Evangelicals, Worship and Participation

Evangelicals, Worship and Participation
If you admire daring books, then Alan Rathe has given us a Star Trek type of book, boldly
going where few have gone before. While the topic of participation has been a prominent
one in the Liturgical Movement, Rathe now explores this crucial issue among evangelicals.
Insights and surprises abound.
Lester Ruth, Duke Divinity School, USA
Alan Rathe’s work makes two key contributions to the growing literature on the theology,
spirituality, and practice of Christian worship. He develops a road map to a significant
amount of recent evangelical writing about worship practices. And he provides a window
into quite different conceptions of liturgical participation by all worshipers found in this
literature.
John D. Witvliet, Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary, USA
At first read, you might think of Alan Rathe’s Evangelicals, Worship and Participation
as a new map, more nearly representing the topography of evangelical liturgical positions
and practices. But upon further reflection, you may well conclude as I have that this work
is much more of a game-changer. It is like moving from a traditional map to a satellite
map with clarity and detail down to the street level. Rathe has given us new insight into
Evangelicals, their perspectives on worship and even glimpses of their theological, spiritual
and missional DNA. The result is not a simple picture, but its clarity and detail honestly
present the diversity and complexity of the current landscape. It will serve as a standard
guide for many years to come.
Todd E. Johnson, Fuller Theological Seminary, USA
In discussions of worship, the term “participation” covers a lot of ground. It refers

not only to concrete acts in gathered liturgy, but also to some of the loftiest claims of
Christian theology. In this book, Alan Rathe probes the ways in which North American
evangelicals have in recent years regarded the landscape of participation. Presenting a
broad review of evangelical worship literature through a lens borrowed from medieval
theology, he brings into focus not only evangelical understandings but also evangelical
identities and the historical traditions they reflect. A fresh perspective is offered on
current theological concerns such as God’s triunity, missio Dei, and the practical
theology of participation.
Offering a fresh contribution to the liturgically-informed study of evangelical worship

practice, this book reconnects the evangelical tradition to the “Great Tradition”, and in
the process re-appropriates classic concepts that are full of promise for contemporary
ecumenical dialogue.
LITURGY, WORSHIP AND SOCIETY
SERIES EDITORS
Dave Leal, Brasenose College, Oxford, UK

Bryan Spinks, Yale Divinity School, USA
Paul Bradshaw, University of Notre Dame, UK and USA
Phillip Tovey, Diocese of Oxford and Ripon College Cuddesdon, UK
Teresa Berger, Yale Divinity School, USA
The Ashgate Liturgy, Worship and Society series forms an important ‘library’
on liturgical theory at a time of great change in the liturgy and much debate
concerning traditional and new forms of worship, suitability and use of places
of worship, and wider issues concerning interaction of liturgy, worship and
contemporary society. Offering a thorough grounding in the historical and
theological foundations of liturgy, this series explores and challenges many key
issues of worship and liturgical theology, currently in hot debate within academe
and within Christian churches worldwide – issues central to the future of the
liturgy, to public and private worship, and set to make a significant impact on
changing patterns of worship and the place of the church in contemporary
society.
Other titles in the series:
Richard Baxter’s Reformed Liturgy

A Puritan Alternative to the Book of Common Prayer
Glen J. Segger
Anglican Confirmation
1662–1820
Phillip Tovey
The Rite of Christian Initiation

Adult Rituals and Roman Catholic Ecclesiology
Peter McGrail
The Blessing of Waters and Epiphany

The Eastern Liturgical Tradition
Nicholas E. Denysenko
Evangelicals, Worship and
Participation
Taking a Twenty-First Century Reading
Alan Rathe
New York, USA
© Alan Rathe 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Alan Rathe has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street
Union Road Suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818
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www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Rathe, Alan.
Evangelicals, worship, and participation : taking a twenty-first century reading / by Alan Rathe.
pages cm. -- (Liturgy, worship and society series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-6919-3 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-4094-6920-9 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-
1-4094-6921-6 (epub) 1. Public worship--North America. 2. Participation. 3. Engagement
(Philosophy) I. Title.
BV15.R37 2014
264--dc23
2014012038
ISBN 9781409469193 (hbk)

ISBN 9781409469209 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781409469216 (ebk – ePUB)
V
Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD
Contents
List of Tables vii

Foreword by John D. Witvliet ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1 The Landscape:
What Exactly is an Evangelical? 5
2 The Literature:
Which Books to Consider? 31
3 The Lens:
“What Language Shall I Borrow?” 41
4 The All-of-Life Emphasis 67
5 The Gathered Devotion Emphasis 89
6 The Sacramental Recovery Emphasis 105
7 The Evangelistic Worship Emphasis 149
8 The Organically Missional Emphasis 179
9 Summarizing and Analyzing 197
10 Reflections (Part 1):

The Enduring Past, the Surprising Present 215
11 Reflections (Part 2):

The (Un)Foreseeable Future 231
vi Evangelicals, Worship and Participation
Appendix 1: Pentecostals, Worship and Participation 245

Appendix 2: Survey Methodology 269
Appendix 3: Survey Respondents (by Institution) 271
Appendix 4: The Survey Instrument 273
Appendix 5: Horizon 1 Practices Across the Five Emphasis Groups 279
Select Bibliography 281

Index 295
List of Tables
1.1 The composition of American evangelicals 16
2.1 Final literature pool sorted by rank 35

2.2 Top 10 volumes in the literature pool, indicating emphasis groups 38
2.3 Final literature pool by emphasis group 39
2.4 Emphasis groups sorted by total points per group 40
2.5 Emphasis groups sorted by average points per book 40
9.1 The emphasis groups: general findings 198

9.2 The emphasis groups: dimensions of Horizon 1
(participation in human action) 199
(participation in divine-through-human action) 201
(participation in the life of God) 202
9.5 Communities of participation 212
This page has been left blank intentionally
Foreword
Generative books often have potential uses that extend far beyond the author’s
intent. And that is well the case with this book. Alan Rathe’s primary intent here
is to analyze accounts of liturgical participation that are prominent in evangelical
courses of Christian worship. He does so by taking several methodological risks:
1. using a statistical compilation of books studied to establish a corpus of

material to analyze;
2. grouping authors by a central thematic thrust of their work, rather than
by denomination, chronological development, or some other scheme; and
3. analyzing these works using a construct developed in medieval sacramental
theology.
The result is not only an instructive reading of evangelical liturgical theology

(Rathe himself would caution against seeing it as “the definitive reading”), but
also an exercise that will catalyze alert readers to ponder the nature of ecumenical
learning, contemporary reading habits, and the move from liturgical theology to
liturgical catechesis. Consider a few of these generative themes.
First, this book is a useful tool for exercising ecumenical awareness and
understanding. Those outside evangelical communities will encounter here some
of the texture of evangelical conversations, which often elude the stereotypical
sound bites featured in media stories. Robert Webber, David Peterson, Marva
Dawn, Sally Morgenthaler, Don Hustad, D.A. Carson, Simon Chan, Harold
Best—all evangelical authors discussed in this study—are remarkably different
people, in terms of formation, temperament, and writing voice. By heavily
quoting from these and other prominent sources, this book harvests several
contrasting ways of drawing on scriptural, theological, and historical reasoning
in developing an account of liturgical participation. Alert readers will encounter
a polyphonic vibrancy that they might not otherwise expect to find.
For their part, evangelical readers may discover their own ecumenical
awareness challenged by Rathe’s reclamation of medieval horizons of
participation. “Sacramentum tantum,” “res et sacramentum,” and “res tantum”
are hardly common words in an evangelical vocabulary. Yet it turns out that
many evangelical voices can be analyzed provocatively in terms of these
categories, helping us hear how these voices sound in quite a different acoustical
environment. Tracking Rathe’s repeated use of these categories is itself an
x Evangelicals, Worship and Participation
ecumenical education for readers, and is likely to change the way thoughtful
evangelical readers respond to the broader Christian church, and especially to
the larger history of Western liturgy that developed in terms of these categories.
One of the values of Rathe’s outline is that these categories recur in so many
different chapters. Readers are not merely exposed to these categories, but are
given repeated practice in thinking with them chapter by chapter. This exercise
could well be repeated in analyzing writers in any number of Christian traditions.
Second, this book offers an instructive mirror to reflect on the reading habits
of contemporary Christians. The list of books that Rathe analyzes is remarkably
eclectic. It contains scholarly, practical, and devotional writings. While every
book is studied in several evangelical institutions, not every author is a card-
carrying evangelical. And those who are come from a wide variety of traditions.
In an information age, with ease of access to online texts and online book
ordering, reading patterns among Christian leaders are arguably as eclectic and
varied as ever. This means that boundaries between various Christian traditions
may well be more permeable than most definitions and analytic descriptions
allow. This is the case not only with the texts Rathe chooses to analyze, but
also the sources he uses along the way. The footnotes in this book contain
a multiplicity of Christian voices that could hardly be imagined in books on
liturgical participation a generation ago.
Third, wrestling with this book is helpful for all who attempt to give a
theological account of the nature of worship. It is difficult to conceive of an
adequate theological account of Christian worship practices that did not wrestle
in some way with each of the five emphases and each of the three levels of medieval
analysis that weave together in this book. All of these are essential, not optional
aspects of worship. By attempting to map the territory of the recent writings on
worship, Rathe develops what could well become a helpful diagnostic tool for
any teacher of Christian worship, quite apart from the specific way he develops
these emphases and levels here.
Fourth, this book is a provocative preparatory study for a host of Christian
leaders—pastors, preachers, teachers, musicians, artists, parents, and others—
who wake up every Sunday morning to the task of helping people participate in
worship more deeply and meaningfully. They do so by explaining worship, by
how they preside at or lead worship, by how they testify about what they have
experienced in worship. Although this book does not conclude with a checklist
of tips for effective liturgical leadership and catechesis, it offers ministry
practitioners a language to describe the deep purposes of liturgical leadership
and catechesis, and may well prompt readers to develop any number of practical
strategies.
Ministry leaders who read this book, for example, may feel unsatisfied with
approaches that merely speak in mystical terms about God’s own life, but refrain
from dealing with the tangible, quotidian realities of sensory experience in
Foreword xi
worship service. They may feel equally unsatisfied with approaches that merely
focus on the mechanics of liturgical music, art, and speech, but grow strangely
silent when it comes to naming and evoking God’s own presence among us, as well
as the nature of heavenly worship. And they may feel especially unsatisfied with
testimonies and explanations that focus entirely on our own action in worship,
but have little imagination for divine action in and through the worshiping
assembly. The material this book discusses belongs, then, in the working libraries
not only of historians of evangelicalism or liturgical theologians, but also of all
who care about Christian formation, education, and discipleship.
John D. Witvliet
Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments like this are often pretty much the same. They begin by
recognizing that no man is an island, they go on to thank the many people who
made this moment possible, they credit others with the strengths of the finished
volume but absolve them from any of its weaknesses, and they end by imploring
that we try a little love, give peace a chance, and finally buckle down to end
world hunger.
But it would be wrong to be too hard on such acknowledgments. For one
thing, they are written by authors punch-drunk from having gone nine rounds
with a stiff-necked manuscript. For another, their effusive sense of gratitude is
right on the money. One of the most profound (if simple) things I’ve learned as
I’ve participated in writing this volume is embedded in the very definition of the
word “participation”: you can’t participate alone.
This document exists only because I was surrounded by true co-participants
who helped and heartened me along the way. I want to thank them. I am deeply
grateful to my dream-team of a dissertation committee who guided me in
writing the material that forms the basis for this book you are now reading: John
Witvliet, who is as gracious as he is brilliant; Len Sweet, who is as hospitable
as he is visionary; and Anne Yardley, who is as wise as she is capable, and who
always brought me down to earth when I was up in the air.
I am grateful, of course, to all the worship professors who took the time to
respond to the survey so important to this project; their names can be found in
Appendix 3. Heather Murray Elkins made me feel at home at Drew University
with uncommon hospitality. Joseph and Eugenia Chiu provided me with a
lovingly well-lit place to write. Lester Ruth has been unfailingly generous as
both mentor and friend. Joe DeSantis, pastor and friend, was radically patient,
interested, and accommodating, even as I put much church work on hold to
research and write. Julia Ri Wong has been a constantly encouraging co-worker,
friend, and spiritual sibling. Mark Lubas, my other sister, has remained closer
than a brother and has shown unflagging interest and support.
I am indebted, of course, to Bryan Spinks and Teresa Berger, who suggested
that, despite my protestations, my dissertation should become a book—and
then proceeded to help make it happen. Sarah Lloyd, David Shervington and
Aimée Feenan at Ashgate have been consistently solicitous and helpful in the
process of bringing this work to print.
xiv Evangelicals, Worship and Participation
And Elissa Lin Rathe: there are no words to say how much I delight in your
partnership. My deepest earthbound joy is participating with you in this all-too-
brief moment, here at the corner of now and not yet.
Finally—the grandest participation we are called to is this: “And whatever
you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the father through him” (Colossians 3:17).1 At the risk of wearing
my faith on my sleeve or sounding like a pop star at an awards ceremony, allow
me to say it straight: I am thankful beyond words to God for and through our
Lord Jesus Christ.
1
All scripture in this volume quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Crossway/Good News Publishers, 2001).
Introduction
“We are not cheerleaders.”
Evangelical worship leaders often use words similar to these to remind one
another how (not) to think about their role in ministry. The corrective is a good
one. But the impulse it corrects is also good: the desire to cheer on something felt
to be lacking among evangelicals at worship. What is so painfully absent? What
is so flagrantly wanting that it stirs up visions of pom poms and school spirit in
the minds of those who lead worship? The answer is, in a word: participation.
Whether articulated or not, participation is almost always a nagging
concern of worship leaders. And the problem is nothing new. John Wesley
urged congregational worshipers to “sing lustily and with good courage,” and
to “[b]eware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your
voice with strength.”1 Now, as then, leaders of worship know that their success
is not measured merely by their own performance, no matter how musically
polished, piously heartfelt, or artfully expressive it might be. Rather, they know
that their success is measured in terms of the congregation’s engagement and
responsiveness—their participation.
And while it may seem at first blush that the holy grail of participation is
tangible, that which can be seen and heard—leaders of worship know intuitively
that it is something more than that, something beyond the reach of mere
cheerleading. If John Wesley enjoins worshipers to make a joyful noise, he also
calls them to offer pious hearts: “Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in
every word you sing … [A]ttend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that
your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually.”2
Like Wesley, present-day worship leaders understand that real participation is
anchored in the invisible.
Well aware that authentic participation straddles the divide between the
visible and the invisible, authors have attempted to write meaningfully about it.
While it is true that few of the many worship-themed books written in recent
years have been aimed squarely at the subject of participation, it is also true that
the theme does bubble up to the surface frequently as an important concern.
For Roman Catholics, the rallying cry of the Vatican II liturgical reforms was
1
The United Methodist Hymnal: Book of United Methodist Worship (Nashville: United
Methodist Publishing House, 1989), p. vii.
2
Ibid.
2 Evangelicals, Worship and Participation
precisely a call to “full, conscious, and active participation in worship.”3 Many

authors (among others) took that concern deeply to heart. The very last work
by Roman Catholic scholar Mark Searle—a sort of professional last will and
testament, written as his life slipped away—was the book Called to Participate.4
Presbyterian Craig Erickson concentrated on “patterns of participation” in
his volume Participating in Worship.5 Perhaps the most impassioned book by
prolific evangelical author Robert Webber was his Worship is a Verb—born out
of hunger for a “deeper experience” of worship and a conviction about the “need
to participate.”6 In 2010, Worship Leader Magazine (the premier evangelical
periodical aimed at worship leaders) dedicated an issue to the theme, “The
Return of the Folk,” featuring a series of articles exploring the theology and
practice of congregational participation in worship.7
And if evangelicals are beginning to discuss the topic of participation more
broadly, they are also beginning, in some contexts, to discuss it more deeply, as
well. This is particularly true in the areas of theoretical and practical theology.
Inspired by a fresh wave of trinitarian theologizing in the mid-twentieth century,
evangelical theologians (and others) have begun to explore how participation is
rooted in God’s own triune interrelations, and how participation is central to
God’s purposes for humans, both salvifically and missionally.
So the subject of participation has had more and more moments in the
evangelical spotlight—but those moments have more often been cameo
appearances than starring roles. Participation has most frequently been treated
as a theme among many others. And it has not received nearly enough worship-
related attention. The literature has yet to richly bridge an expansive theology of
participation with the tangible practices of the church at worship.
While the following chapters will not, alas, represent a constructive attempt
at such bridge-building, they are intended to at least lay the foundation for it.
The explicit task will be to train a sustained focus on worship participation,
exploring the ways in which evangelicals have been thinking about it for the past
several decades. The strategy toward that end will be an examination of the most
influential books written (and read) by evangelicals during that period. In other
3
Second Vatican Council, “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” SC 14; in The Liturgy
Documents, a Parish Resource, Vol. 1, ed. Kevin W. Irwin and David Lysik (Chicago: Liturgy
Training Publications, 2004), p. 6.
4
Mark Searle, Barbara Schmich Searle, and Anne Y. Koester, Called to Participate:
Theological, Ritual, and Social Perspectives (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2006).
5
Craig Douglas Erickson, Participating in Worship: History, Theory, and Practice
(Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989). See chapters 3 through 8 for Searle’s
in-depth treatment of each of the six patterns he identifies.
6
Robert Webber, Worship is a Verb: Eight Principles for Transforming Worship, 2nd
edn (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996), p. 2.
7
Worship Leader Magazine, July 2010.
Introduction 3
words, the “reading” we are attempting to take (see the subtitle of this book) will
come by way of reading. Key to all of this will be the adoption of a conceptual
lens through which to look; the one ultimately to be used here envisions worship
participation as playing out simultaneously on three different “horizons.”
Chapter 1 stakes out some important contextual landscape for this study,
grappling with the definition of “evangelicals” and broadly identifying the
character of their worship practice. Chapter 2 introduces and discusses the pool
of literature to be analyzed, explaining how the books (published between 1980
and 2010) were chosen, and categorizing them into five useful “emphasis groups.”
Chapter 3 establishes an interpretive lens—a trifocal schema for thinking about
participation. After chapters 4 through 8 train that lens on each of the “emphasis
groups” in turn, Chapter 9 attempts summary and analysis of what came clear.
Finally, chapters 10 and 11 offer some concluding reflections in light of the past,
the present, and the future.
***
This is a time of remarkable convergence. Postmodern culture hungers for

participation; theologians are marveling how humans formed in the image of a
triune God are made for participation; and writers about worship are beginning
to set their sights more explicitly on participation. All of this points to what
worship leaders have sensed all along: participation is deeply central to worship,
and summoning the church to participation is a high calling, indeed. Perhaps
the greatest gift these leaders of worship could receive would be from those
who would roll up their sleeves and focus intensely on worship participation—
probing how it has been understood and, moreover, figuring out at what points
and in what ways it might be better articulated. Such an effort would go a long
way toward empathetically equipping worship leaders for a task that is, as they
well know, far more than cheerleading.
Chapter 1
The Landscape:
What Exactly is an Evangelical?
Heady thoughts are always anchored in earthy realities. Accordingly, despite all
the heavenly altitude involved in worship participation, our means of approach
will be earthbound enough: a collection of books. What the authors of these
particular volumes share is an association with evangelical Christianity. That is
to say: most of them self-identify as evangelical, write about evangelical realities,
and angle their work toward a largely evangelical readership.1
All of which presses the notoriously difficult question: what exactly is an
evangelical?
***
Plant the evangelical flag in the middle of the road, taking a conservative
theological position but a definite liberal approach to social problems. It
would combine the best in liberalism and the best in fundamentalism without
compromising theologically.2
With these two sentences, Billy Graham encapsulated a magna carta for
twentieth-century evangelicalism. It is true that the words were specifically
occasioned by the launch of the magazine Christianity Today in 1956, more than
a decade after the inception of what has come to be called “neo-evangelicalism.”
And yet, those words well express the “startling vision”3 that Graham and
company had when they first set the movement in motion.
While the “neo” story has often been told as if it were the story of
evangelicalism, it is only one out of a number of narratives. Although it would
be impossible, here, to deeply explore the movement’s many tributaries, the
1
The other, “non-evangelical” authors that will be examined here are included because
they are widely read by evangelicals.
2
George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New
Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 158, as quoted in Leonard I. Sweet,
“Wise as Serpents, Innocent as Doves: The New Evangelical Historiography,” Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 56, no. 3 (Fall 1988): pp. 409–10. It is impossible to overstate
Billy Graham’s central and catalytic role in the shaping of the new evangelicalism.
3
Sweet, “Wise as Serpents,” p. 409.
following pages will attempt to provide at least some context and meaning for
the term “evangelical.”
***
Years after planting the evangelical flag in that metaphorical road, Billy Graham
responded to the question, “What is evangelicalism?” with the surprising
rejoinder: “Actually, that’s a question I’d like to ask somebody, too.”4 This
from the man often viewed as being, himself, a kind of personal litmus test for
evangelicals! (George Marsden reports, with a straight face, that by the middle
of the twentieth century, the simplest definition of an evangelical was “anyone
who likes Billy Graham.”5) Despite the fact that evangelicalism has been a fixture
in (and a formative influence on) American history, and in spite of its decades
of burgeoning growth and cultural impact,6 it remains notoriously difficult to
define.7
One of the challenges in delimiting the term is that evangelicalism is a moving
target—a movement, after all. Or perhaps it is best to think of it in pluralistic
terms: a “multinational pluriform constituency,” as J.I. Packer calls it—“a massive
network of pulsating energies.”8 Mark Noll echoes that assessment, calling
evangelicalism an “extraordinarily complex phenomenon” which is “diverse,
flexible, adaptable and multiform.”9 Furthermore, evangelicalism has no official
perimeter—nor any official center, for that matter. As a “religious movement,”
George Marsden points out, it is only “informally organized,” at best; it is often
4
Terry Mattingly, “Define ‘Evangelical’—Please,” Terry Mattingly on Religion
(website), www.tmatt.net/ 2004/11/24/define-evangelical-please/ (accessed June 23, 2009).
5
George M. Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 6.
6
Regarding the cultural impact of evangelicalism on those living in the United
States, sociologist Alan Wolfe has been quoted as saying (“only half facetiously”): “We are
all evangelicals now.” Jay Tolson, “The New Old-Time Religion,” U.S. News & World Report
(December 8, 2003): p. 6.
7
In spite of the thorniness of the task (or perhaps because of it), the enterprise of
defining evangelicalism has grown in recent years into something of a “cottage industry.”
John G. Stackhouse, Jr., Evangelical Landscapes: Facing Critical Issues of the Day (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), p. 48.
8
J.I. Packer, “A Stunted Ecclesiology,” in Ancient & Postmodern Christianity: Paleo-
Orthodoxy in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of Thomas C. Oden, ed. Thomas C. Oden,
Kenneth Tanner, and Christopher A. Hall (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002),
quoted in David F. Wells, “Evangelical Theology,” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduction
to Christian Theology Since 1918, ed. David Ford and Rachel Muers (Malden: Blackwell
Publishers, 2005), p. 608.
9
Mark A. Noll, American Evangelical Christianity: An Introduction (Oxford and
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), p. 14.
The Landscape: What Exactly is an Evangelical? 7
a contentious “coalition of submovements, hardly unified in outlook or action.”10

Decentralized as evangelicals are, “there is no single entity that can possibly
serve as a representative gatekeeper” for them.11
But perhaps more fundamentally, the definitional slipperiness of the concept
“evangelical” has to do with the very concept of “concepts.” Esteemed evangelical
scholar Roger Olson proposes a fresh approach to defining evangelicals, one
inspired by the work of cognitive scientist George Lakoff. Olson (relying
on another scholar’s distillation of Lakoff ’s work) applies Lakoff ’s thought
to the category “evangelical.”12 To oversimplify, what Olson arrives at is this:
movements (such as evangelicalism) are not bounded sets, but rather centered
ones—and these sets are best defined in reference to what Lakoff calls
“prototypes.”13 Any given prototype may be regarded as being either more or
less squarely representative of its category. Olson imagines that evangelicalism
might most usefully be defined in this prototypical, loosely centered way; he
suggests placing at the middle of the definitional circle both easily-recognized
evangelicals and also widely accepted definitional norms. If one believes that
Olson is on the right track, then the quip that an evangelical is simply “anyone
who likes Billy Graham” proves to be surprisingly accurate.
If the category “evangelical” might, indeed, be validly construed as a centered
set—then what specific elements should sit at its center? One particular
definition, as helpful as it is obscure, will suggest where to look for the needed
“prototypical” elements.
***
For the moment, we’ll skip over what has become nearly the gold standard of
defining evangelicalism: the widely celebrated “quadrilateral” of historian David
10
Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, pp. 1–2.
11
Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, “Defining Evangelicalism,”
http://isae.wheaton.edu/defining-evangelicalism/ (accessed May 7, 2009). The fact that
evangelicalism lacks any sort of official “gatekeeper” does not mean that nobody aspires to
that position. Debates about the movement’s boundaries are not always abstract and cool-
headed; rather they often have to do with the brokering of power—either religious and/or
political.
12
Olson, “Defining ‘Evangelical’: Why It’s Necessary and Impossible,” Roger E. Olson:
My evangelical Arminian theological musings, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/
2013/01/defining-evangelical-why-its-necessary-and-impossible/ (accessed September 23,
2013). The material Olson ultimately draws upon can be found in George Lakoff, Women,
Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1987).
13
Lakoff would perhaps go even further and suggest that all categories are actually
centered sets.
Bebbington. At this point it will be useful to examine another, more recent

effort—an excellent if sprawling definition crafted by Timothy Larsen:
An evangelical is:
1. an orthodox Protestant;
2. who stands in the tradition of the global Christian networks arising from
the eighteenth-century revival movements associated with John Wesley and
George Whitefield;
3. who has a preeminent place for the Bible in her or his Christian life as the
divinely inspired authority in matters faith and practice;
4. who stresses reconciliation with God through the atoning work of Jesus
Christ on the cross;
5. and who stresses the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of an individual
to bring about conversion and an ongoing life of fellowship with God and
service to God and others, including the duty of all believers to participate
in the task of proclaiming the gospel to all people.14
Far less elegant than simpler definitions (such as Bebbington’s), the genius
of Larsen’s is embedded, precisely, in its unwieldiness. Its strength lies in its
conjunction of three distinct dimensions of evangelical identity: the historical,
the normative/theological, and the associational.15
The Historical Dimension
Larsen’s definition encapsulates in its first two points the critically important
dimension of history. The Great Awakening revivals of the eighteenth century
loom appropriately largest here; evangelicalism’s most distinctive and life-
giving cluster of roots is anchored precisely at that historical juncture.16 But,
observed closely, Larsen’s formulation points to no less than five evangelically
14
Timothy Larsen, “Defining and Locating Evangelicalism,” in Timothy Larsen and
Daniel J. Treier, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 1.
15
Similarly blended definitions are attempted by Timothy George, Dean of Beeson
Divinity School, and historian Douglas Sweeney. Timothy George, “If I’m an ‘Evangelical,’
What Am I?,” Christianity Today (August 9, 1999): p. 62; Douglas A. Sweeney, The American
Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005),
pp. 23–4.
16
Douglas Sweeney argues that what distinguishes evangelicals is their distinctively
“eighteenth-century twist” on Protestant orthodoxy. Sweeney, The American Evangelical
Story, pp. 23–4.
significant moments in history: the Protestant Reformation, the New Testament

church, the Great Awakening(s), the “evangelical empire,” and the rise of neo-
evangelicalism.
Five Historical Moments
The Protestant Reformation

Larsen’s words “orthodox Protestant” resonate not only confessionally, but also
historically—serving as a reminder that evangelicalism’s heritage harks back
earlier than the Great Awakening; its roots are in the Protestant Reformation.17
The five solas of the magisterial reform remain important anchors of evangelical
theology.18 And many scholars have flagged particular strains of the Reformation,
in both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as contributing importantly to
the rise of evangelicalism; these are commonly understood to include Puritanism
and European Pietism.19
The New Testament church

Larsen’s word “orthodox,” if closely attended to, serves double duty. Evangelicals
are not only orthodoxly Protestant—they are also Protestant-ly orthodox. Indeed,
the movement’s ancient New Testament roots are proudly heralded by the very
name “evangelical,” which derives from the Greek euangelion: the good news of
the gospel. All evangelicals are particularly conscious of their biblical heritage;
some sectors of the movement have even, at times, championed the sort of
17
Alister McGrath looks back even further, citing scholarship that has surfaced
strands of evangelical theology in early sixteenth-century Italy—including “the personal
appropriation of salvation and the spiritual importance of the reading of Scripture.” Alister E.
McGrath, Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press,
1995), pp. 19–20.
18
See, for example, a contemporary evangelical exposition of the solas in James
Montgomery Boice, Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? Recovering the Doctrines That
Shook the World (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001).
19
Mark Noll, for example, boils early influences on evangelicalism down to the
magisterial Reformation, Puritanism, and Pietism. Regarding the Reformation, Noll
especially emphasizes the Anglican side, particularly the small group movement that was so
formative for John and Charles Wesley. As for the distinctly Calvinist Puritan movement of the
seventeenth century, he points out that it was channeled into evangelicalism largely through
Edwards (in the United States) and Whitefield (in England). And he sees as particularly
influential the European pietist movements of that same century, many of whose innovations
became grafted onto the ongoing texture of evangelical piety and practice. See the 2005
Christianity Today interview with Noll: Rob Moll, “The Rise of the Evangelicals (interview
with Mark Noll),” Christianity Today Magazine (web-only), www.christianitytoday.com/
ct/2005/juneweb-only/42.0a.html (accessed December 7, 2013).
repristinating “restoration” that would strip back centuries of tradition in an

effort to restore New Testament simplicity and vitality to their churches.20
The Great Awakening(s)

Larsen correctly sets evangelicalism’s historical center of gravity in the “Great
Awakening” revivals of the eighteenth century.21 Scholars almost invariably
locate the birth of evangelicalism in the midst of these revivals, which sparked
through the British Isles and arced over the Atlantic to the British colonies in
North America.22 Shepherded by such figures as Jonathan Edwards, George
Whitefield, and John Wesley, the early movement gave rise to a distinctive
ethos and theological focus that have stayed imprinted on evangelicalism to
the present day.23
The “evangelical empire”

The “tradition of … global Christian networks” of which Larsen speaks emerged
in the nineteenth century, the outgrowth of a season of evangelical ascendency. It
has taken the work of contemporary scholars to remind evangelicals (often prone
to historical amnesia) of the richness and depth of this heritage.24 Evangelical
faith flourished and became, by the 1820s, “by far the dominant expression of
Christianity in the United States.”25 In the years leading up to the Civil War,
20
For example, the nineteenth-century Restoration movement; see p. 225.
21
It should be noted that historians are not unanimously enthusiastic for the designation
“Great Awakening”; see Garth Rosell, The Surprising Work of God: Harold John Ockenga,
Billy Graham, and the Rebirth of Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008),
pp. 22–3, footnote 25. Still, whatever labels are employed, “[t]here has been near unanimity
across the theological spectrum that something extraordinary happened” in mid-eighteenth-
century America. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776–2005:
Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, 2nd edn (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 2005), pp. 87–8, quoted in Rosell, The Suprising Work of God, p. 22.
22
“[This] series of revivals—or intense periods of unusual response to gospel preaching
linked with unusual efforts at godly living—marked the origin of a distinctly evangelical
history.” Mark A. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the
Wesleys, Vol. 1, A History of Evangelicalism (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 18.
23
Tellingly, Bebbington’s “quadrilateral”—the most popularly useful articulation
of contemporary evangelicalism’s distinctive emphases—comes from an historical
treatment featuring precisely this “Great Awakening” phase of evangelical history. David
W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History From the 1730s to the 1980s
(London and Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989).
24
See, for example, Donald W. Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage (New
York: Harper & Row, 1976).
25
Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, “Defining Evangelicalism,” http://
isae.wheaton.edu/defining-evangelicalism/ (accessed May 7, 2009).
evangelicalism birthed a plethora of social reform organizations—an informally

networked “benevolent empire.”26
In the late nineteenth century, however, evangelicalism changed course; it
experienced what many have called a “Great Reversal” and turned decisively
away from social engagement. Leonard Sweet writes: “[T]he evangelical
empire collapsed, and certain Evangelicals did a flip.”27 That qualifier “certain”
is important. Sweet recognizes that the great disengagement that characterized
many evangelicals did not characterize all of them; he wisely suggests a better,
more accurate label: the “Great Split.” Although the reasons for the shift may
have been complex, they certainly involved the move from postmillennial
to premillennial eschatology, as well as evangelicalism’s cautious attempts
to navigate between the Scylla of societal modernism and the Charybdis of
Christian liberalism.28
The rise of neo-evangelicalism

While the “global Christian networks” of the nineteenth century may have
withered away, Larsen recognizes that the “tradition” continued; a new complex
of networks would be brought to life by a subsequent wave of evangelicalism. In
the middle of the twentieth century, the neo-evangelicals strode onto the scene
and soon proliferated into a highly visible movement.
Just as children are often embarrassed by their parents, many neo-
evangelicals cringe with discomfort at the mention of their fundamentalist
forebears. But the story of contemporary evangelicalism is inextricably linked to
the generation of “fundamentalists” who planted a flag of their own—or rather,
threw down a gauntlet—in response to the emergence of cultural modernism
and ecclesial liberalism. The fundamentalist movement began to coalesce in the
late nineteenth century and came to full fruition in the early twentieth, when
a contingent of conservative scholars circled their academic wagons in defense
of the “fundamentals” of the faith.29 They stood militantly opposed “to liberal
26
See Kenneth J. Collins, The Evangelical Moment: The Promise of an American Religion
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), p. 34.
27
Leonard Sweet, The Evangelical Tradition in America (Macon: Mercer University
Press, 1984), p. 70.
28
See George Marsden’s careful treatment of the “reversal” in George M. Marsden,
Fundamentalism and American Culture, 2nd edn (New York: Oxford University Press,
2006), pp. 85–93, as well as Sweet, The Evangelical Tradition in America, pp. 70ff., and the
oft-cited David O. Moberg, The Great Reversal: Evangelism and Social Concern, rev. edn
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1977).
29
The “fundamentals” they identified as indispensable to authentic Christian faith
included “the virgin birth of Christ, his miracles, his bodily resurrection, his substitutionary
atonement for sin, and his second coming,” as well as the inerrancy of Scripture. Marsden,
Reforming Fundamentalism, p. 4.
theology in the churches or to changes in cultural values or mores, such as those

associated with ‘secular humanism.’”30 Indeed, both the theology and the tenor
of the movement were characterized by oppositionalism and separatism.31 And
so, in the early twentieth century, fundamentalists waged battle on two primary
fronts: church (seeking to protect against the perceived corrosions of liberal
theology) and education (attempting to counter the teaching in public schools
of Darwinian theory, which they found unbiblical). The fundamentalists’ failure
on both these fronts left them the object of cultural scorn and academic disdain.32
It is at this juncture, in the middle of the twentieth century, that Billy Graham
and company planted their evangelical flag. These “neo-evangelicals” sought to
distinguish themselves equally from the fundamentalists (with their antipathy
to culture) and the theological liberals (with their accommodation to culture).
The “new evangelicalism” set out to engage the culture with civility rather than
to berate it with hostility. It determined to replace barricades with bridges.
So, following World War II, neo-evangelicals burst vigorously onto the North
American scene. Guided forward by such figures as Bernard Ramm, Carl F.H.
Henry, Harold John Ockenga, and Billy Graham, the new movement laid such
institutional foundations as the National Association of Evangelicals (founded
in 1943), Fuller Theological Seminary (founded in 1947), and the publication
Christianity Today (launched in 1956). As decades passed, the growing
movement would garner cultural and media attention in a variety of ways. In
1976, the newsweeklies duly noted that in electing Jimmy Carter the nation had
chosen its first “born again” president. Subsequent years saw evangelicals gain
notoriety that was not altogether positive. When a high-profile contingent of
“fundamentalistic evangelicals” participated in right-wing political activism,
they evinced a good deal of antipathy in the press.33 Furthermore, a string of
very public scandals ( Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard) seemed to
confirm public suspicion that self-righteous evangelicals were nothing more
than hypocrites.
Still, evangelicalism’s image in the secular press has not been thoroughly
negative; its successes have also been reported, and its more conciliatory
representatives have often been viewed favorably. A 2005 Time Magazine cover
Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, p. 1.

