As a worship student and minister of worship at my church, I have spent a lot of time reading and thinking through the biblical guidelines (or lack thereof) for the Church's service of worship. The weekly job of planning worship primarily falls to me and I take this job very seriously since it effects the spiritual life of every member and visitor that comes through our doors. Making Christ known while balancing beloved tradition that reaches and speaks to the hearts of my people and teaching new music and liturgy that more fully tells the grand narrative of scripture and salvation history is a tough job. Issues like the regulative principle rarely get discussed outside of the classroom even though it is an issue that gets to the very heart of what we mean when we say that scripture is sufficient for all of life.
So, it excites me when I read blogs that are talking about this and hearing pastors who are thinking through these issues. One such blog is Provocations and Pantings penned by Southern Seminary student Timmy Brister. Timmy has posed a question to Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle's Mars Hill Church, who is conducting a survey of topics to preach on. Pastor Mark recently preached through 1 Corinthians and realized that the occasion for Paul's writing was to address specific issues that were on the minds and hearts of the members of the Church at Corinth. So, in like manor, he's asking his church and the wider church to give suggestions. At this point in the process, the questions have been narrowed down to the top 20 vote-getters. The top Nine (9) will be answered by Pastor Mark from the pulpit when he preaches this series.
You can vote 10 times in one day. Please email this post to your friends and get out the vote.
SO...I'm asking you to go and vote for Question Number #10. Here it is:
Do you believe that Scripture not only regulates our theology but our
methodology? In other words, do you believe in the regulative principle? If so,
to what degree? If not, why not?
In the future I will be discussing my take on the Regulative Principle and how I think about worship planning in the context of the local church, but first, let's put on our Rally Caps and get out there and vote.
