'll sing, glory hallelujah how they'll sing
Now, I've been to a few all-day singing type events in my time.  When I was minister in small-town Greensboro, Alabama, one of our dear older couples would pile us in their car to take us out to the country (if you think that Greensboro is the country, you have another thing coming!) up to the old Mount Hermon Methodist church for a Sunday night sing.  Those people sang loud and they sang well.

When I was young, the Christian Reformed Conference grounds in Western Michigan likewise sometimes hosted singalongs, as did the one Christian Reformed Mega-Church, Sunshine.  The staid, dour Dutch, so reserved in so many areas of their lives, sang with gusto.  Glory Hallelujah how they sang.

And, our two wonderful years at old Seventh Reformed Church on Grand Rapids, Michigan's West Side introduced us to a church that loved to sing.  They loved to sing whatever was put in front of them from the sturdy but neglected hymns of the old Blue (Green) Trinity, Psalms and gospel revival hymns.  Something like 9-10 on any given Sunday, between morning and evening, with a pipe organ perfectly  matched to complement, but not overwhelm, congregational singing.

Now, we in our effete Presbyterianism might take theological issue (or even an issue of taste) with what they chose to sing.  I guess, to paraphrase D.L. Moody, "I prefer how they sang to how you don't." And that's my question.  What is happening to singing in the modern church, and particularly in my particular part of it?  Some have remarked that public singing has become a rarity and the church's worship therefore stands out as something altogether odd.  We don't gather to sing the way people always have from time immemorial.  We go to hear people sing, which is altogether different.  We are used to being entertained, not participating.  That explains but doesn't excuse.

Like Bobbie Gentry, we just walk away from singing.  I notice it in my own congregation.  Sometimes our singing is barely audible.  Our self-consciousness keeps us from singing "loud praise to Christ our King."  We sing a wide variety from the ancient to the excellent hymns of today.  Not all are my particular favorites.  But I feel compelled to sing.  The HOly Spirit presses it out of me.  I do not have a good voice (just ask the nursery volunteers when the sound man forgets to cut the mike!).  No matter.  God deserves loud praise.

Quite frankly, I think we don't sing loud because we don't really have the sacred affections that Edwards wrote so eloquently about nearly three centuries ago.  The only thing that will help our singing is if the Holy SPirit puts the song back in our hearts.  I long for that to happen.  I long for a church that worships more with reckless abandon than with reservation.  Decently and in good order, of course.  But, with full hearts that must inevitably give rise to full voices.  The only place I've come close to this experience in the current day were at Banner of Truth or Sovereign Grace conferences.  The question is why don't the people sing like their pastors do at those conferences?  Perhaps I'll just have to wait for Heaven when we will all sing as we ought, and our timidity will flee away.

Anachronism

Downton Abbey is nothing less than a cultural phenomenon.  Its characters are vividly drawn and one might see shades of one's own self in the various members of the household.  If someone asked me, "Which Downton character are you?"  without a doubt it would be....Carson.  Nobody who knows me is at all surprised.  In fact, I have been heard to growl a "Very good, sir" when requested by my children to wait on them.

Carson is the guardian of the old way.  He is, by far, the most conservative member of the entire household and staff.  He loves the aristocracy more than the aristocrats do.  The dowager countess is more progressive than he is  --for instance, she has far kinder things to say about the chauffeur-turned-son-in-law Branson than Mr. Carson does!  He was mortified when he was threatened with blackmail by an old acquaintance who threatened to reveal his dark past  --as a vaudeville hoofer.  Horror of horrors.  Upon its discovery, he offered his resignation.  The Earl laughed.

I sometimes wonder if I am one born out of due time, though God's will admits of no mistakes.  Why am I thinking about this?  All the preachers I love and resonate with are retiring or have retired.  There are only about 5 or 6 singers or acts whose concerts I would attend --and most of them are dead or retired.  The people of the past --be it political figures or celebrities or pastors or whatever-- hold far more fascination for me than those of the present.  Harry Truman and Ike, for instance, may have appeared rather bland and bloodless, but they are endlessly more fascinating than any one of either party in DC today.  At least to me.