30
Regarding oppositionalism: George Marsden is perfectly serious (and accurate)

31
when he defines a fundamentalist as “an evangelical who is angry about something.” Marsden,
Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, p. 1.
32
For an interesting, brief consideration of shifting scholarly interpretations of North
American fundamentalism, see Timothy P. Weber, “Fundamentalism,” in Dictionary of
Christianity in America, ed. Daniel G. Reid, Robert Dean Linder, Bruce L. Shelley, and
Harry S. Stout (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990), p. 462.
33
The phrase “fundamentalist evangelicals” is from Marsden, Fundamentalism and
American Culture, pp. 234–5.
story set forth, in a positive light, a gallery of the 25 most “influential evangelicals”
in the United States.34 The cover of that issue featured Rick Warren, one of the
more congenial contemporary faces of evangelicalism who would, within a
few years, become an unofficial diplomatic envoy between a more conservative
evangelical constituency and the newly elected president, Barack Obama.
And what of the movement’s larger trajectories at the turn of the millennium?
Responding to rapid cultural change, neo-evangelicals have adapted in various
ways. In The Younger Evangelicals, Robert Webber traces the cultural realities of
twentieth-century evangelicals—and neo-evangelicals, in particular.35 Webber
suggests three categories: Traditional, Pragmatic, and Younger Evangelicals.
While he understands all three paradigms to persist into the twenty-first century,
either discretely or in combination, Webber sees each as flourishing during a
particular time period. Traditional Evangelicals (1950–75) maintain typically
neo-evangelical values and carry forward long-standing, sermon-centered
worship traditions; Pragmatic Evangelicals (1975–2000) embrace “church
growth” and “seeker-sensitive” ministry approaches, attempting to be hospitable
to the “unchurched” by eliminating cultural obstacles; Younger Evangelicals
(2000–) engage with postmodernity, explore alternative ministry models, and
often re-appropriate ancient traditions as a way into the future.
Evangelical History: The Broader Story
While the five historical moments embedded in Larsen’s definition are indeed
seminal, they by no means fully convey the evangelical story. The neo storyline is
only one of many that make up a larger saga encompassing a host of evangelical
realities. If evangelicalism shares common roots, it has many branches. And even
the neo-evangelical storyline, in and of itself, continues to broaden and diversify
as the movement grapples with exponential cultural change.
Other evangelical realities

While evangelical history has often been recounted from a distinctly neo-
evangelical perspective, contemporary historians are nearly unanimous in
recognizing the broader dimensions of the story. Among those multiple
dimensions are two particularly important ones: the movement’s larger-than-
neo past, and its broader-than-Western future.
34
David Van Biema, Cathy Booth Thomas, Massimo Calabrese, and John F. Dickerson,
“The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America,” Time Magazine 165, no. 6 (February 7,
2005): pp. 34–44.
35
Robert Webber, The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World
(Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002), pp. 17–18, 40–42.
Concerned with the past, such scholars as Donald Dayton have expended
great energy to restore the full tapestry of stories that make up evangelical
history.36 The essays in The Variety of American Evangelicalism, which Dayton co-
edited, explore about a dozen different evangelical traditions. In Common Roots,
Robert Webber identified no less than 14 evangelical “subculture groups”37—
many of which never traversed what Martin Marty has called “the narrow valley
where fundamentalists fought modernists.”38
The efforts of these scholars (and others) have apparently been successful.39
“Increasingly in evangelical circles,” write Robert Krapohl and Charles Lippy,
“there is growing dissent from the Calvinistic/Reformed historiographical
interpretation” that has privileged a rather tightly defined neo-evangelicalism.
“Although the viewpoint is persuasive, even elegant at times, it simply does
not adequately explain the incredible breadth and diversity of the evangelical
subculture.”40
And regarding the future: while it is undeniably true that the phenomenon
of evangelicalism was, in the twentieth century, essentially American—it is
fast becoming dizzyingly diverse. On the one hand, that diversity is unfolding
within the United States, as evangelicals (like the general population) skew away
from a dominantly white demographic.41 On the other hand, the movement is
36
Dayton has been one of the sharpest, most vocal critics of Reformed-leaning
historiographies, which he sees not only as tunnel-visioned, but as sadly representing “the
dominant self-understanding of most self-identified evangelicals.”. Donald W. Dayton,
“The Limits of Evangelicalism: The Pentecostal Tradition,” in The Variety of American
Evangelicalism, ed. Donald W. Dayton and Robert K. Johnston (Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 1991), pp. 49ff. Much of Dayton’s work seeks to document what he regards as the
forgotten breadth and depth of the evangelical tradition.
37
Robert Webber, Common Roots: The Original Call to an Ancient-Future Faith (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1978/2009), pp. 56–7.
38
Martin E. Marty, “The Years of the Evangelicals,” The Christian Century, February
15, 1989. www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=184 (accessed June 11, 2009).
39
See, for example, the work of Leonard Sweet, who edited and contributed to The
Evangelical Tradition in America, which draws back into the narrative those whose stories
have often been excluded or marginalized—including women and African Americans (not
to mention Wesleyans!).
40
Robert H. Krapohl and Charles H. Lippy, The Evangelicals: A Historical, Thematic,
and Biographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999), p. 8.
41
Scholar Edith Blumhofer reports that “[a]n ever higher number of U.S. evangelicals—
perhaps nearing a third of the total—are Asian, African, Latin American or Pacific Islander.”
Edith Blumhofer, “The New Evangelicals: They Don’t Like Billy Graham,” The Wall Street
Journal (February 18, 2005), quoted in Soong-Chan Rah, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing
the Church From Western Cultural Captivity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009),
p. 19.
diversifying on a global scale. Scholar Mark Noll reports turn-of-the-millennium

findings from David Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopedia:
Barrett finds over twice as many evangelicals in each of Nigeria (22.3 million) and
Brazil (27.7 million) as in Britain (11.6 million), and more in Nigeria and Brazil
together (50.0 million) than in the United States (40.6 million). In addition,
he counts at least five million evangelicals in each of India, South Korea, South
Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia, and at least one million more in eight other African
countries, five Asian or Pacific, five Latin American, three European and one
North American.42
It is surely true that “[t]he days of Western hegemony seem to be over.”43

Although they cannot predict precisely what changes are in store, Western
evangelicals are paying sharp attention to these cultural changes and their
enormous implications.44
Roots into branches

Evangelical identity crosses denominational (and nondenominational) lines.
But there are, indeed, denominational traditions that historically intersect and
resonate with evangelicalism.
It has already been mentioned that Robert Webber identified 14 branches of
evangelicalism, and that the authors of The Variety of American Evangelicalism
treated about a dozen. Historian Bruce Shelley settles on seven evangelical
traditions:
1. Evangelicals in the Reformation tradition, primarily Lutheran and Reformed

Christians.
2. Wesleyan evangelicals, such as the Church of the Nazarene.
3. Pentecostal and charismatic evangelicals, such as the Assemblies of God.
4. Black evangelicals, with their own distinctive witness to the gospel.
5. The counterculture churches (sometimes called Peace Churches), such as
the evangelical Quakers and Mennonites.
6. Several traditionally white Southern denominations, led by the Southern
Baptists.
42
Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism, p. 22.
43
Rosell, The Surprising Work of God, p. 21.
44
See for example Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global
Christianity, rev. and expanded edn (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011);
Mark A. Noll, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects
Global Faith (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009); and Rah, The Next Evangelicalism.
7. The spiritual heirs of fundamentalism found in independent churches

and many parachurch agencies.45
More recently, the Pew Research Center, in framing a 2008 survey, separated
out more than a dozen historically-rooted traditions with at least some degree of
evangelical representation.
Table 1.1 The composition of American evangelicals
Affiliation Percent of evangelicals

Baptists 41
Nondenominational 13
Pentecostal 13
Lutheran 7
Protestant, nonspecific 7
Restorationist 6
Holiness 4
Presbyterian 3
Adventist 2
Other Evangelical/Fundamentalist 1
Reformed 1
Anabaptist 1
Methodist 1
Pietist <0.5
Anglican/Episcopal <0.5
Congregationalist <0.5
Source: Data from Pew Research Center, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 2008, http://
religions.pewforum.org (accessed September 25, 2013).
The historical affiliations identified by the Pew survey include seven “largely
evangelical families” (Reformed, Baptist, Pentecostal, Restorationist, Holiness,
Adventist, and Nondenominational) in addition to others that have at least
some showing of evangelicals in their midst (Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian,
Anglican/Episcopal, Congregationalist, Anabaptist, and Pietist).46 According
Bruce L. Shelley, “Evangelicalism,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America, p. 416.

45
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 2008
46
(Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2008), http://religions.pewforum.org (accessed

September 25, 2013).
to the Pew findings, the three largest contingencies in evangelicalism are Baptist
(41 percent), Pentecostal (13 percent), and Nondenominational (13 percent).47
Within these broad confessional traditions, the Center identified more than
142 discrete denominations.
Even this cursory review reveals the history of evangelicalism to be complex.
If the movement was pluriform in the past, it is rapidly becoming even more so:
a “veritable fairground of forms, styles, subgroups and temperaments.”48 And
yet, the evangelical mix is not such a melting pot that its various traditions
and configurations become thoroughly blended, indistinguishable one from
another. The boundaries between Webber’s categories (Traditional, Pragmatic,
and Younger evangelicals) may be increasingly porous, but each category remains
quite recognizable in the literature to be analyzed in this project. And while
evangelicalism’s various, historical traditions may have joined and commingled
in countless combinations, their imprints do, we will see, remain strikingly
discernible. Evangelicalism may well have been profoundly shaped by American
culture, and by an ethos epitomized by Henry Ford’s (perhaps apocryphal)
dictum: “History is more or less bunk.” But whatever their disdain or disregard
for the past, one thing about evangelicals is clear: they have by no means outrun
their history.49
The Theological Dimension
Larsen includes a number of theological distinctives in his hybrid definition of

“an evangelical.” In this he reflects the approach of most evangelical scholars,
who commonly define their movement by means of normative or theological
criteria. These are certainly central to evangelical identity, and bring much-
needed clarity to the study of the movement.
Theological definitions do, however, have their limitations and dangers.
First of all, the theological core of evangelicalism is not abstractly intellectual;
47
In the Pew report, “Historically Black Churches” are in a category all by themselves,
and certainly contain many who would either label themselves as “evangelical” or resonate
strongly with evangelical distinctives. It is not uncommon for black Christians to be treated
separately (but equally?) in academic analysis. If this is not attributable to prejudice, it is
certainly testimony to its effects. “Historically black Christianity,” so often sidelined in the
United States from the narrative trajectory of white Christianity, developed such a distinctive
ethos and set of emphases that it makes sense, sadly, to treat it separately from those other
sectors of evangelicalism, with which it so often resonates.
48
Leonard Sweet’s description of fundamentalism; Sweet, “Wise as Serpents,” p. 399.
49
See Chapter 10.
principles are wedded to ethos, and beliefs are existential as well as propositional.50
Second, description can easily blur into prescription, and checklists can easily
degenerate into litmus tests.51 Theological definition is valuable, but a tricky
route to navigate. Prudent approaches do take this road—but they keep an eye
out for its potholes.
Of the countless attempts to distill evangelicalism’s core tenets, David
Bebbington’s “quadrilateral” has, as I have already mentioned, been accepted
almost universally.52 Bebbington’s definition sets forth themes that not only
characterized early evangelicalism, but persist to the current day: “conversionism,
the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel
in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and what may be called
crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.”53 Each of these four
emphases merits at least a brief consideration.
Conversionism represents the seminal impulse that gave rise to evangelicalism
—which has been, after all, a reforming, revival movement from the start.
Evangelicals have always regarded an experience of being awakened or “born
again” as necessary to the personal appropriation of salvation. John Stackhouse
reminds us that this conversionism plays out not only in initial “conversion,” but
also in the individual’s progressive transformation.54
Activism describes, with useful ambiguity, an important response to the
experience of conversion. First of all, having experienced conversion—and
having become convinced of its necessity for salvation—evangelicals evangelize.
They seek to share the euangelion (good news) of the gospel with others. But
activism goes further than merely presenting gospel facts and encouraging
50
In forging his definition, Larsen skillfully existentializes his forumulation by defining
not “evangelicalism” in general, but rather, more personally, “an evangelical,” who not only
believes but “stresses” certain convictions. Timothy Larsen and Daniel J. Treier, The Cambridge
Companion to Evangelical Theory (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,
2007), p. 1. Alister McGrath agrees, suggesting that evangelicalism’s “controlling convictions”
are “not purely ‘doctrinal’ … they are also ‘existential,’ in that they affirm the manner in which
the believer is caught up in a redemptive and experiential encounter with the living Christ.”
McGrath, Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity, pp. 55–6.
51
Krapohl and Lippy trace this progression from “noting and enumerating … beliefs
and practices” to forming a “generic definition” to, ultimately, solidifying an “archetype” and
using it to “measure the ‘evangelicalness’” of others. Krapohl and Lippy, The Evangelicals,
p. 5. Larsen goes to great pains to disavow any such attempt at “gatekeeping” when introducing
his definition. Larsen and Treier, The Cambridge Companion, pp. 2–3.
52
Krapohl and Lippy speak of the “broad consensus around” Bebbington’s formulation;
they quote Mark Noll and Derek Tidball, who call it “as near to a consensus as we might ever
expect to reach.” Krapohl and Lippy, The Evangelicals, pp. 6–7.
53
Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, pp. 2–3.
54
Stackhouse, Evangelical Landscapes, p. 49.
altar-call responses. Evangelicals (to greater and lesser degrees, historically) pair
gospel mission with a missional gospel—“cooperat[ing] with what they see to be
the divine mission in the world, especially the amelioration of evil,” and seeking
to “care for the body and the mind as well as the spirit.”55
Biblicism refers to an orthodox Christian position that evangelicals
particularly emphasize, and which they handle in a distinctive way. “All
Christians love and venerate the Bible,” writes John Stackhouse, “but no tradition
of Christianity loves and venerates it more than evangelical Protestantism.”56
Evangelical luminary John R.W. Stott describes evangelicals as being, above all,
“Bible people.”57
While contemporary evangelicals debate precisely how Scripture is the
“inspired word of God,” it is safe to agree with David Wells that “[e]vangelical
theology builds upon scripture as the normative, interpretive framework by
which reality is to be understood and at the heart of this revelation is the God
who has given it.”58 Theologies range from strict “inerrancy”59 (ascendent in
the early years of neo-evangelicalism, and vigorously championed by certain
factions in the 1970s60) to looser conceptions of “infallibility.”61 Serious debates
about how exactly the Bible is “God’s word” have continued into the twenty-
first century.62 If, however, the evangelical landscape remains dotted with a range
of theologies about biblical accuracy, evangelicals continue to be emphatically
55
Ibid., p. 50.
56
Ibid., p. 47.
57
Ibid.
58
Wells, “Evangelical Theory,” p. 608.
59
Based on the concept of “plenary verbal inspiration,” or the idea that each word
of Scripture was specifically inspired by God, this type of inerrancy implies that “when all
the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs
and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that
relates to doctrine or ethics or to the social, physical, or life sciences.” Paul D. Feinberg,
“Bible, Infallability and Inerrancy of,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd edn, ed.
Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), p. 156, as quoted in Larsen and Treier, The
Cambridge Companion, p. 47.
60
Especially by the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. See http://library.
dts.edu/Pages/TL/ Special/ICBI_1.pdf (accessed July 1, 2013).
61
Referring, in Roger Olson’s words, to the “Bible’s accuracy in a special way” such that
it “cannot fail to communicate God’s message of salvation accurately.” Roger E. Olson, The
Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press,
2004), p. 213.
62
See Gerald R. McDermott, “Evangelicals Divided: Gerald McDermott Describes
the Battle between Meliorists and Traditionists to Define Evangelicalism,” First Things
no. 212 (April 1, 2011): pp. 45–50.
committed to a dependence upon Scripture as the unique and ultimate source of

their spiritual understanding.63
Crucicentrism refers to the ultimate dependence of evangelicals upon
the death and resurrection of Jesus as central to salvation. If biblicism is the
evangelical variation on the Reformation theme, sola scriptura, then crucicentrism
is anchored in solus Christus, or “the indispensable centrality of Christ’s cross
understood in terms of penal substitution with its correlate of the need for
personal conversion.”64
Stackhouse embraces Bebbington’s quadrilateral, but bolsters it into a
hexalateral by supplementing it in two important ways. First of all, he begins
with a foundation “doubtless assumed” by Bebbington, but not explicitly
stated: evangelicalism is “orthodox and orthoprax.” In other words, evangelicals
subscribe “to the main tenets—doctrinal, ethical, and liturgical—of the churches
to which they belong.”65 This is the same important point with which Larsen’s
definition begins—that evangelicals are “orthodox Protestants.”
The second of Stackhouse’s additions to Bebbington is a distinctive he
borrows from George Marsden: evangelicalism is transdenominational.66 Simply
put, “[e]vangelicals hold the other four [of Bebbington’s] concerns so primary
that they recognize as kin anyone who holds them and are willing to work with
others on that basis.”67 For Stackhouse, what is uniquely evangelical is not mere
adherence to the tenets of Bebbington’s quadrilateral; any of these may be held
by broadly orthodox Christians. Rather, what makes this mix distinct is an
intra-evangelical sort of ecumenism, a transdenominational identity held more
fundamentally than denominational or other identifiers.
There is perhaps an important, missing element in these theological
formulations, both the Bebbington/Stackhouse one and also Larsen’s. In The
Jesus Manifesto, Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola call the twenty-first century
church to re-center its focus on the living, resurrected person of Jesus.68 Such a
Jesus-centered piety, indeed part of the evangelical ethos, is not fully captured
in these definitional schemes; they lean more heavily on Jesus’ historical work
63
See Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, p. 12.
64
See Wells, “Evangelical Theory,” pp. 612ff.
65
John G. Stackhouse, Jr., “Defining ‘Evangelical,’” Church & Faith Trends, http://files.
efc-canada.net/min/rc/CFT-1-1-DefiningEvangelical.pdf (accessed May 22, 2009).
66
67
Stackhouse, Evangelical Landscapes, p. 50. Of course, non-evangelical Christians
associate and serve with one another ecumenically, as well. What makes evangelicals unique
in this regard is not that they are willing to clasp hands across denominational boundaries,
but rather their enthusiastic recognition in one another of their specifically evangelical
identity.
68
Leonard I. Sweet and Frank Viola, Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and
Sovereignty of Jesus Christ (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
on the cross than his present life in and through the church. This definitional
omission is presumably a failure of articulation rather than a failure of belief;
that blind spot is mirrored, however—as we will see—in some evangelical
understandings of worship.
The Associational Dimension
Evangelicalism’s transdenominational character manifests itself in ways beyond

a sense of kinship across ecclesial lines. The transdenominational spirit gives rise
to meta-church networks and structures, informally but robustly interwoven,
which become more a source of “evangelical” identity than the denominations
and churches they connect. George Marsden contrasts two sorts of evangelicals
and the ways in which they identify themselves. On the one hand are those
who are normatively “evangelical” but still draw their identities primarily
from their denominational traditions. On the other hand are “card-carrying
evangelicals” whose identity is rooted in “a self-conscious interdenominational
movement, with leaders, publications, and institutions with which people from
many subgroups identify.”69 This parachurch matrix is no mere byproduct of
evangelicalism; it is the very essence of the movement. Evangelicalism is “built
around networks of parachurch agencies”;70 it has, indeed, become a “network
of networks.”71
Some transdenominational networking is church-based, of course.
Such megachurches as Willow Creek Community Church and Saddleback
Community Church serve, as we will see, as intentional epicenters of huge
church-networks informally connected not by denominational affiliation,
but rather by pragmatic ministry values. Most of the vast evangelical matrix,
however, is made up of purely parachurch institutions.
Certainly such an associational, parachurch gene is written into the DNA
of evangelicalism. A reform movement from its inception, evangelicalism was
essentially para-ecclesial from the start. So it is only natural that parachurch
organizations would flourish, and make up an ecosystem in which evangelicals
would feel at home. The nineteenth-century burgeoning of voluntary societies
into a “benevolent empire” was mirrored in the middle of the twentieth century,
69
70
George M. Marsden, “Introduction,” in Evangelicalism and Modem America, ed.
George M. Marsden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), p. xiv; quoted in Stackhouse,
Evangelical Landscapes, pp. 26–7.
71
Mark Noll, as quoted in Krapohl and Lippy, The Evangelicals, p. 8.
when countless parachurch entities sprang up in line with the concerns and
passions of the fundamentalists, and (even more so) of the neo-evangelicals.72
Not all parachurch organizations are not-for-profit ventures concerned solely
with missions and benevolent action. Many “for profit” parachurch entities mix
the religious with the commercial. Warren Cole Smith refers to these (with
more than a hint of cynicism) as the “Christian-industrial complex.”73 A thriving
network of media publishing deeply affects and shapes the thinking and even
the piety of contemporary evangelicalism.74
Academic institutions also function in a parachurch role. Evangelical Bible
institutes, universities and seminaries provide a range of educational venues,
while academic associations and institutes support evangelicals engaged in
a variety of scholarly disciplines, including those that focus specifically on
evangelical theology.
Many experience their evangelical identities primarily through some
combination of these transdenominational, parachurch entities. This holds true
not only for laypersons, but also for those in higher education. For theologian
Clark Pinnock, evangelicalism constitutes a “big tent,” and the lion’s share
of evangelical identity comes, for a theologian, simply from choosing to do
“theology under its shade.” What makes a theologian “evangelical,” he writes, “is
(minimally) the decision to work in this space … The identity of an evangelical
theologian is defined more sociologically than precisely theologically.”75
It is instructive to hear Pinnock, a theologian, situate his identity less strictly
in the theological and more squarely in the associational.
72
For a good introduction to this important dimension of evangelicalism, see
“Parachurch Movements: Sustaining Modern American Evangelicalism” (Chapter 12) in
Krapohl and Lippy, The Evangelicals, pp. 57–67.
73
Warren Cole Smith, A Lover’s Quarrel With the Evangelical Church (Colorado
Springs: Authentic Publishing, 2009), pp. 95ff.
74
Evangelical publishing houses have been particularly influential; in the absence of any
official centralized evangelical magisterium, opinions expressed in the flagship publication
Christianity Today or books published by Zondervan or InterVarsity Press are thought of, by
many, as bearing an invisible but important imprimatur. And the worship arm of the Christian
recording industry, with its celebrity worship leaders, best-selling recordings, and affiliated
worship conferences, plays a monumental role in shaping evangelical understandings of
worship and conceptions of piety.
75
Clark H. Pinnock, “Evangelical Theologians Facing the Future: an Ancient and a
Future Paradigm,” Keynote Address, annual meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society,
convened at Mount Vernon Nazarene College, Mount Vernon, Ohio, November 7–8, 1997,
http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyan_theology/theojrnl/31-35/33-2-01.htm (accessed April 7,
2009).
David Wells agrees that evangelicalism has shifted its moorings, to at least
some degree, from “confessional substance” to “organized fraternity.”76 The
confessional core remains important, of course, as do questions regarding
theological boundaries. But, in some respects, membership in the evangelical
“fraternity” is simply a matter of determining with whom one chooses to
associate.
Conclusions and Significance for this Project
If evangelicalism is notoriously difficult to delineate, that notoriety is well-

deserved. The movement’s breadth, variety and lack of boundaries defy attempts
at neat definition. Although the two most common strategies, historical
and normative/theological, are not definitive, they are helpful. While these
approaches slide all-too-easily into exclusivist gate-keeping, they do provide
useful identifiers. An associational approach, on the other hand, does little
to help conceptually, offering nothing in the way of clear-cut criteria—but
it acknowledges the existential significance and considerable weight of self-
identification.
History
This chapter has identified a number of historical moments that are significant
for evangelicals. Although evangelicalism is usually understood to have been
birthed in the Great Awakening revivals of the eighteenth century, it sees itself
as rooted in the spirit of the New Testament church. Furthermore, particular
streams of the Protestant Reformation were particularly formative for the
nascent evangelical movement. This side of the Great Awakening, an evangelical
“benevolent empire” rose and fell in the nineteenth century, and a neo-
evangelical movement emerged in the mid-twentieth century. These pages have
hinted at the breadth of the larger evangelical saga—an overarching story bigger
than its neo-evangelical strain and expressed in many diverse traditions.
Understanding something about evangelical history, even in such a
condensed form, provides a useful backdrop for the chapters to follow. And to
be sure, it will become apparent that particular historical streams resonate quite
strongly with certain groupings of the books to be examined.
76
John M. Hitchen, “What it Means to be an Evangelical Today—an Antipodean
Perspective (Part One: Mapping Our Movement),” Evangelical Quarterly 76, no. 1 (2004):
pp. 50–51. One need not share Wells’s tone of lament about the shift in order to affirm the
truth of his statement.
Theology
Nearly all present-day scholars who attempt to formulate definitions of evangelicalism

refer back to Bebbington’s quadrilateral. If they adapt or add to Bebbington’s
formulation, they do so acknowledging its strength. It will be helpful to bear
those distinctives in mind, since the themes of conversionism, activism, biblicism
and crucicentrism—not to mention Marsden’s transdenominationalism—
percolate through the literature in various ways. And as for the living presence of
Jesus: while most all evangelicals agree that the risen Christ is present and active
in gathered worship, it will become apparent that they differ markedly in their
understandings of the degree to which—and the manner in which—this is so.
Association
People identify themselves as “evangelicals” for numerous reasons. But for the
purposes of this project, three types of evangelical self-identification might be
recognized. First of all, there are Marsden’s card-carrying evangelicals. These
usually wear the “evangelical” label easily, and identify readily and strongly
with the neo-evangelical “network” or “Christian-industrial complex.” Next,
there are what might be called big tent evangelicals; these may identify less
strongly, for various reasons, with the actual label “evangelical.”77 Still, big tent
evangelicals do identify squarely with many of the values and beliefs held by
their card-carrying cousins. Finally, one might identify a peripheral group of
oblique evangelicals. These are ambivalent in their regard for those typically
labeled “evangelicals,” and are reticent to identify with them. On the one hand,
they resonate strongly with many or even most evangelical distinctives. On
the other hand, they differ strongly enough, either culturally or in reference
to a particular theological area, that they feel significantly disconnected from
mainstream (neo-)evangelicalism.
The central chapters of this book analyze a pool of books most of which
are written by and addressed to evangelicals. (That body of literature will be
introduced in Chapter 2.) It is worth noting now, however, that the majority
of the authors are probably best identified as card-carrying evangelicals; about
half as many are big tent evangelicals.78 Most of the card-carrying authors,
however, are interested in and sympathetic to the broader tradition; they camp
at the border near their big tent colleagues, and try to keep their theology in
77
Some resonate more emphatically with a denominational identifier, and some are
averse to the label “evangelical” because of theological or cultural associations the term has
taken on.
78
Two or three of the authors are not “evangelicals” at all, but dialogue empathetically
with those who are.
dialogue with that of oblique evangelicals (not to mention non-evangelicals). In

other words, all of the authors inhabit a landscape shaped profoundly by the
neo-evangelicals—but most of them dialogue ecumenically within a broad and
diverse evangelical tradition.
Prototypes
It is readily apparent, even from this cursory overview, that evangelicalism has
both a strong center and elusive boundaries. Roger Olson’s attractive notion—that
of applying Lakoff ’s “Prototype Theory” to the category “evangelical”—seems
more than fitting. Olson himself suggests placing Bebbington’s quadrilateral
of evangelical norms at the center, together with some of the high-profile
persons and institutions from mid-twentieth-century neo-evangelicalism. These
prototypical elements might usefully be supplemented by including, also, John
Stackhouse’s notion of “transdenominationalism” and the streams of historical
tradition implied by Larsen’s definition.
Such a prototype-centered approach is, in a sense, associational. But rather
than relying on self-identified associations, it leverages the human capacity that
cognitive scientists like George Lakoff propose is always in action: the assessment
of similarities and differences between a given entity and established prototypes
that are to some degree representative of a particular category.
While the process sounds simultaneously complex and imprecise, it does
ring true to common experience. In the early stages of this project, one of my
advisors expressed her bewilderment about evangelicals and her eagerness for me
to provide some sort of definition. At the same time, she was quick to recognize
my error in suggesting a particular seminary was “evangelical”: “No—I’m sure
they’re not!” she quickly (and rightly) responded. Delimiting boundaries may
be difficult even for scholars who specialize in all things evangelical—but most
of us are able to invisibly “do the math” and recognize an evangelical when we
see one.
Evangelical “Worship Participation”—An Initial Glance
The broad goal at hand, here, is to better understand worship participation—to

bring some of its meanings and dimensions into view. The means to that end
(and the core of this book) will be the development of an analytical lens and the
careful review of recent literature. Without attempting to put the cart before the
horse, however, it will be helpful here at the start to establish at least a working
concept of “worship participation.”
Although “worship” is an overarching concept, it may usefully be thought
of as occurring in two arenas: life and liturgy. For the purposes of this study,
while both of these dimensions will be in view, worship will be treated primarily
as liturgy—the gathered, corporate, explicit worship of God. Our starting
point, therefore, might simply be this: worship participation is the many-faceted
engagement of worshipers in gathered liturgy.
But more specifically—what context(s) do evangelical authors envision
when they think of worship participation? Without, again, trying to get ahead
of ourselves, it will be useful to have some understanding of the existential milieu
these authors address. When they write about worship, precisely what modes of
participation do they have in mind?
In considering evangelical contexts, it is important to remember the
extraordinary variety of evangelicalism. The Pew Foundation research
referenced earlier articulates that diversity by parsing out numerous evangelical
constituencies (see Table 1.1). The Pew data serves as a reminder, however, not
only of evangelicalism’s pluriformity, but also of its commonality. The numbers
show the great majority of evangelicals as falling into classifications that qualify
as “free church” (at least in the broader definitions of that category). Aside
from Lutherans and Anglicans, who together represent less than 8 percent of
evangelicals, the remaining churches in these denominations (91 percent +)
are not required or necessarily expected to shape their services according to
denominationally promulgated worship orders.79 They are indeed characterized
by one of the distinctives of free churches: “a flexible style of worship.”80 Scripted
liturgical exchanges are uncommon. Structured participative elements (such as
prearranged testimonies, group presentations, and various modes of prayer)
vary from context to context, but do not, on the whole, predominate. Rather,
the most common modes of worship participation are congregational singing
and attentive listening (and in some traditions, extemporaneous responses
of one kind or another). When evangelicals assess the level and quality of
congregational participation, therefore, these are the pulse-points they are most
likely to observe. It should be added that, whatever the mode, participation may
be spontaneous, affective, and vigorous, or it may be suppressed and subdued—
even deliberately so. It is important to bear in mind the diversity of evangelical
traditions (and cultural backgrounds) that make up the contexts our authors
have in mind as they write.
The flexibility of free church worship may allow for a high degree of
participation, but it certainly does not ensure it. Many broadly free-church
79
And enough flexibility exists even within Lutheranism, for example, to accommodate
the worship practices of a Lutheran megachurch indistinguishable in many respects from
other evangelical megachurches. For the story of one such Lutheran ministry, see Tim Wright
and Herb Miller, A Community of Joy: How to Create Contemporary Worship (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1994).
80
See D.F. Dumbaugh, “Free Church Tradition in America,” in Dictionary of
Christianity in America, p. 450.
traditions bear the imprint of the revivalism that became so popular in the early
to mid-nineteenth century. While the label “revivalistic” might evoke, for some,
images of raucous ecstasy, the legacy of revivalism has often tended in exactly
the opposite direction. In response to revivalism’s pragmatic imperative of being
not only evangelical, but also evangelistic, “the model of worship that emerged
placed the preacher on a stage and turned the congregation into an audience.” In
turn, “lay participation … gave way to a more passive approach to worship.”81 The
worship practices shaped by such an evangelistic model fed a low-participation
tradition that has dominated much free-church worship to the present day.
Styles of worship and modes of participation are influenced strongly, of
course, by culture. Both church culture (the intersection of denominational and
local ethos) and social/ethnic culture play major roles in shaping approaches to
participation.
In seeking to get a feel for evangelicalism’s various cultural contexts, one
might isolate from the wider movement Marsden’s high profile “card-carrying
evangelicals.” Although the demographics are changing precipitously, this “card-
carrying” sector of neo-evangelicals has historically been predominantly white
and middle-class. Card-carrying evangelicals may be usefully grouped by means
of Robert Webber’s previously mentioned categories—Traditional, Pragmatic,
and Younger evangelicals.
Traditional Evangelicals believe, like all Protestants, in “the priesthood of all
believers.” Furthermore, embedded in their Great Awakening legacy is a high regard
for personal response and engagement. Yet, these values are counterbalanced by
the congregational passivity that derives from the revivalist (church-as-theater)
paradigm, and many traditional evangelicals are significantly restrained in their
level of visible worship participation. As for Pragmatic Evangelicals, one of their
seeker-sensitive innovations has been a conspicuously low (“non-threatening”)
level of congregational participation.82 Younger/postmodern Evangelicals, on the
other hand, have experimented with not only structured participation (through
such measures as the reintroduction of ancient liturgical elements), but also
with unstructured, conversational, community-building models that involve
comparatively higher levels of congregational participation.83
81
Robert E. Webber, “Worship, Protestant,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America,
p. 1290.
82
Webber’s “Pragmatic Evangelical” category corresponds to the evangelistic worship
literature discussed in Chapter 7.
83
See Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian
Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005); Dan Kimball,
Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations (El Cajon and Grand
Rapids: EmergentYS Zondervan, 2004). Webber’s postmodern “younger evangelicals”
correspond to the organically missional literature that will be discussed in Chapter 8 of this
book.
Of the other evangelical traditions that sit outside the boundaries (or
right at the border) of “card-carrying” evangelicalism, some might be referred
to as “traditionally holistic.” These traditions, having journeyed alongside
neo-evangelicalism, did not pass through the same dynamics and eras of change,
and maintained their own intrinsic, whole-person approaches to faith and
worship. There are certainly evangelicals within the “historically black” churches,
for instance, in which social and ecclesial culture allow for robust and interactive
congregational participation.84 Additionally, both Pentecostals and charismatics
embrace modes of worship that are distinctly participative—especially those
in which spontaneous speech and movement are seen as manifestations of the
presence of the Holy Spirit.85 Some Pentecostal understandings of participation
will be explored in Appendix 1.
If restrained levels of observable congregational participation sometimes
make neo-evangelicals seem like the “frozen chosen,” there were twentieth-
century breezes that encouraged some degree of thaw. In the eyes of many
observers, a significant “worship renewal” began in the 1970s and has continued,
in various forms, into the new millennium. Robb Redman is not given to
hyperbole; yet, drawing from his wide-ranging experience as an academic and
worship consultant, he concludes: “The sweeping changes taking place in
worship over the last thirty years are signs of a renewal or awakening among
God’s people.”86
Redman sees signs of the Spirit at work in a variety of ways, and in a variety
of traditions. He lists four streams of the current worship “awakening”:
1. the Seeker Service movement—majoring in user-friendly, “modern

liturgies for skeptical seekers”;87
2. the Praise and Worship movement—charismatic and neo-Pentecostal
forms making inroads into evangelical and mainline circles;
3. the Contemporary Worship Music industry—revivalist and grassroots
impulses transformed and mediated by commercial entities; and
4. the Liturgical Renewal movement—the ongoing, ecumenical spread of
the movements that prompted the Vatican II liturgical reforms.
See Melva Wilson Costen, African American Christian Worship, rev. edn (Nashville:
84
Abingdon Press, 2007).

