The following long-form paper was written for a class with David Fitch on “The Mission-Shaped Church.” This project was the beginning of having my eyes opened to the blind spots in my own worship tradition, the central place of historic liturgy in the life of the church, the possibility of blending of Eucharistic and charismatic worship. We’ve been working this out in practice over the last year at my local church, and if you’re interested in specifics, head on over here.
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How was worship this week? Was it good for you? Was it inspiring? Such questions are a familiar rubric for many Christians in the modern western world. Clergy may lament the consumerist nature of these evaluations (particularly when coming from dissatisfied congregants), but the same pastors are all too guilty of imposing customer-satisfaction evaluations on worship leaders, Sunday services, even themselves. Which begs the question: is worship supposed to be ‘good?’ And if so, how might we measure it? These are settled questions for many, not least in the worship recording industry, a phenomenon which my own worship tradition helped foment, and yet it was this very question that gave rise to my worship tradition, the Vineyard Church.
Vineyard Churches are broadly part of an evangelical stream of Protestantism, arising quite recently out of the ‘Jesus Movement’ in 1960’s and 70’s America, a revivalist awakening among ex-hippies of the Baby Boom generation. Theology and practice are drawn from a variety of church traditions, including low church and high, Pentecostal and Evangelical, but most know the Vineyard for their foundational contribution to the modern charismatic style of worship.
In recent years, the modern worship movement has been rightly criticized for its disregard of historical worship traditions and a downward slide toward rock concert-style ‘worship-tainment’.[1]
Examples of this trend abound, and yet the origins of modern worship are much more principled than recent cases suggest. In the case of Vineyard churches, a new worship tradition arose out of an atmosphere of genuine spiritual hunger. Founder, John Wimber describes it as a very personal awakening: “After we started to meet in our home gathering, I noticed times during the meeting—usually when we sang—in which I experienced God deeply…occasionally we sang a song personally and intimately to Jesus, with lyrics like ‘Jesus I love you.’ Those types of songs both stirred and fed the hunger for God within me.”[2] Former Vineyard Director Todd Hunter reflects, “it wasn’t about the music, it was all about knowing God.”[3]
Despite the language of personal experience, Vineyard leaders recognized that the ultimate aim of worship was not personal fulfillment, but rather a right response to God. Guided by the Psalms, Wimber would define worship as “the act of freely giving love to God”. Because worship was “for His benefit, not ours,” the measure of any worship service would be the question: did God get what God came for?[4] Early Vineyard worship albums codified this priority, almost 40 of which are entitled “Touching the Father’s Heart.”
For many, Vineyard worship is associated with folksy guitars or loud drums, but the most significant contributions to modern worship were more foundational. Early Vineyard participants recognized that something was missing in traditional worship: “we realized that often we would sing about worship yet we never actually worshipped…we began to see a difference between songs about Jesus and songs to Jesus.”[5]
The difference was not theoretical; early Vineyard worship is marked by the language of intimacy that participants describe as profoundly transformative. Wimber described being “caught off guard,” by “sweet simple love songs to the Lord [that] led me into personal revival.”[6] Hunter recalls the common surprise felt by those experiencing intimate worship: “what just happened to me; why do I feel so loved and so full of love, so close to God, so willing to pour out my heart to God in worship, to serve others, etc.?”[7] The resulting tendency of Vineyard worship toward “I” and “You” pronouns and the explicit language of affectionate love continues to elicit sharp criticism[8], and yet Wimber recognized this pattern in Scripture, both in the Psalms (cf. 18, 95, 96) and in admonitions to “sing to Him” (cf. 1 Chron 16:9).