Life as an anachronism is not a comfortable thing.  After all, I'm 41.  A lot of life left to go.  I do not like change.  Like Carson, it rankles me.  I even preach like an anachronism, despite my best efforts not to.  A younger aspiring preacher (very bright and gifted in my estimation) said to me "I cannot preach like you."  I told him "I think your gifts are more suited to today, and mine to yesterday."  Alas, God's will admits of no mistakes.

I am not sure what lesson to draw from all this.  I know I have not blogged a lot of late --like Harper Lee, perhaps I just ran out of things to say.  But, for whatever reason, I felt compelled to say this.

A Plea for Openness from the Center Right of the PCA

Like many others, I was more than a little disturbed when this letter was made public, touting a new "National Partnership" of likeminded PCA leaders purportedly advancing the "original vision" of the PCA.  I have been in the PCA ministry 15 years, and, in that time, I have lived through Vision 2000, PPLN, Presbyterians and Presbyterians Together, and now this.  I suspect there is a great amount of overlap between each of those "coalitions," though I cannot be certain, because the membership of this one is secret --oh, forgive me, not secret, but "confidential."  I did not check, but I am guessing Mr. Roget lists those as synonyms.

I absolutely detest secret societies  --they foster a "we're in, you're out" mentality, whether on college campuses or in society at large.  Certainly they have absolutely no place in the church.  None.  Categorically.

Lest you think I am some sort of angry hard-right "TR," let me do the appropriate postmodern thing and give you a bit of personal narrative.  I grew up in the Reformed mainline, Dutch variety.  I was happy to find a denomination with basic evangelical and Reformed commitments.  I would peg myself center right, probably a bit to the left of my friend Lig Duncan, but not far.  I like holidays, am not much concerned about stained glass, and we even use guitars and drums, albeit on Sunday nights.

 Unlike many conservatives in the PCA, I could probably function quite well in a broader denomination than the PCA.  I am thrilled to be in a denomination with Tim Keller and RC Sproul and Lig Duncan and Pat Morley and the CCEF guys and Schaeffer and Boice and Koop (all now in the PCA Triumphant).  I even like and appreciate Jack Miller.   I am less thrilled about some things going on in the "far left" of our denomination (although I hate such terms), because I've been there and don't want to go that way (I'm continually amazed that churches depart us to go to the dying denomination of my youth!).  Though my own confessional commitments are quite conservative, I can function in a denomination that is broader than I am as long as I can vote no and basically be left alone.  I don't think I ask for a lot.

I did once ask that a presbytery investigate a man who publicly stated that he had little use for our Standards, and seemed hell-bent on denying them, particularly on gospel bona fides.  I got an impersonal 14 page letter from his presbytery that in essence took me (and others) to task for not contacting the man personally (we had).  I kind of wish they had abided by their own standard and not tried me in abstentia.  But, I'm over that.  On good days, at least.

What I ask is for people not to be jerks.  In my opinion, there are jerks on the left and on the right, and they are ....  Just kidding, I won't list them.  Jerks are people who do not much like people who are not like them --not that they disagree with them, but rather that for them, everything is personal.  They resent being questioned.  They don't want to discuss.  They probably wouldn't be found around a round table with guys like me (believe me, I've tried to reach out).  Many are at the "top" of our profession, humanly speaking.  I have friends among those who are to my left, and those to my right.  I try to listen to them all.

I am particularly attuned to this because I've been a jerk all my life.  I am a repenting jerk, though by no means have I gained the victory.  Expertus Loquor.