85
See Daniel E. Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit: A Ritual Approach to Charismatic/
Pentecostal Spirituality (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press Ltd, 1999).
86
Robb Redman, The Great Worship Awakening: Singing a New Song in the Postmodern
Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002), p. xii.
87
Kimon Howland Sargeant, Seeker Churches: Promoting Traditional Religion in
a Nontraditional Way (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000), p. 54, quoted in
Redman, The Great Worship Awakening, p. 3.
The first three of Redman’s streams have profoundly affected evangelical

approaches to worship and participation. (The first, “Seeker Service” stream
will be discussed in Chapter 7.) To some degree, those streams encouraged
an evangelical revival of warm-hearted, personal engagement in worship. But
the enlivening gift that poured into evangelical churches came bundled in a
conflicted package; the free-flowing ethos of charismatic worship was somewhat
at odds with the commercially polished media in which it was wrapped. In some
ways, the first three of Redman’s revival streams exhorted evangelical churches
to more vibrant participation; in other ways they lulled congregations into
spectatorship.
Redman’s fourth stream of revival, the Liturgical Movement, has thus far had
much less effect on evangelicals than on mainline Protestants. Evangelicals have
always been cautious about wider ecumenism; it is understandable that many of
them would be slow to embrace a movement birthed among Roman Catholics
and popularized among mainline churches. But evangelical academics have been
more receptive, and scholars beginning with Robert Webber and Donald Hustad
have attempted to mediate the insights of the Liturgical Movement to a wider
evangelical audience. The application of the movement’s theology to evangelical
practice can especially be seen among the sacramental recovery authors who will
be discussed in Chapter 6.
One might add a fifth stream of “awakening” to Redman’s list: one in the
spirit of Webber’s “younger evangelicals.” Such practitioners of intentionally
postmodern ministry have moved renewal forward while exploring fresh and
creative avenues of worship participation. This approach will be highlighted in
Chapter 8.88
So, to make the broadest of generalizations about (perceptible) worship
participation: “Card-carrying” evangelicals, mostly white and middle class, have
generally been restrained but ambivalently drawn to fuller levels of participation.
At the same time, more vigorous and easily discernible patterns of participation
have characterized other sectors of the broader evangelical world—and, carried
on the currents of recent worship renewal, some of these patterns have found
their way into the neo-evangelical community, itself.
***
88
It is an open question whether or not Seeker Service ministry—with its megachurch
exemplars—is, as Robb Redman believes, a response to postmodern rather than modern
culture. See the lively, informative dialogue between Andy Crouch and Brian McLaren
captured in Andy Crouch, “Life After Postmodernity,” in The Church in Emerging
Culture: Five Perspectives, ed. Leonard I. Sweet and Andy Crouch (El Cajon: Youth
Specialties, 2003), pp. 72ff.
The business of defining “evangelicalism” is a puzzle that even evangelicals,

themselves, have yet to solve. The movement’s pluriformity and diversity
make boundary-setting nearly impossible. While Roger Olson’s prescription,
the leveraging of prototype theory, may not provide clear-cut boundaries, it
does liberate us from the compulsion to draw lines in arbitrary places. Taking
inspiration from Olson (and George Lakoff ), it is possible to acknowledge
commonly-recognized prototypes (such as Billy Graham, Bebbington, the
“Great Awakening”) while leaving boundaries loose enough to encompass the
profound variety of evangelical experience.
It is with an appreciation for both the diversities and the commonalities
of the evangelical landscape that we move on to the primary window through
which we will seek to consider worship participation: turn-of-the-millennium
literature.
Chapter 2
The Literature:
Which Books to Consider?
There is some (probably much too subtle) wordplay intended in this book’s
subtitle. To “take a reading” means, of course, to unpack one’s paraphernalia,
aim one’s instrumentation, and attempt a careful measurement or assessment.
All of that—the central task of this book—will begin in earnest in the next,
paraphernalia-related chapter. That word “reading,” however, is also meant as a
nod toward the primary subject of this study: the worship-related reading that
evangelicals have been doing in recent years.
All of this wordy talk about reading(s) prompts a challenging question:
if we would glean something about evangelicals and their understanding of
worship participation, will analyzing a torrent of written words really help us to
accomplish that goal?
***
Approaching the start of the twenty-first century, author Mitchell Stephens

reflected upon The Rise of the Image and the Fall of the Word.1 In reckoning with
the ascendency of the visual, Stephens looked toward the future. In committing
his argument primarily to words printed in a book, he remained anchored in
the past. Stephens communicates as someone on the cusp of cultural change—a
change Leonard Sweet describes as a transformation from a book-based
“Gutenberg” world to an interactively imagistic “Google” world.2
Liturgical scholars may not be, as a whole, right on the cutting edge of
cultural change. But many of them have shaken free of an entirely Gutenbergian
perspective—recognizing that, in the study of worship, the printed word is not
the definitive word. They have backed away from the early text-centric focus
that characterized their field, and have taken up more holistic, beyond-the-text
approaches. They embrace the assessment of James F. White that “[p]eople are
1
Mitchell Stephens, The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998).
2
See Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church (Colorado
Springs: David C. Cook, 2009), pp. 35ff.
the primary liturgical document.”3 Furthermore, they recognize that, when it

comes to understanding worship, reflective discussions in classrooms and books
are secondary to the actual worship encounter, itself.4
Still, for many Christians in ministry it does remain the case that, to borrow
an old public service motto, “reading is fundamental.” Certainly for the period
of time under consideration in this study, the image had by no means eclipsed
the word. Specialists who would discuss matters of worship theology and
practice continued to do so primarily in writing, on the pages of books. This
project is based, therefore, on the assumption that—for the span of time under
consideration here—the analysis of literature will uncover a great deal (if not
everything there is to know) about evangelicals, worship, and participation.
It is important to note that not all of the books to be examined in this
project can rightly be called “evangelical writings.” While most are written by
evangelicals, some are not. While this study will provide a helpful overview
of evangelical understandings as expressed through their writings, its primary
focus is to discover how their understandings have been shaped through their
readings.
Finally, there is another sense of the word reading: “the interpretation or
meaning attached to anything, the view taken of it.”5 This is precisely, of course,
what one would hope to understand better, regarding worship participation,
at the conclusion of this study. More important than the cataloguing of words
on pages is the gaining of insight into understandings. What are the formative
ideas percolating in the hearts and minds of those evangelicals who teach and
superintend the ministry of worship? When it comes to worship participation—
what is their reading of it?
***
Establishing the Pool
So the objective at hand is to gain some insight into how evangelicals have, in
recent years, understood “worship participation.” The frame that will be utilized
to gain that insight is a collection of “readings”—those writings that have been
most influential on evangelical understandings of worship. The period under
3
James F. White, Protestant Worship: Traditions in Transition (Louisville: Westminster/
John Knox Press, 1989), p. 16.
4
Classic treatments of this idea—worship as “primary theology”—can be found
in Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology, 3rd edn (Crestwood: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986) and Aidan Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology (New York:
Pueblo Pub. Co., 1984).
5
“reading, n.1/7.” OED Online. November 2010. Oxford University Press. www.oed.
com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/158866 (accessed November 13, 2010).
The Literature: Which Books to Consider? 33
consideration will be the three decades spanning from 1980 to 2010. In order
to compile the final pool of books for analysis, a survey instrument was utilized.
The survey was administered to professors of worship at evangelical institutions
(mostly seminaries) throughout North America. (Further information concerning
the survey methodology, instrument, and respondents may be found in
appendices 1–3.) It is important to note that the intention here was not to
discover which texts have been influential at seminaries, in particular, but rather
which ones have been influential for evangelicals at large.
Methodological Limitations
It must be admitted that this project’s methodology is far from perfect. For one
thing, literature-based studies, in general, have their own inherent limitations.
Scholars have learned that liturgical texts convey only a limited part of a fuller,
existential story; similarly, writings about worship convey only a limited part of
the fuller story of worship. In order to more thoroughly understand evangelical
approaches to worship participation, it would be necessary to observe,
experience, and analyze actual worship services. (If a participant-observer
methodology were ever appropriate, it would certainly be so in connection with
the study of participation!) Further, one might examine first-hand the training
given to evangelical leaders of worship—not only in academic settings, but
also via the many training and worship-related conferences connected with the
praise and worship music industry. One might also investigate those traditions
that are significant in terms of practice but underrepresented in terms of literary
documentation. These include African-American worship as well as a variety
of other cultural approaches to worship, and also Pentecostal/charismatic
traditions.6 (Once again, the latter will be touched upon in Appendix 1.)
Beyond the limitations connected with all literature-based analysis, this
project’s methodology has its own particular weaknesses. First of all, as objective
and broadminded as the survey respondents may have tried to be, each of them
sees through academically-tinted glasses. Assuming that the respondents heeded
the survey instructions and evaluated the literature in terms of broad influence
6
Good literature is, indeed, beginning to be written about those previously under-
documented traditions. While such works are not as widely read as the works that made
the pool for this study, it is encouraging that they are beginning to gain wider recognition.
See, for example: Costen, African American Christian Worship; Kathy Black, Worship Across
Cultures: A Handbook (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998); Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit; and
Michael Hawn’s excellent volumes: One Bread, One Body: Exploring Cultural Diversity
in Worship (Bethesda: Alban Institute, 2003), and Gather Into One: Praying and Singing
Globally; Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies Series (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2003).
rather than personal preference, their selections are certainly still shaped by their
own predispositions and perspectives.
Second, the survey instrument pointed respondents primarily toward
books explicitly about worship. A literature-based consideration of worship
participation need not, however, be limited to such works. Books on leadership,
for example, are full of implications about participation, and are especially
influential on many in pastoral ministry who shape approaches to worship
participation. Furthermore, the literature most popular among evangelical
pastors and leaders is not limited to books alone; periodicals (and, increasingly,
websites and blogs) have a significant impact on contemporary evangelical
thought. Such popular journals as Christianity Today, Leadership, and Worship
Leader Magazine are especially influential. A literature-based study might be
enriched by factoring in a wide range of source materials.
Third, focusing on books that are recognized as having been influential is
helpful—but limiting. Perhaps there are particularly insightful volumes that
have not proved especially popular (and, therefore, not widely influential); these
prophetic voices will escape consideration by a study such as this one.
All of these provisos aside, this project’s methodology is nevertheless
worthwhile. Alternative means of identifying influential books (say, surveying a
wide sampling of worship practitioners across a broad range of denominational
traditions) would be impractical for a study of this scale. And the tradeoff for
what must inevitably be the somewhat academic slant from this project’s survey
respondents is this: a wide-angle perspective, with good depth of field. These
professors are quite literally in the business of understanding evangelicalism as
a whole; as practical theologians they especially try to keep their fingers on the
pulse of real-world evangelical ministry. Moreover, these teachers have a decisive
hand in training next-generation church leaders—so their understandings are
not only descriptive, but also formative. If we remind ourselves that the pool
is not comprehensive, but rather the product of an important but limited
perspective—the analysis will be valuable.
The Pool
Based on the survey responses, 25 books were selected for analysis. These
were ranked by the survey respondents to be the volumes that have been most
influential, for three decades (1980–2010), on evangelical understandings
of worship participation. Table 2.1 presents the final pool, sorted by rank. In
addition to the ranking of each book, a column indicates the cumulative points
allotted to each by the combined group of survey respondents.
The final pool includes a spectrum of genres, which will be discussed below.
Beyond genre, however, several imbalances are evident. First, out of the 23
authors (of the 25 books), only two are women. Second, all but one of the
authors are white. And third, there is no explicitly charismatic or Pentecostal

representation among the authors.7 While such imbalances are worth noting
and considering, they do reflect the demographics of published evangelical
authors writing about worship throughout most of the time period addressed
in this study. If the demographics are troubling, they are irrelevant to this
particular survey’s aim—the discovery of which books have, in actuality, been
most influential.
Literary Genres
Evangelical authors range as widely in perspective, purpose, and style as do any

other writers. Their books run from the popular to the scholarly, the inspirational
to the instructional, the theoretical to the pragmatic. While numerous books
about worship have been written at every one of these levels, the most nuanced
and sustained treatments can be found in works geared toward those in ministry,
and especially in books written at an academic level.
Table 2.1 Final literature pool sorted by rank
Rank Pts Author Title (Year)

1 80 Webber, Robert E. Worship Old and New (1982)
2 79 Webber, Robert E. Worship is a Verb (1985)
3 75 Peterson, David Engaging with God (1992)
4 75 Dawn, Marva Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down
(1995)
5 70 Tozer, A.W. Whatever Happened to Worship? (1985)
6 70 Torrance, James B. Worship, Community and the Triune God
of Grace (1997)
7 67 Morgenthaler, Sally Worship Evangelism (1995)
8 63 White, James F. A Brief History of Christian Worship (1993)
9 62 Kimball, Dan Emerging Church (2003)
10 61 Hustad, Donald W. Jubilate II (1980/1993)
11 60 White, James F. Introduction to Christian Worship (1980)
12 56 Liesch, Barry Wayne The New Worship (2001)
13 56 Carson, D.A., et al. Worship by the Book (2002)
14 52 Best, Harold Unceasing Worship (2003)
7
Granted, Simon Chan, the author of Liturgical Theology, is a Pentecostal. Much
of his writing, however—including the volume represented here—is neither overtly nor
typically Pentecostal in any way.
Rank Pts Author Title (Year)

15 52 Chan, Simon Liturgical Theology (2006)
16 50 Navarro, Kevin The Complete Worship Leader (2001)
17 49 Hawn, Michael One Bread, One Body (2003)
18 49 Wainwright, Geoffrey Doxology (1980)
19 47 Vander Zee, Leonard J. Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (2004)
20 45 Ross, Allen P. Recalling the Hope of Glory (2006)
21 45 Redman, Robb The Great Worship Awakening (2001)
22 44 Warren, Rick The Purpose-Driven Church (1995)
23 44 Allen, Ronald and Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel
Borror, Gordon (1982)
24 43 Hybels, Lynne and Bill Rediscovering Church (1995)
25 42 Redman, Matt The Unquenchable Worshipper (2001)
It is interesting that, in spite of the scholarly expertise leveraged to select books

for this project, the final list is quite evenly distributed between popular and
academic titles.8 Some of the books (such as Matt Redman’s The Unquenchable
Worshipper) are devotional works written for laypeople; some (such as Geoffrey
Wainwright’s Doxology) are more densely written theologies aimed primarily at
an academic readership. Some are more theoretical ( James Torrance’s Worship,
Community, and the Triune God of Grace), while some are geared squarely for
practitioners (Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church). While it may be true
that this pool was assembled by those with a similar, academic perspective, the
books that comprise it nevertheless represent some genuine diversity of genre
and intent.
Emphasis Groups
A preliminary analysis of the pool surfaced enough clear themes in order to

suggest grouping the books by “emphasis.” Each resulting emphasis group shares
a discernible focus, a central axis around which its understanding and theology
of worship revolves. The five groups identified were:
1. All of Life—emphasizing the continuity between worship expressed

explicitly in gathered community and worship expressed implicitly
through daily living.
8
Ten are popular, ten are academic, and six sit somewhere in between those two
classifications.
2. Gathered Devotion—emphasizing the adoration of God by an assembly

of individuals worshiping from their hearts.
3. Sacramental Recovery—emphasizing the centrality of sacramental
symbol to authentic worship-encounter with God.
4. Evangelistic Worship—emphasizing the importance of evangelism and
the commitment to shape worship practices so as to serve that imperative.
5. Organically Missional—emphasizing the centrality of missional community
and a commitment to worship in ways that engage postmodern people who
live in a post-Christian culture.
While these groupings do not necessarily cover the entire range of evangelical
worship theologies, they do account for almost all of the literature in the
pool. Four volumes, however, defied classification—Liesch’s The New Worship;
Navarro’s The Complete Worship Service; Hawn’s One Bread, One Body; and Robb
Redman’s The Great Worship Awakening. This is not to say that these unclassifiable
books invalidate the emphasis categories or suggest other emphases. Rather, the
books are either so generalized in their theology or particular in their purpose as
to simply be indeterminate with regard to the categories.9
For that matter, the rest of the pool literature also spans a variety of genres,
and it is worth noting that certain of the emphasis groups tend strongly toward
one particular kind of literature. The all of life works are strong on scholarship;
the gathered devotion volumes are heavily devotional; the sacramental recovery
literature is particularly theological, and the evangelistic worship and organically
missional books are geared toward practitioners. Such genre differences between
the groups will certainly skew our analysis, to some degree. For example: if a
practically-oriented evangelistic worship book does not directly treat the more
ethereal dimensions of Horizon 3, it may say more about the author’s literary
focus than his or her theological convictions. At the same time, the entire
conception of groups distinguished by emphasis is that certain groups prioritize
9
More specifically, these books failed to fit well into the groupings for three different
reasons: (1) Although Michael Hawn presumably subscribes to a sacramental understanding
of worship, his One Bread, One Body focuses so tightly on the use of multiethnic worship
resources as to obscure that orientation; (2) Kevin Navarro’s The Complete Worship Leader
is a practice-oriented volume that covers many topics without overtly identifying with one
or another of the emphasis groups; (3) Barry Liesch’s The New Worship and Robb Redman’s
The Great Worship Awakening both come across as distillations of classroom teaching; the
volumes cover much territory with studied evenhandedness. All four books make for fine
reading—but their inclusion in our groupings would have made little difference to the
conclusions that have been drawn. (It should be noted that none of the four volumes rated
highly enough in our survey to place in the top-10 tier of the pool in terms of influence.) A
few distinctive points from these books have been noted, however, and will surface in the
following pages.
and accentuate certain themes. Without making unwarranted assumptions

about what these authors do and do not affirm, one can certainly recognize what
they emphasize.
Interestingly, the top 10 books on the list include representatives from all five
of the groups. This can be seen in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2 Top 10 volumes in the literature pool, indicating emphasis groups
Rank Pts Author Title Emphasis Group

1 80 Webber Worship Old and New Sacramental Recovery
(1982)
2 79 Webber Worship is a Verb (1985) Sacramental Recovery
3 75 Peterson Engaging with God (1992) All of Life
4 75 Dawn Reaching Out Without Sacramental Recovery
Dumbing Down (1995)
5 70 Tozer Whatever Happened to Gathered Devotion
Worship? (1985)
6 70 Torrance Worship, Community and Sacramental Recovery
the Triune God of Grace
(1997)
7 67 Morgenthaler Worship Evangelism Evangelistic Worship
(1995)
8 63 White A Brief History of Sacramental Recovery
Christian Worship (1993)
9 62 Kimball Emerging Church (2003) Organically Missional
10 61 Hustad Jubilate II (1980/1993) Sacramental Recovery
At this point it will be sufficient to simply observe the breakdown of the pool
without offering much interpretation. It must be said, however, that the balance
of the emphasis groups is surprising. Since evangelicalism is a predominantly
non-sacramental tradition, it is striking that six of the top 10 volumes have
a sacramental recovery emphasis. Beyond that, it is notable that the top 10
distribution is evenly divided, with one volume from each of the other emphases.
Table 2.3 indicates which books have been grouped into each of the primary
emphases. In addition to each book’s overall ranking and composite points, the
total points for each group are provided, along with the average points for the
books in that group.
Table 2.3 Final literature pool by emphasis group
Author/Title (Year) Rank Points

1. All of Life Emphasis
• Peterson, Engaging with God (1992) 3 75
• Carson et al., Worship by the Book (2002) 13 56
• Best, Unceasing Worship (2003) 14 52
Total Points: 183
Average Points/Book: 61
2. Gathered Devotion Emphasis
• Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship? (1985) 5 70
• Allen and Borror, Worship (1982) 23 44
• Redman, M., The Unquenchable Worshipper (2001) 25 42
Total Points: 156
3. Sacramental Recovery Emphasis
• Webber, Worship Old and New (1982) 1 80
• Webber, Worship is a Verb (1985) 2 79
• Dawn, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down (1995) 4 75
• Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace (1997) 6 70
• White, A Brief History of Christian Worship (1993) 8 63
• Hustad, Jubilate and Jubilate II (1980/1993) 10 61
• White, Introduction to Christian Worship (1980) 11 60
• Chan, Liturgical Theology (2006) 15 52
• Wainwright, Doxology (1980) 18 49
• Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (2004) 19 47
• Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory (2006) 20 45
Total Points: 681
4. Evangelistic Worship Emphasis
• Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism (1995) 7 67
• Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church (1995) 22 44
• Hybels, Rediscovering Church (1995) 24 43
Total Points: 154
5. Organically Missional Emphasis
• Kimball, Emerging Church (1995) 9 62
Total Points: 6
Tables 2.4 and 2.5 summarize how the emphasis groups rank as a whole by,
respectively, total points and average points per book.
Table 2.4 Emphasis groups sorted Table 2.5 Emphasis groups sorted
by total points per group by average points per book
Total # Avg. #
Emphasis Group Emphasis Group
Points Bks Points Bks
Sacramental Recovery 681 11 Sacramental Recovery 62 11
All of Life 183 3 Organically Missional 62 1
Gathered Devotion 156 3 All of Life 61 3
Evangelistic Worship 154 3 Gathered Devotion 52 5
Organically Missional 62 1 Evangelistic Worship 51 3
The total points per group (Table 2.4) correlates roughly with the number
of books in each group. Somewhat more revealing is the calculation of average
points per book (Table 2.5); the sacramental recovery literature ties with the single
organically missional volume for the highest ranking. The survey respondents
apparently feel both that the sacramental literature is especially influential, and
also that Kimball’s newer organically missional perspective is important, late-
breaking news for the understanding of worship participation.
Further speculations might be made about the comparative rankings of
the books within the pool. At this point, however, it is enough simply to
recognize that literature from all five emphases was deemed to be importantly
influential by the worship professors who responded to the survey. Following
the development of an analytical lens in Chapter 3, chapters 4 through 8 will
focus on the literature in each of the five emphasis groups.
Chapter 3
The Lens:
“What Language Shall I Borrow?”
Again: worship participation is rooted not only in the tangible but also in the
invisible. And talking about invisible things—or rather, finding words that
articulate them into visibility—is no easy endeavor. We might well ask, in the
words of an old hymn text, “What language shall I borrow?” Evangelicals,
having begun to wade into participation’s deeper waters, might blush at the
realization that their familiar vocabulary is insufficient to illuminate the
depths into which they are headed. In the face of mystery, however, there
is no shame in being humbled to the point of looking for language beyond
one’s own.
Linguist Guy Deutscher has made the case that language not only embodies
expression, but also shapes perception. “A growing body of reliable scientific
research,” he writes, “now provides solid evidence that our mother-tongue
can affect the way we think and perceive the world.”1 Language serves, argues
Deutscher, not only as “mirror” but as “lens.”2 If this is so, then the old hymn’s
question might be reframed: what language-lens to borrow?
I want to propose that a particularly useful lens for the purposes of this study
happens to be trifocal. It derives (strangely enough, considering the evangelical
landscape to be examined) from medieval sacramental theology. Liturgical
theologian Mark Searle set out a graciously flexible, modern-day version of this
medieval model; his construct will be adapted here for application to evangelical
thought. But before considering and tweaking Searle’s conception, it will be
instructive to briefly consider two other models: three lexical dimensions of
the word “participation,” and scholar Craig Douglas Erickson’s six “patterns of
participation.”
1
Guy Deutscher, Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other
Languages (New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Co., 2010), p. 7.
2
See the two major parts of Deutscher’s volume: “The Language Mirror” (pp. 25ff.)
and “The Language Lens” (pp. 126ff.).
Models of Participation
Participation: Three Lexical Dimensions
While it seems trite to begin with dictionary definitions, it is well worth stopping
to consider the lexical implications of the word “participation.” Although
evangelicals lean toward exegeting Bible words in their original languages, even
a cursory look at the English verb “participate” is helpful at this point.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “participate” in this way: “To take
part; to have a part or share with a person, in … a thing; to share.”3 Clearly
there are three important dimensions to participation: (1) the means by which
one participates (by which one might “take” or “have a part”); (2) the person
or people with whom one “shares” a part; and (3) the ultimate “thing”—or
condition—in which one has a part.4 In other words (reversing the order), one
participates in some ultimate thing, with some other(s), by doing something or
other. For example, a person might participate in the celebration of a friend’s
birthday, with that friend (and perhaps others), by eating cake and singing
“Happy Birthday” and presenting a gift. Most usages of the word “participation”
imply all three of these dimensions: in, with, and by.
As employed in the New Testament, the Greek word koinonia (often
translated as “participate”) involves all three of the dimensions just identified.
Referring to eucharistic celebration, the Apostle Paul asks: “And is not the bread
that we break a participation [koinonia] in the body of Christ? Because there
is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf ”
(1 Corinthians 10:16b–17).5 Paul here describes Christians as participating
in an ultimate end (the body of Christ), with others (the “many”), by doing
something (eating bread).
The lexical implications of “participation” may be elementary, a mere starting
point. And yet, borne in mind, these three dimensions—in, with, and by—serve
to usefully sketch out the territory of participation.
3
“participate, v.1.” OED Online. November 2010. Oxford University Press. www.oed.
com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/158866 (accessed November 20, 2010).
4
The with and in dimensions are explicit in the OED definition; the by dimension is
more implicit. But clearly a “part” must be “taken” by some means or another. This is true even
in more apparently passive forms of participation; one might participate quite effortlessly in,
say, an insurance plan. But somewhere along the way, one had to take at least enough action
to enroll in the plan.
5
All scripture is quoted from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise
noted. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001).
The Lens: “What Language Shall I Borrow?” 43
Craig Douglas Erickson: Six Patterns of Participation
Presbyterian scholar and minister Craig Douglas Erickson’s 1989 book,

Participating in Worship, is a classic of sorts.6 The volume holds this distinction
not only because of its useful blend of practical theology and pastoral sensitivity,
but also for a more prosaic reason: it has long been one of the only books explicitly
addressing the subject of worship participation. Although Erickson’s work is
clearly aimed at those who are more familiar with structure than spontaneity
in worship, the author attempts a wide-embracing ecumenism and a holistic
balance of participatory modes.
The core of Erickson’s contribution is his identification of six interdependent
“patterns of liturgical participation.” Although he shifts, near the end of his book,
to a “longitudinal” perspective,7 Erickson’s study is primarily a “latitudinal” survey
of on-the-ground patterns of human participation: (1) Spontaneous involvement
includes unplanned congregational song, moments of embellishment within the
rubrics of set prayers, congregational exclamations during preaching, and the
like;8 (2) Silent engagement may appear passive, but Erickson affirms the various
ways in which it provides for deeply engaged participation; (3) Interiorized
verbal participation denotes congregational recitation of fixed texts, in ways that
encourage inward, personal appropriation; (4) Prophetic verbal participation, as
framed (in a rather restrained way) by Erickson, includes those unashamedly
temporary liturgical elements that speak into the here-and-now of a particular
church community. For Erickson, such prophetic moments are largely scripted
and planned, and are usually channeled through liturgy and preaching; (5) Lay
leadership involves participation in a number of classic roles (crucifers, thurifers,
acolytes, Scripture readers, and so on); (6) Multisensate participation denotes, for
Erickson, a wide range of bodily gestures traditionally associated with liturgy.
While Erickson devotes most of Participating in Worship to exploring the
specific liturgical actions associated with each of these six participation patterns,
he also emphasizes the cooperative interplay between the patterns, and develops
a picture of worship as a holistic, organic unity. The author furthermore sets
liturgy and participation in a context that is thoroughly relational, both vertically
6
Craig Douglas Erickson, Participating in Worship: History, Theory, and Practice
(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989).
7
Ibid., p. 181.
8
Erickson also treats, briefly and neutrally, such practices as speaking in tongues
and prophecy—“charismata” typical of the Charismatic movement, which he calls “at once
a gift and a challenge to mainline churches.” Ibid., p. 34. But as laudable as is Erickson’s
inclusiveness, it is difficult to imagine charismatics (not to mention Pentecostals) operating
within the author’s rather rigid guidelines for spontaneity.
and horizontally. Erickson sees the patterns as playing out most meaningfully
in an equilibrium he dubs “synergistic ritual”—in which “persons, church,
and liturgy” interrelate “in a cooperative relationship of mutual enrichment,”
all “orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.”9 This rich network of participatory
interrelations spills out beyond the bounds of the merely liturgical, as “acts of
charity and as efforts in behalf of social justice and world peace.”10
Erickson ties everything together in his final chapter, “Participation in
Christ.” He envisions Christ as the ground of all participation—spiritual,
liturgical, and ecclesial. “Participation in the corporate worship of the church,”
he writes, “is the visible manifestation of the participation that Christians enjoy
in Christ and the church. Indeed, it is constitutive of the church.”11
Erickson’s grand liturgical vision is not, of course, unique. His conception
resonates powerfully with the Liturgical Movement that paved the way for
Vatican II and the wide-sweeping ecumenical renewal of the late twentieth
century. So it is hardly surprising that, in line with that vision, Erickson sees the
deepest and ultimate expression of liturgical participation in the celebration of
the eucharist, nor that he promotes a “symmetry of the Lord’s day” that strikes
an intentional balance of Word and Table.12
Erickson’s categories are helpful, and offer a rich framework for practical
ministry; it will be useful to bear them in mind throughout this study. More
useful for our purposes, however, is an alternative model—one that is elegantly
simple but theologically deep.
Mark Searle: Three (Medieval) Horizons of Participation
The language-lens to be used for this project will be based, as I have already
indicated, on the work of Mark Searle. In Called to Participate, Searle takes
an approach that is almost precisely an inversion of Erickson’s.13 Whereas
Erickson focuses primarily on various, parallel avenues of participation,
stopping only at the end to “refocus” and gaze at the “longitudinal” view,
Searle has his eye on that longitudinal axis from the very start. It is only after
a careful, lengthy treatment of three such vertical dimensions of participation
9

Ibid., p. 15.
10
Ibid., p. 9.
11
Ibid., p. 185.
12
Ibid., pp. 186ff. A dynamic balance between Word and Table is a central theme
in reform and renewal inspired by the Liturgical Movement, as is the unique centrality of
eucharistic celebration.
13
Searle et al., Called to Participate. The volume was published posthumously, 14 years
after Searle’s death in 1992.
that he backs into discussing the sorts of horizontal, ground-level liturgical

practices that Erickson’s volume emphasizes.
Searle sees liturgical participation as happening, at its best, on three “levels,”
all at the same time. He appropriates a construct of Roman Catholic sacramental
theology that envisions the relationship between sacramentum (the visible stuff
of worship) and res (the spiritual reality in Christ). The three medieval categories
are: sacramentum tantum (“the sacrament itself ”), res et sacramentum (“the thing
and the sacrament”), and res tantum (“the thing itself ”).
While these vintage classifications prove surprisingly useful, they emerge
from an admittedly problematic past. Having arisen in a medieval surge of
Aristotelian scholasticism, the triadic categories were designed to solve problems
created by other categories.14 Furthermore, the scheme was developed with some
degree of pastoral pragmatism, as a theological formulation not only to elucidate
sublime heavenly realities, but also to explain disturbing earthbound behavior.15
In any case: after passing through successive iterations in the hands of various
theologians, the schema received its quintessential articulation by Thomas
Aquinas in the thirteenth century.16
In the mature medieval model, the sacramentum tantum was the tangible or
observable part of the rite—the materials used, the actions performed, and the
words spoken. Navigating these elements correctly resulted in a sacrament rightly
performed, and in a sign that always pointed to another reality beyond itself.
At the other extreme was the res tantum, that which was ultimately represented
and which pointed to no referent beyond itself. Between these two was that
premier sacramental innovation of the twelfth century, the res et sacramentum.
This spiritual reality was represented (and effected) by the sacramentum tantum
and, at the same time, pointed away from itself toward the ultimacy of the res
tantum. In the eucharist, for example, the sacramentum tantum would be the rite
involving bread, wine, and appropriate words. The immediate spiritual effect,
14
The three-level schema emerged as twelfth-century theologians tried to untangle
the sacramental problem posed by the “three-part body of Christ”—historical (physical),
eucharistic, and ecclesial. See Edward J. Kilmartin and Robert J. Daly, The Eucharist in the
West (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1998), p. 117. Hugh St. Victor, Peter Lombard, and
others adopted the strategy of fortifying Augustine’s dyad of sacramentum and res with the
intermediate category, sacramentum et res. The wording eventually became inverted: res et
sacramentum.
15
For example: how to account for a particular case in which a sacrament—understood
to be an effective sign—did not produce the expected fruits of human transformation. What
had gone wrong? This and other difficulties seemed to be neatly dispatched by the three-part
arrangement, which distinguished between immediate and ultimate effects.
16
For a good account of the evolution of the three-part schema, see Kilmartin and
Daly, The Eucharist in the West, pp. 117–23.
the res et sacramentum, was the effecting of the body and blood of Christ. The
ultimate effect or res tantum was understood to be communion with Christ and
also with his body, the church.17
While these categories are useful enough to be enduring, it must be admitted
that they posed various problems when treated as a tightly wrought system. Searle,
however, although he handles the ternary schema responsibly, is not concerned
with fine-grained sacramental theology. Rather, he frames the classic medieval
categories as broad horizons for envisioning different levels of participation.
Retaining the model’s inherited wisdom, Searle treats it flexibly enough to offer
a compelling frame through which to look at present-day worship.
Searle refers to the first level, the visible sacramentum tantum, as “participation
in ritual behavior.” He envisions ritual as comprising more than merely rote
performance; rather, it brims with vibrant meaning. While Searle cares deeply
about the other horizons, he envisions ritual, itself, as richly multidimensional:
it is collective (corporately cooperative), formal (relatively predictable),
performative (actively engaged), and formative (progressively disciplining).18
The second level, for Searle, is participation in “the work of Christ.” Taking
his cue from a classic line of christology, Searle takes seriously the scriptural
assertions that Jesus Christ is the “great high priest who has passed through
the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14), and that he “is seated at the right hand of the
throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places” (Hebrews 8:1–2).
Christ, as head of the church, is its heavenly worship leader (Hebrews 8:19)19—
the heavenly head who leads his earthly body in prayer.20 The worship of the
church—always in and through Christ—is an obedient yielding, in faith, to the
work of Christ, himself.
Searle describes the third, ultimate level as participation in “the life of
God.” Unlike classic sacramental theology, which envisions different, unique
varieties of grace issuing forth from specific sacraments, Searle sees communion
with the “life of God” primarily as an undifferentiated, mystical whole. It may
be called “grace,” “sanctifying grace,” or “gift of the Holy Spirit.”21 It may be
experienced with great emotion or welcomed with sober faith. But this ultimate
level amounts to nothing less than amazing grace—human beings receiving the
unthinkable privilege of participating in the very life of God. The intimacy of
17
Ibid., p. 120.
18
See Searle et al., Called to Participate, p. 27.
19
In Hebrews 8:12, Christ is described as λειτουργός, a public minister or, as it were,
worship leader.
20
Embracing the New Testament image of the church as Christ’s body, Searle recognizes
that prayer and worship do not originate with the body, but with the Head—and that they
well up within the human heart as a gift of the Spirit.
21
Searle et al., Called to Participate, p. 37.
this new relationship, that of being “partakers of the divine nature” (1 Peter 2:4),
is a “mystery ultimately beyond telling.”22
For all its mystical grandeur, participation in the “life of God” does, for Searle,
have a down-to-earth dimension. He speaks not only of participation in God,
in Christ, and in the Spirit—but also of participation in history. Relationship
with God may be headily transcendent—but it is also tangibly transformative.
As God’s people participate in the life of God, they become both changed,
themselves, and also agents of change for the world.23
In all of this, Searle bears centrally in mind the question of participation in
worship. He shares the “earnest desire” expressed in the Vatican II documents
“that the faithful be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in
liturgical celebrations called for by the very nature of the liturgy.”24
A Trifocal Schema?
One might very well ask: does a medieval sacramental model really provide a
useful lens through which to view contemporary evangelicals? The answer
proposed here is a resounding “yes”—the model is, indeed, surprisingly helpful.
Granted, Searle, as a Roman Catholic, spoke within and to a tradition
that has always been unapologetically sacramental—in stark contrast to most
of evangelicalism. Moreover, the tri-level schema he adapts was formulated
particularly to delineate the dynamics of sacrament. Yet, if Searle’s treatment of
the tri-level schema is sacramental, it is only broadly so. Rather than arcanely
speculating, Searle is interested in answering a question about which all leaders
of Christian worship are concerned: what does it really mean to participate fully
in worship?
It should be noted that the tri-level schema, despite its medieval Roman
Catholic pedigree, has resonated along the way with at least some Protestants.
Methodist theologian Don Saliers, for example, sets forth the very same model
in Worship as Theology, offering it as a frame through which to view worship
participation.25 Although Saliers does not follow through by unpacking or
developing the three levels, he apparently recognizes them as an ecumenically
useful way of thinking about participation in worship.
22
Ibid., p. 38.
23
Ibid., p. 43.
24
Second Vatican Council, “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” p. 14.
25
See Don E. Saliers, Worship as Theology: Foretaste of Glory Divine (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1994), pp. 47–8.
Unfamiliar Vocabulary, Familiar Territory
If evangelicals are, in the present day, often wary of the word “sacrament,”
they have not always been so. Seventeenth-century Baptist minister Thomas
Grantham proudly echoed the words of Reformed theologian Johannes
Wollebius: “The visible Church is a visible society of Men, called to the state of
Grace, by the Word and sacraments.”26 Here Grantham affirms all three elements
of the medieval schema: (1) the “visible church” and “visible society of Men”
(the locus of sacramentum tantum or “ritual behavior”); (2) “the Word and
sacraments” (res et sacramentum or “work of Christ”); and (3) an ultimate “state
of Grace” (res tantum, or “life of God”).
While it is not possible here to comprehensively survey evangelical attitudes
toward sacrament, we might briefly consider at least one other example—that
of John Wesley.27 For Wesley, God works regularly through appointed “means
of grace,” including tangible sacraments: “I understand outward signs, words,
or actions ordained of God, and appointed for this end—to be the ordinary
channels whereby [God] might convey to men preventing, justifying, or
sanctifying grace.”28 Without a word of Latin, Wesley speaks implicitly of
sacramentum tantum (“outward signs”), res et sacramentum (“channels whereby
[God] might convey to men”), and res tantum (“sanctifying grace”).
It is true that generations of evangelicals have developed a studied wariness
about “sacrament.” They have always, however, recognized dimensions of
worship in which human and divine activity somehow coalesce. Present-day
evangelicals embrace the human, sacramentum tantum level, enjoining one
another to “Sing for joy to God our strength!”29 They recognize the presence
of Christ in the midst of the res et sacramentum of their symbolic action; even
their sung praise, itself, seems to takes on a sacramental character, mediating
26
Thomas Grantham, Christianismus Primitivus: or, The Ancient Christian Religion,
in its nature, certainty, excellency, and beauty, (internal and external) particularly considered,
asserted and vindicated &c (London: Francis Smith, 1678), Part 2, p. 2; quoted in Christopher
J. Ellis, Gathering: A Spirituality and Theology of Worship in Free Church Tradition (London:
SCM Press, 2004), p. 25.
27
Larsen’s definition places contemporary evangelicals in line with a tradition that
harks back to Wesley and Whitefield. Some regard Wesley as such a seminal figure in the
evangelical story that they refer to him as “a father of evangelicalism.” Stephen Tomkins, John
Wesley: A Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 196.
28
“Sermon 16, The Means of Grace,” in Albert C. Outler, ed., The Works of John Wesley,
Vol. 1 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984), p. 381; quoted in William R. Crockett, Eucharist,
Symbol of Transformation (New York: Pueblo Publishing Co., 1989), p. 204.
29
Lamont Hiebert, “Sing for Joy” (Integrity’s Hosanna! Music [Admin. by EMI
Christian Music Publishing], 1996).
God’s presence to his people. A popular song envisions the singing of praise as
“build[ing] a throne” so that Jesus, the Lord, might “come and take [his] place.”30
And surely evangelicals treasure the “amazing grace” of ultimate engagement
with God, the res tantum of a relational encounter that seeks nothing beyond
itself. In that timeless embrace they intone, “I could sing of your love forever”31
and luxuriate in simple, intimate songs that speak of nearness to God; “your
presence,” they sing, “is heaven to me.”32
Evangelicals may be largely unfamiliar with both the Latin descriptors and
also the conceptual shape of the tri-level schema. Still, they are well aware of the
territory and regions it describes. They simply need some borrowed language.
A New Age of Exploration: The Emerging Theology of Trinitarian Participation
Evangelicals often wax rapturous when describing the amazing grace of human
life intermingled with the divine. Still, one might yet wonder: Does Searle’s
triadic schema point to horizons that are too ethereal for earthy evangelicals?
One indication that, no—it does not—comes by way of a topic that has captured
the attention of much recent evangelical scholarship: the theology of trinitarian
participation.
The twentieth century witnessed a virtual renaissance of trinitarian theology,
and the outworkings of that resurgence that continue into the third millennium
might well be seen as a new “age of exploration.” Evangelical scholars have been
keenly attentive to those recent advances in trinitarian studies—developments
that point suggestively toward the third, ultimate level of the medieval model.
And importantly, considerations of the Trinity have led almost invariably to
discussions about the deeper meanings of participation. A language-lens that
would bring these uncharted theological regions into clearer focus would
therefore be not only suitable, but also eminently useful, for application to
evangelicals.
While one might assume the doctrine of the Trinity to have remained a
stable, unchanging fixture of classic theology, such is (surprisingly) not the
case. What the latter half of the twentieth century witnessed was, in fact, a
30
Paul Kyle, “Jesus We Enthrone You” (Thankyou Music [Admin. by EMI Christian
Music Publishing], 1980).
31
Martin Smith, “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” (Delirious? Music [Admin. by
EMI Christian Music Publishing], 1994).
32
Israel Houghton and Micah Massey, “Your Presence is Heaven” (Integrity’s Praise!
Music [Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing], 2012).
veritable renaissance of the doctrine following centuries of relative inattention.33