A second marker of Vineyard worship is the engagement of the whole person. Since the word worship (Gk. proskynéō) literally means to bow down, the Vineyard would stress the importance of engaging the body as well as the mind, and to this day the prevalence of clapping, raising hands, dancing and bowing prostrate are the norm in Vineyard services.[9] To this end, musical simplicity and lyrical repetition was prioritized, a feature of modern worship that has received no small amount of criticism. Wimber stressed the emotional engagement that resulted from participation in simple, intimate songs: “You can still keep a certain reserve intact singing theological songs about faith,” but when songs are sung directly to God “it breaks through to your inner being.” [10] [11]
A third marker of Vineyard worship is the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit.[12] Early Vineyard pioneers were well aware that “we are changed when we worship”, and so an entirely new liturgy, described by Wimber as “phases of the heart”, was formed around the responsiveness to the presence of the Holy Spirit. [13] The progression included a call to worship, engagement or praise (i.e. singing about God), a meditative intimate phase, a response to the Spirit (which might include rejoicing, stillness, repentance, prayer for healing, prophetic utterances), and giving. All of these had as their goal intimacy.[14]
Vineyard Worship Since Wimber
As the Vineyard has grown beyond this early, formative stage our worship practice has evolved, and not always for the better. My own church, the Vineyard in Grand Rapids, Michigan exemplifies this evolution among Vineyard Churches, and I offer it as a case study. After the death of John Wimber in 1997, the Vineyard as a whole was wrestling with questions of identity. Wimber had urged the Vineyard to “take the best and leave the rest,” and in my setting that meant sorting out how to become a sustainable, established church. We had experienced the sort of personal revival described above through the same means: the filling and empowering of the Holy Spirit, the release of genuine charismatic gifts, accompanying signs and wonders, and a growing zeal for loving God with heart, soul, mind and strength.
We had also recently constructed our first church building and had seen consequent numerical growth. Over the next ten to fifteen years, we would devote ourselves to breaking a so-called “300 barrier” on the way to church growth. Our suspicion was that surmounting this hurdle required a shift toward “seeker friendliness” and indeed this was taught explicitly within the Vineyard Leadership Institute.
The changes have been gradual, but comparing the present with that of our first ten years we now have a 15-20% shorter service length, fewer songs, a longer sermon, very little waiting on or responding to the direction of the Spirit, and less visible presence of the charismatic gifts. We also notice a distinct decrease in songs that exhibit intimate language, especially confession, lament, repentance, and themes related to the Fatherhood of God.
It is fair to say that the result has been a ‘taming’ of our worship tradition, a retention of the form but a loss of at least some of the substance. As Dallas Willard noted, “in religious matters nothing fails like success,” due to the tendency for organizations to replace the Godly devotion and vision of their founder with clever strategies, goals and indeed building projects (cf. king Solomon!).[15] This is the challenge of the present day Vineyard movement, and my purpose here is to examine cultural factors that influenced our ‘vision drift’ in the Vineyard and the potential limitations of current practices in light of wider cultural shifts. I will then propose insights and practices from the historic church that might both reorient and recapture the vision of Vineyard worship and position us for greater effectiveness in a post-modern, post-Christendom context.
Cultural Assumptions
Within the charismatic tradition, there is a pervading notion, sometimes articulated, that our practices are simply the natural outcome of ‘being open’ to the Spirit. Such a view fails to account for the historical cultural milieu from which our tradition arose.
Any history of modern worship must account for the wider phenomenon known as modernism. Modernism is not simply an artistic style, it describes a shift in western culture, beginning with the 17th century Enlightenment, toward the individualism, foundationalism and empiricism. Modern thought instructs us to “think for ourselves,” rejecting the authority of traditional institutions as purveyors of truth. Individualism describes a belief in the transcendental ego, a Kantian declaration of individual personal experience as the most reliable authority.
Foundationalism describes the pursuit of indisputable foundations for belief through radical skepticism. By questioning everything, truth could (and should) be reduced to its incontrovertible atomic elements, propositions like Descartes’ familiar Cogito Ergo Sum.[16] Empiricism describes the connected idea that all knowledge can be derived from sensory experience through scientific method.[17] Modernist thought also has high degree of confidence that language corresponds to reality. Words have a fixed meaning, corresponding directly to the ideas they name.
Some of us, even as we read this, will say, ‘but of course! I trust my experience of the world, words do mean something, and science has surely brought us progress.” This is precisely the point. Modernism is comprised of mostly unquestioned cultural assumptions, at least for modern people, all of which have shaped our worship tradition more than we like to admit. Most significant is our belief that spontaneous self-expression and personal experience are the most authentic paths for engagement with God.