By definition, this partnership is a "jerk" thing to do.  I have no idea if confessional types are represented among their number.  In one way, I surely hope so.  In another way, I would hope that confessional men would want nothing to do with anything done in secret.  Why not be out in the open? PPLN was out in the open, and, unlike many of my similar convictions, I supported much of that.  I've supported various vision plans, etc.  I've been a good soldier on a lot of issues.  My church supports the GA offices (though in rough financial years lately we have been unable to meet all our commitments), but, in principle, I believe in supporting a denomination of which one is a part.  I think one has no right to gripe unless he and his church are invested.

Why is it a "jerk" thing to do?  Is that a mean word?  No, it just fits the definition.  Much of this feels very personal, not against a virtual nobody (and happy to be so, most days) like me, but against other good men.  The point of this whole exercise is "we don't want to talk to people like you."  You don't count.  It is a good old boy club --the very thing that has plagued the PCA its whole existence.  We aren't really on equal footing as presbyters, not really.  It matters very much who you are.  Some of that is inevitable and natural.  Yet, when it smacks of intention, it is sinful.  Let's call it what it is --it's sin.

I have no doubt that much of what these men intend to do is noble.  I might even agree with a lot of it.  This is not an exception of substance.  Doing the right thing, however, in the wrong way, is sin.  The ends justifying the means is sin.  Let me add a few more words: sin, sin, sin.

I have plenty of sin of my own.  A lot of it is pride and jealousy and ambition.  I like to have a place at the table.  I got invited to a "secret" meeting once.  I loved being included.  I liked having a place at the table.  I thought it helped me understand some people better.  I thought a lot of it was sanctimonious whining.  I made a few acquaintances I can now ask "what are you guys thinking and why?" because they aren't the type to get in a tizzy because someone has the temerity to disagree with them.

Probably nobody is still reading this, but if you are, the best thing you could do was just do what you want to do in the light of day.  That's all I ask.

Churching a Post-Christian Culture

I've been doing some thinking lately about how newborn Christians (or those spiritually interested but not quite 'there' yet) might be incorporated into the body of Christ.  Oftentimes, the worship service itself is viewed as the natural entry point for new people, and, in a sense, it is --it is the most "public" thing that a church does.  It ought to be accessible (or at least explained), and as vernacular as possible without compromising the integrity of the message or pandering to people's desire not to engage their brains.  The Willow Creek model, adopted by many other churches, is that Sunday is for outreach, and weeknights are for the "meat" of Christian doctrine and discipleship --although their own self-study of several years ago revealed this was not working as they intended it to work.

I've been talking about this some with ministry interns, and then a friend (a member married to a military chaplain stationed overseas) shared this quote from the eminently quotable Carl Trueman:

"If the standard level of what is done in a worship service is set at that which the newest, least informed Christian can understand, we are doomed to remain forever in spiritual infancy. As Christians, we should expect worship always to be a learning experience. That requires us not only to call ministers who are able to stretch us theologically; it also means we should fill the worship service with material that draws us on to maturity."

I largely agree with his sentiment.  I do think, in a post-Christian culture, if you are blessed with a high number of unbelievers attending public worship, you are smart to preach with a heavy dose of apologetics in it, "This is the way Christians believe and live, and here's why it makes sense," feeds Christians well and is useful for overcoming intellectual objections to, and ignorance of, the Christian faith.

We need to remember the primary purpose of worship is worship --evangelistic benefit is important but secondary.  WE ought to preach evangelistically, and the gospel always held forth, but, as Trueman notes, we cannot choose the "lowest common denominator" approach.

I wonder if reaching our world calls for some new thinking about how we bring people in to the community of faith.  Actually, I think it requires some old thinking.  The early church, seeing converts from every walk of life, high born and slave, Jew and Greek and Slav, did not change its worship, but it made the point of entry catechesis.  Some have started to appropriate this idea and re-tool it for a new age (witness The New City Catechism).  In some senses, it is the genius behind the Alpha and Christianity Explored courses --places where ideas can be bantered about, and the Christian faith put forward in a less authoritative atmosphere than public worship (which ought to be authoritative, by the way).  