Encapsulations of the recent literature tend to highlight mostly the same figures—
beginning almost inevitably with Karl Barth, and moving progressively through
such theologians as Karl Rahner, Jürgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg,
John Zizioulas, Catherine Mowry LaCugna, and Thomas F. Torrance.34 It is
true that most of the theologians represented in this usual roster of scholars are
not evangelicals; but their contributions regarding the Trinity—a classically
ecumenical doctrine on which evangelicals have no unique perspective35—have
made a profound impact on many evangelical theologians.
Particularly influential has been the widely quoted theology of Eastern
Orthodox author John Zizioulas. Many evangelical scholars are, like Alan
Torrance, able to look both critically and appreciatively at Zizioulas’s work,
and to draw much inspiration from him.36 One of Zizioulas’s most celebrated
contributions is the recovery of the patristic theme of trinitarian relationality, in
which the persons of the triune God are viewed as being defined more by dynamic
interrelationship than by static substantiality. Zizioulas goes so far as to say that
all personhood—both divine and human—is contingent upon relationship, and
that being, itself, is rooted in communion. (Explicating Zizioulas, Alan Torrance
writes: “The very nature of the person is such that it may not be described with
reference to traditional, Western, ‘static’ conceptions of ‘substance,’ ‘qualities’
and ‘essence.’”37) Zizioulas sees relational communion as central to God’s
33
Catherine Mowry LaCugna, “Philosophers and Theologians on the Trinity,” Modern
Theology 2, no. 3 (1986): p. 169. LaCugna is quoted in David S. Cunningham, These Three
Are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology,.Challenges in Contemporary Theology Series
(Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1998).
34
Evangelical scholar Stanley Grenz’s treatment typifies (and serves as an admirably
accessible exemplar of ) this approach. See Stanley J. Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God:
The Trinity in Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004). Another useful
overview by evangelicals is Roger E. Olson and Christopher A. Hall, The Trinity (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).
35
“There is no distinctly evangelical doctrine of the Trinity,” writes Roger Olson;
“evangelicals by and large accept the classical (Nicene) doctrine of the Trinity.” Roger E.
Olson, “Trinity,” in The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology, ed. Roger E. Olson
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), p. 279.
36
See Alan Torrance, Persons in Communion: Trinitarian Description and Human
Participation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark International, 1996). As for John D. Zizioulas,
himself, especially influential has been his volume, Being as Communion: Studies in
Personhood and the Church (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985).
37
Torrance, Persons in Communion, p. 283.
very being, and eucharistic communion as constitutive of the church.38 “The

life of the eucharist is the life of God Himself,” writes Zizioulas—“the life of
communion with God, such as exists within the Trinity and is actualized within
the members of the eucharistic community.”39 It is these themes, so central to
Zizioulas’s thinking (the primacy of relationality to ontology and the centrality
of eucharist to a rich network of trinitarian participation), that have captured
the imagination of theologians—and among them, many evangelicals.
Amidst the deluge of recent trinitarian explorations, one strain is particularly
pertinent to the subject of worship participation: a wave of literature that
attempts practical theology based on God’s triunity. The authors are motivated,
certainly, by the desire to bridge theory and praxis. But more than that, they
see their subject, itself—trinitarian theology—as pregnant with implications for
practical participation.
David S. Cunningham’s These Three Are One is subtitled, significantly,
“The Practice of Trinitarian Theology.” Cunningham seeks to root his work
in an articulation of trinitarian beliefs, to develop a set of trinitarian “virtues,”
and to begin squeezing out a palette of lived-out trinitarian practices. Of his
three trinitarian virtues (“dispositions that God has by nature, and in which
we participate by grace”), one is, precisely, participation.40 No mere means
to some other end, participation is itself “an essential feature of Christian life
and thought.”41 For Cunningham, participation is a theme deeply woven into
Christian life and even creation itself. And—fascinatingly—Cunningham
demonstrates participation as happening on “three levels”—“within the life of
God, between God and human beings, and among human beings.”42 It is not
difficult to recognize how closely Cunningham’s levels correspond to those in
Searle’s schema.
Theologian Paul Fiddes also develops the connection between Trinity and
participation, as is obvious from the very title of his Participating in God: A
Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity.43 Trinitarian participation is a major theme that
runs through many of Fiddes’s writings. He ardently embraces, like Zizioulas,
a relational definition of person, and concludes that, within the Trinity, “the
38
He describes the “being of God” is an “event of communion.” Zizioulas, Being as
Communion, p. 15, quoted in Olson and Hall, The Trinity, p. 113.
39
Zizioulas, Being as Communion, p. 18, quoted in Torrance, Persons in Communion,
p. 288.
40
Ibid., p. 123.
41
Ibid., p. 186.
42
Ibid., p. 186.
43
Paul S. Fiddes, Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2001).
relationships are three identities in God and are more beingfull than anything
in created reality.”44
Like many other theologians, Fiddes looks to the patristic concept of
perichoresis to describe the mutual participation of the members of the Trinity.
The particularly dynamic flavor of the word is captured, says Fiddes, by its Latin
translation circumincessio—“a mutual ‘moving’ of each person in and through the
other.”45 And for Fiddes, the circle of divine perichoresis is not a closed one: “The
triune God … makes space within the divine communion for created beings, a
space wide enough for the whole of creation to dwell.”46 That consummation, in
Fiddes’s eyes, is not reserved for the eschaton: “We participate in the perichoresis
of God here and now.”47
Reading Fiddes, all of life seems radiantly sacramental, in that nearly every
activity provides an opportunity to participate in the divine. Eucharist and
baptism remain central points of focused, participative encounter with God,
but these mountaintop experiences of sacrament open, for Fiddes, onto a broad
landscape of sacramentality. The experience at the summit leads inevitably to
participative engagement with the world.
Evangelical scholar Pete Ward seems to be a kindred spirit to Fiddes. The
explicit task of his volume Participation and Mediation is to develop a practical
theology of participation. Like Fiddes, Ward sees Christian meaning and
experience shot through with participation at every level. And like Searle, Ward
envisions participation as happening in richly meaningful ways on, first of all,
a human horizon. He affirms cultural theorist Etienne Wenger’s vision of “an
encompassing process of being active participants in the practices of social
communities and constructing identities in relation to these communities.”48
44
See Paul S. Fiddes, “The Quest for a Place Which is ‘Not-a-Place’: The Hiddenness of
God and the Presence of God,” in Silence and the Word: Negative Theology and Incarnation,
ed. Oliver Davies and Denys Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002),
pp. 51–2.
45
Paul S. Fiddes, The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature, Challenges
in Contemporary Theology Series (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), p. 204.
46
Ibid., p. 205. Some theologians balk at the application of “perichoresis” to any persons
outside the three members of the Trinity. Others disagree. Peter Leithart points toward such
scriptural affirmations of human perichoretic participation as Jesus’ “unity prayer” in John
17; Leithart exhorts us not to miss out on “the richness and depth behind the deceptively
simple evangelical promise and announcement embodied in perichoresis: The Father who
dwells in the Son through the Spirit has made room for us.” Peter J. Leithart, “Making Room,”
http://rdtwot.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/making-room-by-peter-j-leithart/ (accessed July
30, 2009).
47
Fiddes, The Promised End, p. 211.
48
Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity
(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 4; quoted in Pete Ward,
Ward sees the place of encounter with God as being unashamedly

cultural and deeply spiritual—both “lived-in and indwelt”—all at once.49 His
conception is squarely sacramental, although he prefers to speak of “mediation”
to describe “the way [cultural] expression becomes a place of divine indwelling
and presence through the operation of various forms and processes of cultural
communication.”50 Although mediation “presents as culture,” it is “also a
participation in the Trinitarian life of God.”51
While Ward sees a broad range of the church’s “cultural communication”
as drawn into a “Trinitarian theology of participation and mediation,” and as
locus for “divine encounter,”52 he still recognizes the special centrality of God-
given sacraments—especially the eucharist. Inspired by Zizioulas, Ward regards
eucharist as an act that “constitutes the Church’s being.”53 Moreover, eucharistic
celebration not only roots and coheres the church; it serves as “participation in
the very life of God.”54
This cursory review hardly begins to do justice to the richness, depth and
complexity of contemporary trinitarian studies. But at least one thing is apparent:
evangelical theologians are beginning to join others in gazing wide-eyed into the
vast “longitudinal” landscape of trinitarian theology, and are beginning to forge
Trinity-infused theologies of participation. In light of this, it seems all the more
useful to work at developing a schematic lens to chart those regions. With an
eye toward that task, it will be helpful to highlight a few significant trinitarian
themes.
With regard to the first level of participation, which Searle calls “ritual
behavior,” the trinitarian theologians emphasize the essentially relational nature
of persons. Looking no further than this first, human level, one might expect
to see the imprint of the imago Dei playing out in communal, other-engaged
participation. And, based on this understanding of personhood as dynamically
relational (rather than statically substantial), one might conceive of participation
especially in terms of vectors of interaction between persons. (Searle points his
readers in this direction, the first of his four defining characteristics of ritual
being that it is “collective”—a “social interaction.”55)
Participation and Mediation: A Practical Theology for the Liquid Church (London: SCM
Press, 2008), p. 6.
49
Ward, Participation and Mediation, p. 95.
50
Ibid., pp. 95–6.
51
Ibid., p. 111.
52
Ibid., p. 98.
53
Zizioulas, Being as Communion, p. 21, quoted in Ward, Participation and Mediation,
p. 97.
54
Ward, Participation and Mediation, p. 97. Notice that in describing the ultimate
dimension of eucharistic participation, Ward’s language here precisely echoes that of Searle.
55
Searle’s second level, “the work of Christ,” is the region of the consciously
sacramental—or what Ward would call “mediation.” Ward encourages us to
conceive of this level broadly, subsuming not only the liturgical, but rather
the entire sweep of the church’s cultural expression. And certainly that also
implies a wide-angle conception of sacramental mediation within gathered
worship—one that sees cultural expression via a variety of artistic media as
points of participative encounter with God. And yet, at the same time that
the trinitarian theologians point toward a wide and inclusive vision of the
sacramental, they inevitably draw the focus back to the centrality of the
explicit sacraments—especially Communion. These theologians challenge
evangelical ambivalence toward the Lord’s Supper with their insight that the
Table is central to the ontology of the church—and centered, moreover, in the
ontology of the triune God.
Finally, the concept of perichoresis helps to give some definition to Searle’s
third level, the “life of God.” This ancient metaphor suggests a way to visualize
the invisible, and to catch a glimpse of the divinely triune interrelations into
which humans are ushered by the extreme grace of God. Furthermore, seeing
a perichoretic relationality at the core of participation helps in the attempt to
seamlessly connect the relationality of visible human participation to divine
interrelations that might seem, otherwise, ethereally distant.
Again: it is clearly beyond the scope of this project to attempt a
thoroughgoing consideration of the trinitarian theology of participation. These
few observations are intended simply to flag themes worth keeping in mind
because of their resonance with Searle’s three horizons.
Adapting the Schema
The preceding glimpse of recent trinitarian theology confirms that Searle’s

schema is full of potential for evangelicals. It offers a template for a sorely
needed language-lens—one that promises to bring into focus regions into
which evangelicals are ever more eager to peer. Such a lens is essentially trifocal;
it makes visible three different horizons of worship participation.
A Note About Verticality
One note of caution should be made before proceeding to discuss “levels” and
“horizons.” A promising aspect of the three-level schema is the way in which it
connects the earthly with the heavenly. An ever-present temptation, therefore,
is to see such a vista in purely vertical terms: human ritual activity takes place on
earth, God’s life is anchored “up” in heaven, and the intermingling of human and
divine hangs somewhere in between.56
On the one hand, such a vertical perspective is hard to avoid. Searle implies
verticality, to some degree, simply by referring to the “levels” of his schema, and
Erickson seems to concur when contrasting “longitudinal” and “latitudinal”
perspectives. Moreover, such verticality is often implied in Scripture, itself.
Before the very eyes of the disciples, Christ is “carried up into heaven” (Luke
24:51); the author of the epistle to the Hebrews affirms that Christ, the great
High Priest, has “gone through the heavens” to be “seated at the right hand of
God” (Hebrews 4:14, 10:12); Paul exhorts believers to “seek the things that are
above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” and to “[s]et your minds
on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1–2).
People living in an age of general relativity, quantum physics, and string theory
may question whether heaven is literally up and out there, somewhere, or rather,
perhaps, trans-dimensional or trans-temporal. Yet, whatever the balance of the
literal and the metaphorical, the Scriptural imagery does lead the reader to a
conception that is, at least to some degree, vertical.
Still, overemphasizing the vertical dimension of the schema will inevitably
lead to trouble. First of all, verticality can imply hierarchy of value. While there
is some truth here (God, who is transcendently above creation in some way, is
supremely good), there is also the potential for distortion and even heresy. Both
neoplatonism and gnosticism posited a precipitous verticality which envisioned
the divine and spiritual as good, and the human and material as bad. Such a
vision is at odds with the Christian understanding of a God who created all
things good, and who redeemed Creation after the Fall.
56
A good visualization of such a conception is Raphael’s painting, “La Disputa”
(1510/11), in which three vertical levels are clearly (at least to my eyes) delineated: (1) at
bottom, humans gather around an earthly eucharist; (2) at top, God and his angels inhabit
a distant, rarified, golden heaven; (3) in between (above the humans and below the Father),
Christ is enthroned on a plateau of clouds (together with the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist,
and a group of prophets and saints). (Among those who share my opinion that “La Disputa”
represents three distinct levels are Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery in
London, who calls the painting “a composition on three tiers,” and Columbia art professor
James H. Beck, who finds the work to be “divided horizontally into three distinct zones.”
Theologian John Hare, on the other hand, finds in the painting only two levels, rather than
three. See Nicholas Penny, “Raphael,” Grove Art Online, www.oxfordartonline.com.ezproxy.
drew.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T070770#_jmp0_ [accessed April 2, 2009]; James
H. Beck, Raphael: The Stanza Della Signatura [New York: George Braziller, 1993], p. 48;
and John. E. Hare, God and Morality: A Philosophical History [Malden, MA and Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers, 2007], pp. 75ff.)
Second, too vertical a conception can imply separation between the “high”
and the “low.” It is precisely this sort of segregation that led to the gnostic
heresy of Docetism, with its predisposition to quarantine the spiritual from the
physical to such a degree that it could not entertain the idea of incarnation—in
which the divine becomes literally clothed with matter. Yet Christians believe
that God has come close, and continues to come close, to earthly humans.
Jesus is “Immanuel” (God with us) and promises his disciples, “I am with you
always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 1:23; 28:20b). “If anyone hears my
voice, and opens the door,” says the Jesus of John’s vision on Patmos, “I will
come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20b). Paul
tells believers that they are “raised … up with [Christ] and seated … with him
in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” and he refers to “Christ in you, the hope
of glory” (Ephesians 2:6, Colossians 1:27). The sort of verticality that implies
an unbridgeable gulf between God and humans will not survive even a casual
reading of Scripture.
Perhaps an alternative to envisioning the levels stacked vertically might be to
think of them as overlayed, one on the other. Evangelical scholar Simon Chan
quotes Orthodox theologian, Alexander Schmemann:
In this world Christ is crucified, His body broken, and His blood shed. And we
must go out of this world, we must ascend to heaven in Christ in order to become
partakers of the world to come. But this is not an ‘other’ world, different from
the one God has created and given to us. It is our same world, already perfected
in Christ, but not yet in us. It is our same world, redeemed and restored, in which
Christ ‘fills all things with Himself.’57
Intriguingly, Schmemann is able to hold together sheer verticality (“we must

ascend to heaven”) and flattened simultaneity (“[i]t is our same world”) in a
dialectic balance that suggests the deep interrelatedness of time and space.
Whether or not one adheres to all of Schmemann’s theology, he inspires us to
see multidimensionally.
So the trifocal lens image proves especially helpful. It suggests a verticality
that has as much to do with the observer’s perception as it has to do with the
subject being observed. One and the same vista may be in view, but looking
through different regions of the lens can bring quite different aspects of the
scene into focus.
57
Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy, 2nd
edn (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1982), pp. 42–3.
Refining the Lens(es)
So—fully understanding that analogues, models, and schemas are always

imperfect—Searle’s medieval-inspired model will now be adapted for the work
at hand. For the purposes of this evangelically-oriented project, the horizons of
worship will go by somewhat modified labels: (1) participation in human action;
(2) participation in divine-through-human action; and (3) participation in the
life of God.
Participation in human action
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make
music in your heart to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:19)
Our first horizon of worship participation will be framed, much like Searle’s
first level, in terms of human action.58 This horizon is, of course, the one that is
readily apparent to gathered worshipers. The word “action” is intended here to
also include those aspects of human participation that may not seem active at
all. Erickson points out that silence, for example—which seems on the surface,
at least, to be more passive than active—can be a means of highly engaged
participation.59
Searle centers this horizon on human ritual activity. Evangelicals are just
beginning to overcome a long-standing antipathy to the word “ritual,” and to
recognize ritual patterns in even the most free-flowing, charismatic worship
forms.60 Much of the activity in an evangelically-conceived horizon of human
action does, indeed, revolve around rites and ritual—whether or not they are
explicitly regarded as such. At the same time, evangelicals place a premium on
interiority (worshiping “from the heart”)—and this first horizon is wider than
tangible ritual, alone.
Erickson devotes most of the pages of his Participating in Worship to
exploring the breadth of this human horizon. He maps out the terrain of human
engagement, as we have seen, via six modes or “patterns” of participation.
Leveraging Erickson’s insights into the varieties of human engagement,
58
Searle describes the first level (sacramentum tantum) as “human, visible, ritual
performance.” Searle et al., Called to Participate, p. 17.
59
Erickson, Participating in Worship, p. 52.
60
Leonard J. Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper: Recovering the
Sacraments for Evangelical Worship (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 34; Eric
Reed, “Return to Ritual: Three Churches Find New Meaning in Old Ways,” Leadership 30,
no. 1 (Winter 2009): pp. 33–5; and Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit.
one might see activity at this level as falling into one or more of three broad
categories: interior action (reflection in the mind and heart), bodily action, and
external engagement (with community, symbol, and ritual).
Even the most mundane of human interactions can, Pete Ward and Paul
Fiddes remind us, open up a wide field of meanings. Those human doings can,
even more amazingly, mirror God’s own internal, triune perichoresis. When
most people gather for worship, they do expect, in fact, that their actions
intersect in some way with the divine. It is important to bear in mind that to
reflect on this horizon of human action, by itself, is not to imply that it is isolated
from the other horizons, at which God is more explicitly in view.
Participation in divine-through-human action
The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

(1 Corinthians 10:16b)
According to Simon Chan, corporate Christian worship involves a surprising

amalgam: “divine action joined with human action.”61 The question is, of course,
how (and where and when) such joining takes place.62
For Pete Ward, God’s self-manifestation in the church happens through
“mediation.” Thinking in terms of mediation helps train questions about divine-
through-human action on two focal points: mediator and media. As for the
mediator, Christians universally acknowledge only one, of course—Jesus Christ.63
They recognize the unique efficacy of Christ’s blood, by which (and only by
which) they “have confidence to enter the holy places” (Hebrews 10:19).64 One
way of viewing Christ’s work of mediation is to emphasize the cross—his past
sacrifice that affords present access to God. Another perspective on Christ’s work
of mediation emphasizes his present ministry—his work as the ascended Great
61
Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology: The Church as Worshiping Community (Downers
Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), p. 48. (All quotations from this work used by permission of
InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, www.ivpress.com.)
62
The question is implied by the very label assigned this horizon in its classic medieval
formulation: res et sacramentum. The name itself is a cipher, scrupulously neutral—nothing
more than a holding-together of the other two horizons (res and sacramentum) between
which it sits. The terminology leaves open (and indeed invites an answer to) the question:
how do human action and divine action intersect?
63
“For there is … one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1
Timothy 2:5).
64
To also recognize the mediative agency of the Holy Spirit is not, of course, to deny
the uniqueness of Christ’s mediatorial role; Scripture testifies to the intimate relationship
between these two members of the Trinity.
High Priest (Hebrews 10:21–2).65 Earthbound worshipers are invited to “draw

near” and participate in Christ’s worship of the “one who sits upon the throne”
(Hebrews 10:22, Revelation 4:9–10). In one respect, Christ’s mediatorial work
as Great High Priest does figure into the horizon of divine-through-human
action. It does so insofar as the human actions of corporate worship are seen
to intersect with and embody Christ’s priestly work. For Searle, this sort of
intersection—primarily in the contexts of eucharist and intercessory prayer—is
so central to his conception that he labels his middle level “The Work of Christ.”
While some evangelicals find points of resonance with this theology, many will
not see a tight connection between human actions and Christ’s ongoing priestly
ministry. For them, that heavenly ministry remains more transcendent, and
therefore more associated with the third horizon, the Life of God.
These two emphases (past and present work of Christ) are sometimes
held together in this middle horizon via the concept of anamnesis—a kind
of remembering that brings together past and present (and even future) into
dynamic unity. In the mid-twentieth century, scholars vigorously debated
competing theories of anamnesis as they interpreted Jesus’ instructions that his
disciples “make remembrance of him” (τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν).66
While perspectives on anamnesis ranged widely—from the mystery-religion
inflected, mystical conception of Benedictine Odo Casel to the more conceptual
approach of Brevard Childs—theologians mostly agreed that past saving events
are in some sense actualized as they are re-presented in the here-and-now.67
Theories of anamnesis have gained ecumenical currency and have, to some
degree, influenced evangelical thought.68 The concept surfaces in a variety
65
Extended treatments of this theme include James Torrance, Worship, Community and
the Triune God of Grace (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996); Ron Man, Proclamation
and Praise: Hebrews 2:12 and the Christology of Worship (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2007); and
Robb Redman, “The Mediation of Christ in Worship,” Worship Leader Magazine 18, no. 8
(September 2009): pp. 22–6.
66
Luke 22:19. Paul Bradshaw writes, “There is probably no other Hebrew word which
has engendered so much debate among Christian sacramental and liturgical theologians in
the second half of the twentieth century as the word zikkaron, or rather its Greek equivalent,
anamnesis.” Paul Bradshaw, “Anamnesis in Modern Eucharistic Debate,” in Memory and
History in Christianity and Judaism, ed. Michael Alan Signer (Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame Press, 2001), p. 73.
67
“[A]namnesis is … an objective act, in and by which the person or event
commemorated is actually made present, is brought into the realm of the here and now.”
Jardine Grisbrooke, “Anaphora,” in The New Westminster Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship,
ed. J.G. Davies (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), p. 18.
68
For a covenant-themed, evangelical treatment of anamnesis, see Tim Ralston,
“‘Remember’ and Worship: The Mandate and the Means,” Reformation and Revival 9, no. 3
(Summer 2000): pp. 77–89.
of ways, it will be seen, throughout the books under consideration in this

project. Anamnesis is briefly mentioned at this point because of its relevance
to conceptions of mediation and participation. While theories of anamnesis
emerged in a specifically sacramental context, attached to discussions of the
Lord’s Supper, the concept is often treated as having broader application—
throughout the full range of a worship service, and even, sometimes, extra-
liturgically.
Moving to the media that serve as loci for divine self-revelation: most
Christians agree that, during corporate worship, God does act through some
sort(s) of intermediate objects and actions. While enthusiastic for such media,
Pete Ward nevertheless maintains a studied balance; he reminds us that tangible
media must never obscure our view of the Mediator. Mediated encounter, for
Ward, is always rooted in deliberate “epiphany”—“revealing moments” in which
“God is intentionally and personally present in mediation.”69
In considering divine-through-human action in worship, one might envision
God as acting through a spectrum of media. At one extreme is the broad sort of
mediation that Ward writes about, in which almost any cultural expression may
serve as the locus for divine encounter. Such a wide view of mediation is rooted
in the even broader notion of “sacramentality,” which is encapsulated well in the
words of theologian John Macquarrie:
Things are more than just aggregates of matter lying around the universe. They
have the potentiality of lighting up for us the mystery of God himself. God is not
a part of the world … So we do not see him directly, but because he is universally
present, there is, shall we say, a sacramental potentiality in virtually everything.70
At the other end of the spectrum is a short list of special media—the “means of
grace” through which God is understood to most readily communicate God’s
presence.71
Lester Ruth discusses popular conceptions of such special media prevalent
among North American Protestant churches today. Ruth suggests that churches
tend toward one of three primary “sacramental” centers of gravity: music,
Word/preaching, or Table (the Lord’s Supper). “One of these three categories,”
69
Ward, Participation and Mediation, p. 112.
70
John Macquarrie, A Guide to the Sacraments (New York: Continuum, 1997), p. 8; as
quoted in Vander Zee, p. 17.
71
Presaging Ward’s caution that God’s sovereign self-giving not be obscured by any
sacramental sort of media, John Wesley—who believed deeply in “means of grace”—insisted
that the means not be regarded as ends in themselves. He was emphatic that they are merely—
as the very name expresses—“means.” See John Wesley, “Sermon 16 (The Means of Grace),”
The Sermons of John Wesley, http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/16/
(accessed July 20, 2009).
he writes, “is usually the normal means by which a congregation assesses God’s
presence in worship or believes that God is made present in worship.”72 Ruth’s
typology reminds us that evangelicals recognize God’s action and presence as
mediated not only through ordinances (e.g., the Lord’s Supper), but also through
means not always labeled as “sacramental” (word/preaching and music).73
Perhaps Ruth’s typology might be supplemented with still other “sacramental
principles.” Some churches especially envision community itself as a place of
divine encounter. And it could be argued that those in the Pentecostal and
charismatic sectors of evangelicalism conceive of individual persons as being, in
effect, sacramental—human media through whom God’s presence is manifested
to the gathered community.74
The analysis performed in the following chapters will surface a varied palette
of media understood to mediate a participative encounter with God. But it is
helpful to remember that the classic focal point of this middle horizon, divine-
through-human action, is almost universally understood to be Communion.75
And that ritual meal is not merely “the Supper,” but “the Lord’s Supper”; it re-
centers attention on the Lord, himself. Jesus (the Mediator) is the true focus of
the church’s mediated encounters with God. At the Table, the Lord’s eucharistic
presence is held together with his gathered, corporate body through the
multivalent words, “the body of Christ.” It is this conception—that the gathered
body is connected to (and led by) Christ, its “head” (Ephesians 5:23, Colossians
1:18)—that undergirds Searle’s framing of this entire horizon as “the work of
Christ.”
72
Lester Ruth, “A Rose By Any Other Name,” in The Conviction of Things Not Seen:
Worship and Ministry in the 21st Century, ed. Todd Eric Johnson (Grand Rapids: Brazos
Press, 2002). Ruth acknowledges that others have also suggested this sort of re-framing of
sacramentality. He refers to John Witvliet’s observations in “At Play in the House of the
Lord: Why Worship Matters,” Books & Culture 4, no. 6 (November/December 1998): p. 23.
73
God’s word, both read and preached, is traditionally recognized as being imbued with
God’s power, but not usually framed as a sacrament, per se. For an argument, however, that it
really ought to be framed that way, see Ben Witherington, “The Word as Sacrament,” http://
benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/11/word-as-sacrament.html (accessed February 9,
2010). Music is seldom referred to in explicitly sacramental language, but is often treated as
a virtual sacrament by those who take a contemporary “praise and worship” approach. For
one critique of such a mindset, see Harold M. Best, Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives
on Worship and the Arts (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 30.
74
Pentecostal theologian Daniel Albrecht similarly observes that “[t]he manifestation
of power (e.g., in healing, or other ‘signs and wonders’) has a sacramental quality for
Pentecostals,” and that this mediation takes place through “very personal experiences,” at the
level of “an individual experiencing a personal God.” Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit, p. 241.
75
Referred to much less frequently as “eucharist” in evangelical circles.
In beginning this discussion of divine-through-human action, the obvious

question was, “How does such joining take place?” (Or, harking back to the
Latin: “What constitutes the ‘et’ in ‘res et sacramentum’?”) An increasing number
of evangelicals argue for an answer that is, to varying degrees, sacramental.
While examining the thinking of these writers will be integral to this study,
the discussion poses a challenge. It is clearly beyond the scope of this project to
attempt any sort of comprehensive engagement with the vast field of sacramental
theology. The following chapters will not presume to edge very far into such
dense theological thickets, but rather will stay on the main road defined by our
primary question: how do evangelicals understand participation in worship?
Participation in the life of God
so that … you may participate in the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4)
If the third horizon is perhaps a hazy conception for evangelicals, it is by no

means unknown to them. When past generations sang of “heavenly bliss” and
“rapture divine,” and when their present-day successors sing quiet songs about
intimacy with God and loud songs about being a “friend of God”—they have
evidenced an enthusiastic conviction of having been welcomed into the very life
of God.
A classic theological construct begins with the Trinity, and goes on to
distinguish two different spheres of God’s triune life: the “immanent Trinity”
concerns the internal relations within the Godhead; the “economic Trinity”
concerns God’s dealings with humanity and the rest of creation.76 The phrase
“immanent Trinity” can be confusing, since what is “immanent” to the Trinity
is precisely transcendent to humans. But these two different vantage points
on “immanence”—the divine and the human—intersect in a surprising way.
Scripture speaks, quite amazingly, of human participation in the “heavenly
places,” and in the transcendent doings of the immanent Trinity. By grace, sheer
transcendence is tempered by loving inclusion.
Scripture envisions heaven as the life-locus of the (divinely) immanent
Trinity. Significantly, when the biblical authors provide a glimpse of heaven,
acts of worship feature prominently. That heavenly, universal worship—at the
center of which is Christ—is somehow opened to humans through the very fact
of its revelation. Two different scriptural images each suggest a distinct dynamic
of heavenly worship in which humans are privileged to participate. First, there
is the worship offered to God the Father by the Son. The Great High Priest
imagery (explored in Hebrews) points in this direction. On the one hand,
76
The immanent/economic distinction is, as many theologians have observed, both
useful and problematic.
Christ’s high-priestly ministry might be seen as enabling, and thus connected

with, the divine-through-human action of Horizon 2. On the other hand, when
the work of the Great High Priest is regarded as a transcendent, heavenly reality
(on behalf of earthly humans), it is described more appropriately in terms of
this third horizon—the life of God. The second image of heavenly worship is
that which is offered to Christ by all of creation. The visions in Revelation
(particularly chapter 5) depict Christ as the recipient of worship. Worshipers
here on earth are invited, implicitly, to join as all creation gathers in exuberant
praise of “the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 5:12).
As for the outworkings of the world-engaging “economic Trinity”—they
appear more “immanent,” of course, from a human perspective. And there are
at least two ways of conceptualizing human participation in this humanly-
immanent sphere of the life of God. The first is purely relational, and centers
simply on the warm certainty of being embraced by God, of being received by
grace into intimacy with the divine: “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh what
a foretaste of glory divine!”77 Whether apprehended mystically or reflectively,
this earthly experience of close relationship with God takes on an irreducible
kind of ultimacy. Searle describes participation in the “life of God”—in contrast
with participation in the “Work of Christ”—as being a “further level of reality:
our relationship with God.” As res tantum, this relationship is the ultimate
destination—that which “signifies nothing beyond itself.”78
The second aspect of the humanly-immanent life of God involves
human participation in the divine mission—the missio Dei. Searle calls this
“participation in history,” while Fiddes calls it being “involved in the mission of
God to the world.”79 Whatever the terminology, it certainly makes sense that a
vital connection with God’s life would result in a vital connection with God’s
purposes in the world: self-giving in compassionate service and evangelistic
mission.
It can be conceptually challenging to understand these two humanly-
immanent life of God dimensions, divine fellowship and missio Dei, as a coherent
whole. Helpful in that regard are recent insights from the field of missiology.
New understandings about God’s “missional” character highlight the connection
between the church’s “missionary” work and its participation in the triune life
of God.
Back in the early decades of the twentieth century, most thinking about
mission(s) was “ecclesiocentric” (church-centered); approaching mid-century,
however, there was a “subtle but nevertheless decisive shift toward understanding
77
Fanny Crosby, “Blessed Assurance” (No. 369) in The United Methodist Hymnal.
78
79
Ibid., pp. 42–4; Paul S. Fiddes, “Participating in the Trinity,” Perspectives in Religious
Studies 33, no. 3 (Fall 2006): p. 388.
mission as God’s mission.”80 The missio Dei, as it came to be called, was envisioned
as issuing organically from the intrinsic character of the triune God.81 Missio Dei
“initially meant ‘the sending of God’—in the sense of the Father’s sending of
the Son and their sending of the Holy Spirit,” writes Christopher Wright. “All
human mission, in this perspective, is seen as a participation in and extension
of this divine sending.”82 As the century progressed, the missio Dei concept
gained widely ecumenical acceptance—including the endorsement of many
evangelicals.83
While human participation in the missio Dei is by no means merely liturgical,
the resonances and dynamics between worship-as-life and worship-as-liturgy
are rich, complex, and strong. Evangelicals are beginning to recapture a vision
of worship that is inextricably bound up with social justice. They increasingly
recognize a missio Dei that is not subsumed in acts of corporate worship, but is
integrally connected to them.84
So Horizon 3, participation in the life of God, might be seen as holding
together four dimensions. In the humanly-transcendent, heavenly sphere,
humans may participate in both the worship offered by Christ to the Father,
and also the worship offered by all of creation to Christ. And in the humanly-
immanent earthly domain, the life of God encompasses both here-and-now
“divine fellowship” between humans and their Creator, and also the church’s
participation in God’s own active mission in the world, the missio Dei.
80
David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission
(Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991), p. 389. An often-identified point of demarcation for this
shift was the 1952 World Missions Conference in Willingen, Germany.
81
The phrase “missio Dei” is usually attributed to German missiologist Karl
Hartenstein, who used it in connection with his distillation of earlier work done by Karl
Barth. See Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand
Narrative (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), p. 62.
82
Ibid., p. 63.
83
Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 390. John Stott, often referred to as an “evangelical
statesman,” devoted an entire chapter of his 1992 book The Contemporary Christian to the
proposition that “Our God is a Missionary God.” He writes: “Christian mission is rooted
in the nature of God himself. The Bible reveals him as a missionary God (Father, Son
and Holy Spirit), who creates a missionary people, and is working towards a missionary
consummation.” John R.W. Stott, The Contemporary Christian: Applying God’s Word to
Today’s World (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), p. 325.
84
See for example: Mark Labberton, The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call
to Justice (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2007).
Summary
Building on Mark Searle’s revamped medieval schema, we have arrived at a

