John Calvin's Worship Services - A Preface

The following is just a preface to my forthcoming post on John Calvin, and how he planned his worship services. I intend to keep posting on the blog, with reflections on quotes by other pastors, theologians and church fathers (like Calvin), for a couple of reasons. I hope they're helpful to you.

Reason #1: I've talked to a good number of Christians and even "worship leaders" who have really vague ideas about what exactly their role is in church, and what role the music is actually supposed to play in the life of a church body. Why in the world do we sing together as a church on Sunday (or any other time)? And by the way, I throw myself in on this one. I've often been poorly-thought-through about church. But by the grace of God, no more!

I've said it before, but I believe the Scriptures say some very specific things about having music in church, and about singing together as Christians. Unfortunately, somehow our modern culture has produced a generation of church music leaders who (in my opinion) are influenced by the Christian "pop worship" scene, and plan music because it's what we're supposed to have in church. They try to incorporate all the "popular" worship songs to keep things relevant in their church, and they fail to really think and process through what Scripture commands concerning church music; and, if Scripture does command gathered Christians to sing, how should that be done?

As those leading our church we need to know why we do what we do, so we can help our congregation know. Otherwise, what's the point?

Reason #2: I've been helped a ton by studying what Scripture says on this, of course. But, I've also been helped immensely by reading what some other godly pastors and music leaders think about the subject. Some of these writers are from today, but many that I've tried to read from are from church history: men like Spurgeon, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, even C.S. Lewis, and others.

The reason some voices from the past can help us so much, is that we can never figure life out in a vacuum. These men tried to figure out how to do church according to the Word of God years before us, and so we would be foolish not to learn from them. They were sinful like us and didn't do everything right, as history will attest to; but, there are vast amounts of wisdom to be gained from those who've gone before. We would do well to learn from these men, and let their wisdom affect how we think through what we do in the church today.

All that to say, there will henceforth be a post with a couple quotes about how John Calvin went about structuring his church's worship services! And, ironically, that post will probably be shorter than this one.