I think this is a necessary step.  Adult Sunday School needs to change.  It ought to be a progression of learning --from inquirers, to newborn Christians, to pressing on to Christian maturity.  Again, the wheel has already been invented.  Worldwide Discipleship Association has a curriculum designed to bring Christians from infancy to maturity --certainly, if not a wholesale appropriation, we could learn from and use what they have developed worldwide.

If God granted us a harvest of souls, would we know what to do with them?  Maybe if we think about it in advance, he will do just that.

Social Justice: Issue 1 -- Rest

That both liberals and conservatives have ideological balloons to be busted ought to go without saying.

But, I don't know or minister to a lot of liberals, plus they're so easy to bash, I think I'll leave them alone for right now. :-)

To lay my cards out there: I am a conservative of a sort, though I have some really unconventional thoughts on immigration and other issues not really worth mentioning here. On economic matters, I lean heavily libertarian. I don't advertise it, and I don't usually bring it in to the pulpit unless it is quite evidently the burden of a text. I usually will only preach against the dangers of dependency, and abortion, when it comes to issues in the polis anthropou.

There is a great danger in that position, though, and that is many people who hold it believe it frees us from any obligation to the poor, be they the indigent poor, the "fatherless and widow," or the working poor. Self-reliance is a Christian virtue, as long as one understands that it does not mean independence from God. But, there are people in every society who are forgotten, and unable to fend for themselves.

And, the Christian is to advocate for justice on their behalf, and expend his own personal mammon of time, talents, and treasure for their well-being. It does not follow because one believes the state is not responsible for the well-being of individuals (beyond basic safety and services), or that the state ought not to order anyone to provide for anyone else, that therefore my conscience is free to ignore the plight of those who cannot fend for themselves.

There are fundamental issues in advocating for the poor that we ought to uphold, as Christians. The minor prophets, especially, tell us what these issues are. A fundamental issue, of course, is rest: that is, adequate time for the body and soul to recuperate, to enjoy life, and to enjoy God.

Presbyterians have been so busy arguing for centuries over what may or may not be done on the Lord's Day that we have missed a fundamental point. The fundamental point isn't football on TV or with the kids in the yard. The fundamental heart of the Sabbath is rest and mercy.

How interesting that the Sabbath is not a covenantal ordinance, but a creational one. Like marriage, it is not just for believers, but intended to be a blessing.

Please don't misunderstand me: I am not arguing for the imposition of a repressive Sabbath, or arcane and now silly blue laws that forbid hunting on Sunday in Virginia, etc. I am arguing for the fundamental principle that all God's creatures: manservants, maidservants, oxes, and asses, and strangers within the gates, ought to be given protected rest.

In the midst of that protected rest, believers may worship.

Lord's Day observance has become a class issue. If I can afford to have a Monday-Friday job, with my weekends free, then I can worship with the people of God. But, if I work in the restaurant industry, or for Lowe's or Home Depot, the notion that I, as a believer, might be granted a day of rest on the first day of the week as a fundamental part of my religious commitment, is not a protected right.

During our time in Virginia, I remember one of the blue laws coming up for discussion by the legislature on precisely this point: the protected right of a worker to choose Sunday as his mandatory day of rest. The legislature considered doing away with that right, and ultimately did, if memory serves. And, there was no resultant Christian outcry. In a country where every person has every discrete right protected by code, ought not the day of rest to be protected?

But, the issue is larger than that.
And, the principle carries farther than Sabbath.

Of Seventh, Shadyside and Sovereign Grace (Scripture Saturation)

Okay, all those s's are cool.  I didn't plan it that way, honest!

I'm thinking on how the church worships.  My contention is:  a mature Christian ought to be able to worship anywhere, in any style, as long as the content of worship is within Biblical bounds.  I can understand why a Christian may have difficulty worshiping in the presence of mimes, for instance (I have preached in a service like that once), but within Biblical parameters and elements, style, for the mature Christian, must become decidedly secondary.