Our rejection of traditional, institutional forms of worship is also consistent with modernist assumptions about what is most true and authentic. Even our preference for emotionally engaged, intimate experience is in need of critical reflection.[18]
This is significant because over the last century the western world has undergone a shift toward beliefs broadly described as post-modern, a critique of modernism in light of the failures of the modern world, especially the horrors of technology and the failing of liberal democracy. This shift has monumental implications for the mission of the church. Significant for us is the post-modern rejection of “unquestioned veracity of emotions and immediate experience.”[19] Mass marketing contributes to a growing recognition that our perceptions are easily manipulated[20] and this results in growing skepticism about personal emotional experience.
The modern worship phenomenon also owes much of its shape to the assumptions of Christendom. Christendom describes the unholy alliance of church and state beginning with Constantine in the 4th century A.D. It describes seventeen centuries in which the Church was central, powerful, and culture-shaping, a reality which is fading in our own day. It is widely known that the church as an institution is declining in influence in the western world,[21] and yet many of our time-tested mission strategies were formed in a world that is fading. Since the dawn of Christendom Europe, the church could rely upon the attractional position of the church. Western society had been nurtured on the belief church is necessary for life, and so we could simply “build and it and they would come.” Our strategies have relied on the assumption that church effectiveness was largely a matter our keeping our services accessible and ‘relevant’ to unchurched people. However, we are increasingly aware that our world has no ‘felt need’ to access a church. Christendom also sustained a universal language and dominant church culture which we see quickly fading. No longer can we rely on a shared understanding of language (e.g. ‘sin’), let alone the attraction of Christian fellowship, pastoral care or religious instruction for children—any of previous attractors of a local church. For the Vineyard, there will be parts of our heritage worth holding onto, and yet we must recognize the sweeping changes that have occurred in the 40 years since our founding.
Evaluating Our Progress
My own wrestling with these challenges began in 2011, as I was awakened to my personal failure to ‘love my neighbor’. As is often the case for pastors, the church had become my ghetto, and in the wake of that realization I sought to turn my life outward toward unchurched neighbors, rediscovering “the art of neighboring”.[22] In the years since we have learned an entirely new approach to ministry, and watched as God has brought dozens of non-church-going people into our sphere of friendship. Most have visited our Sunday worship services at least once, and yet I have been disappointed to observe how few return. All comment that it was “really nice” and “exceptionally friendly”. A Muslim friend recently confided that if he would go to mosque if there were a mosque like the Vineyard! In most ways, we are a highly accessible church.
At the same time, I have experienced a growing dissonance in my work within the church. Amidst the constant turnover of church people and the failure to see visiting neighbors return, I have wrestled with ambivalence over the life-consuming nature of pastoring a church that is not reaching my unchurched friends with any consistency.
In the past year, however, I have experienced a newfound freedom from that ambivalence, both through God rescuing me from ego-driven insecurities and through thoughtful reflection on the work of my seminary professor, Dr. David Fitch. Through both study and personal reflection, I have begun to suspect that our approach to ministry is in need of re-evaluation.
Most significant is the recognition that postmoderns—my neighbors included—are not swayed by abstract, propositional truth claims. It is no longer sufficient to ‘make a case for Christ’ through rational proofs and argument. Fitch contends that among postmoderns, “evangelism requires the church itself to become the message.”[23] To give it a label, reaching our neighbors will increasingly require an incarnational rather than an attractional strategy. Fitch clarifies, evangelism must become witness over argument: “to live truth so deeply and sufficiently that it throws alternative worlds into ‘epistemic crisis’.”[24]
My own experience bears this out: I have recognized that the most spiritually hungry among my neighbors are looking for something more potent and spiritual than a ‘nice’ church service. I also recognize that my lifestyle seldom creates a crisis for anyone. I cannot say “follow me as I follow Christ”: my lifestyle is simply not good enough news. Fitch suggests that postmodern evangelism will require that we “take [our] own salvation as seriously as [we do] others’.”[25]
To that end, in fall of 2016 we conducted a survey of the congregation that measured the beliefs, behaviors and lifestyles of individual congregants.[26] Though there were many bright spots we noted several weaknesses/opportunities. Most notably, we observed in our congregation that six in ten do not read the Bible, the vast majority do not practice spiritual disciplines, confession of sin and repentance are seldom practiced, and engagement with the poor and marginalized (though very visible in our church) is restricted to a small portion of possible participants.
