5:15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ~ Ephesians 5:15-17
When I was an engineer for Milliken & Company™ and in training for middle-management, Mr. Milliken instilled a philosophy in his leadership for continual revolution. There was an emphasis on constant chaos, turning the organization inside out and upside down. He knew the world was changing rapidly, and to keep up innovatively and stay connected to his customers, he promoted the philosophies of a civil engineer/business leader guru named Tom Peters. For example, Milliken’s leadership heard constant messages like this from Peter’s Book, Thriving on Chaos:
Every variable is up for grabs, and we are meeting (not meeting, in general) the challenge with the inflexible factories, inflexible systems, inflexible front-line people—and, worst of all, inflexible managers who still yearn for a bygone era where the presiding over the opening of new wings of hospitals, and new plants was about the most strenuous chore to be performed.
Today, loving change, tumult, even chaos is a prerequisite for survival, let alone success. It is to that end—exploring what it means to succeed by loving change—that this book is devoted.[1]
I boast of Mr. Milliken’s vision as a forerunner to implement such radical philosophies[2] during this time of the 1980s and ‘90s because I was in the throes of his company’s change, but he was not the only one. Other companies followed his lead to be innovative and promote customer satisfaction.
Interestingly, this kind of philosophy infiltrated the Church. This permeation is nothing new, for what has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun(Eccl. 1:9, emphasis mine). During this period, there were theological movements like N.T. Wright’s “New Perspective on Paul;” the “Emergent Church Movement,” implemented the idea that as culture changes, a new church should emerge in response; and the worship war between contemporary and traditional styles was at its height. At the forefront of all the ideas and more was this: if the Church is going to succeed, if “our church” is not only going to succeed but survive, then we better get to changing what we do and how we do it.
What did this look like? What emerged (pun intended)? Well, we witnessed mega-churches develop into multi-campus churches, built around dynamic personality-type pastors whose shallow preaching was streamed to thousands of souls. Children and teens had (and many still have) their own worship service separate from the parents, not because of nursery needs but because the pastor might use profanity or give detailed descriptions of sexual illustrations. Worship songs were written with cultural influence and played on personal emotions rather than theological foundations promoting God’s glory. I know of one church that had a “baptize your friend day” where one slid down a water slide into a pool, and a friend of their own choosing baptized them. And I know of another church that played AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” one Sunday to pump up the crowd and make church more fun. Make no mistake, this infiltration of the world into the church continues today (refer to Eccl. 1:9 again).
Now, I am a person who loves change, and maybe therefore why I liked working for Milliken & Company and I like Tom Peters. My wife, Lisa, will tell you that I become enthused when new opportunities arise. It excites me to try new stuff and go on new adventures. I like the change of seasons. When the leaves change colors in the fall, I admire their beauty. And when the buds emerge in spring, it fascinates me. I love Christmas at Christmas time and cannot wait for Easter in the spring. Ridge Haven Camp and Conference center in the North Carolina mountains is one of my favorite places on Earth, and so is Pawleys Island beach in the low country of South Carolina.
Reading that last paragraph, one may think I would be all for the emergent church philosophy and “fun-church” stuff. However, this is one area of life that I do not like change. Why? Because God’s Word tells us how He desires to be worshiped, and a covenant child wants to please the Heavenly Father with obedience. Beeke and Smalley remind us, “True worship is an act of love for God that aims to please him by following his Word.”[3] If you notice, I put “fun-church” in quotes, not because I am against fun or think worship should be boring. The point is that when we gather to worship, the aim is not to emote our feelings of worldly pleasure and leave feeling good about ourselves but to humble ourselves in reverence before a Holy God, in union with Christ our Savior, by the advocation and guidance of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God and our mutual building together by Him so that we will be ambassadors for Him to the world (Eph. 6:20, cf. 2 Co. 5:11).
For us to do all that “worshiping in Spirit and truth” entails (John 4:23-24), we must follow the principles of worship God lays out in His Word. In our reformed circles, this is known as the regulative principle of worship. The Belgic Confession of Faith relates the Reformed church’s belief in the sufficiency of the Word of God to the area of worship when it says, “For since the whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in them at large, it is unlawful for any one, though an Apostle, to teach otherwise than we are now taught in the Holy Scriptures: nay, though it were an angel from heaven, as the Apostle Paul saith” (Art. 7, c.f Art. 32). And the Westminster Confession of Faith states it this way, “But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited to his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture” (21.1). Beeke and Smalley help us out again with a proper but succinct definition: “The regulative principle of worship is a rule of love, for it aims to honor God in his holiness by bringing to him only the worship that he has commanded (Lev. 10:1-3).”[4]
As stated, to worship God as He commands implies an act of humble sacrifice before a Holy God on our part. Doug Kelly, quoting Staniloae, provides this thought, “Staniloae elsewhere employs a striking image – that of magnetism – as drawing believers to self-sacrifice: ‘Christ’s power shines forth from his sacrifice like a magnetic power, drawing us also to our sacrifice. Thus, our self-sacrifice is full of Christ’s self-sacrifice [quoting Cyril of Alexandria, Adoration of Spirit and Truth, Book 10].”[5]
The regulative principle helps us to make the best use of our time. It shows us the will of our Lord that when we gather for worship and worship Him rightly, we take that work the Holy Spirit does in and through us together into all the world. We do not live as chaotic people but as people who do “all things decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). We do not live and worship as we once lived and worshiped. Instead, we worship and live as He calls us (Rom. 12:2, Eph 2:1-22), seeking His kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6:33). There is a structure in our lives when the world around us changes, or even when we “make a change” in our lives, because we are imaged after a God who never changes (Num. 23:19, Psa. 102:25-27, James 1:17), whose Word never changes (Psa. 119:89, Isa. 40:8, Mal. 3:6). And our sanctification makes us more like Christ (Heb. 13:8).
[1] Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos (Excel/A California Limited Partnership, 1987), 55. You may wonder why Roger Milliken listened so intently to Tom Peters. Here is an excerpt of his backstory from his website: “Tom is a civil engineering graduate of Cornell [B.C.E., M.C.E.], where he was included in the book The 100 Most Notable Cornellians, and he earned an MBA and a Ph.D. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (he is credited with producing the GSB’s first Ph.D. thesis on implementation), and has been honored by dozens of associations in content areas such as management, leadership, quality, human resources, campaigning for more women in senior leadership positions, customer service, innovation, marketing, and design.” https://tompeters.com/about/toms-bio/. Accessed on July 26, 2022, at 10:36 AM.
[2] Tom Peters dedicated Thriving on Chaos to Roger Milliken.
[3] Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Spirit and Salvation, v. 3 (Wheaton: Crossway, 2021), 886.
[4] Ibid., 887.
[5] Douglas F. Kelly, Systematic Theology Grounded in Holy Scripture and Understood in the Light of the Church: The Holy Spirit and the Church, v. 3 (Fearn, Mentor, 2021), 203.
Andrews PCA 