framework full of promise for evaluating evangelical literature on worship.
That framework features three horizons of worship: (1) participation in human
action, in its interior, bodily, and external engagements; (2) participation in
divine-through-human action, via various media (both specifically and more
broadly sacramental); and (3) participation in the life of God, including heavenly
worship (both through Christ and of Christ) and earthly fellowship with the
divine, as well as the missio Dei.
If the “borrowed language” of our schema can be thought of as a lens, it
is a trifocal one; when trained on a single event or action, each region of the
lens brings into focus a different horizon. Searle does a good job of verbally
diagramming the all-at-once, interrelatedness of the three levels:
‘Participation,’ it now appears, means much more than getting the assembly to
appear more involved. It means:
1. participating in the rite as a whole according to one’s assigned role and

doing so in such a way that one is
2. participating in the priestly work of Christ on behalf of the world
before the throne of God and thus identifying with Christ dead and
risen; and
3. participating in the trinitarian life of God as human beings.
In so doing, we are also participating in God’s work in human history, which leads
very quickly to the realization that true liturgical participation must have social
and political consequences.85
While some sense of verticality is inextricably embedded in our model,

that notion must be kept in check. If not, it will be all too easy to slide into
a neoplatonic sort of hierarchalism and mistakenly imagine the horizons as
compartmentalized one from another.
Admittedly, this “borrowed language” does not make for a typically
evangelical way of speaking about worship participation. Nevertheless, this
language-lens both resonates with and brings into focus emerging themes
in evangelical theology regarding the Trinity, participation, mediation, and
mission. The schema promises, therefore, to helpfully frame a field of vision that
is consonant with evangelical concerns and is also, at the same time, useful for
85
bringing into focus those dimensions of participation that have yet to be fully
explored.
Lenses in place, the following five chapters will scrutinize how each of the
“emphasis groups” has treated participation in worship.
Chapter 4
The All-of-Life Emphasis
Rank
Book Year
(out of 25)
David Peterson, Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship 1993 3
(Eerdmans)
D.A. Carson, ed., Worship by the Book (Zondervan) 2002 13
D.A. Carson, “Worship Under the Word”
Mark Ashton with C.J. Davis, “Following in Cranmer’s Footsteps”
R. Kent Hughes, “Free Church Worship: The Challenge of Freedom”
Timothy Keller, “Reformed Worship in the Global City”
Harold M. Best, Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship 2003 14
and the Arts (InterVarsity)
Evangelicals are perennially engaged in a tug-of-war between two worship

paradigms. One of these paradigms casts worship as a decidedly all of life activity,
while the other sees worship as quintessentially expressed in explicit, corporate,
doxology. A classic iteration of the debate is I. Howard Marshall’s defense of the
all of life conception over and against Ralph Martin’s more liturgical emphasis.1
It is certainly no coincidence that it was Marshall who penned the preface to
David Peterson’s Engaging with God, the foremost book among a group of
volumes in our pool that share a clear all of life emphasis.
Peterson’s book is not only highly ranked by the professors surveyed for
this project, but also enormously respected by the author’s peers.2 They count
1
See I. Howard Marshall, “How Far Did the Early Christians Worship God?,” The
Churchman 99, no. 3 (1985), www.churchsociety.org/churchman/documents/Cman_09
9_3_Marshall.pdf (accessed August 12, 2010).
2
In addition to explicitly echoing the all of life themes of Peterson’s work, the other
authors represented here directly credit his work as the foundation and inspiration for many
of their own insights. All four authors in Worship by the Book cite Peterson’s writings; three of
them specifically reference Engaging with God. Carson himself calls Engaging “an important
book,” the “volume that most urgently calls for thoughtful evaluation.” D.A. Carson,
ed., Worship by the Book (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), pp. 23–4. Harold Best also
acknowledges his indebtedness: “I cannot begin to say how much Peterson’s work has meant
to me.” Best, Unceasing Worship, p. 12. (All quotations from this work used by permission of
InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, www.ivpress.com.)
themselves indebted to Peterson’s attempt at a closely exegetical and integrated

biblical theology of worship. Strongly echoing Peterson’s all of life conception,
Harold Best’s Unceasing Worship approaches the subject from a somewhat
different angle. Whereas Peterson writes as a biblical scholar, Best’s book might
best be described as a work of topical theology. While Best does attempt to
draw out a scriptural theology of worship, he takes an approach that remains
more broad-brush (methodologically) than Peterson’s while focusing more
tightly (thematically) on a single theme: the idea that humans are designed
for a “continuous outpouring” of praise to their Creator. Resonating at many
points with these two paradigmatic all of life volumes are the observations
of the multiple theorist/practitioners who authored Worship by the Book.
Their collaborative effort is a hybrid of biblical theology and praxis-oriented
discussion.3 The distinctive conceit that holds their essays together is the authors’
serious commitment not only to Scripture, but also to its refraction through the
lenses of tradition and contemporary cultural engagement.
All of these books construe worship to be a seamlessly lived-out activity.
While recognizing the unique and important role of corporate gatherings,
the all of life authors take great care to avoid treating those gatherings either as
qualitatively unique or as the sole locus of worship. They stress the continuity
between gathered worship and everyday life.
True to their all of life perspective, these authors stress, at every level, the
horizontal dynamics of worship, especially the dynamic of mutual edification.
This will come clear as the following sections observe some of the more
prominent themes in the all of life literature, and then go on to consider the way
in which these authors treat worship participation—first in general, and then
through the lenses of each of the three horizons.
Prominent Themes
Worship as Life Orientation
Peterson probes the terms of the new covenant and concludes that worship is
no longer tied exclusively to a corporate liturgical setting: it has rather been
broadened into a “life orientation.”4 Decentralized from literal cultic activity,
the worship of the new covenant “is essentially the engagement with God that
he has made possible through the revelation of himself in Jesus Christ and the
For its biblical theology, see especially Carson’s opening chapter.

3
David Peterson, Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship (Grand Rapids:
4
Eerdmans, 1993), p. 17.

The All-of-Life Emphasis 69
life he has made available through the Holy Spirit.”5 Under the new covenant,
therefore, “[i]t may be best to speak of congregational worship as a particular
expression of the total life-response that is the worship of the new covenant.”6
For Peterson, worship permeates the fabric of daily life. Congregational assembly
is only one form such all of life worship takes.
If Peterson seeks to uncouple the concept of “worship” from being too
tightly identified with the corporate gathering, Harold Best makes much the
same point; he seeks to make a distinction between “worship” and a church’s
weekly assemblies. “In no place in the [New Testament] epistles are these
gatherings described specifically as worship times, nor is worship mentioned as
the singular, all-encompassing act, much less the reason for gathering.”7 Here
Best echoes an argument that has elicited much debate in some evangelical
circles: is it appropriate to use the label “worship” for that which Christians do
when they assemble—as if what they do when they are dispersed is somehow less
worthy of that label?8
In Worship by the Book, D.A. Carson echoes Peterson’s (and Best’s) caution
in delimiting “worship.” He finds it “striking” that, in the New Testament,
“worship language moves the locus away from a place or a time to all of life.”9
Like Peterson, Carson sees the gathered activity in which the corporate body
participates as merely an instance—albeit a liturgically intensified one—of
all of life worship. For Carson, worship encompasses two dimensions, both
“adoration” and “action,” either one of which is incomplete without the other.10
Worship and Edification (and Evangelism)
As Peterson balances these two dimensions of worship, he maintains an

appreciation for vertically-directed adoration, but devotes a great deal of
attention to horizontal action. He envisions vertical worship expressed through
human-directed, horizontal activity—especially through the dynamic of
“mutual edification.” For Peterson, “[m]inistry exercised for the building up of
the body of Christ is a significant way of worshiping and glorifying God.”11 Such
5
Ibid., p. 99.
6
Ibid., p. 220.
7
Best, Unceasing Worship, p. 63.
8
See Marshall, “How Far Did the Early Christians Worship God?”
9
D.A. Carson, “Worship Under the Word,” in Worship by the Book, ed. D.A. Carson
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), pp. 23–4.
10
See Carson, “Worship Under the Word,” p. 26. One might quibble with Carson’s
binary scheme, which apparently parses worship into individual action and corporate
adoration—what about corporate action and individual adoration? But Carson’s overall
point is well taken.
11
Peterson, Engaging with God, p. 220.
edification within the assembly can be exercised both formally and informally;
it serves not only as an expression of worship, but also as a stimulus to the all of
life worship that continues once the gathered believers disperse.
Much like Peterson, D.A. Carson and his Worship by the Book collaborators
also emphasize edification.12 Carson revisits the question of terminology—
should we call gatherings “worship”?—by appealing explicitly to Peterson’s
understanding of the New Testament church. For Peterson (according to
Carson), what distinguished the gathered worship of the earliest church was
“not worship but edification.”13 So “edification” (rather than “worship”), Carson
boldly concludes, “is the best summary” of what occurs through all the enacted
elements of public worship.14
Despite their shared conviction about the centrality of edification, however,
none of these authors sees either worship or the corporate assembly as wholly
reducible to edification. While horizontal ministry serves as a means of vertical
glorification, it never subsumes nor exhausts it; edification exists alongside
explicit adoration.15
While Peterson is prone to skew the balance toward edification even when
referring to the most overtly doxological acts, Harold Best seems to look
through a slightly wider-angle lens.16 Best positions edification alongside several
other avenues of worship that characterize corporate gatherings—including
fellowship, praise, and instruction.17 As for the authors of Worship by the Book,
they envision a balance of three elements, in particular; Ashton summarizes
their consensus when he writes: “Edification, evangelism, and worship are not
opposed to each other.”18 Rather, each is an essential dimension of corporate
worship. Certainly edification is not opposed to evangelism; the latter may
12
While the word “edification” and its cognates occur 55 times in Engaging with
God, they occur a full 68 times in Worship by the Book. The authors of that volume believe
unanimously that edification is vital for assembled worship. They also believe the converse:
that corporate worship is vital for the spiritual work of edification. In his chapter, Hughes
writes, “Th[e] intensifying effect of corporate worship enhances edification.” He continues,
“In fact, edification will not flourish as it ought apart from it … Corporate worship is essential
to edification.” Hughes, “Free Church Worship,” in Carson, Worship by the Book, p. 142.
13
Carson, “Worship Under the Word,” p. 25.
14
Ibid., p. 24.
15
“Worship and edification are different dimensions of the same activities.” Peterson,
Engaging with God, p. 287.
16
Perhaps Peterson leans so heavily on horizontal edification as a corrective to what he
perceives as a common over-emphasis on verticality.
17
18
Ashton, “Following in Cranmer’s Footsteps,” in Carson, Worship by the Book, p. 67.
credibly be seen as a special case of the former.19 None of the all of life authors
would pit the explicit praise of God against the deliberate edification of God’s
people; praise and edification are seen as complementary currents in a central,
rushing river of doxology.
The all of life literature can be, at some points, confusing. The authors are
clearly resistant to using the word “worship” to apply, restrictively, to corporate
adoration; they want us to think of “worship” as a core orientation that sits
behind both adoration and action. At the same time, they fall back on common
usage and frequently employ the word “worship” as shorthand for outright,
gathered doxology (as, for example, when they counterpose “worship” and
“edification”). Still, one thing is clear: the all of life authors seek to break open
constrained conceptions of worship, and to highlight the sort of organic, lived-
out actions—especially edification—that are vital dimensions of doxology.
Worship Participation
Central to the all of life perspective is a vision of worship as something to be

concretely lived out. So it is hardly surprising that these authors value the sort of
congregational participation that is tangibly active.
Peterson fleshes out a hypothetical worship service in the epilogue of his
book; not unexpectedly, it is full of active participation on the part of the
congregants. They sing, pray, speak, testify, respond, and engage in a variety of
ways.20 Peterson’s sketch of worship (intended as an evocative portrait rather
than a prescriptive blueprint) provides ample opportunity for the congregation
to participate in both fluid and more ordered ways. “Perhaps the most surprising
aspect of this service,” he writes, “was the fact that it happily combined a set
‘liturgical form’ with informal and spontaneous elements.”21
Interestingly, Peterson envisions perceptible participation as rooted in a
deeper, invisible participation. He points to the Pauline theme of participation
“in Christ” and to the shared, common identity that spiritual participation
gives to all believers. (It is important to recognize, however, that Peterson does
not conceive of such participation in Christ as ontological; if co-participants
in worship can be said to share in the person of Christ, they do so by virtue
of sharing in the benefits afforded by his death and resurrection.) For Peterson,
19
Peterson makes this connection, acknowledging that edification involves both the
evangelizing of unbelievers and the building up of believers. Peterson, Engaging with God,
pp. 207–8.
20
See ibid., pp. 289–93.
21
Ibid., p. 290.
tangible participation is rooted in this invisible koinonia participation.22 That

shared koinonia, that experience of being co-participants, is not only an
important dimension of worship, but also “a fundamental reason for meeting
together as Christians”—as such participation “give[s] practical expression to
the fellowship that we have in Christ.”23 Ontological or not, participation gives
rise, for Peterson, to Christian identity and community, and is foundational to
gathered worship.
Harold Best clearly also envisions an engaged sort of worship participation
rooted in shared identity. He describes the “leading [of ] worship” not as a
solo endeavor, but as “a partnership between the worship leadership and the
people of God, a partnership shared because of the priesthood of all continuous
outpourers.”24 Despite his wordplay, Best really is referring to the “priesthood
of all believers”; he understands Christians as called to communal worship by
virtue of their very nature—their renewed, common identity in Christ.
The authors of Worship by the Book avidly promote ample congregational
participation in worship—and celebrate their historical forebears’ intense
commitment to that very cause. Tim Keller reports that Calvin designed his
service so as to allow for “more congregational participation.”25 Mark Ashton
makes the same point about Cranmer, while R. Kent Hughes bemoans the
twentieth-century decline of congregational participation in his own Free
Church tradition, which he attributes to the influence of “pragmatism and
anthropocentrism.”26
What makes Hughes’s observations particularly important is that they are
addressed to the Free Church tradition in which the majority of evangelicals
find themselves. Furthermore, the trends he describes are pervasive beyond a
merely Free Church context. Since Charles Finney’s early nineteenth-century
“new measures,” evangelicals have increasingly gravitated toward evangelistically-
minded pragmatism, and accordingly, for Hughes, “[c]orporate worship
has taken the form of something done for an audience as opposed to something
22
Addressing the lexical dimensions of “participation,” Peterson discusses the New
Testament word, koinonia: “The koinōn- words in Greek normally mean ‘to share with
someone in something’ above and beyond the relationship itself, or ‘to give someone a share
in something.’” The NT literature often identifies that “something” in which believers jointly
participate, of course, as a someone. “Common participation in Christ necessarily leads to a
mutual fellowship amongst members of the Christian community.” Ibid., p. 154.
23
Ibid., p. 155.
24
Best, Unceasing Worship, pp. 61–2.
25
Tim Keller, “Reformed Worship in the Global City,” in Carson, Worship by the Book,
p. 199.
26
Ashton, “Following in Cranmer’s Footsteps,” pp. 73–4; Hughes, “Free Church
Worship,” pp. 148–9.
done by a congregation.”27 Pragmatism, in Hughes’s estimation, has compromised

participation.
Horizon 1—Participation in Human Action
As the three horizons of worship participation were sketched out in Chapter

3, it was suggested that the human action of Horizon 1 comprises a number
of dimensions. The all of life writers give much attention to the dimension of
interior action, as well as to exterior acts—especially those intended to serve and
edify others in the gathered community. They treat edification sometimes as an
overarching dynamic of this horizon, and sometimes as one of several ministry
strands, interwoven with such other strands as doxology and evangelism. Finally,
another type of exteriorized action especially important for these authors consists
of those moments in gathered worship that draw attention to the ongoing life
of the community—words and acts that highlight the porosity of the boundary
between the two poles of its worship: gathered adoration and lived-out action.
The interior dimension of worship participation comes clearly into view in
the all of life literature. While these authors are wary of the sort of self-focused
striving they associate with revivalistic and pietistic worship, they nevertheless
believe in worship from the heart. Interestingly, Harold Best—who values a
particularly rich and eclectic panoply of outward, artistic expression—sees
the “power and glory” of corporate worship as specifically “inward, in the
heart of each worshiper.”28 What characterizes authentic worship, for Best, is
not “experientialism,” but rather “true experience,” which “goes beyond mere
feeling.” Such “true experience” encompasses “a wealth of actions in which
heart and mind [are] filled to the full and integrated accordingly.”29 The “heart
worship” Best intends includes emotion, but draws it into a rich, whole-person
sort of engagement.
Peterson, like Best, simultaneously acknowledges and qualifies the role of the
heart in worship. For him, the “affective response” with which the human heart
engages God is decidedly objective—defined less by the affect of the human
subject and more by the character of worship’s divine object—a faithful Savior.30
While the co-authors of Worship by the Book think along the same lines as
Peterson and Best, they lean further toward affirming the role of affect, itself.
For Carson, worship is more than an outward religious formality; it flows from
27
Hughes, “Free Church Worship,” pp. 148–9.
28
Best, Unceasing Worship, p. 68. The glory of worship need not, however, remain
interior. Best continues: “If the Holy Spirit chooses to make this outwardly manifest, and
should the entire assembly break into unpredicted ecstasy (whether in charged silence or
Pentecostal polyphony), so be it.”
29
Ibid., pp. 70–71.
30
See Peterson, Engaging with God, p. 87.
one’s “whole being” to a “whole God,” and pushes past cognitive understanding
to one’s “love for him.”31 Carson’s co-authors agree that worship is fueled by
a catalytic reaction in the heart; Keller writes that, in worship, intellectually-
grasped truths become, by the Spirit, “fiery, powerful, and profoundly affecting.”32
These authors envision a fullness of heart-response such that it is bound to break
through from interior to exterior. Hughes affirmingly summarizes the thinking
of Jonathan Edwards that true worship is “demonstrative” and “pours from your
heart.” Rather than issuing from “moderate feeling or emotion,” it “galvanizes
your whole being” and is “[i]n a word … encompassing!”33
So the all of life authors emphasize internal action, envisioning it as a response
to God in ways that range from a disciplined, internal faith-response to full-
hearted piety that gives way to external expression. While embracing emotion,
all of these writers agree that the internal, human actions of worship transcend
mere affect and involve a rich, integrative engagement of the full range of human
faculties.
The external actions that these authors describe (such as singing, reading
Scripture, praying, and preaching and hearing sermons) are common to the
worship of most Christians. Some (such as the giving of “testimonies”) are
prevalent particularly among evangelicals. What is unique to the all of life writers,
however, is their extreme emphasis on the horizontal thrust of each action. At
almost every turn, these authors emphasize edification. This edification focus
shapes the way they frame nearly all the participatory acts of corporate worship;
it also motivates them to prescribe for worship the “edifying” sharing of personal
testimonies and words of encouragement.
Remarkably, even as Peterson treats the manner in which believers are
to reflect the heavenly worship portrayed in Revelation, he emphasizes the
horizontal over the vertical: “Singing the praises of God and the Lamb … can
strengthen Christians to maintain their confidence in God and in the outworking
of his purposes.”34 It is striking that Peterson’s treatment of a passage describing
heavenly worship emphasizes not its vertiginous doxology, but rather the
horizontal dimensions of affirming, acknowledging, teaching, and exhortation.
31
Carson, “Worship Under the Word,” pp. 39–40.
32
Keller, “Reformed Worship,” p. 211.
33
Hughes, “Free Church Worship,” pp. 160–61.
34
Peterson, Engaging with God, p. 278. Peterson acknowledges the unique importance
and irreducibility of the sort of worship that is explicit adoration of God—but edification is
such an overriding concern for him that his treatments of adoration inevitably segue rapidly
to related issues of worship-as-life. He writes that “[t]he way we share on earth in the homage
of the angels is not in some cultic activity but in a life of faith and obedience to Christ and
his message”—and that such a life-response involves the edifying activity of “encourag[ing]
fellow believers.” Ibid., pp. 237, 254.
Edification surfaces prominently, as well, as the all of life writers discuss the
praising of God in song. For Carson, what happens essentially in the church’s
singing is “edification”;35 Best, a musician and composer, refines the idea:
he parses out music from lyrics. Lyrics, made up of truth-bearing words, are
vehicles with which worshipers “teach and admonish.” The “textual direction” is
horizontal—“It goes back and forth among continuous outpourers as edification
and instruction.” But music, on the other hand, carries no cognitively articulated
meaning. The vector of song’s music, itself, is vertical; worshipers “sing and
make melody in our hearts to the Lord.”36 With his musician’s expertise, Harold
Best nuances an understanding in which participation may be vertical and
horizontal all at once. Clearly these all of life authors see Horizon 1 as saturated
by edification—a horizontal dynamic that serves as a means of vertical doxology.
Again, edification is not only, for these all of life writers, an overarching
theme of corporate gatherings; it is also a particular strand balancing other,
complementary ones. The Worship by the Book authors distill these strands
down to three: “edification, evangelism, and worship [explicit doxology].”
They understand these three sorts of ministry to be outgrowths of a central
life orientation of worship; the synergy between the strands is suggested by
Ashton’s assertion that the three “are not opposed to each other.”37 For these
authors, gathered worshipers (in their singing as well as their other acts of
worship) participate simultaneously in both horizontal edification and vertical
glorification—and often in evangelism, as well, all at the same time. The corporate
participation in each strand is seen both as organic action (an authentic doing of
the thing, itself ), and also as concentrated symbol (a resonant reflection of and
preparation for its realization in daily living).
Finally, alongside edification, the all of life authors strongly emphasize
continuity between participation in the assembly and participation in the daily,
lived-out worship of the community. Accordingly, this literature stresses another
horizontal dynamic in Horizon 1: the deliberate making-visible (through
announcements, updates, prayers, and testimonies) of the community’s daily life
of discipleship.
The hypothetical assembly in Peterson’s epilogue highlights the broader
identity that the gathered worshipers share as an organic community. The
gathering, an easy mix of liturgical forms and spontaneity, is not only informal
enough to allow for warm expressions of mutual concern; it also evidences a
natural continuity with a robust community life that plays out through the week.38
Peterson’s imagined service “was clearly a high point in their week, but not the
35
36
37
Ashton, “Following in Cranmer’s Footsteps,” p. 67.
38
only time when most of them met together or engaged in ministry together.”39
Plenty of deliberate pointers within the service give it an intentionally “outward
looking emphasis.”40 For Peterson, the horizontal thrust connecting life and
liturgy does not remain merely theoretical; it translates, rather, into palpable
practice.
Another way in which the pastor-authors of Worship by the Book deliberately
connect liturgy to life is by including segments during their services that
highlight the ongoing life of their communities. “God at Work” is a regular
feature of services at Hughes’s church (College Church in Wheaton, Illinois);
this segment for reports and testimonies connects corporate worship with
family life, missions, and personal discipleship.41 Keller’s church, Redeemer
Presbyterian in Manhattan, similarly sets aside time for “testimonies of changed
lives.” These are framed not as “commercials” or “announcements,” but rather as
worship—proclamations of “how God’s grace is operating in [people’s] lives,”
and especially through the ministries of the church.42
“Announcements,” unwieldy and not obviously doxological, may indeed be
the bane of many an evangelical worship planner. Still, such community updates
are not merely tolerated, but apparently relished by those with an all of life focus.
The sharing of news becomes an opportunity to make the sanctuary’s walls
transparent, and to celebrate the essential and vibrant dimension of worship that
plays out in the community’s day-to-day life.
Horizon 2—Participation in Divine-through-Human Action
In their desire to minimize the distinction between ritual and daily life, the all
of life writers resist sacramental thinking. While recognizing the special role of
baptism and the Lord’s Supper, they view these in largely horizontal terms—
more human than divine-through-human actions. This is not to say, however,
that these authors ignore Horizon 2 altogether. At various points, the all of
life literature views the reading and preaching of Scripture—as well as acts of
edification—as human doings through which God is actively at work.
Regarding traditional sacraments, or ordinances, the all of life authors are
decidedly restrained in their treatment of both baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
They are extremely cautious, in fact, about affording any perceptible media a role
in the mediation of God’s presence and activity. Such a posture is common to
both Peterson and Best; it is most easily demonstrated, however, in the writing
of D.A. Carson. On the one hand, these authors do understand creation as
39
Ibid., p. 289.
40
Ibid., p. 292.
41
Hughes, “Free Church Worship,” p. 176.
42
Keller, “Reformed Worship,” pp. 230–31.
having the capacity to reflect God’s glory; because the centrality of “cultus” in
the old covenant has now been “transmuted to all of life,” Carson envisions the
“sacralization of all space and all time and all food.”43 Yet the general sacrality of
creation does not, for these writers, suggest any sort of liturgical sacramentality.44
The only effective means of entry into “the presence of God,” Carson reminds us,
“is the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” He cautions that if we attribute
to the trappings of worship “something of this power,” we will soon come to
regard the actions of worship as being “meritorious, or efficacious, or the like.”45
In other words, if God’s presence is imagined to be mediated in too sacramental
a manner, it becomes all too easy to focus on human effort and action rather
than on God’s. Whereas the more sacramentally-minded see physical media as
windows through which God’s action might be perceived, the all of life writers
insist that such media are rather curtains that can obscure the divine. In the
infrequent references the all of life writers make to baptism, they usually cast it
as an opportunity for teaching, testimony, and profession—in other words, as
human doing. At Keller’s church, for instance, baptisms are grouped together
with acts of human commitment—the making of vows and testimonies.46 The
same sort of grouping apparently plays out at Hughes’s services, as well.47 For
these authors, the defining action of baptism is more human (Horizon 1) than
divine-through-human (Horizon 2).
In contrast with their treatment of baptism, these all of life works give the
Lord’s Supper more attention. Like the other authors, Peterson recognizes the
Supper as somehow central to Christian worship. But the importance of the
Supper, for him, lies not so much in its literal enactment as in the principles
that it conveys. These principles—“about what should lie at the heart of every
Christian gathering”—may be realized in any meeting, regardless of whether
or not the Supper is actually celebrated. And, as he articulates these principles,
Peterson emphasizes the horizontal:
The Lord’s Supper … is clearly meant to focus the eyes of the participants on one
another as well as on God. We do not simply meet to have fellowship with God
43
44
Perhaps a parallel may be seen in the approach of reformer Ulrich Zwingli, who
embraced music as a God-given gift, but simultaneously rejected it as a medium for worship.
See James F. White, A Brief History of Christian Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993),
p. 137.
45
46
47
Hughes, “Free Church Worship,” p. 176. It is interesting to note, however, that here
the overall (multipurpose) segment is entitled “God at Work.”
but to minister to one another as we express our common participation in Christ

as our Saviour and Lord.48
If Peterson emphasizes the horizontal thrust of the Supper in terms of human

fellowship (Horizon 1), Harold Best does so in terms of divine fellowship
(Horizon 3). Best acknowledges an ambivalence about the Supper. His own
rich spiritual experience at the Table prevents him from “deny[ing] the special
wonder of going forward, kneeling and taking bread and wine to [his] lips.”
Yet, one dimension of Best’s central concern—the concept of constant mutual
indwelling—compels him to diminish the uniqueness of the Supper in favor of
“the eternally preceding and changeless fact of Christ in us.” He seeks to “bring
the Eucharist under this one momentous fact: Christ in me even as he is in his
church.” 49 For Best, the immediacy of Christ to the regenerate soul trumps the
idea of special mediation at the Table. If the conviction of constant intimacy
with Christ elevates, for these writers, the sacred importance of daily life, it
diminishes the unique centrality of the Supper.
Worship by the Book does not give a great deal of attention to the Lord’s
Supper. Interestingly, Carson critiques a particular exposition of New Testament
worship, observing that it fails to explore “the various functions of the Lord’s
Supper in the New Testament,” and leaves them “cry[ing] out for articulation in
greater detail.”50 At the same time, Carson does not, himself, fill in this lacuna.
He regards the Table as important, but does not give it significant focus—and,
like Peterson (and many Protestants, for that matter), he readily concedes that
“not every meeting will gather around the Lord’s Supper.”51
If their treatment of the Lord’s Supper is decidedly non-sacramental, and if
they strongly emphasize its human dimensions, there is still a way in which the
all of life authors point, at least glancingly, toward some divine-through-human
dynamics in its celebration. While they do not articulate a full-bodied theology
of anamnetic re-presentation (see p. 59), they do echo re-presentational themes
to varying degrees. In that respect, they glimpse the work of God through human
beings in the celebration of the Supper.
In his discussion of First Corinthians, David Peterson considers the way in
which the Corinthian church corporately experienced koinonia participation.
The author borrows Gordon D. Fee’s words to describe the Lord’s Supper
setting for that koinonia experience: “a fellowship meal where in the presence
of the Spirit they were by faith looking back to the singular sacrifice that had
48
Ibid., p. 218.
49
50
51
Ibid., p. 60.
been made and were thus realizing again its benefits in their lives.”52 Here, the
main contours of re-presentation are clearly in view: a present-day community
experiencing the power of a past, salvific event, as it is somehow activated or
made contemporary by the power of the Spirit. The human doing featured here
is envisioned by Peterson to be—significantly—“in the presence of the Spirit.”
That the process is spiritual, over and against merely intellectual, is evident
from Peterson’s assertion that it happens “by faith.” But even more significant is
Peterson’s reference to the Spirit’s presence, which implies that God is at work
through the human doings of the gathered community.
For Peterson, God’s presence and engagement in the process of re-enactment
is distinctly personal; at the same time, he understands that in which re-enacting
worshipers participate to be more objective. True, Peterson affirms (referring
to 1 Corinthians 10) that the disciples’ “drinking together was a means of
demonstrating ‘a common participation’ (koinonia) in ‘the blood of Christ.’”
But he goes on to qualify the ultimate object of that participation as being
“the benefits of Christ’s passion.”53 Throughout his New Testament exposition,
Peterson envisions worshipers “in Christ” as participating in Christ’s benefits,
rather than in his person in any ontological or sacramental way.54
Keller, in Worship by the Book, refers more directly to the elements of
re-presentation as he comments on 1 Corinthians 11:25. He echoes the
understanding of anamnesis so foundational to the idea of re-presentation,
accentuating its subjective dimension. “Remember” signifies something that is
more than simply cognitive; it points, rather, to a “‘sense of the heart’ of the truth”
that leads to life-change.55 Keller understands re-enactment, an indispensable
dimension of re-presentation, in a distinctively Calvin-influenced way. He
suggests that the very order of Reformed liturgy (its “foundational rhythm and
flow”) is “gospel reenactment.”56 For Calvin (and for Keller), worship services
“reenact the reception of the gospel.”57 At one level, the dynamic of re-enactment
plays out as the divine action of gospel-proclamation via the Word leads into
52
Peterson, Engaging with God, p. 216. Here Peterson is quoting directly from Gordon
D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1987),
p. 468.
53
Peterson, Engaging with God, p. 216. Peterson’s words, mixed with quotations from
C.K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (London: Black, 1971),
p. 232.
54
For example: in discussing Christ’s heavenly ministry in Hebrews 10:14, Peterson
summarizes that Christ “has achieved all that is necessary for believers to enjoy in the present
the benefits of a direct and personal relationship with God” (emphasis mine). Peterson,
Engaging with God, p. 232.
55
Keller, “Reformed Worship,” pp. 204–5.
56
Ibid., p. 214.
57
Ibid., p. 213.
a human response of joy at the Table. And, more broadly, re-enactment also
plays out in cycles of “hearing-repentance-renewal” throughout the entire
service. As Keller articulates, here, the typically Reformed understanding that
worship is dialogic, he refuses to restrict God’s side of the dialogue to any single
medium or action. Rather, Keller allows for God’s action to shimmer and refract
throughout all aspects of gospel re-enactment—as the Spirit speaks through
the Word, reveals Christ through tangible actions, and prompts response from
human hearts. One might almost think of worship, performed faithfully and
covenantally, as establishing a kind of electrical connection; when the electricity
of the Spirit is loosed, God’s graced activity sparks and arcs through the whole
circuit.
While it is interesting that some sort of sacramental mediation can be
glimpsed through the window of re-presentation, it must be noted once again
that the all of life authors generally treat the sacraments or “ordinances” with
reserve and caution. When these authors do discuss baptism and the Lord’s
Supper, they frame these primarily as human action (Horizon 1). But if these
authors do not emphasize God’s action in the ordinances, they do recognize
other means through which worshipers participate in divine-through-human
action through other means. They understand God to work in corporate
worship primarily through the preaching and reading of God’s Word, and also
through acts of edification.
It is not surprising that the all of life authors, many of whom are anchored
in Reformed traditions, see the Word as a primary vehicle for divine-through-
human action. They recognize God’s action through at least three modes of
human participation in the Word: Scripture-based preaching, Scripture reading,
and the rhythm of proclamation and response.
If Best recognizes God’s action primarily in the declamation of the Word and
only secondarily in its preaching, he does not mean to lessen the work of God
through human preaching. Best acknowledges that preaching may indeed be
“Spirit-driven.”58 Similarly, when Peterson depicts the ministry of a hypothetical
preacher (in his epilogue), he describes his preaching as “an opportunity for
the congregation to engage with God, in the Holy Spirit, through his words.”59
Interestingly, that last “his” is somewhat ambiguous; is the congregation
engaging with God through God’s words, or the preacher’s? In either case, it is
in the midst of the human action of preaching that God is made known and is
encountered through God’s sovereign and divine action.
Best (like the other all of life writers) argues strongly for worship services
that treat the Word as “preeminent” and feature the “authoritative reading of
58
59
an abundance of Scripture.”60 He contends that a sermon, even if “empowered