These observations certainly recommend a broad re-evaluation of our communal practices, but perhaps most significant is our corporate worship as that is the arena of widest participation. It is also arguably the venue of deepest formation.[27] Historically, the church has insisted that the “the way you pray and worship becomes the way you believe”, to paraphrase the old Latin Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.[28] We must then question how the modernist, experience-centered ‘liturgies’ we have constructed have shaped our beliefs. Here Fitch’s insights are instructive, if painful:
“If ‘rock concert’ worship is focused upon cheerleading an experience, worship leaders may in effect be doing the opposite of worship: giving the worshiper a ‘short-term high’ sufficient to enable the worshiper to continue in a way of life that runs contrary to the Christian life. A worshiper might be getting positive feelings of encouragement that God will provide or sustain him or her when in fact the worshiper may need to repent of sin, submit to the Word, or be ‘stung’ by the Spirit’s transformation…Worship that is centered on an experience—even if that experience is the presence of God—will not form emotion and experience, but reinforce those that are already present.”[29]
This deserves more thorough examination, but we can begin to see how our worship style is not morally neutral. The medium may be the message—more than we care to admit![30]
Another instructive example is value placed by Charismatics upon spontaneity. We may hope that the overflow of the heart will be prayerful and worshipful, and yet our hearts have been formed “in another world”, a world that is capitalist, materialist and hedonistic.[31] Glenn Packiam, well-known charismatic worship leader and now an ordained Anglican and pastor of a ‘Eu-charismatic’ church, contends that spontaneous worship is plagued by an overestimation of our readiness to pray: “selfishness is our mother tongue. Tell people to ‘pray what’s in their heart,’ and they will pray selfishly.”[32] If there is any doubt, offer this comedic/tragic example: just this week we discovered that a long-time church member has left for a church that “gives my teenage daughter a milkshake when she arrives…she now likes going to church”!
Of course, our evangelical forebears would shudder to see the path the modern church has taken; their commitment was to make the gospel understandable, not trivial,[33] and yet we must recognize that in pursuit of innovation they may have thrown out the historical baby with the bathwater. Critical judgement of the past is not our aim here; we have our own missional challenges to face. To that end, there is strong evidence that historic practices, particularly those associated with high church liturgy, may be better suited to reach a postmodern culture.[34] To that we now turn.
New Proposals
Though many find their way to the Vineyard because of a distaste for tradition, and anti-institutionalism was a rallying point for the pioneers of this movement, there are few upsides to the lack of historical tradition. The one great blessing is that the Vineyard has always welcomed experimentation, and in the last several years we have witnessed a growing interest in high church practices. As we have experimented with responsive liturgical reading, corporate Lectio Divina, ‘prayer candles’, the church calendar, and various approaches to the Lord’s Supper, it has become apparent that there is unmet hunger in our church. Fitch proposes that “we unconsciously hunger for an alive body of Christ we can be immersed into…that orders our desires, orients our vision, and livens our words through art, symbol, prayers, mutual exchanges, participatory ritual, readings of the Word, and the Eucharist every Sunday morning.”[35] Many of these were jettisoned by evangelicals influenced by the Enlightenment project, which reduced truth to abstract cognitive propositions.[36]
At the same time, I have noticed that many of my unchurched yet spiritually hungry neighbors are searching for something much more participatory, mysterious, and Eucharistic than a ‘seeker church’ church offers. From the local yoga studio, to the pilgrimages to Indian temples, even to clothing-optional mystical retreats, today’s seeker seems to be seeking more than a franchised ‘church lite’ experience. Toward that end, Fitch persuasively argues that worship is our best witness: “In worship, Christians present salvation, not in a rationalized, cognitive word only, but in the rich display of mighty acts in symbol and art…it cannot be argued with, only embraced or rejected.” However, he insists that all worship is not created equal: we must recover practices with sufficient power to reveal God in all his mystery and glory and power.[37]
For the sake of formation and witness, then, I contend that our worship tradition must recapture the treasures of historical liturgical worship. This may be hard for some to embrace, for as noted above the charismatic church often regards spontaneity as the ultimate sign of the Spirit.