I will lay my cards on the table.  My personal preference is decidedly high Presbyterian --almost Episcoterian.  That is my preference.  I would never make an attempt to foist it on a congregation.  But, I highlight the three above experiences because they are places where I have felt I have truly worshiped --have felt most like the worship of heaven brought down to earth to me.  Part of the reason was the utter seriousness with which the worshipers undertook their task --people were invested in worshiping   Part of the reason is that each was, in its own way, Scripture saturated.  Other than that, the worship could not have been more different.

Let's start our tour with venerable old Seventh Reformed, snuggled on West Leonard Street in the old West Side of Grand Rapids Michigan, in 1996, when I arrived there as a newly-married intern.  I have never seen a church before or since that worshiped as reverently and fervently as that church.  It is the only church I have ever seen that filled its pews in both the morning and the evening.  The congregation sang four selections in the morning and six at night (counting a song-service).  Each service was at least 75 minutes long, or longer.  The sermons of my pastor and boss, J. R. de Witt were long, animated, and arresting.  Those people, drawn from across the conservative Dutch spectrum, chafed at one another in meetings, but in worship they were united.  And they sang.  They sang whatever they were given to sing.  And, they sang it well.  They sang out of the old blue Trinity Hymnal.  They heard the Law read every Sunday.  They had a creed every Sunday, and the Lord's Prayer, every Sunday (these elements divided between morning and evening).  The pastor preached regularly through the Heidelberg catechism.  The liturgy had "sursum corda's" and "salutations."  The communion and baptismal liturgies were ancient, long and thorough --the less-familiar work of the Synod of Dordt.  And my soul was lifted to heaven there like no other place.  I don't think it could be replicated even if we tried.  It was formal and long, and we loved every single minute of it.

Now let's go for a moment to steel-wealthy Pittsburgh --where the blast furnaces filled the pocketbooks of industrial titans who built churches like those seen nowhere else (East Liberty Presbyterian is probably the grandest).  Amid the old affluent Shadyside neighborhood sits the Presbyterian church of the same name.

Shadyside has a notable past.  Its famous pastor, Hugh Kerr, initiated World Communion Sunday there in 1934.  It was the first church to broadcast its services on the first radio station in the US, KDKA Pittsburgh. The broadcast was heard by Peary's company at the South Pole.  That's history.

Today, Shadyside would be pegged as an establishment PCUSA church --not notably liberal, and the gospel is still propounded by its pastor M. Craig Barnes.  The worship is about as "high" as one can get and still be Presbyterian.  And, yet, the service is saturated with Scripture.  There are responses and voluntaries and introits.  And, it is filled with Scripture the way many far more conservative churches aren't.  It doesn't hurt that they have a monstrous Reuter organ (pipe organ aficionado that I am).  What I notice, however, is the reverence, and the Scripture, and the song.  I felt lifted to Heaven --as Calvin, after Scripture, says the believer is when he communes with his God.

Then there is Sovereign Grace.  I can hear the old Sesame Street song --one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong.  Not so!  I had the privilege of attending a Sovereign Grace conference in Baltimore with a SGM pastor friend.  Bob Kauflin is the worship leader.  They are charismatic.  This is evident from how they worship.  There are hands raised and even a bit of jumping and shouting, though nothing "wild."  There are some "prophecies" given (all vetted by elders, and all edification).  But the songs --the songs are filled with Scripture.  Old hymns and new songs, deep and thoughtful and reverent and joyous.  Again, I felt lifted to Heaven.

For the mature Christian, worship must transcend preference.  The mature Christian may have preferences, but he can commune with his God among other believers of all sorts of different styles.  The thread that binds the three churches above is Scripture saturation.  Oh, that such would be true of all our churches.