[by] the Lord,” may still be surpassed by plain declamation of the Word—which
“goes beyond the sermon and thus carries the sermon along with it.” Here Best
implicitly but powerfully acknowledges the work of the Spirit through the
reading of Scripture.61 The co-authors of Worship by the Book concur. Carson
recognizes in Scripture, simply declaimed, God’s presence “mediated by the
Word.”62 Hughes traces what he finds to be a critically important biblical
theme—the inseparability of “Word and Spirit.”63
The complex dynamics associated with Word in worship are ultimately
beyond human understanding. Where does human action leave off and divine
action begin? Where do the two overlap or interpenetrate? One way of grappling
with these dynamics is to speak of proclamation and response.
One might naturally think of proclamation as primarily divine and response
as primarily human—but the reality, of course, is more nuanced than that.
Ashton envisions divine-through-human action as occurring not only as the
people read and hear God’s proclamation in Scripture, but also as they respond
to it; in spontaneous prayer, the congregation has the opportunity to respond
to “God’s leading through his Spirit and his Word.”64 Carson quotes Robert
Doyle in order to expand on how God works through both proclamation of and
response to the Word:
To each other we confess and testify to the greatness of God. We do this by the
very activity of making God’s Word the centre of our activities—by reading
it, preaching it, making it the basis of exhortation, and even setting it to music in
hymns and praise. The Spirit uses all this, we are assured, to build us up in Christ.65
Carson affirms, by quoting this passage, that God is active, by the Holy Spirit,
throughout the entire network of interrelations woven by proclamation and
response in worship.
Thinking historically, Tim Keller makes much of the middle course charted
by Calvin between scholastic sacramentalism, on the one hand, and Zwinglian
memorialism, on the other. Calvin, writes Keller, envisioned the worship service
60
61
Ibid., p. 73. When Best speaks of “the Word of God as the sole force in a corporate
gathering,” and when he asks, “What else edifies, what else corrects, what else converts but the
Word of God?”—he is certainly speaking of active and dynamic work of the Spirit through
the reading of Scripture.
62
63
64
65
Robert Doyle, “The One True Worshiper,” The Briefing (29 April 1999): p. 8, quoted
in Carson, “Worship Under the Word,” p. 50.
not as merely human, Godward action, but rather “as a rhythm of receiving
God’s word of grace and then responding in grateful praise.”66 For Keller, it is not
that God’s initiative and human action are wholly fused and indistinguishable
one from the other; rather, they are entwined together in the constant interplay
of proclamation and response.
Finally—and distinctively—the all of life authors see a strongly divine
dimension in the human work of edification. “Inasmuch as we meet,” writes
Peterson, “to encounter Christ in one another, for the giving and receiving of
ministries and for response to such ministries, we meet to worship or engage with
God.”67 For all his caution about overly-ontological conceptions of participation,
Peterson envisions believers as encountering Christ in one another, and thereby
engaging God:
Edification is first and foremost the work of Christ … As Christians utilize Christ’s
gifts, made available through the Spirit, they participate in this divine activity and
further God’s purpose for his people collectively.68
Here is divine-through-human action, indeed. Peterson makes clear that this

particular work of Christ, effected through humans, is by no means limited
to the arena of corporate worship. But it does find expression in that gathered
context, as a conscious worship response to God. If Peterson scrupulously avoids
any thought of sacramental mediation in corporate worship, he nevertheless
envisions human persons as serving as virtually sacramental media, themselves.69
Horizon 3—Participation in the Life of God
The all of life writers exhibit a pervasive sense that Christians participate in the
life of God. They assume an ongoing, relational, worshipful communion with
God: a rich sense of earthly fellowship. And while all these authors emphasize
the horizontal and see that thrust as extending generally outward from assembly
into daily life, some of them particularly highlight the missional dimension of
the life of God.
66
Ibid., p. 215.
67
68
Ibid., p. 213.
69
The authors of Worship by the Book also seem to envision human persons as a primary
medium through which God works in worship. When worshipers gather together, observes
Carson, they do so fully recognizing that they comprise “something much bigger” than any
particular believer or observable group of believers. That something bigger is “the church, the
temple of God.” Carson, “Worship Under the Word,” p. 44. (A temple is, after all, a locus for
divine presence and action.)
These authors believe that, through the new covenant, God has restored
earthly fellowship between humans and himself. The death of Jesus “had cosmic
significance,” writes Peterson; it “remov[ed] a barrier to fellowship with God that
existed at the level of ultimate reality.”70 This conception of restored fellowship,
so central to Peterson’s all of life view of worship, envisions worshipers as
relationally reconnected to the life of God.
Best, centered in a theology of “mutual indwelling,” writes almost devotionally
about the mystery and intimacy of human fellowship with God. That fellowship
hinges, for Best, not only on the preposition with, but also—more stunningly—
on the preposition in:
To walk with Christ is not to go alongside him as if we were two persons on a path,
sometimes touching shoulders, sometimes ahead or behind. I walk with Christ in
me, whose in-ness is also nearness, whose friendship is also one-with-ness.71
And if mutual indwelling with Christ permeates all of life, it naturally enfolds,
fills and informs corporate worship. “It is with this full promise,” writes Best, “that
we are to go to the place called church and to the necessary times of corporate
gathering. We take these unshakable verities with us.”72 While gathered worship
provides, for Best, no special access to God—it certainly basks in the intimate
fellowship with the divine that irradiates the rest of life.
Similarly, an ongoing, interactive intimacy with God undergirds the all of
life orientation of Carson and the other Worship by the Book authors. Carson
embraces James Torrance’s assertion that Christians experience “life in union
with Christ through the Spirit … [as] his body”—and that they participate,
in that way, in the life of God.73 Carson clearly envisions an intermingling of
human life and activity with the life of God; he implies as much when he speaks
of the new covenant as “sacralizing” all of life.74
Central to the all of life focus is the conviction that explicit worship and
lived-out worship are inseparably integrated. And one way in which this is so, for
these authors, is that both life and liturgy are permeated with the same reality:
participation in the life of God through earthly fellowship.
Another aspect of human participation in the life of God involves the missio
Dei. The all of life authors believe firmly that corporate worship is inherently
evangelistic; they see doxology as connected to mission.
70
Peterson writes this in connection with his exegesis of Hebrews. Peterson, Engaging
with God, p. 235.
71
72
Ibid., p. 57.
73
Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace, pp. 20–22, quoted in
74
Reformed theologian Jean-Jacques von Allmen has suggested a useful

metaphor, likening the dynamics of a church at worship to those of a pumping
heart. Von Allmen envisions God’s life flowing between gathered and dispersed
worship in both diastolic (inward) and systolic (outward) pulses.75 As they relate
worship to mission, the all of life writers have both of these motions in view.
“Diastolic” might refer to those words and actions within corporate
worship that draw hearts inward, toward Christ. If so, the all of life literature
is very much concerned with the diastolic, placing a high priority on making
worship hospitable to nonbelievers. These authors attend to worship’s inherent
evangelistic power precisely so as to usher worshipers inward, into more
meaningful engagement with Christ. Using a metaphor similar to von Allmen’s,
Best describes a “centripetal” move in which “the body of Christ … welcomes
and embraces the weak, the poor, the broken, the wealthy, the famous. … It feasts
on the Bread of Life and the Wine of Heaven, embracing him, taking him in and
learning from him.”76 Best envisions, here, a double taking-in on the part of the
earthly, gathered body: it takes in hungry humans, centripetally (diastolically),
and Jesus Christ, eucharistically (or at least metaphorically so). In this way Best
portrays the gathered community as serving a priestly role, brokering divine
encounter both for itself and for others.
Valuing the diastolic movement that draws in, these authors also regard as
indispensable the systolic dynamic that sends out. Continuing his physics-based
metaphor, Best counterbalances “centripetal” movement with “centrifugal”:
[The body of Christ] is centrifugal as well. It goes out; it hunts down the lost; it
scatters the truth in witness; its feet are beautiful in the outpouring and outgoing
spread of good tidings; it makes its way into the world as living epistles; it goes to
the ends of the earth as if they were just around the corner.77
Timothy Keller concurs that systolic sending is integral to corporate worship,

which “is only true and effective when it leads us to the ‘all of life’ worship
of doing justice and living generously.”78 He suggests that, on the one hand,
corporate worship forms worshipers for participation in the missio Dei once they
75
Jean-Jacques von Allmen, The Lord’s Supper (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co.,
1966/69), pp. 108–13.
76
77
Ibid., p. 54. Interestingly, Best’s flow of centripetal movement sounds as if it leads
precisely to the Table, hospitably ushering the needy there. Presumably the assembly’s
centrifugal movement would be launched from that same center (although Best does not
specifically say this).
78
disperse.79 On the other hand, gatherings provide an opportunity for worshipers

to spur one another on, by example, toward the missio Dei. At Keller’s church,
worship includes “people from various ministries speak[ing] of how God’s grace
is operating in their lives”—including “people whose lives have been influenced
by … ministries to the poor, or diaconal work, or international missions, or other
volunteer ministries.”80 Hughes’s church also uses its worship services to highlight
the missio Dei; its leaders pithily imply the connection between missions and the
life of God by labeling the brief missionary segments of their services, “God at
Work in Missions.”81 So for both Keller and Hughes (and their fellow all of life
authors), participation in corporate worship includes systolic variations on the
theme of sending into the world; it both encourages believers toward all-of-life
participation in the missio Dei, and also forms them for that participation.
Although von Allmen’s metaphor is useful, its cleaving of worship and
mission into two separate moves can be misleading. While the all of life authors
sometimes speak of “evangelism” and “worship” as independent activities, they
also recognize that the two are actually inseparable. Not only are evangelism
and worship (along with edification) “not opposed to each other”—they are
often one and the same.82 “Testifying to the goodness and power of God” in
the gathering is, on the one hand, full-on praise—an act of outright worship; it
can also, on the other hand, simultaneously spur others on to participation in
mission by “encouraging such testimony” in “everyday life.”83 Even the highest
forms of doxology are not only “truly honouring to [God]”; they can also be
“helpful to his people”—edifying them and equipping them for evangelism.84
Keller shares with the other all of life authors the conviction that the three
ministries of worship, evangelism, and edification are inseparable. He also shares
their unanimous commitment to the primacy of doxology—understanding that
priority to be not only theologically sound, but also pastorally effective:
[I]f the Sunday service aims primarily at evangelism, it will bore the saints. If it
aims primarily at education, it will confuse unbelievers. But if it aims at praising
the God who saves by grace, it will both instruct insiders and challenge outsiders.
Good corporate worship will naturally be evangelistic.85
79
“Our actions in gathered, corporate worship,” writes Keller, “will strongly influence
our actions in scattered, ‘out in the world’ worship.” Ibid., p. 220.
80
Ibid., p. 230.
81
82
83
84
Ibid.
85
All the Worship by the Book authors echo Keller’s belief that worship is inherently
evangelistic. Referring to life-as-worship, but “certainly including corporate
worship,” Carson suggests that a church whose worship is authentic is “one of
the most compelling witnesses to the truth of the gospel.”86 Ashton promotes
worship that is both biblically faithful and culturally accessible—pursued
“for the glory of God and for the sake of all who do not yet know that glory.”87
Worship done right not only inspires mission; it is mission.
And lest there be any question about this mission—whether it is merely an
assignment from God, or rather something more integral to God’s person—
Keller makes it very clear that the mission is God’s own:
God’s action in the service perfectly mirrors his action in the world, so that if our
hearts are truly forged anew by gospel reenactment, we will, like him, move out
into the world in welcome of the poor, the stranger, the marginalized.88
Participation in corporate worship both amounts to and also leads to

participation in evangelistic mission. And—by virtue of the deep and organic
connection between worship and evangelism—the mission in view is divine: the
missio Dei dimension of the life of God.
Summary Reflections
The all of life authors stress the continuity between two arenas of worship:
gathered adoration and lived-out action. At every turn, they seek to disarm
overweening conceptions of corporate liturgy that might eclipse the broad, all
of life worship empowered by the new covenant. Worship is nothing less, for
these writers, than a “life orientation.”
The all of life focus naturally prizes congregational participation. Its central
conception, that worship is to be actively lived out, all the time, applies no less
to gathered adoration than to dispersed action. These writers champion tangible
congregational participation in worship, and find inspiration in the similar
convictions of their historic forebears. They value participation for more than
merely pragmatic reasons; they see it as woven into the corporate body’s very
identity—a koinonia community called to be a royal priesthood and called to
worship. As for pragmatism, these authors regard it dubiously. While deeply

86

87
88
Keller, “Reformed Worship,” p. 220. Keller here summarizes a line of reasoning from
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Worship and Justice,” in Major Themes in the Reformed Tradition, ed.
Donald McKim (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 280–81.
evangelistic at heart, they differ distinctly from the pragmatic evangelistic

worship emphasis that will be discussed in Chapter 7. For these all of life authors,
pragmatism compromises participation—which they cherish.
When discussing worship, these writers give tremendous weight to the theme
of edification. As well as seeing edification as a theme woven through most
aspects of worship, they see it as a bridge between the two poles of adoration and
action. Interestingly, these authors see edification as figuring prominently at every
level of our schema. In Horizon 1, these authors do envision, of course, human
actions that are vertically doxological. But their primary concern is horizontal
edification: the mutual building-up in faith that constitutes covenant obedience
and so amounts, in itself, to an act of vertical worship. And, significantly, when
these authors envision Horizon 2, they continue to see mutual edification writ
large—as a primary vehicle for divine-through-human action. No merely human
effort, edification rather involves Christ, himself, ministering to his body as
human persons become, in effect, sacramental media. And perhaps even more
striking than the emphasis of edification at Horizon 2 is its dominance at the
level of Horizon 3. Here Peterson treats the most classically vertical doxology
in Scripture, the heavenly worship of Revelation, in terms of horizontal human
edification. Indeed, the all of life literature scans all three horizons of worship
and sees edification nearly everywhere.
It is tempting to imagine a connection between this emphasis on mutual,
edificatory self-giving and the thinking of the practical theologians discussed in
Chapter 3. Those theologians regard God’s triune, perichoretic interrelations as
a sort of intra-divine participation, and as the source and template for relations
between imago-Dei-bearing humans. While the horizontal edification theme is
consonant with such theology, such a connection is never suggested by the all of
life authors.89 For them the theological warrant for mutual edification comes less
from being created in the image of a perichoretic God, and more from being in
covenant relationship with that God.
Of course, the all of life authors, for all their edification-centeredness, do see
other themes at play in worship. In Horizon 1, this literature emphasizes the kind
of liturgical actions that deliberately highlight the community’s extra-liturgical
life of worship. These authors look for opportunities to dial down the opacity
of the sanctuary walls and to put the community’s life together on display in a
variety of warmly creative ways.
At the level of Horizon 2, the all of life writers are extremely reticent about
traditionally sacramental conceptions of mediation. They consequently frame
the Table (and baptism) as primarily human, Horizon 1 action. While professing
that the Lord’s Supper is somehow centrally important, the all of life writers
89
Harold Best comes nearest, with his explorations of “mutual indwelling,” to linking
human interactions with divine perichoresis.
sidestep treating it in much detail. Still, there are two other avenues through
which these authors are much readier to recognize divine-through-human action.
One of these, which we have already discussed, is the ministry of edification. The
other is the reading and preaching of Scripture.
The all of life literature understands God to work through human engagement
with God’s Word—as it is read, preached, and responded to in corporate worship.
At points in the all of life literature, the authors (especially Peterson and Keller)
suggest a specifically dialogic understanding of both Word (proclamation/
response) and even Table (gospel re-presentation and re-enactment). Aside from
the all-pervasive theme of edification, it is this dialogic conception that best
characterizes the all of life understanding of Horizon 2. These authors envision
God as working not through a single avenue, but rather as working through
cross-rhythms of proclamation and response that order the time and space of
gathered worship. God’s initiative and human action intermingle in a nuanced,
and even mysterious, interplay. From one angle, human and divine action seem
to alternate in a clearly conversational give-and-take. From another angle, the
two are not altogether separate or distinguishable—God’s proclamation is
humanly voiced, and human response is Spirit-enabled. This dialogic model
of proclamation and response articulates the dance of divine-through-human
action enough to enrich our appreciation and understanding, but not so much
as to puncture its paradox or its mystery. And all this takes place in the orbit of
the Word of God.
If the all of life writers are cautious and restrained in their theology of
Horizon 2, it is not that they preclude God’s action in worship. Rather, they seek
to avoid anything overblown that might obscure that action—the authentic,
free working of a sovereign God. In this they bring to mind the ethos of the early
Puritans (a resonance which will be further explored in Chapter 9).
As for Horizon 3: both gathered and lived-out worship are suffused, for
these all of life authors, with the same reality—earthly, covenantal fellowship
that amounts to participation in the life of God. And that participation includes
involvement in the missio Dei, the mission that springs from God’s own heart.
These authors have an organic, rather than pragmatic, approach to the evangelism
for which they are so enthusiastic. For them, worship not only inspires mission,
it is mission.
Chapter 5
The Gathered Devotion Emphasis
Rank
Book Year
(out of 25)
A.W. Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship? (Christian Publications) 1985 5
Ronald Allen and Gordon Borror, Worship: Rediscovering the Missing 1982 23
Jewel (Multnomah)
Matt Redman, The Unquenchable Worshipper: Coming Back to the 2001 25
Heart of Worship (Regal)
All evangelicals would say a heartfelt “Amen” to the proposition that worship
is an all-of-life affair. Some of the books in our pool, however, also greatly
emphasize outright doxology. While affirming the daily, lived-out dimension of
worship, the authors of these “gathered devotion” works also spiritedly promote
explicit adoration and seek the deepening and renewal of the church’s gathered
worship experience.
Allen and Borror’s Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel and A.W. Tozer’s
Whatever Happened to Worship? are particularly strong examples of this gathered
devotion focus, and Matt Redman’s Unquenchable Worshipper reflects similar
themes. While Allen and Borror’s and Redman’s books rank near the bottom
of the entire pool, Tozer’s volume ranks as quite highly influential (number 5
out of 25).
In the attempt to correlate the various gathered devotion volumes, it is
important to recognize that they issue from quite different moments in the late
twentieth-century renewal of evangelical worship, and also that they represent
a variety of purposes and genres. Allen and Borror wrote Worship as a response
to (and resource for) an evangelical movement of worship renewal still nascent
in the early 1980s. These two seminary professors consciously take up the baton
from A.W. Tozer as they seek to help evangelicals recover “the missing jewel” of
worship.1 Their volume, a general introduction to worship, is aimed especially
1
“Worship,” wrote Tozer, “is the missing crown jewel in evangelical Christianity.”
A.W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Whatever Happened to Worship? (Camp Hill: Christian
Publications/Zur Ltd, 1985/2012), p. 7. (All quotations from this work reprinted by
permission of WingSpread Publishers, a division of Zur Ltd., 800.884.4571.) Allen and
at those responsible (or in training) for preparing and leading worship. While
Tozer’s Whatever Happened to Worship? was published several years after Allen
and Borror’s volume, the sermons it compiles were preached 20 years earlier—
shortly before Tozer’s death in 1963.2 If the other gathered devotion authors
respond in some way to a worship renewal in motion, Tozer was crying out for
that renewal—with the intense piety of an “evangelical mystic”—well before it
started.3 Matt Redman, a popular British singer-songwriter and worship leader,
penned The Unquenchable Worshipper decades into the worship renewal. His
small devotional volume encourages the reader to commit more fully and deeply
to a life of engaged worship.
Since Allen and Borror’s book attempts the most comprehensive treatment
of worship, it serves as a good benchmark for the gathered devotion focus. As for
Tozer, if his mystical bent pushes the boundaries of typically evangelical piety,
his influential writings have not only resonated with but also helped to form
evangelical sensibilities. And Matt Redman’s slim volume illuminates how some
gathered devotion themes have played out in the tide of worship renewal that
swelled near the turn of the millennium.
This literature’s gathered devotion focus strongly shapes its understandings of
worship participation. These authors are adamant that worship must be “from
the heart,” and this intensely-held value predisposes them to envision worship
participation as being, even in a corporate setting, essentially individualistic.
While these authors share a radiant (if vague) appreciation for Horizon 3, their
sense of immediate intimacy with God causes them to resist most of the types of
mediation that classically characterize Horizon 2.
Borror, writing before Tozer’s worship-focused sermons were compiled and published, drew
the “missing crown jewel” phrase from earlier Tozer sermon transcripts.
2
The sermon series, “Worship: the Chief End of Man,” was preached by Tozer in
1962 from his pulpit in Avenue Road Church in Toronto. Although Whatever Happened
to Worship was not published until 1982, Tozer’s sermons were disseminated well before
that time. They were compiled into a booklet entitled, Worship: The Missing Jewel of the
Evangelical Church (Harrisburg: Christian Publications [n.d.]). See Ronald Barclay Allen
and Gordon Borror, Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel (Portland: Multnomah Press,
1982), p. 8.
3
It is in Tozer’s introduction to a volume of poetry he edited that he unpacks the
conception of an “evangelical mystic,” one “who has been brought by the gospel into intimate
fellowship with the Godhead.” A.W. Tozer, The Christian Book of Mystical Verse (Camp Hill:
Christian Publications, 1991), p. vi.
The Gathered Devotion Emphasis 91
Prominent Themes
Worship as Action—and Adoration
The gathered devotion authors sometimes sound indistinguishable from the all of
life writers. Like the latter, they embrace a broad view of worship as lifestyle; they
fully believe that “[a]ll of life, for the believer, is to be an act of worship.”4 These
writers also, like the all of life authors, often stress the importance of integrating
life and liturgy. “We talk a lot about Spirit-led worship,” writes Matt Redman,
“but if we truly want to be led by the Holy Spirit, we need to make sure we’re
keeping in step with Him in our everyday lives.”5
At the same time, these authors are unashamedly enthusiastic about explicit,
outright doxology. They are eager for the sort of renewal that will restore, to
both individuals and the gathered assembly, an engagement of God in worship
that is active and participative. While Tozer speaks of worship in broad terms,
framing it as a heart-orientation pulsing through everyday life, he also seems
always to have in mind times set aside for straightforward, expressed adoration
of God. He presumably refers to such outright worship when he suggests that
“any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not
ready for heaven.”6 Tozer declares (more than once) that he, himself, “would
rather worship God than do any other thing … in all this wide world.”7 Tozer
and the other gathered devotion authors prize specific periods of time dedicated
to sheer doxology.
Adoration from the Individual Heart—in the Corporate Gathering
As the gathered devotion authors balance the two poles of worship, action and
adoration, they also balance two overlapping arenas of the latter pole, adoration:
the individual heart and the corporate gathering. For these authors, authentic
worship must unquestionably be rooted in the heart. At the same time, they
focus intently on the worship of the assembly. Engaged corporate worship is the
“missing jewel” that Allen and Borror, echoing Tozer, would have evangelicals
recover:
4
Allen and Borror, Worship, pp. 25–6.
5
Matt Redman, The Unquenchable Worshipper: Coming Back to the Heart of Worship
(Ventura: Regal, 2001), p. 24.
6
Tozer and Smith, Whatever Happened to Worship?, p. 13.
7
Ibid., p. 18.
Evangelicals are now more and more aware of what we lack in worship when
we gather together. The irony is even clearer. Evangelicals ought to excel in the
worship of God. How can we who know God, not worship Him!8
But what are these authors after? What aspect of the evangelical worship
common to their time do they find “lacking”?
Doxology: Intentional Priority and Enthusiastic Participation
What Tozer and the rest seem to be calling for is, first of all, that adoration
be a priority. While they recognize that worship encompasses various modes
of ministry, including edification and evangelism, these gathered devotion
writers call for doxology to be put first.9 Additionally, they call for enthusiasm.
While they unanimously agree that worship is largely invisible—a matter of
the heart and a grace of the Spirit—these authors are also concerned about its
tangible expression. They seek engaged participation that is impassioned and
wholehearted. It is true that only Allen and Borror, in line with the aims of their
book, go into much detail about how such revitalized expression might play out.
But it seems clear that all of the gathered devotion writers are eager for the sort of
fervent participation they can see and hear.
The gathered devotion authors see worship primarily as a celebratory human

response to God; they naturally, therefore, value and encourage whole-person
participation. Allen and Borror write: “A challenge ever before those who plan
for corporate worship is participation.” How, they challenge, “can we move the
congregant from the level of sitter/hearer to participator/doer?”10 The authors
not only stress the importance of participation; they also suggest avenues for
participation in worship services, including bodily gesture and movement,
sensory engagement through the arts, and the use of responsive readings.
8
Allen and Borror, Worship, p. 7. One wonders if the authors really mean what this
sentence seems to imply—that evangelicals distinctively “know God” in a way that non-
evangelicals do not. Still, one may respect their honest diagnosis of the evangelical worship
of their time, and appreciate their urgent desire for renewal.
9
Here is one point at which Timothy Keller might comfortably join the ranks of the
gathered devotion authors. It has already been observed that he believes doxology must take
the lead in the triumvirate of edification, evangelism, and worship.
10
Ibid., pp. 142–3.
The gathered devotion literature frames worship as an essentially human

response to God’s grace—“an active response to God whereby we declare his
worth.”11 While these authors understand that response as rightfully playing
out in corporate settings, they typically articulate it in terms that are highly
individualistic. And while it must be rooted in the heart, the worship response
generally remains incomplete until it is given expression.
Its emphasis on human response roots the gathered devotion literature squarely
here in the first horizon. While these authors acknowledge God’s primacy,
God’s initiative in “seeking” worshipers and enabling their worship through the
Spirit, they nevertheless depict worship as an endeavor that is primarily human.12
“When we worship God,” write Allen and Borror, “we celebrate Him: We extol
Him, we sound His praises, we boast in Him.”13 Notice that God is consistently
object rather than subject here; each reference to God is paired with the pronoun
“we” in such a way that “we” are active and God is passive. While the vision is
God-centered, all the doing in view is human.
For Tozer, worship participation involves a blend of divine initiative and
willed human response.14 But his primary emphasis is the deliberate response
that sits squarely here in Horizon 1, the level of human action. Matt Redman
also focuses on human commitment; he highlights, in the very first chapter of
The Unquenchable Worshipper, the individual’s choice to worship. Words like
“resolve” and “choose” figure prominently in the text—putting the focus on
willing and active human response.
Clearly all of these authors value the corporate dimension of worship. Allen
and Borror make sure to point to the importance of community.15 Tozer and
Redman both frame worship broadly, but always have gathered corporate
11
Ibid., p. 16.
12
For the role of the Holy Spirit see, for example, Allen and Borror, Worship,
pp. 68–9—where the Spirit is seen to provide guidance both before and during a worship
service.
13
Ibid., p. 18.
14
To be fair, if they focus heavily on human action, all of the gathered devotion writers
do counterbalance that emphasis with at least some intimation of God’s initiative and
empowerment.
15
Allen and Borror’s understanding of community almost edges toward the divine-
through-human action of Horizon 2; they observe that in the Old Testament “it is in the
community that God is basically at work,” and they call it a “mystery … to be a part of the
people of God.” Yet the authors ultimately lean back toward human action: “We come
together,” they write, “as brothers and sisters, mutually to stimulate one another.” Allen and
Borror, Worship, p. 40.
worship at least peripherally in view.16 At the same time, the gathered devotion
literature returns constantly to a conception of worship participation that is
distinctly individualized. Speaking of the “intercourse between God and the
redeemed,” Tozer locates it in “personal awareness.” And that very privatized sort
of awareness “does not come through the body of believers, as such, but is known
to the individual, and to the body through the individuals composing it.”17 For
Tozer, corporate worship is really an aggregate of believers, each one worshiping
individually.
Matt Redman makes no explicit distinction between individual and corporate
worship. Although he sees either of these dimensions of worship as properly
overflowing into physicalized expression, he frames both as encounters with
God that are primarily personal and interior. Anticipating a future experience
of heavenly worship, Redman writes, “We hear echoes of the perfectly inspired
symphony we shall one day be a part of.”18 Redman apparently distinguishes
between our present-day worship, which he treats (even in the assembly) as
soloistically privatized, and worship in the eschaton, which he envisions as
symphonically corporate.
The highly individualistic type of worship participation these authors
envision is anchored in their emphasis on interiority—worship that comes
from “the heart.” Allen and Borror cite numerous scriptures to support their
contention that everything hinges on the “state of the heart”—“the driving
desire behind the worship life of the believer.”19 Tozer writes, “Worship must
always come from an inward attitude.”20 For these authors, if worship should
reverberate in gathered community, it begins vibrating only within the perimeter
of the individual heart.
The emotional dimension of those interior goings-on is, if not an end in
itself, nevertheless essential. Tozer devotes an entire chapter to the assertion that
“Genuine Worship Involves Feeling,” and offers as “a very real definition” of “true
16
Although Matt Redman does not focus tightly on worship that is specifically
corporate, it is important to remember that many of his readers knew him first through his
worship songs, which are commonly used in corporate evangelical church services. And, in
The Unquenchable Worshipper, Redman not only refers to gathered worship from time to
time—he also acknowledges, on occasion, that he is speaking primarily to worship leaders.
17
18
Redman, The Unquenchable Worshipper, p. 120.
19
Allen and Borror, Worship, p. 23. It should be mentioned that, despite their
treatment of worship participation as primarily individualized, Allen and Borror do explicitly
counterbalance that privatized conception by pointing to the importance of community. See
ibid., pp. 48–9.
20
Tozer and Smith, Whatever Happened to Worship?, p. 83. Interestingly, what Tozer
describes worship as “embodying” here is not bodily at all—but rather inward, at the level of
“the mental, spiritual and emotional.”
worship” the idea that to “worship is to feel in the heart!”21 An appeal for some
sort of emotion is surely inherent in Allen and Borror’s statement that worship
is, first and foremost, a “matter of the heart.”22 And Matt Redman shares some
of the heart-ablaze piety so characteristic of Tozer; for him, as well, the ultimate
concern is always the disposition of the worshiper’s heart.
The internal must, however, give rise to the external. These gathered devotion
authors are unanimous in their conviction that worship participation, if it
begins in the heart, must find expression through the body. Allen and Borror
allocate a chapter to “The Body of the Believer in Worship”; while always giving
precedence to the “heart worship” of the “inner man and the inner woman,”
they fully recognize the spiritual importance of the physical.23 For one thing,
Allen and Borror work hard to set out a biblical argument for promoting bodily
engagement in worship. They commend intentional gesture, posture, and
movement—especially the raising of hands and the bowing of knees.24
For Allen and Borror, the assembly participates in the human action of
worship through song and music, as well as through lively engagement with
responsive readings, creeds, and litanies.25 The authors understand participation
to happen holistically; they echo Donald Hustad’s idea that in worship we
“exercise every part of ourselves”—including not only mind and spirit, but also
body and will.26
For Tozer, as well, inner participation in worship must naturally be expressed
outwardly.27 He regards singing as an important avenue for such expression, and
commends spontaneous exclamations (such as “Amen!” or “Glory to God”) as
healthy means of participation.28 If he does not spend much time discussing
external expressions, it is not that Tozer regards these as unimportant; rather, he
is preoccupied by an intense focus on interiority. While it is not clear precisely
what range of embodied piety Tozer envisions in corporate worship, he seems to
favor physical postures of reverence, such as falling on one’s knees and singing
heartily.
21
Ibid., pp. 81–2.
22
Allen and Borror, Worship, p. 143.
23
Ibid., pp. 119ff.
24
The very effort Allen and Borror invest in promoting this view attests to the reticence
of their readership, for whom such bodily expression might seem, in the authors’ words,
“sensational” or “bizarre.” Ibid., p. 125.
25
Ibid., pp. 157ff., 143.
26
Ibid., p. 40, quoting Don Hustad, Jubilate! Church Music in the Evangelical Tradition
(Carol Stream: Hope Publishing, 1981), p. 78.
27
I have already mentioned Tozer’s disclaimer that Spirit-encouraged hearts may well
make a good deal of noise. See Tozer and Smith, Whatever Happened to Worship?, p. 14.
28
Ibid. See p. 18 for Tozer’s own predisposition for singing, and pp. 15–16 for his
approval of verbal spontaneity on the part of the congregation.
Matt Redman (like many worship leaders) values expressive action in

worship. He esteems singing as a major vehicle for praise, and favors uninhibited
and spontaneous physical expression.29
The gathered devotion authors also affirm the liturgical use of various physical
media, and regard these as means for human expression in worship. Allen and
Borror, for example, embrace the arts as an important means of “expressing the
heart” and “embodying and enhancing true worship.”30
The gathered devotion literature celebrates corporate worship and urges
evangelicals to get past their reserve and participate with (more) expressive
physicality. At the same time, the authors’ extreme emphasis on the heart slants
them toward a conception of participation that is, even in a corporate setting,
predominantly privatized.
The gathered devotion authors do not speak much of divine-through-human

action in worship. Their disinterest in Horizon 2 stems from a conviction that
ripples conspicuously throughout this literature: an earnest sense of access to
God that is immediate. The conviction comes through most clearly in Tozer,
as the self-proclaimed “evangelical mystic” celebrates the unrestrained way in
which God gives Himself to the regenerate heart:
God desires and is pleased to communicate with us through the avenues of

our minds, our wills and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed
interchange of love and thought between God and the souls of redeemed men
and women is the throbbing heart of the New Testament religion.31
Matt Redman senses a similar immediacy of God’s presence. Considering

Revelation 3:20, he envisions Jesus, standing at the door and knocking, as
“inviting His people to a greater intimacy.”32 For the gathered devotion writers,
29
See Matt Redman’s account of a youthful experience he had at a praise event; when
his full-hearted response to God could not be contained in singing, he headed outside and
ran around the parking lot; Redman, The Unquenchable Worshipper, p. 43. Yet, at the same
time, Redman is cautious, concerned that human action never become an end in itself. “We
become consumed with the public side of things, but God is always far more interested in the
hidden and the private.” Ibid., p. 84.
30
31
32
Redman, The Unquenchable Worshipper, p. 64. Revelation 3:20 reads, “Behold, I
stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to
him and eat with him, and he with me.”
such a strong sense of intimate immediacy renders unnecessary any means of

liturgical mediation. Consequently, they largely ignore Horizon 2 altogether.
One sign of these authors’ unconcern for Horizon 2 is their scant reference
to either baptism or the Lord’s Supper. Neither Tozer nor Redman make any
mention at all of either of those ordinances in their volumes.33 While Allen and
Borror largely follow suit, never directly exploring baptism or the Supper, they
do appear to be more conscious (if ambivalent) about them. On the one hand,
they refer to “the priority of the Word and ordinances,” calling them “[t]he two
most basic institutions of our corporate worship,”34 and affirm that “we celebrate
God pre-eminently when we fellowship gratefully at the ceremonial meal that
speaks so centrally of our faith.”35 On the other hand, the authors simply do not
expand at all on these “most basic institutions.” Certainly these writers assume
that baptism is to be celebrated at least occasionally, and the Supper with some
regularity. But apparently the gathered devotion authors, who write with worship
renewal in mind, do not see the road to that renewal as running through the
ordinances.
Unlike their all of life counterparts, who also downplay the ordinances, the
gathered devotion authors do not highlight any ways, whatsoever, through which
God is seen to work through human action. Apart from a loose sense of the Holy
Spirit’s guidance, they frame participation in worship as a distinctly human
(Horizon 1) activity.
Again, the gathered devotion literature (especially Allen and Borror’s volume)
advocates the use of the arts in worship. In their understanding, however, the arts
serve as a means for human expression rather than a locus for divine encounter.
For them, therefore, the arts figure into Horizon 1 rather than Horizon 2.
If these authors do not recognize divine action through human means,
however, that is not to say they do not recognize divine action at all. Matt
Redman depicts God as pervasively active during corporate worship—active, at
33
As an orthodox evangelical, Tozer undoubtedly believes in the Table’s importance;
yet he does not mention it at all in Whatever Happened—a book about the central,
foundational aspects of worship. There is one oblique reference—but that is only for the
purpose of renouncing high-church notions of sacrament: “God’s presence,” he writes,
cannot be “induce[d] by holding up a biscuit and claiming that it is God” nor by “any amount
of mumbo-jumbo”; such sacramental worship is “paganism” which induces nothing more
than “superstitious dread.” Tozer and Smith, Whatever Happened to Worship?, p. 33. As for
Matt Redman, immediately after his reference to Revelation 3:20 (“If anyone hears my voice
and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me”), he goes on to expand
on the intimate nature of Jewish table fellowship. (Redman, The Unquenchable Worshipper,
pp. 64–5.) Yet the central ordinance, the Table, is not mentioned here, nor anywhere
throughout Redman’s book.
34
Allen and Borror, Worship, pp. 176, 121.
35
Ibid., p. 19.
least, in the sense of giving some sort of direction. At one point Redman refers
to the Holy Spirit as “worship leader”; at another point he stresses the Father’s
leadership.36 Redman expects and depends upon God’s self-revelation during
gathered worship, but he shares Tozer’s sense that human encounter with God
is immediate. For him, the divine presence and guidance that a worship leader
may experience during corporate praise is a special case of that which is enjoyed
by every worshiper: access to God through the Spirit, direct and unmediated.37
The gathered devotion authors understand worshipers to participate, both inside

and outside of the corporate gathering, in the life of God. If these writers disregard
Horizon 2, they do not stop altogether short of it—rather, they vault straight
over to Horizon 3. They fix their eyes on heavenly worship, despite the fact
that their gaze tends to refocus quickly on human doings. They herald earthly
fellowship with God. And these authors speak emphatically, if sporadically,
about human participation in the missio Dei.
The worship of heaven does capture, at least occasionally, the attention of the
gathered devotion authors. And, notably, they connect heavenly adoration with
human doing—both in gathered worship and in daily living. On the one hand,
Allen and Borror hear echoes of the heavenly praise depicted in Revelation 7:12
in the literal “amens” uttered in corporate church worship:
When we say Amen to His glory, we find ourselves in studied continuity with
the redeemed of all ages, of all peoples, and of all places. Indeed, we join the holy
angels and the mystical and mysterious personages surrounding the most holy
throne of the living God.38
But, ultimately, these authors are less concerned with that heavenly vista than
the way in which it transforms human hearts; what is significant about the
Revelation passage is that it “consistently reminds us of the absolute necessity
to enthrone God in the center of our lives.”39 Consistent with their perpetual
36
“There’s a very real sense in which the Holy Spirit is ultimately the worship leader—
He is the agent of everything meaningful that happens in our worship times.” Redman,
The Unquenchable Worshipper, p. 25. Later, Redman highlights the Father: “If we do what
the Father is doing, when He is doing it, God will break into our services in powerful and
surprising ways.” Ibid., p. 54.
37
Beyond the pages of Redman’s book, however, one might easily interpret the
character of his worship songs—their lyrics and even their musical ethos—as revealing a
conception of music, itself, as mediating divine presence.
38
39
Ibid., 25. Similarly, “it is God who must be on the heart’s throne!” Ibid., p. 168.
heart-focus, the authors direct the reader’s attention less to God’s enthronement
in heaven than to God’s enthronement in human hearts.
Likewise, the only time Tozer connects earthly and heavenly worship, he
does so with a similarly down-to-earth focus:
I have come to believe that when we are worshipping—and it could be right at the
drill in the factory—if the love of God is in us and the Spirit of God is breathing
praise within us, all the musical instruments in heaven are suddenly playing in
full support.40
This beautiful thought is as revealing as it is inspiring; for Tozer, heart-