Packiam’s insights here are helpful: “if the Spirit is like a flowing river, the Word and the sacraments are the banks of that river. They are banks not of our own making, but grooves worn by the Spirit’s flowing over the centuries.”[38] We need not, then, pit ritualized liturgy against spontaneous, overflowing expressions of worship, instead we should expect that historic ritual could expand our prayer vocabulary.[39] Packiam suggests that charismatics, more than most, need “a language school for prayer and worship, and that has been given to us in the Psalms.”[40] Paraphrasing Bonhoeffer, Psalms have the power to keep us from praying ‘idleness of what’s in our hearts.’”[41]
The Vineyard is, I believe, well positioned to recapture the treasures of liturgical worship. I expect that as we experiment, we will find significant parallel and even overlap between ‘classic’ Vineyard worship and ancient worship practice. We have already noted several features which are consistent with the New Testament church, including an expectation of the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit visible in charismatic gifts. Similarly, in contrast to an evangelical rejection of sacraments, we have always recognized that God is tangibly present in sung worship, a de facto ‘sacrament’ for the Vineyard.[42] Contrary to the heavily-programmed, rock-band tendency of modern worship, our tradition was shaped by the practice of “dialing-down emotions” and waiting on the Holy Spirit to direct our response.[43] We need not fear that liturgy will diminish this vitality.
As averse as we may be toward ‘rote’ prayer, we are steeped in a tradition of quite rote songs and repetitious choruses that are reminiscent of ancient chants.[44] Further, we recognize the power of art and music to go beyond inspiration or entertainment, but to immerse us in the truth of God. So too have we witnessed the power of art to bypass postmodernism skepticism about truth.[45] Above all, we have been taught to keep our ‘selves’ out of the center, making “touching the Father’s heart” our aim, never emotional experience.
Critical examination will aid us in separating wheat and weeds, but the voices of our critics should not deter us from recognizing the treasures hidden in our own field.[46] Our legacy has more than prepared us to immerse ourselves in traditions that far exceed the treasure of our own. [47]
That treasure in ancient worship is the ability of liturgy to immerse us in a reality greater than our own, and in so doing, to form our ‘selves’ to God’s reality.[48] Fitch proposes that our worship can become “immersive worship” as we prioritize “narrative scriptural depth, artistic symbol and eucharistic presence.”[49]
To that end, I am presently finding the Anglican Book of Common Prayer to be a helpful aid in restoring scriptural depth to worship. Unlike Catholic liturgy, the Anglican reformers sought to retain the form of responsive reading, but draw the content directly from Scripture.[50] [51] Of particular significance for us is the corporate confession that is so familiar to the liturgical church. In the evangelical world, I have found that we tend to assume confession will ‘just happen’ on an as-needed basis, and yet our own survey data shows otherwise. Corporate confession could be an important part of immersing our congregation in new language and practice that prompt individual confession.[52]
With regard to artistic symbol, the late Robert Webber has blazed a marvelous trail for us, a path on which we have already embarked in redesigning our sanctuary space (see appendix 1). The rich traditions of history can help us discover how art could be “more than entertainment or visual marketing” but actually “participation in the life of God” through beauty.[53] The most helpful roadmap will ultimately be the Bible itself, which communicates truth not as systematic theology but story, song and poetry.[54]
Of most significance for us may be the restoration of a historical practice of the Eucharist.
I am aware that even the word itself provokes reaction in some Protestants, and yet we must recognize that the necessary corrections of the Reformation unleashed a cycle of reactions that has left us with a very meager meal. Webber laments that the Lord’s Supper “has been reduced to an intellectual recall of Jesus hanging on the tree”,[55] and indeed our limited monthly practice and minimalist use of scripture or prayer contributes to this deficit. This may be due in no small part to our difficulty in remembering what it means to remember. We are aware that Jesus instructed us that “whenever you gather, do this in remembrance of me” and yet we have lost the significance of the Greek senese of anamnesis. “Biblical remembering makes the power and the saving effect of the event present to the worshipping community,” Webber instructs. Anamnesis makes the event present and live.[56]
The Jewish Passover can provide a helpful rubric, as this was the supper Jesus chose to inaugurate his own. The richness and potency of the traditional Jewish meal, celebrated with a feast of scripture, song, symbol and action, far exceeds communion as we know it. For the Jew, the meal speaks the loudest![57] The Eucharist was the primary visual word by which Jesus conveyed the meaning of his life and death and resurrection. For the early church as well, all of worship centered around re-visiting the presence of Jesus around the table. For us also the table can become “a meal that tells us who we are”,[58] invoking symbol and inviting action that unites a diverse body in remembrance of our past, anticipation of our future, and present feasting on Christ’s presence with us now.
To recapture these historic practices, we need not discard our own worship inheritance, instead we can look for commonality, heeding David Fitch’s call to become the Thomas Cranmers, who in his own time rewrote the book of common prayer in hopes of centering every English person in the life of God.[59]
Leading Change
I am aware that these changes will not be easy for all to embrace, and so an approach to leading change will necessarily include a re-telling of many stories: my own journey, the story of our church, the story of the Vineyard movement, and the story of the ancient church. Our summer 2017 sermon series is an effort to do just that.
My own story includes the life lessons referenced earlier: the journey of leading neighbors toward Jesus. The story of our church includes several years of experimentation with practices (especially candle lighting) that many have appreciated, but few understand. It will also include a review of our recent survey findings, presented as “what you are telling us about how you desire to grow.” The story of the Vineyard movement will be retold to reveal parallels in parallel with the story of historic church worship (see appendix 2).
Among our leaders, we have already begun leaning on the work of Glenn Packiam as a ‘tour guide’. As a charismatic turned Anglican, he speaks our language and has blazed a helpful trail. He graciously evaluates our shared past, suggesting of our early worship that perhaps God appreciates our childlike, simplistic words, like the heartfelt cry “Have mercy on me, a sinner!”, but he may be inviting us to a “deeper conversation”, waiting for us to say “Lord, teach us how to pray.”[60]
In all these changes, we move at a graciously slow pace, explaining often and surprising seldom. Our desire is to unite, drawing our congregation together around the Table, remembering the entire communion of saints that have gone before. Above all, our prayer will be that God himself would teach us how to pray and worship him with all the wisdom of maturity and all the passion of youth.
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[1] Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 1999), 99–100.
[2] John Wimber, “Worship: Intimacy with God,” Renewal Journals 6–10 (1995): 14.
[3] Andy Park, The Worship Journey: A Quest of Heart, Mind, and Strength (Harmon Press, 2010), 86.
[4] John Wimber, The Way in Is the Way On (Ampelon Publishing, 2006), 118.
[5] Wimber, “Renewal Journals 6-10,” 14.
[6] Wimber, The Way in Is the Way On, 112.
[7] Park, The Worship Journey, 86.
[8] For a recent example, Jonathan Aigner, “8 Reasons the Worship Industry Is Absolutely Killing Our Worship,” Ponder Anew, October 19, 2015, accessed June 7, 2017, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/ponderanew/2015/10/19/8-reasons-the-worship-industry-is-killing-worship/.
[9] Wimber, “Renewal Journals 6-10,” 15.
[10] Wimber, The Way in Is the Way On, 108.
[11] On the distinction between healthy emotional participation and the criticism of ‘emotionalism’, Wimber, “Renewal Journals 6-10,” 36.
[12]As reported by Todd Hunter in Park, The Worship Journey, 86.
[13] Wimber, The Way in Is the Way On, 113–16.
[14] Ibid., 122–24.
[15] Dallas Willard, “Living in the Vision of God,” Tell the Word Publishing: Washington DC, accessed June 7, 2017, http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=96.
[16] “I think, therefore I am.”
[17] Ironically, this quest gave rise to both theological liberalism (skeptical criticism of biblical truth claims) and theological fundamentalism (building truth claims upon indisputable fundamentals).
[18] David E. Fitch, The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books, 2005), 103-05.
[19] Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 103–104.
[20] Ibid., 54.
[21] For a helpful outline Stuart Murray Williams and Nigel Wright, Post-Christendom (Paternoster, 2004), Kindle. sec. 250.
[22] For a great intro Jay Pathak, Dave Runyon, and Randy Frazee, The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door, First Thus edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012).
[23] Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 50.
[24] Ibid., 58.
[25] Ibid., 50.
[26] The “Jesus Journey Survey” is an as-yet unpublished tool being developed by some close friends.
[27] In the past, we had hoped that small groups would accomplish lifestyle formation, but like many churches have been plagued by low participation and inconsistent content within those groups. Fitch argues that without a pastoral leader church fellowship will often degenerate into affinity-based “self-fulfillment enclaves” Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 42.