centeredness almost seems to trump heaven-centeredness. Rather than
envisioning the human worshiper as singing along with heavenly choirs, Tozer
envisions heavenly musicians as accompanying the human worshiper. Also, if
Tozer envisions an earthly worshiper joining the communion of saints—that
worshiper does so in isolation, apart from the communion of the local church.
Tozer’s understanding of participation is both heart-based and strikingly
privatized.
It is unclear how metaphorically Matt Redman is speaking when he writes
of worship leaders “leading people before the heavenly throne.”41 But what is
clear is that he sees human and heavenly participation in worship as resonantly
intertwined:
When we really pay attention to God’s worth, our worship times will start to look
even more like the heavenly throne room. The angels sing, as do we. The living
creatures speak out their praise, and we join them. But the 24 elders bow down
on their faces. Oh, that we would see what they see and do as they do, a little
more often!42
So the gathered devotion authors keep an eye on the worship of heaven. But
for them, the fittest treatment of even the most exalted heavenly worship is
decidedly earthbound. Their vision is less one of humans swept up into the
worship of heaven, and more one of heaven reflected in the worship of humans.
For these authors, heavenly worship empowers more than it elevates.
The gathered devotion authors communicate a rich sense of earthly fellowship
with God, rooted in immediacy of access to the divine. While Allen and Borror
affirm such fellowship obliquely, the other authors are more explicit. The
signature insight of Tozer’s “evangelical mystic” is, again, the realization of having
40
41
42
Ibid., p. 71.
been “brought by the gospel into intimate fellowship with the Godhead.”43 Tozer
regards as “strange and wonderful” the truth about the “great saints of past eras”:
that “those around them knew that Jesus was living His life in them.” And, for
Tozer, it is specifically in worship that “we join them.” Transformed and indwelt
in the sheer adoration of God, “because He is who He is,” we begin to share with
those saints a common participation in the life of God.44
Matt Redman shares this certainty of having been welcomed into fellowship
with God, of walking in friendship and intimacy with Him. “In my heart,” he
writes, “and more importantly in God’s heart, there’s a call to return to the first
love, the place of romance in worship. This is God’s invitation to all of us.”45 This
sense of intimacy sometimes involves a vague perception of Jesus or the Holy
Spirit, but most usually comes across as unmediated fellowship with God the
Father.
And for the gathered devotion authors, the dimension of God’s life represented
by God’s own mission—the missio Dei—flows ineluctably out of worship. Tozer
writes:
Listen to me! Practically every great deed done in the church of Christ all the way
back to the apostle Paul was done by people blazing with the radiant worship of
their God. A survey of church history will prove that it was those who were the
yearning worshipers who also became the great workers.46
The author goes on to assert that the church’s greatest missional endeavors,
including the founding of hospitals and mental institutions, “have grown out of
the hearts of worshipping men … and women.” Whenever the church has been
roused into action, he asserts “always the worshipers were back of it.”47
Allen and Borror also see a deeply organic connection between worship
and the missio Dei. Focusing on the assembly, they argue for balance between
doxology and the other basic ministry functions of the church, including not only
edification, but also evangelism. They present these as inseparably synergistic.48
For Matt Redman, participation in worship inevitably leads to incorporation
43
Tozer, The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, p. vi. The theme is echoed in Tozer and
Smith, Whatever Happened to Worship?, p. 82.
44
Tozer and Smith, Whatever Happened to Worship?, p. 11. As for how worship provides
believers entrée into the life of God, Tozer points to its transformative power. Through
participation in worship, believers open themselves more to the Spirit’s leading and to God’s
transformation, through which they become “winsome saints” through whom Jesus lives his
life. See ibid., pp. 10–11.
45
46
Tozer and Smith, Whatever Happened to Worship?, pp. 18–19.
47
Ibid., p. 19.
48
Allen and Borror, Worship, pp. 57–9.
into God’s mission in the world: “True worshippers look outward, noticing the
world they live in and longing to make a difference to the injustice, poverty and
pain that surround them. A worshipper of Jesus cannot turn a blind eye to these
things.”49
The gathered devotion authors do not elaborate on the connection between
the church’s mission and the missio Dei. But they do envision doxology bursting
organically into mission, and clearly that missional momentum springs from the
very character of God.
Summary Reflections
What distinguishes the gathered devotion literature is its unveiled enthusiasm for
corporate worship. Like their all of life counterparts, these authors affirm that
worship is as much a matter of daily life as it is of explicit adoration. At the same
time, they hold such adoration, along with the corporate gathering, in especially
high regard—and they call the church to do the same. They seek nothing less
than the renewal of engaged and active participation in worship. So the gathered
devotion authors call, essentially, for two things. First, they want evangelicals to
re-establish worship as a priority. Second, they want that priority lived out by
means of wholehearted and enthusiastic worship participation.
The priority of worship is, for these writers, axiomatic—rooted both in the
grandeur of God and in the right relation of creature to Creator. Beyond that,
worship is crucial for the church by virtue of what it accomplishes. Tozer, for
example, is convinced that worship is a discipline through which Christ not only
transforms believers, but also indwells them. He suggests that it is through their
pressing into worship that men and women of the church have been empowered
and directed toward great, benevolent works. His point is well taken, but
triggers, of course, a whole host of problems and questions. What about the
many less-than-saintly actions that have been performed, through the centuries,
by Christians who sincerely worshiped?50 And how does worship interact with
other disciplines in the formation of character that might be called “Christlike”?
To be fair, Tozer’s statement emerges from what was originally the text of a
sermon—a genre in which rhetorical strength often comes at the expense of
nuance. One might note the theological problem—Why do worshipers do bad
things?—and still appreciate Tozer’s essential point: Christian life is deeply
49
50
This question was helpfully suggested to me by Dr Anne Yardley. One thinks, of
course, of such figures as Bernard of Clairvaux and his exhortatory sermons promoting the
Second Crusade, of the drowning of Anabaptists in Zurich in the 1520s in the name of
orthodoxy, of conquistadors and slave traders, and so on.
nourished not by technique nor strategy, but by the discipline of worship and
the life that flows from authentic encounter with God’s glory.
Each of the gathered devotion volumes sounds a call, loud and clear, to
enthusiastic participation in worship. Tozer exhorts the reader toward this very
end, and Allen and Borror wield their theological and ministry insights as tools
to clear the path for vibrant worship participation. As for Matt Redman, he
summons his readers to become active participants who are “unquenchable,”
“undone,” and “undignified” in the worship of God.
Beyond the call for worship renewal, several other themes have been shown
to run through the gathered devotion literature. First, these authors frame
worship as primarily a matter of human response. Second, a strong focus on
“heart worship” angles these authors toward conceiving of participation in terms
that are largely individualistic.51 And third, while their conception of worship
participation resonates soundly with Horizon 1 (human action) and Horizon 3
(the life of God), it largely avoids any Horizon 2 notions of divine-through-
human action.
At first blush, this cluster of themes is puzzling. First of all—how do they all fit
together? Second, how is it that these gathered devotion authors, who champion
worship celebrated corporately, communicate a conception of worship that is
largely privatized? And third, how can these writers, with their high esteem for
corporate worship, seem to envision less of God’s action in that context than do
the all of life writers who make an effort to downplay the gathering?
An answer to all of these questions hinges on the first of them: how do the
various gathered devotion themes fit together? An important key, here, is to
understand the various emphases of the gathered devotion conception as orbiting
around one central emphasis: the human heart.
To begin with, a strong focus on the heart segues readily into an understanding
of worship as interior and privatized. For these authors, all of the significant
transactions of worship happen inside the individual heart—where the
worshiper offers adoration to God, and where God makes Godself immediately
accessible to the worshiper. Such a conception easily gives rise to a privatistic
vision of worship. On top of this, these authors frame the human side of the
worship encounter individualistically, which leads them to emphasize earnest
human effort and willed devotional enthusiasm. Additionally, the conviction
of immediate intimacy with God dampens these authors’ interest in any means
of mediation. This meshes with their framing of worship as primarily human
action. So the central motif of heart-worship may be seen to account for an
understanding of worship that is interior and privatized—with earnest devotion
51
This is not to say the gathered devotion writers disregard the dimension of community
in worship. But even Allen and Borror, who address the importance of community most
explicitly, ultimately present a predominantly privatized vision of participation.
on the human side, mystic immediacy on the divine side, and, between the two,
little room for intermediary means.
How does the gathered devotion literature’s zeal for corporate worship jibe
with its individualism? First of all, it must be recognized that the enthusiasm
these authors have for gathered worship is really the offshoot of another,
broader commitment. They are less concerned with worship being corporate
than they are with worship being explicit. These authors do advocate lived-out
worship, but their primary agenda is that believers give appropriate attention to
outright adoration of God. Interestingly, when reading a particular passage in
this literature, it is often difficult to tell whether the author speaks of corporate
or individual worship; what is always clear, however, is that he champions the
expression of that worship as forthright doxology. Second, as has already been
suggested, placing a premium on the heart means that assembled worship will
always be understood in essentially individualized terms. So these authors often
do not clearly distinguish individual from corporate worship, and usually lean—
in either context—toward privatized conceptions of devotion.
Why do the gathered devotion authors eschew Horizon 2? Why are they
even more resistant than the all of life authors to recognize any divine-through-
human action in worship? The answer lies, certainly, in their earnest conviction
of immediate access. To be fair, however, these authors do envision some sort of
divine-through-human action taking place in worship. But since they see such
action as taking place personally, in intimate communion with God through
the Holy Spirit, they prefer to speak in personal/relational terms and leave the
logistics amorphous. It has been noted that Matt Redman understands worship
sometimes to be “led” by God the Father, and at other times by the Holy Spirit.
The gathered devotion literature as a whole reflects a similar indeterminacy and
vagueness regarding God’s presence and action in worship.
It seems as if their robust sense of intimate immediacy leaves the gathered
devotion authors with a problem in the area of practical theology. Biblical
exegesis and spiritual experience lead these authors to revere the “ordinances,”
especially the Lord’s Supper. But their emphasis on unmediated encounter
undercuts their conviction that the Supper is really as central as they say it is.
This sort of dual-mindedness, seen clearly in Allen and Borror’s volume, both
prioritizes the Supper and summarily ignores it. But these authors are not alone;
such ambivalence toward the Table—a sort of “reverent marginalization”—is
widespread among evangelicals.
It has already been noted that many of the gathered devotion themes (including
individualism, devotional expressivity, and spiritual immediacy) begin to make
sense in combination if they are seen as orbiting around a central emphasis on
the human heart. Such a heart-emphasis resonates, of course with Pietism—
an historic movement in which similar themes and tensions have played out.
Discussions of this movement (and even the use of the word “pietism”) are often
freighted with polemical baggage, but the connection is a useful one to explore.
The idea will be examined further in Chapter 9.
Chapter 6
The Sacramental Recovery Emphasis
Of all the emphasis groups, the sacramental recovery literature is the most
surprising. One might well expect that at least a few evangelical authors would
urge their tradition toward deeper sacramentality; it is startling, however, to
discover that nearly half our pool authors (and six out of the top 10 books) call
for such sacramental recovery.
Fueling the surprise is the fact that evangelicals are predominantly non-
sacramental in their worship practice. It is true that nearly all of them celebrate
baptism and the Lord’s Supper, at least occasionally; they generally regard these
rituals, however, as “ordinances” rather than sacraments, primarily expressions
of human commitment rather than experiences of divine presence and action.
How is it, then, that such a large proportion of the pool authors promote
sacramentality?
Part of the answer, at least, comes by way of Rome. Despite their tradition’s
historic wariness of ecumenism, some late-twentieth-century evangelicals were
profoundly influenced by the Liturgical Movement that originated within
Roman Catholicism and drove the liturgical reforms of Vatican II.1 Those
Catholic reforms have, interestingly, been described as essentially “Protestant”
in character—and indeed, they resonated powerfully among Protestants.
The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy modeled an accessible and gospel-
centered sort of sacramentality, which mainline Protestants were quick to
incorporate into their own work of liturgical renewal.2 And well before 1980,
the beginning of the period under consideration in this study, some evangelical
scholars (Robert Webber foremost among them) were taking note of the rich
ecumenical dialogue; they began to publish works that integrated sacramental
understandings into their own theologies of worship. Other sacramentally-
minded Protestant scholars (such as James White and Geoffrey Wainwright),
although not evangelical themselves, wrote volumes that proved especially
popular among evangelicals. It may be the case that these prominent expressions
1
For an evangelical account of the Roman Catholic reforms and their impact on
Protestant worship, see Redman, The Great Worship Awakening, pp. 72–92.
2
Second Vatican Council, “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” pp. 1–29. James
White refers to the essentially “Protestant” nature of the Vatican II liturgical reforms; he
quotes the late Mark Searle’s assessment that “Catholics found that it was all right to be
Protestant when it came to worship.” James F. White, Christian Worship in North America: A
Retrospective, 1955–1995 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1997), p. 10.
of evangelical-friendly sacramentality had, by the early years of the twenty-first

century, not inspired most evangelicals to change their worship practice; they
certainly had, however, inspired evangelical scholars to generate a considerable
amount of like-minded sacramental recovery literature.
Unlike the all of life and gathered devotion authors, with their insistence on
spiritual immediacy, the sacramental recovery authors embrace the idea of God-
ordained mediation in worship. Accordingly, these writers seek to enlarge the
Protestant (and evangelical) notion of “ordinances” to a fuller-orbed conception
of sacraments—divinely-appointed symbols through which God acts and reveals
Godself in worship.
The sacramental recovery literature considered here may be grouped into
three chronological waves. The first wave, published in the first half of the 1980s,
looks through a wide-angle lens; these books present a broad but sacramentally-
centered vision of Christian worship. The second wave is comprised of books
issued in the mid- to late 1990s. These volumes peer through more specialized
lenses; from the vantage point of a sacramental perspective, they address
particular topics of theological or pastoral concern. And the third wave, from
the first decade of the twenty-first century, holds up lenses that are more
prescriptive. These books attempt to assertively correct the vision of evangelicals,
wooing them to sacramental understanding and practice.
All of the sacramental recovery works represented here share much in
common; they differ largely in terms of purpose and emphasis. In the pages that
follow, most attention will be devoted to the first wave of this literature, which
will be used to explore the large core of beliefs common to all the sacramental
recovery literature. Treatment of the second- and third-wave authors will be
more limited, focusing on their distinctive contributions.
Sacramental Recovery—First Wave
Rank
Book Year
(out of 25)
Robert Webber, Worship Old and New: A Biblical, Historical, and 1982/ 1
Practical Introduction (Zondervan) 1994
Robert Webber, Worship is a Verb: Eight Principles for Transforming 1985/ 2
Worship (Hendrickson) 1996
James White, A Brief History of Christian Worship (Abingdon) 1993 8
Don Hustad, Jubilate! Church Music in the Evangelical Tradition 1981/ 10
(1981); Jubilate II (1993) (Hope Publishing) 1993
The Sacramental Recovery Emphasis 107
Rank
Book Year
(out of 25)
James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship (Abingdon) 1980/ 11
1990/
2000
Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, 1980 18
Doctrine, and Life: A Systematic Theology (Oxford University Press)
Written in the early to mid-1980s, the first-wave sacramental recovery literature

consists of broad, sacramentally-minded introductions to Christian worship.
The works attempt to comprehensively sketch out the contours of worship and,
in the process, to emphasize a sacramental perspective.
The pre-eminent representative of this first wave is undoubtedly Robert
Webber. His two volumes represented here ranked at the very top of the pool.
Webber’s excitement in discovering the vitality of liturgical/sacramental worship
bristles through Worship is a Verb, along with a deep concern for congregational
participation. In Verb, Webber unpacks his worship theology in a popular
(almost testimonial) vein; a few years beforehand he treated similar territory
more academically in Worship Old and New.3
Another exemplar among these first-wave authors is James F. White.
While not an evangelical himself, White’s sympathetic treatment of free
church worship, combined with the clarity and solidity of his writing, has
garnered his books a wide evangelical readership. White’s writings are therefore
uniquely positioned to mediate the scholarship of the Liturgical Movement
to evangelicals. Introduction to Christian Worship (1980) and A Brief History
of Christian Worship (1993) are unrivalled as pithily rich introductory reading
regarding the broad tradition(s) of Christian worship.
If Webber and White serve as the best representatives of this first wave
of sacramental recovery literature, the other two authors loom large in the
background. At the very start of the 1980s, both Geoffrey Wainwright and Don
Hustad penned prodigious treatments of worship, each of them combining
breadth of scope with depth of detail. Wainwright’s volume is nothing less than a
magisterial work of systematic theology by way of liturgiology; Hustad’s focus is
3
This more academic work must surely be considered one of Webber’s most influential
volumes; not only does it rank slightly higher than Verb in this project’s survey findings; its
Amazon sales ranking is consistently between three and four times higher.
primarily musical, but covers much historical, theological and pastoral ground as
he sets evangelical worship in the larger context of Western Christian practice.4
Both Wainwright’s and Hustad’s books are impressively wide-ranging, and
worthy of serious consideration; they will be referenced when appropriate. But
for the purposes of this study, the most attention will be given to Webber and
White—who have been more influential among evangelicals.5
Theology of Worship
While all of these first-wave sacramental recovery authors share similar

convictions, they stress different themes. One of Webber’s central conceptions is
that worship is “the gospel in motion”—a tangible and participative celebration
of “God’s great acts of salvation.” That celebration is characterized by the rhythm
of proclamation and response; God “communicates to the worshipers his
salvation and healing,” and “the people respond with thanksgiving, and a life of
service in the world.”6 For Webber, this worship dialogue threads through the
two movements of Word and sacrament; he sees these two high points as central
to authentic, Christ-centered worship, and indispensable for framing genuine
congregational participation.7 Throughout Worship Old and New Webber
demonstrates how frequently, throughout history, leaders of worship have failed
to achieve a proper balance between Word and sacrament.
In his writings, James White draws broadly from the catholic experience of
historic Western Christianity. White affirms, along with Webber, the essential
worship “duality” of revelation and response; he understands both to be
4
Doxology may be one of the earliest of the examined here, but it is nevertheless one of
the most sophisticated. Although several decades have passed since the volume’s publication,
it has remained unique in its conception and scope. Wainwright’s book is, indeed, a systematic
text—but it is as much a systematic theology via worship (and even as worship) as it is a
theology of worship. Wainwright blazed a trail as he penned this volume, and—even after the
passage of many years—few have travelled the same thoroughfare. Hustad’s Jubilate is written
with “American free, evangelical churches” in mind—churches that are predominantly “non-
liturgical.” Don Hustad, Jubilate II: Church Music in Worship and Renewal (Carol Stream:
Hope Publishing, 1993), p. xix. (All quotations from this work used by permission of Hope
Publishing Co., Carol Stream, IL 60188, www.hopepublishing.com.) Still, Hustad draws
from wide-ranging and ecumenically eclectic sources, and offers much counsel drawn from
the long experience of the church catholic.
5
Webber and White will be emphasized here—not only because they ranked highly
in our survey, but also because their straightforward presentations of participation-related
themes have been particularly influential among evangelicals.
6
Robert Webber, Worship Old and New: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical
Introduction, rev. edn (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), p. 14.
7
Ibid., p. 106.
“empowered by the Holy Spirit.”8 White also shares with Webber the recognition
that Christian worship is historically (and theologically) characterized by both
Word and sacrament.
Donald Hustad usefully points out the distinction between two quite
different approaches to worship—and, in so doing, distinguishes the sacramental
(and perhaps even the all of life) emphasis from gathered devotion, with its strong
sense of immediacy. On the one hand, writes Hustad, there are those who attempt
an “idealistic quest for pure adoration” of God; such an approach has been “a
major preoccupation of mystics through the centuries.” On the other hand,
there are those who (like Webber) believe Christian worship to be energized
by rightly focusing on God’s mighty, historical deeds of salvation. For them, the
major occupation of worshipers is giving thanks to God in light of what God has
accomplished on their behalf. Hustad labels this sort of thanksgiving-centered
praise as “distinctly Christian.”9 For Hustad and the other sacramental recovery
authors, Word and sacrament are important not because they are traditional or
obligatory, but rather because they articulate, both verbally and experientially,
the historic and salvific actions of the Word made flesh.
Geoffrey Wainwright’s view of worship is lofty, indeed. For him, God’s
overarching intention for humans is their restoration into “communion with
God”—and that communion is “symbolically focused in liturgy.”10 Wainwright
understands liturgical worship to be “the point of concentration at which the
whole of the Christian life comes to ritual focus.”11
The sacramental recovery authors share an elevated view of gathered worship.
For them, liturgy is necessarily participative, focused on God’s mighty deeds of
salvation, and shaped by dualistic rhythms: Word and sacrament, proclamation
and response. Worship brings both God’s love and the entire Christian life into
tangible, ritual focus.
All of the first-wave sacramental recovery authors place a premium on

congregational participation. Their prioritizing of participation is implicit
throughout the literature, and also explicit at many points.
Out of all the books in our pool, perhaps, Webber’s Worship is a Verb
concerns itself most centrally with the matter of participation. The book is
8
James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship, 3rd edn (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 2000), p. 23.
9
Hustad, Jubilate II, p. 292.
10
Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine, and Life: A
Systematic Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 21–2. (All quotations
from this work used by permission of Oxford University Press, USA.)
11
Ibid., p. 8.
propelled forward by Webber’s mid-career epiphany that worship is dynamically

participative to the core. Liturgy, he writes, is “a participatory drama” for each
and every worshiper.12 The very structure of Worship is a Verb, with its eight key
“principles of participatory worship,”13 trumpets the centrality of participation.
For Webber, worship is communication—a dialogue between God and God’s
people. He holds the ultimacy of God’s initiative and empowering in balance
with the imperative of active human response.14 Such response need not be free-
floatingly mystical, however; Webber, like Hustad, sees thankful response as
rightly anchored in the gospel as it is experienced through worship. For Webber,
signs and symbols, most especially Word and Table, are God-given media
that provide the prime rendezvous for divine self-giving and human response.
These media help “narrate” the meeting between God and God’s people that
constitutes Christian worship.15
While James White does not treat the theme of participation as aggressively
as does Webber, he weaves it consistently through the pages of his books. In
Introduction he explains that the word “liturgy” etymologically implies “that
all worshipers take an active part in offering their worship together.” “Liturgy”
indicates “public worship” of a most appropriately “participatory nature.”16
Throughout both Introduction and A Brief History, White traces the historic
ebb and flow of congregational participation—always measuring it against the
(Vatican II) standard of the “full, conscious and active participation” which
is “demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.”17 Participation is clearly a
benchmark in White’s treatment of the many facets of worship; his discussions
of church architecture are particularly sensitive to the need for appropriate
space for participation.18 And White perhaps tips his hand most obviously by
including, as one of only two charts in A Brief History, a tree-like graphic that
depicts the flourishing among various Christian traditions of “Expanding Forms
of Participation.”19
For Wainwright, participation is not only at the core of worship, but also at the
very center of God’s intention for humans. In Doxology, he develops a composite
Webber, Worship Old and New, p. 263.

12
Webber, Worship is a Verb, p. 16.

13
14
Worship requires both “divine favor, an action ‘from above,’” and also “our response
to God himself.” Ibid., pp. 16, 110.
15
16
White, Introduction, p. 26.
17
Ibid., p. 97. White quotes the quintessential twentieth-century statement about
participation from the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (SC 14).
18
See ibid., pp. 85ff., also p. 102.
19
White, A Brief History of Christian Worship, p. 149.
picture of participation that is both sophisticated and multidimensional.20

Hustad also intones the theme of congregational participation as a recurring
leitmotif throughout Jubilate. His standard for every aspect of worship
(especially music, Hustad’s primary focus) is the degree to which it facilitates
“full participation.”21
The sacramental recovery authors affirm a panoply of participative expression

at the level of human action in worship. Their particular Horizon 2 focus on
sacraments does not limit their enthusiasm for a great variety of symbolic
Horizon 1 acts.
Human action is front and center in Webber’s Verb. Always concerned
with fleshing theology into praxis, the author unpacks his participatory vision
into numerous recommendations for tangible implementation. James White’s
approach, primarily phenomenological and historical, leads him to focus on the
specific sorts of words and actions Christians have used (and continue to use) in
worship; along the way, he bridges from the descriptive to the normative. And
Wainwright, while keenly sensitive to the primacy of God’s action in worship,
nevertheless looks squarely, also, through the lens of human activity. For
Wainwright, divine initiative does not preclude human effort.
As these first-wave sacramental recovery authors consider human action
in worship, they are attentive to its inward dimensions. If their sacramental
emphasis is not typical for evangelicals, what is typical is their insistence that
worship be rooted in the heart. For Webber, the externalized celebration about
which he is so insistent must always be rooted in an internalized heart-response
to a very present God. In order to be authentic, worshipful singing or confessing
or praying must involve spiritual expression—a genuine, communicative
response to “the living and active presence of a loving and merciful God.”22
White does not speak often about the heart, directly, but a sense of its
importance pervades his writing. He describes with apparent approval,
for example, the eucharistic approach of the church throughout its first
20
At the most basic level, “Christianity glories in the fact, the strict matter of fact,
that reality can be known only by participation.” Wainwright, Doxology, pp. 361–2. Yet,
participation is not wholly a human effort; the ever-expanding levels of participation
are inhabited by God: “His glory is that he is already present and within to enable our
transformation into his likeness, which means participation in himself and his kingdom”
(p. 10).
21
Hustad, Jubilate II, p. 92, for example.
22
Webber, Worship is a Verb, p. 114. See also p. 29.
millennium—commending its “marvelous freedom in expressing what it

experienced in the heart.”23
Wainwright frames discussion of the heart in terms of “interiorization”—
“how the publicly professed belief and doctrine of the community becomes
a faith that penetrates and shapes the heart and mind.” For Wainwright the
question of interiorization is vital, even sobering, considering that “God searches
the heart ( Jeremiah 17:10), and he is not mocked (Galatians 6:7).”24
These authors give the external dimension of human action its due, as well;
they treat interior and exterior human actions as complementary, integrated
dimensions of the whole person at worship. Webber promotes the use of
symbols and the arts precisely because engaging the senses engages “the whole
person … in the worship of God.”25 The sacramental recovery authors see worship
participation both as anchored in the heart, and also as issuing forth through a
rich palette of physical expressions.
Webber explores a wide range of worship actions, both traditional and
innovative—always tying them to his central vision: participation as Spirit-
empowered response to God in Christ. He addresses participation-minded
ways of handling Scripture reading, preaching, eucharistic celebration, and
the arts. As for actions and gestures, those that Webber specifically commends
are mostly the standard fare of traditional liturgy—including the kiss of peace,
classic acclamations, posture-conscious preparation for worship, movement,
and procession, as well as standing and kneeling at symbolically significant
moments. But, for Webber, these traditional movements are not obligations to
be dutifully observed; they are, rather, gifts from a living tradition—rich means
of promoting deeply engaged, whole-person participation.
James White, like Webber, balances the interior dimensions of human action
with their outworking in diverse, physicalized ways. He agrees that “[t]he whole
body participates in worship”; he points to various “postures,” “gestures,” and
“movements,” as well as the use of processions accompanied by singing.26 White
affirms the recent “gradual shift” away from a view of worship as purely interior;
he also affirms the realization that “worship encompasses our total being”—not
only intellect, but also “body” and “emotions.”27
For these authors, the holistically multifaceted nature of human action
in worship cries out for pastoral wisdom and attention. Since the tangible
participative actions of worship are not merely incidental, but importantly
expressive and formative, they must be handled thoughtfully and intentionally.
23
24
Wainwright, Doxology, p. 216.
25
Webber, Worship Old and New, pp. 82, 89.
26
27
Ibid., p. 194.
For White, recognizing the whole-person dimensions of doxology leads to

important considerations for those who lead worship. For example, leaders of
eucharistic celebrations must learn to speak not only verbal language but also
body language “with eloquence.”28 And since physical worship on the part of
the congregation “demands considerable movement,” worship space must be
designed accordingly.29 For Hustad, Christian worship is “a rehearsal in becoming
godly,” involving “our body, our emotions, our mind, and will.” Worship services
should be designed, therefore, so as to “‘exercise’ the total person.”30
The arts figure prominently in the sacramental recovery literature’s treatment
of Horizon 1. While these authors sometimes depict human artistry as a Horizon
2 vehicle for divine action, they also recognize the important ways in which
the arts embody the Horizon 1, human side of worship. In this sense, Webber
positions the arts (including “music, banners, liturgical dance, drama, color, the
symbolic use of space, and other artistic objects”) as “vehicles through which …
worship to God is offered.”31 For Webber, the arts are sometimes simply a means
of humans expressing their hearts to God.
Although Hustad’s Jubilate concentrates primarily on music, he peripherally
acknowledges the importance of a broader range of artistic expression in worship.
For him, such expression finds its warrant, ultimately, in theology: “Add ample
right-brain language in emotive-intuitive symbolism,” he prescribes—“not for
fun or for aesthetics, but for truth’s sake.”32
While the sacramental recovery literature might critique the evangelical
church for its frequent reduction of the arts to music, alone—these authors do
not deny the primary importance of music. Webber affords music the premier
position among the arts.33 And Hustad regards music as important enough to
have made it the central focus of Jubilate—certainly the magnum opus of his
authorial career.
At the level of human action, these sacramental recovery authors understand
music to serve at least four participation-related functions. First of all, music
shapes and grows individuals into disciples who worship participatively;
Webber recognizes music as effecting such “spiritual formation” in his own life.34
Second, music helps draw worshipers into participative engagement; it nurtures
an “attitude of worship” and “elicits from deep within a person the sense of awe
28
Ibid., p. 260.
29
Ibid., p. 86.
30
31
Webber, Worship is a Verb, p. 12. If the arts are, for Webber, vehicles that carry
expressive response, they are also response-triggering agents of proclamation. They have the
“power to ignite my imagination and thus elicit … praise.”
32
33
See especially Webber, Worship Old and New, pp. 195–204.
34
and mystery” appropriate to an encounter with the divine.35 Third, music serves,
itself, as an “offering to God”—a vehicle through which humans participate in
worshiping God wholeheartedly.36 As such a vehicle, music provides a type of
participation that is especially holistic; White points out that singing intensifies
the spoken word and adds “another layer of participation,” since music engages
the “whole body.”37 And fourth, music embodies and actualizes the communality
of worship participation. Corporate singing affirms, according to Webber, unity
in Christ simply by its very nature as a communal activity.38 Wainwright concurs:
“Familiar words and music … unite the whole assembly in active participation to
a degree which is hardly true of any other component in the liturgy.”39
An overriding concern of the sacramental recovery authors is that music
for worship be geared toward participation that is corporate. They agree with
White’s assertion that, of all the music used in worship, congregational singing
is the “[m]ost important.”40
While music is not, for the sacramental recovery authors, merely expressive,
they do affirm its powerful capacity for expressivity. Even White, who is deeply
concerned with the objective side of worship, celebrates the subjective role of
music. “Congregational song must,” he writes, “pass the test of expressing the
inmost feelings and beliefs of the worshipers.”41 If worship is both proclamation
and response, and if response is (at least from one angle) a human activity rooted
in the heart, then music’s power—to release and express the heartfelt and even
the inarticulate—is vital to wholly-engaged worship.
For Webber and the other first-wave sacramental recovery writers, a foundational
principle is this: “In worship God speaks and acts.”42 Here is a robust vision
of divine-through-human action in worship. These writers embrace a broad
and rich brand of sacramentality; they understand God to speak and act not
only through traditional sacraments, but also through music, the arts, and the
gathered community.
The sacramental recovery literature highlights the dialogic rhythm that
alternates between God’s revelation and human response—but it especially
emphasizes God’s side of the dialogue. What is most important in worship is
35
36
37
White, Introduction, pp. 167–8.
38
39
40
41
Ibid.
42
not “what I do,” writes Webber, but rather “what God is doing.”43 These authors
desire to counterbalance the typically evangelical emphasis on human action,
alone.
And these writers are convinced that, in the relational worship encounter
between God and humans, both sides of the dialogue are largely communicated
through sign and symbol. God communicates symbolically, so that worship
becomes a means of sensorally “com[ing] into contact with the infinite.”44 White
puts it plainly: “All that happens in worship depends on God, but it occurs
through the instruments of human speech and the human body.”45 And human
response to God is, similarly, made through largely symbolic means—through,
according to Webber, “the external signs that represent him.”46
Consequently, these authors understand the dialogue of assembled worship
to be couched in a rich variety of words and symbols. These include the arts
(especially music), the gathered community, God’s Word (Scripture), and the
traditional sacraments—baptism and the Lord’s Supper. And particularly
important for these writers—especially in connection with the Lord’s Supper—
is a fascinating dynamic we’ll return to momentarily: anamnetic re-presentation.
It has already become clear that this literature appreciates the arts in
connection with the human action of Horizon 1. But these authors also
understand the rich potential of the arts to be not only humanly expressive,
but divinely so. Webber says so explicitly when he writes, “God can meet us
through the arts.”47 Accordingly, Webber argues for the recovery of the role of
the artist in evangelical worship. Going further, Wainwright also sees the artist’s
role, itself, as a particularly important means of participation in divine-through-
human action.48
Music plays, for these sacramental recovery authors, a vital role not only in
the human action of Horizon 1, but also in the divine-through-human action
of Horizon 2. Webber makes an especially bold assertion in this regard. Right
alongside Word and Table, “the two central foci of Christian worship,” he
positions music as a “third component of biblical and historical worship.”
Webber is serious about affording music such prominent billing; for him, music
is “the wheel upon which the Word and the Eucharist ride.” Specifically, “[m]usic
proclaims the Scriptures in a heavenly language and provides a means through
43
Ibid. Webber calls this insight “one of the greatest discoveries” in his journey as a
Christian.
44
Ibid., p. 200.
45
White, Introduction, p. 83
46
47
Ibid., p. 200.
48
Wainwright suggests that it “remains appropriate … to consider artistic creativity,
properly exercised, as a participation in the creative activity of God.” Wainwright, Doxology,
p. 27.
which the mystery of God in Christ is approachable.”49 It is clear throughout

Webber’s books that he gives pride of place to the twin liturgical peaks of
Word and Table. Nevertheless, while he certainly would not claim that music is
sacramental in the same sense that the ordinances are, he here elevates music to
a strikingly sacramental, even mediative, role.50
The community is also, for these first-wave sacramental recovery writers, a
medium through which God acts in worship. They understand this to be so
in at least two ways. First, the community itself is sacramental through and
through; God works through its broad actions, its interrelations, and the gifts of
its members. “[T]he physical signs of Christ are evident,” writes Webber, “in the
variety of gifts and workings within the body.”51 Wainwright also understands
the assembly as generally sacramental—a “locus” for “God’s gracious self-giving.”
As “mutual help is afforded among the members,” the assembled community is
“[t]he anthropological medium through which God works”—or the medium
of divine-through-human action.52 And a second, more specific way in which
the community is sacramental, for these writers, is by virtue of its indispensable
role in sacramental celebration. “[N]o Christian sacrament is celebrated by an
individual acting singly,” writes Wainwright. “At least two people are required
for them all, and the communal nature of the Church is thereby underlined.”53
The community, itself, may be regarded as a “sacrament of assembly.”54
God’s Word is also understood by these sacramental recovery authors to
serve as a foremost medium of divine-through-human (or sacramental) action.
Wainwright reminds us that the church has, throughout most of its history,
experienced “in its liturgy … the divine presence both in the reading of the
scriptures and in the preaching.”55 Webber highlights the divine/human dialogue
that occurs in the service of the Word, which involves both “God’s proclaiming”
and “the people’s responding in faith”; the divine side of that exchange takes
place primarily through the “reading and preaching of the Word.”56

49
Webber, in affording some sort of sacramental role to music, is in good company;

50
Hustad reports: “For Luther, liturgical art music shared something of the sacramental
character of the preached Word.” Hustad, Jubilate II, p. 47.
51
52
53
Ibid., p. 142. White concurs that vital to the sacraments is the communal context
in which they are celebrated. God’s self-giving is experienced, importantly, “within the
community, which is itself a visible manifestation of God’s love.” White, Introduction, p. 199.
54
Wainwright, Doxology, p. 143. Wainwright here borrows the words of N. Afanasiev.
55
Ibid., p. 179.
56
Webber, Worship Old and New, p. 166. Wainwright concurs that God speaks “in and
through the reading of the scriptures,” and as the “Church speaks its response to God in
The sacramental recovery literature sees the Word as sacramental not only
as Scripture is read, but also as it is preached. For Webber, the sermon is a
“climactic” moment in which “God speaks to the people.”57 White sees the
community’s sacramental role as intersecting with that of the preached Word; in
the act of preaching, God’s self-giving occurs not only through the preacher, but
also “through the presence of hearers of the word” as they “hear and respond.”58
Interestingly, White seems to distribute the locus of sacramentality seamlessly
between Scripture preached, the one who preaches, and the ones who hear in
faith.
It should come as no surprise that this sacramentally-minded literature frames
the sacraments, themselves, as centrally important. They are, for these authors,
the gateway to meaningful worship renewal. Webber writes descriptively—and
perhaps hopefully—that “[t]oday’s renewal of worship boasts new insights
into … the sacraments and a rediscovery of how [they] … renew faith.”59 These
writers argue for a largely classical understanding of sacrament, augmented by an
emphasis on experiential piety and loving relationality.
Sacraments are powerful, for Webber, because they serve as a channel through
which God acts. Through these signs, “God acts toward us and communicates
his love and grace to us.”60 White concurs; foundational to understanding the
sacraments, he writes, is “the belief that God acts” in them.61 And not only the
divine side of the dialogue, but also the human side, finds proper expression
through sacramental sign. “We respond to God,” according to Webber, “through
the external signs that represent him.”62 Although the idea goes against the grain
for many evangelicals, these authors are convinced that “Christians meet God in
worship in the context of visible and tangible forms.”63
The sacramental recovery writers inevitably anchor their discussions of
sacrament in what they see as the essential broader context: the question of
sacramentality, in general. They suggest that evangelicals resist sacrament
largely because they resist the whole notion of sacramentality—a notion that
is necessary, James White insists, for good sacramental celebration.64 A “sense
prayer.” He concludes that the scriptures “mediate the word of God.” Wainwright, Doxology,
pp. 149–50.
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
White, Introduction, p. 200. These words, from the third edition of White’s volume,
did not occur in earlier volumes. It was in this third edition of Introduction, as a matter of
fact, that White introduced an entirely new section entitled “Sacramentality.”
of sacramentality” acknowledges human existence as being situated within a

“sacramental universe”65—and recognizes, therefore, what Robert Webber calls
“the sacred character of all life.” In addition to undergirding the ritual celebration
of sacrament, such a sacramental sense informs a spirituality that encompasses
both life and liturgy. Such “sacredness of life is a vital theme of worship to be
kept in our minds and hearts,” writes Webber. “For God meets us not only in the
special rituals of worship but in all of life.”66 In this way, the sacramental recovery
literature intersects interestingly with the central concern of the all of life focus.
The sacramental authors honor the link between life and liturgy so important to
the all of life writers; but they part company with the latter group by anchoring
that link in sacrament.
Lest a broad sense of “sacramentality” sound spiritually generic or diffuse, it
is important to note that the sacramental recovery authors emphasize important
points of focus. For one thing, they stress the divinely relational nature of
sacrament and, for another, the ultimate and absolute centrality of the person
of Jesus.
The sacramental encounter these authors understand to take place through
visible forms is distinctly relational. For Webber, the deep event of worship
so powerfully embodied by tangible sacramental symbols is nothing less than
relational encounter between God and humans. White concurs; for him, a
persistently central theme is God’s “self-giving” in the sacraments67—and “what
is given is … a gracious personal relationship, God’s life entering ours.”68
And as sacrament mediates relationship with God, it does so in and through
Jesus Christ, the one and only mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5).
All the conceptions of sacrament set forth by these sacramental recovery authors
are centered on Christ. For one thing, these writers believe sacramental practice
to be rooted in his person—since “Jesus himself, as the visible manifestation of
God, is the primordial sacrament.” For another, they believe that “the church,
in doing what [ Jesus] did, simply continues his sacramental mission to reveal
God.”69
So this literature’s enthusiasm for sacramental worship sits between a broad
sense of sacramentality, on one side, and a laser-sharp focus on Christ as the
source and meaning of the sacraments, on the other. Wainwright deftly positions
the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper on that continuum; he writes
that they are “distinguished from less important rituals by their closer connexion
Ibid., p. 200. White attributes the phrase to William Temple.
65
Webber, Worship Old and New, pp. 249–50.