[28] Glenn Packiam, Discover the Mystery of Faith: How Worship Shapes Believing (David C. Cook, 2013), Kindle edition, location 111–113.
[29] Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 104–5.
[30] Ibid., 101.
[31] Ibid., 100–103.
[32] Packiam, Discover the Mystery of Faith, Kindle edition, location 267–275.
[33] Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 124.
[34] For a helpful summary “How The World Lost Its Story | Robert W. Jenson,” First Things, accessed June 1, 2017, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/03/how-the-world-lost-its-story.
[35] Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 105.
[36] Webber, Ancient-Future Faith, 99–100.
[37] Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 65.
[38] Packiam, Discover the Mystery of Faith. Kindle edition, location 1072.
[39] Packiam notes that historically, worship service liturgies were the work of theologians, more concerned with a rich proclamation and demonstration of the gospel than style or relevance in Discover the Mystery of Faith. loc. 622–632.
[40] Packiam, Discover the Mystery of Faith., location 303-306.
[41] Ibid., location 358–359.
[42] Gerarty, Luke T., “Toward a Vineyard Sacramental Theology: The Pneumatic Relationship between the ‘Not Yet’ and the ‘Now,’” Dissertation, September 16, 2015, accessed June 1, 2017, http://spiritchurchmission.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Luke-T.-Geraty-Toward-a-Vineyard-Sacramental-Theology-The-Pneumatic-Relationship-between-the-Not-Yet-and-the-Now-FINAL.pdf.
[43] Wimber, The Way in Is the Way On, 191.
[44] Sykes observes that repetition intensifies the words on us, affecting a “sacramental imprinting upon our consciousness.” Stephen Sykes, “Ritual and the Sacrament of the Word,” in Christ: The Sacramental Word. Incarnation, Sacrament and Poetry, ed. D. Brown and A. Loades (London: SPCK, 1996), 159.
[45] Fitch contends that this is essential for witness in the postmodern age in The Great Giveaway:109-10.
[46] I am indebted to David Fitch for a great deal in this work, and yet I think he overstates the case in dismissing certain features of charismatic worship, particularly intimacy and emphasis on expressions of love for Jesus.
[47] Wimber’s “sweet, simple love songs” continue to be the subject of much derision to this day, a criticism that seems to be based in a flawed reductionism that would have us exclude the heart from the first commandment to love God. Similar criticisms of repetitious language in my estimation fail to account for the presence of repetition down through the ages: in the Psalms, (cf. Pss 118 & 136), the Jewish prayer tradition, the Lord’s Prayer, liturgical prayers and chants, and the mystical contemplative traditions. In contrast, verbose theological hymnody is a much more recent development of the Reformers.
[48] Liturgy literally means “work of the people.” It could also describe a civic project like a water system or a bridge or a public park. Each week as we gather we are building a public work that tells the salvation story and invites the world into it, from Packiam, Discover the Mystery of Faith, locs. 630–32.
[49] Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 107.
[50] “Evangelicals and the Book of Common Prayer,” Glenn Packiam’s Blog, http://glennpackiam.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/04/evangelicals-and-the-book-of-common-prayer.html.
[51] It is little wonder that John Wimber was so well-received among Anglicans; Anglican liturgy and Vineyard theology are a wonderful complement.
[52] Packhiam contends that our services have lost a sense of conflict or crisis that creates hope or longing that leads to a “cut to the heart” moment as in Acts 2. “Without confession, a sermon is just good advice.” We may exit the service with a few clever tips to “try out” but lacking an abiding gratitude for the grace we so need. We do not confess because God is withholding forgiveness but because of constant need to let go of self-reliance, recognize the emptiness in our hands, and receive the gift that God offers, from ibid., loc. 653–698.
[53] Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 109–10.
[54] Packiam, Discover the Mystery of Faith. Kindle edition, locations 196-198.
[55] Webber, Ancient-Future Faith, 101.
[56] Ibid., 43.
[57] Packiam, Discover the Mystery of Faith. Kindle edition, locs 815-842.
[58] Jeff Heidkamp, Church Practices: Communion, May 25, 2014, accessed April 30, 2017, https://mercyvineyard.org/services/sermons/church-practices-communion/.
[59] Fitch, The Great Giveaway, 117.
[60] Packiam, Discover the Mystery of Faith. Kindle edition, locs 373-390.