66
67
The theme is so central to White’s thinking that he penned a volume named for it:
Sacraments as God’s Self Giving (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001).
68
69
Ibid., p. 179. White here borrows the phrase “primordial sacrament” from the
Flemish Dominican, Edward Schillebeeckx.
with Christ”—who is “seen in one way or another as their author, their minister
or even their content.”70
The ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are, of course, central in
the sacramental recovery literature. Against the backdrop of a wide sacramental
vision, the authors focus tightly not only on Christ, himself, but also on the
“gospel ordinances” the church recognizes as initiated by him. Their warrant for
such a focus is not only Scripture, but also tradition and experience. Baptism and
the Supper have remained central not only by virtue of being commands, but
moreover because of the experience of worshipers, who from the very start have
sensed the presence of the risen Christ in their midst.71
As far as baptism is concerned, the sacramental recovery authors seek to
counter the prevalent Protestant (and especially evangelical) notion that being
baptized testifies primarily to human commitment. “In most free churches
baptism is seen as the person’s expression of faith,” writes Webber. Without
downplaying the significance of “the subjective side of baptism,” he commends
the “ancient understanding” that recognizes the ordinance as “a rite of initiation
characterized by a divine action through which God initiates a relationship with
the new believer.”72 In line with this, White endorses baptism by immersion;
such a dramatic sign is called for as a testimony—not to the seriousness of
human commitment so much as to the lavishness of God’s love.73
Wainwright contributes an insight regarding baptism especially pertinent to
the subject of participation. He finds clear evidence in liturgical history (the
development of post-baptismal anointing rites) of “the notion of participation
in Christ”—and participation, by extension, in the royal priesthood of which
Christ is head.74
So, in this literature, baptism is understood as a vehicle for divine-through-
human action. Not merely an ordinance, baptism is a sacrament: a transaction
over which Christ presides, through which God gives himself, and through
which God’s people are gathered up by means of liturgical participation into a
spiritual participation in Christ and his work.
The Lord’s Supper is, as one would expect, centrally in view for these first
wave sacramental recovery authors.75 Hustad certainly expresses his own
sentiments—and also those of the other authors, here—when he reports that
70
71
Ibid., p. 120.
72
Webber, Worship Old and New, p. 235. Wainwright highlights God’s initiative in the
ordinance by citing Augustine’s dictum, “It is Christ who baptizes.” Wainwright, Doxology,
p. 65.
73
See White, Introduction, p. 201.
74
75
To give a crude indicator: out of approximately 220 pages of Webber’s Verb, there are
well more than 300 references to the “Lord’s Supper” or equivalent terms.
“many Christians believe [the Lord’s Supper] to be the most significant single
act of worship.”76 And true to their God-centered understanding of sacrament,
these authors understand the Table as a locus for more than human action. God
“communicates and acts upon us,” writes Webber, “[in] the Holy Communion.”77
What God does at the Table is, on one hand, an act of proclamation.
Anchored in the history of God’s salvific action, the Supper “dramatizes the
story of redemption.” In an ongoing pattern of proclamation initiated by Jesus,
the Table symbolically retells over and over again the narrative of salvation.78
Such proclamation is not only a matter of telling, but also of showing. It is true
that, in the words of Calvin recounted by Webber, “the mystery of Christ’s secret
union with the devout is by nature incomprehensible.” Still, given bread and
wine by grace, believers are able to perceive that “secret union” despite “our small
capacity.” By means of tangible symbols, “we see ourselves made partakers” in the
body of Christ.79 The Supper proclaims both by articulating and making visible
that which could not otherwise be known or seen.
On the other hand (and the two hands, here, have their fingers intertwined),
God’s action at the Supper is such that it not only announces and shows, but
also effectuates. Webber suggests that a primary reality effected by the Supper is
participation in Christ. Summing up Calvin’s take on the Supper, Webber writes:
“What the bread and wine effect is best expressed in the terms participation or
communion (1 Cor. 10:16).”80 The sacrament of the Supper, tangibly participative
itself, not only proclaims participation in Christ, but effects that very spiritual
reality.
White points out that not only vertical, but also horizontal, relationship is
effected by the koinonia participation in Christ’s blood and body through cup
and bread. Through that co-participatory sharing, Christ is received and “the
one bread becomes a sign of the unity of the communicants.”81 If the Supper
both communicates and effects vertical communion, it also communicates and
effects horizontal communion.
76
Hustad, Jubilate II, p. 143. These authors long to see frequent, even weekly, celebration
of the Supper—in contrast with the infrequent observance (monthly or less) common to
most evangelicals. See Webber, Worship is a Verb, p. 11; White, Introduction, p. 193; Hustad,
Jubilate II, p. 309. Moreover, they advocate replacing passive modes of reception (sitting and
receiving passed elements) with more active patterns (coming forward to the communion
table). See Webber, Worship Old and New, p. 248; White, Introduction, p. 260.
77
78
Ibid., p. 96.
79
Webber, Worship Old and New, p. 245. Webber quotes John Calvin, Institutes of the
Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeil (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 4.17.3, 1363.
80
81
The intriguing idea of re-presentation figures prominently in the eucharistic

theology of these first-wave sacramental recovery authors. For them, the Lord’s
Supper involves mystery—but it does not involve magic. These writers articulate
their theology of the Table (and worship, in general) by making much of
anamnetic re-presentation.82 “The theme of remembering (anamnesis),” writes
Webber, “is central to biblical worship.”83 Whereas anamnetic themes percolate
allusively through the all of life works, they are treated head-on here in the
sacramental recovery literature.
Re-presentation is rooted, as Webber indicates, in the rich biblical term
“anamnesis”—a much-more-than-cognitive kind of remembrance that goes far
beyond mere memorialism. The Greek word (which White calls “exasperatingly
difficult to translate”) occurs in the pivotal eucharistic command of Jesus in
Luke 22:19: “Do this in remembrance [anamnesis] of me.”84 The conception is
anchored in not only the Lord’s Supper narratives of the New Testament, but
also the Passover celebration as recounted in the Hebrew scriptures. Featured in
patristic thought, re-presentation regained a high profile among theologians in
the mid-twentieth century.
Anamnesis is no merely cognitive bringing-to-mind, Webber points
out. Rather, the ancient understanding was that “in the anamnesis Christ is
proclaimed in word and deed.”85 Through such speech and action the worshiper
participates, trans-temporally, in past salvation events made present; it is almost
as if different cross-sections of time are flattened into a time-out-of-time, and
the gospel story itself, enacted, becomes an actual locus for participation. An
event from the past is brought “into the present by the power of the Holy Spirit”
such that present-day worshipers are “present” to past acts of salvation.86
Among theologians, detailed discussions of re-presentation inevitably spark
challenging questions and ambiguities, even controversy.87 Most of the references
in our pool, however—even among the sacramental recovery authors who
treat the concept most directly—stop short of delving deeply into the precise
workings of anamnetic memorial. Still, even if they use broad brushstrokes in
treating the concept, the sacramental recovery authors find in anamnesis a rich
82
See the earlier discussion of re-presentation starting on p. 59.
83
84
White, A Brief History, p. 28.
85
86
Webber, Worship is a Verb, p. 119. White agrees: “[T]he significance is that of making
present again something now past. ‘In remembrance of me’ or recalling just does not capture
the intensity of standing in the presence of what God has already done and experiencing
anew its saving power.” White, A Brief History, p. 28.
87
For example: what exactly does it mean to say that, in anamnetic remembrance, the
power of past events becomes effective in the present? Is the dynamic purely cognitive? A
matter of heart, will, or faith? Or is some sort of mystical wormhole-in-time implied?
source of insight into the nature of worship participation. While they apply the
idea broadly to worship, they bring it to bear most often in its native context, the
Lord’s Supper. Distilling down their discussions, six ideas are particularly useful.
First, anamnetic remembering is active; it re-presents dramatically, through
participative celebration. For Webber, God’s people remember God’s mighty
deeds of salvation “by telling and acting out the story of redemption.”88
Second, anamnetic re-presentation relies on the use of tangible symbols
which, writes Webber, “proclaim and enact the original saving event and thus
act as ‘presence carriers’ of God’s saving action.” Engaged in faith, these enacted
symbols are the “meeting point for God’s saving presence and the worshipers’
response of praise and thanksgiving.”89
Third, through anamnetic re-presentation, historic (biblical) salvation
events become accessible in the here-and-now, inviting present-day
participation. Discussing the way in which “the event being celebrated becomes
contemporaneous,” Webber reminds us that the Apostle Paul “referred to the
Table as a ‘participation’ in Christ.”90 Such a participation engages the whole
person, not only cognitively but also affectively. Webber, ever concerned with a
properly evangelical engagement of the heart, points out that anamnesis involves
feeling. The past event—say, the resurrection—“becomes a vital experience, a
present reality that I feel and live now.”91
Fourth, anamnetic re-presentation is as much a matter of response as it is a
matter of proclamation. “Our response,” writes Webber, “is an integral part of
the actual re-creation of the event.”92
Fifth, the ultimate encounter mediated by anamnetic representation is not
with an event, but with a Person.93 Webber contends that worship is “not simply
the reenactment of the event, but a personal meeting with God.”94 Hustad points
to the Person-centeredness of eucharistic anamnesis by quoting Ralph Martin:
“the Church … shares in that saving work which it knows as a present reality—
because its Author is the living One in the midst of His ransomed people.”95
And sixth, anamnetic memorial re-presents the broad scope of the Christ
event. Although Jesus’ injunction to “remember” occurs at the Last Supper, the
perimeter of remembrance extends beyond the meal itself, and even beyond
Jesus’ subsequent death and resurrection. What is to be remembered? “Each

88
Ibid., p. 29.
89
90
91
Ibid., pp. 187–8.
92
Ibid., p. 120.
93
See Webber, Worship Old and New, p. 74.
94
Ibid.
95
Hustad, Jubilate II, p. 326. The author is quoting Ralph P. Martin, Worship in the
Early Church, rev. edn (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), pp. 118–19.
worship experience,” according to Webber, “contains the fullness of the birth,

life, teachings, ministry, death, resurrection, and promised return of Christ.”96
In considering Horizon 2 in connection with this first-wave sacramental recovery

material, refractions of Horizon 3 were frequently seen. Continuing the analysis,
Horizon 3—participation in the life of God—proves quite visible, in and of itself.
While Webber does not frequently articulate this horizon as participation
in the life of God, it is implicit throughout his writing.97 White offers Calvin’s
insight that “the ultimate purpose of Christian worship is union with God.” The
goal of all the church’s activities, including its worship and its sacraments, is, in
the words of Calvin as quoted by White, to be “united (conjungant) to God.”98
Here, as throughout the sacramental recovery literature, sacramental divine-
through-human action opens broadly into Horizon 3, participation in the life
of God.
Wainwright offers a compellingly direct vision of Christian life and liturgy as
entrance into the life of God. “[T]he classical movement of Christian worship,”
he writes, “has always meant a participatory entrance into Christ’s self-offering
to the Father and correlatively being filled with the divine life.”99 Wainwright
conveys, here, the evocative Vatican II understanding that the church at worship
participates in the ongoing life (and heavenly work) of Christ.
As for the worship of heaven, another dimension of Horizon 3 participation,
the sacramental recovery authors take seriously what the Scriptures say in this
regard. “The heavens ring with worship,” Webber reminds us, as “the entire
creation of God (angels, archangels, apostles, martyrs, and the entire communion
96
Webber, Worship is a Verb, p. 110. White concurs: “Christ’s birth, baptism, death,
resurrection, and so on are all given to us again for our own appropriation through corporate
reenactment of them.” White, Introduction, p. 68. Donald Hustad—a self-pronounced
evangelical—is like-minded. Speaking of “remembrance prayers” for Communion, he writes:
“The problem with most [of them] is that they do not tell the whole story. The chronicle …
[should begin] with creation and God’s purpose for humanity; it [should include] God’s
dealings with people through the centuries and the reasons for the incarnation; it [should
end] with remembrance of the life of Christ, as well as his death and resurrection and the
anticipation of his second coming.” Hustad, Jubilate II, p. 327.
97
In discussing Paul’s treatment of the Supper in 1 Corinthians 10, Webber describes
the “mystical union that is achieved with Christ through communing with him in the bread
and wine” as “an action of God whereby he enters into union with the believer through faith.”
98
White, Introduction, p. 23. White quotes Calvin on Psalm 24:7 (Commentaries
31:248).
99
of saints, material and immaterial) offers unceasing praise to God.”100 With God’s
empowerment, humans are able to participatively “join the heavenly throng in
worship around the throne.”101
The missio Dei dimension of Horizon 3 is also visible here in the first-
wave sacramental recovery literature. As these authors consider worship, they
recognize that what is celebrated in the liturgy must be acted out in life. In
both spheres, life and liturgy, participating in God’s life means participating
in God’s mission. Webber affirms the way in which worship classically comes
to a close: with a “mission-oriented dismissal that sends the people forth into
the world to love and serve the Lord.”102 The implications of gathered worship,
and especially of its eucharistic epicenter, comprise a “horizontal as well as a
vertical dimension.” Webber explains that liturgy inevitably intersects with life,
as “the true worship of God inevitably leads the people of God into positive
social action.”103 Doxology naturally blossoms into mission. For Wainwright,
as well, God’s mission plays out in the interpenetrating spheres of life and
liturgy. In both arenas, God “is among and within us to transform us into his
moral likeness as love, which is the best worship we can give him.” The point
is not lost on Wainwright that “this is to become ‘sharers in the divine nature’”
(2 Peter 1:4).104 Such transformation is precisely, for Wainwright, the missio Dei.
Despite his extreme aversion to spiritual imperialism, the author is not shy to
aver that “Christian liturgy has an evangelistic and missionary part to play in the
transformation of humanity and the world.”105

100
Ibid., p. 157. As for Wainwright, his conviction that humans participate in heavenly
101
worship is grounded in experience, tradition, and theology. Experientially, “[w]orship is

certainly the place in which Christians have had the closest sense of the communion of the
saints.” And, both traditionally and theologically, the eucharist, in particular, “is considered
to be a [present] participation in the worship of heaven.” Wainwright, Doxology, p. 111.
102
Webber, Worship Old and New, p. 14. Such a missionally-minded dismissal is the
proper finale of a worship service for Webber, who makes much of the four classic movements
of worship: Gathering, Word, Table, and Sending.
103
Ibid., p. 194.
104
105
Ibid., p. 7. The “Christian vision,” for Wainwright, involves “assist[ing] in a
transformation of reality which [it regards as] the achievement of God’s purpose.” One
enters into that vision “through self-surrender which becomes reception of the self from the
Other”—and participation in that vision, by those means, “is to participate in God.” Ibid.,
pp. 11–12.
Sacramental Recovery, First Wave—Summary Reflections
Benefiting from the broad ecumenical scholarship surrounding the Vatican II

reforms, the first-wave sacramental recovery authors seek to re-anchor worship in
the fullness of sacrament. If White and Wainwright are not evangelicals, they are
Protestants; they address traditions that have, like evangelicalism, drifted away
from sacramental understandings. All of these authors seek to foster a return to
sacramentality, and they understand sacrament to be integrally bound up to the
centrally-important matter of participation.
As one might have expected, this sacramental recovery literature gives
substantial attention to all three horizons of our schema. It is interesting to
note that, on the one hand, the sacramental focus of these authors is rooted in
a broad “sacramental sense” which embraces participation in a wide range of
symbolic actions—and affirms holistic engagement on a purely human level. On
the other hand, these authors give pride of place to the sacraments, proper. They
understand these to be primary avenues for relational encounter with God—
ordered by the dynamics of anamnetic re-presentation, and centered on the
person and presence of Christ.
One particular theme sounded by Webber especially exemplifies the
integrative power of the sacramental recovery focus. Webber is the author
who most explicitly addresses a classic, patristic idea closely related to re-
presentation: “recapitulation.” Webber’s treatment of recapitulation comes very
close to touching precisely on the three levels of our schema, and suggesting how
liturgical participation embodies all three horizons at once.
For Webber, recapitulation in worship means the “summing up of those
events in history that constitute the source of the church’s salvation.”106 The
anamnetic re-presentation we have been discussing is the liturgical expression
of just such recapitulation. Webber suggests that through the variety of re-
presentational actions in our worship—including sacrament and sermon—a
“recapitulation takes place on three levels: in heaven, on earth, and in our
hearts.”107 While his terminology and framing is somewhat different, Webber’s
three levels may be understood as consonant with those of our tri-level schema.
At a heavenly level, Webber understands recapitulation as playing out through
“the everlasting worship of the Father because of the work of the Son”; this is the
territory of the “heavenly worship” dimension of our Horizon 3, the life of God.
On an earthly level, Webber sees recapitulation as happening through liturgical
re-presentation. Here is the divine-through-human action of our Horizon 2, a
human celebration that reflects heavenly patterns and is empowered by the Holy
106
Webber, Worship Old and New, p. 67. In his later writings, Webber will frame
“recapitulation” more classically than he does here.
107
Ibid.
Spirit. Finally, Webber envisions recapitulation at the level of the human heart
as an internalization and reflection of the Christ event through the believer’s
giving of self back to God. We might understand this as the internal dimension
of the human action of our Horizon 1.108
Without attempting to fussily correlate Webber’s three levels tightly to ours,
it is clear that he envisions re-presentation as organically rooted in recapitulation,
and as operating on all three of our horizons. Participation in worship through
physical symbols—and especially through sacraments—opens in one direction
to the human heart, and in the other direction to the worship of heaven and the
eternal relations between Father, Son and Spirit. Or, in Webber’s words: “The
experience of worship as a recapitulation of the Christ event brings heaven,
earth, and the believer together in a single whole.”109
The other first-wave sacramental recovery authors do not spotlight
recapitulation in the same way that Webber does. But their sacramental
conceptions, in general—and their re-presentational theology, in particular—
interrelate the three horizons as an integrated whole. All in all, this literature
espouses an understanding of worship as especially participative, and a theology
of participation that is considerably developed and nuanced.
Sacramental Recovery—Second Wave
Rank
Book Year
(out of 25)
Marva J. Dawn, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology 1995 4
of Worship for the Turn-of-the-Century Culture (Eerdmans)
James Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace 1996 6
(InterVarsity Press)
If the first-wave sacramental recovery literature represented wide-angle,

sacramental lenses, the second wave amounts to specialized, sacramentally-
tinted ones. These two volumes—published in the mid-1990s, a full decade
after the first wave—were each rated as highly influential in our survey, ranking
at the center of the top 10 books. In comparison with the earlier sacramental
recovery books, these second-wave volumes address more particular issues and
concerns. Torrance’s Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace focuses
108
Or we might even understand it as a God-given grace, the res of the sacrament—and
thus resonant with our Horizon 3.
109
on articulating the trinitarian grammar of worship participation. And Marva

Dawn, in her How to Reach Out Without Dumbing Down, attempts to challenge
the phenomenal popularity of the “seeker church” approach to worship.
The preceding section of this chapter has already explored, via the first-wave
literature, the shared theological core that most of the sacramental recovery
literature holds in common. The following will therefore focus primarily on the
distinctive contributions of each of these two second-wave volumes.
Torrance—Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace (1996)
Torrance’s singular contribution is the way he articulates both God’s pre-eminent

role in worship, and also the divine trinitarian interrelations into which human
worshipers are drawn. Central to Torrance’s theology is human participation in
the life of God (Horizon 3), in connection with which sacramental celebration
(Horizon 2) plays a vital role.
Torrance’s vision turns on the gracious initiative of God the Father, the
response of the redeemed enabled by the Spirit, and the unique high-priestly
mediation of the Son. It is into Christ’s perfect work of worship that the praise
of the church is drawn, and in whom it is perfected. Worship is participative, for
Torrance, through and through—and “[t]he Christian doctrine of the Trinity is
the grammar of this participatory understanding of worship and prayer.”110
For Torrance, human worship is first and foremost participation in the
worship offered to God the Father by the ascended Christ. The author grounds
this conception in the Hebrews 8:2 image of Christ as leitourgos—“‘the leader of
our worship,’ ‘the minister of the real sanctuary which the Lord pitched and not
man.’”111 The call of God is, indeed, to active human response, to living out an
identity as “a royal priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices”112—but that response,
itself, is seen as originating in God’s gracious action. “Whatever else our faith is,
it is a response already made for us and continually being made for us in Christ.”113
The Son is the “one true worshiper who lifts us up to share in his communion
with the Father”; we “share in his worship and vicarious self-offering.”114 For
Torrance, humans worship God by participating in Christ, with Christ, and
through Christ.
If Torrance sees mediation between God and humans as solo Christo—by
Christ alone—that is not to say he devalues physicalized sacrament. Far from
110
Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace, p. 22. (All quotations
from this work used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL
60515, www.ivpress.com.)
111
Ibid., p. 14.
112
Ibid.
113
Ibid., p. 30.
114
Ibid., p. 92.
it; like the first-wave sacramental recovery authors, Torrance has no trouble
reconciling the pre-eminence of Christ with the prominence of sacramental
symbols in worship. Christ, “our great high priest and ascended Lord,” lifts us
“into the very triune life of God” (Horizon 3) precisely by means of “word and
sacrament” (Horizon 2).115 The sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper)
form the nexus “through which we participate in what [Christ] has done for us,
once and for all, and is continuing to do.”116
Here, once again, is the concept of anamnesis, or re-presentation—essential
for Torrance, as for the other sacramental recovery authors, for articulating
sacramental participation.117 Torrance understands this sort of holy remembering
to be empowered by the gracious work of Christ; it is through his Spirit that we
participate in past salvation events, and are joined to the God behind them. The
time-warping of re-presentation plays an integral role in Torrance’s theology. The
ascended Christ is centrally active in our worship, and truly present; but, in the
“now and not yet” of a church between ascension and parousia, Christ’s presence
is experienced largely (and necessarily) through sacrament. So re-presentational,
sacramental worship, empowered by the “ministry of the Holy Spirit,” provides
a balanced means of mediating, all at once, both Christ’s absence and also his
presence.
Explicitly interwoven with the second-horizon activity Torrance envisions
is his third-horizon conception that Christ “lifts us up out of ourselves to
participate in the very life and communion of the Godhead.”118 This entrée into
the perichoresis of trinitarian interrelations is no mere fringe benefit of salvation;
it sits, rather, at its very core—as the “prime purpose of the incarnation.”119 The
author sees participation not only as a means, but an end.
Participation in God’s life connects organically, for Torrance, with
participation in God’s mission. He understands the missio Dei as seamlessly
bound up with worship, and with the grace-enabled participation of humans
in the divine life. Participation in worship leads to hearing “God’s call to us, in
our day, to participate through the Spirit in Christ’s communion with the Father
and his mission from the Father to the world.” So liturgical participation leads to
115
Ibid., p. 17.
116
Ibid., p. 74.
117
In discussing memory (anamnesis), Torrance relays the idea that “[in] cultic
remembrance … the past is rendered present; thus it is re-presentation of the past so that it
lives again in the present time.” Ibid., p. 85; Torrance is quoting J.K.S. Reid, Church Service
Society Annual (May 1960), p. 10.
118
Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace, p. 22. If we wondered
initially about such a conception being appropriate to our material, Torrance reassures us:
“This view is both catholic and evangelical.”
119
Ibid., p. 32. For Torrance’s brief discussion of the various dimensions of perichoretic
relations, see p. 36 of his book.
participation in the missio Dei, which is itself a sort of participation—in “other-

centered communion and service in the kingdom of God.”120
Dawn—Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down (1995)
Dawn’s Reaching Out is an emphatic attempt to reclaim liturgical ground she

sees as lost to a pragmatic, “dumbed down” approach to worship. In response
to the seeker church movement (or rather, to mainline churches compelled by
that popular ministry model), Dawn sets out a prodigious theological and social
critique.121 She takes exception to worship services designed with the primary
goal of maximizing “relevance” and minimizing countercultural dissonance.
Her argument is not against reaching out with culturally-friendly evangelism,
but rather against jettisoning what she takes to be an all-important gift of God
to the church: authentic worship.
The critique Dawn has produced is far from minimalist; her expansive book
is full of sophisticated discussions concerning various intersections of culture,
theology, and praxis with worship. But the author’s central contributions—
aside from her challenge to the seeker church movement—are perhaps two
interrelated key themes: the conviction that God is both subject and object of
worship, and a respect for the deeply formative power of corporate worship.
It is worth noting, to begin with, that Dawn joins the other sacramental
recovery authors in understanding worship as intrinsically participative.
“Worship requires,” she writes, “the creativity and active participation of
everyone in the community.”122 One of her most passionate objections to the
seeker church movement is its intentional backing off from congregational
participation—particularly in regard to singing. “How dare we invite people
not to sing?” she asks. “The Church into which worship enfolds believers is
a community of people who have, throughout the ages, participated.”123 For
Dawn, both Scripture and tradition attest to the same, axiomatic truth: Worship
is participative, and emphatically so.
Dawn asserts that God is not only the “object,” but also the “subject” of
worship. In addition to receiving worship (as its object), God is present and
active (as subject) in the assembly. In a sense, God does the work of worship. God
provides to worshipers that which they offer back to God; the “gifts of worship
flow from God the subject and return to God as the object of our reverence.”124
(In this, Dawn resonates strongly with the central thesis of Torrance’s book.)
120
Ibid., p. 41.
121
The seeker church approach and its literature will be treated in Chapter 7.
122
Marva J. Dawn, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for the
Turn-of-the-Century Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 161.
123
Ibid., p. 255.
124
Ibid., p. 80.
And the gifts God gives are not wholly separate from the Giver; whatever else
corporate worship may be, for Dawn, it is “the means by which God gives God’s
self.” In Dawn’s theology, worship is God-centered, start to finish.
For Dawn, God’s role as the primary actor in worship does not disempower
human worshipers, nor relieve them of creative responsibility. On the contrary,
in light of God’s centrality, Dawn sees as proper a human response of aggressively
intentional planning and care. Liturgy requires attention because its purpose is
“to carry God’s presence and the faith of the community.”125 Dawn envisions a
divine/human partnership, in which the planners of worship are responsible to
measure their work against the benchmark of “whether the worship elements
are vehicles for God’s self-giving presence in the community.”126 God’s agenda is
one of provision and self-giving; humans may participatively partner with God’s
action, or they may fail to be in step with what God desires to do.
Seeing God as present and active “subject” in worship, Dawn naturally
expects something significant to happen: “When God comes to us in all the
fullness of who God is, our character will be transformed.” But for this character
transformation to take place unimpeded, our “worship practices [must] accord
God the proper place and scope.”127 Such attentiveness to right worship honors
not only God, but also the process of formation inherent in worship.
Dawn especially stresses this deeply formative power of corporate worship.
She understands that power to be, on the one hand, wholly God’s. She also
recognizes that the practices of the gathered community, especially in connection
with worship, are powerfully formative in and of themselves. The structures and
elements of worship “subtly influence the kind of people we are becoming.”128
Insofar as God is subject, liturgical practices may either make space for or
impede God’s work. Insofar as God is the object of worship, liturgical practices
may either shape or misshape human spirituality with respect to God.
In Dawn’s conception of corporate worship, the gathered community is not
merely the locus, but also an agent, of formation. “Who you are as an individual
believer,” she writes, “depends greatly upon the character of the community of
believers in which you are nurtured.”129 Such community “character” is, on the
one hand, a socio-ethical reality—formative through “every aspect of the time
we spend together in the worshiping Christian community.”130 On the other
hand, the community’s character is spiritual—formative by virtue of the way in
which it “incarnate[s] God’s presence.”131
125
Ibid., p. 264.
126
Ibid., p. 247.
127
Ibid., p. 105.
128
Ibid., p. 119.
129
Ibid., p. 105.
130
Ibid., p. 107.
131
Ibid., p. 105.
The end of liturgical formation, for Dawn, is not only personal growth;
it is also other-directed outreach. In worship, as “God’s passion for justice is
proclaimed, God’s people are nurtured in the same character.” God’s “global
care is fully displayed” in formative liturgical practice, that worshipers might be
empowered to have “influence on the public sphere.”132 In other words, worship
is formative for the missio Dei.
In Reaching Out, Dawn counters a drift toward pragmatic approaches to
worship by setting out a classically sacramental vision. She emphasizes the
centrality of divine-through-human action in worship, and cautions that
human planning must understand and make room for the way God works in
worship. Because God is active in it, worship is transformative. All the details
of community life and practice—especially in regard to liturgy—are to be
treated intentionally, with respect for their formational power. The process
of formation through worship involves a complex set of interactions between
God, the individual, and the community. And formation—even God’s work of
transformation—may be either facilitated or obstructed by liturgical forms.
Sacramental Recovery—Third Wave
Rank
Book Year
(out of 25)
Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology: The Church as Worshiping 2006 15
Community (IVP Academic)
Leonard J. Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper: 2004 19
Recovering the Sacraments for Evangelical Worship (InterVarsity Press)
Allen P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship From the 2006 20
Garden to the New Creation (Kregel Publications)
Following the second-wave sacramental recovery literature, another decade

elapsed before the third-wave volumes emerged. If the lenses of the first and
second waves might be described as, respectively, wide-angle and specialized,
this third wave might be seen as prescriptive. These books intend to evangelize
evangelicals, to woo them to an appreciative embrace of sacramental worship.
While these third-wave books share what is, in a sense, a common mission,
each still remains distinct in scope and approach. Vander Zee’s Christ, Baptism,
and the Lord’s Supper centers on the sacraments and their meaning, and
promotes them to an evangelical readership in terms that are “thoroughly
132
Ibid., p. 294.
biblical, Reformed and evangelical.”133 Chan’s Liturgical Theology is, as its title
implies, broader in conception; the author attempts to set forth for evangelicals
a high-ecclesiology, sacramental theology of worship that embraces the broad
catholic tradition of the church.134 And Ross’s volume intends to guide worship
renewalists by providing them with a biblical theology of worship. Like David
Peterson’s Engaging With God, Ross’s volume presents principles of worship in
the course of walking through the Old and New Testaments.
Vander Zee—Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper (2004)
Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper was germinated by Vander Zee’s encounter
with Calvin’s Institutes. If the sacramental recovery Vander Zee advocates is
a return to the large, catholic tradition of the church—it is also a return to
seminal Reformed theology. Deeply influenced by Calvin, Vander Zee presents
the sacraments not as traditional obligations, but rather as gifts brimming with
“grace and gratitude.”135
If Vander Zee’s volume makes a unique contribution, it is the winsome, irenic,
and allusive way in which it campaigns for sacramental recovery. He builds a case
for a broad kind of sacramentality, and then spreads out on that foundation a
rich, catholic vision of sacrament in gospel-centered, evangelical terms.
Like Webber and White before him, Vander Zee begins with sacramentality.
He takes seriously the notion of Donald Baillie that “nothing can be ‘in the
special sense a sacrament unless everything were in a basic and general sense
sacramental.’”136 So Vander Zee works hard to show the sacramental potential
of earthly matter. He demonstrates the symbolic potential of the common
things around us, the way in which “things—and the smells, sounds and sights
attached to them—have the ability to speak to us in very intimate and powerful
ways.”137 An important starting point, for Vander Zee, is this: symbolism works
powerfully at a purely human level.138 But symbol also works on a spiritual level;
133
Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, p. 11. (All quotations from this
work used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515,
www.ivpress.com.)
134
Although both books are issued by the same publisher, InterVarsity Press, the more
academic intent of Chan’s work is confirmed by its being assigned the “IVP Academic”
imprint.
135
Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, p. 9. Here Vander Zee borrows a
phrase from Brian Gerrish.
136
Ibid., p. 17.
137
Ibid., p. 14.
138
“There is a powerful open channel of communication between what we see, taste,
touch and smell, and our feelings, our imagination, our mind and our heart.” Ibid., p. 14.
God has created reality in such a way that, “[a]s God’s creation, the world may
offer a sacramental window into transcendent reality.”139
Vander Zee acknowledges how slow evangelicals have been to look through
that “sacramental window.” He attributes their resistance to “deist rationalism
and gnostic dualism.”140 “As God’s creation,” he writes, “the world may offer a
sacramental window into transcendent reality, but sinful humans cannot or will
not open their eyes. A sacramental world lies open before us, blazing with God’s
beauty, truth and power; but we walk through it blindly.”141 Here, couched in
a lament, is Vander Zee’s heartfelt contribution: a pastoral invitation to see the
sacramental possibilities of a sacramental world.
And the sacramental window through which Vander Zee most desires us to
look is, of course, sacrament itself. The two ordinances (or “gospel sacraments”)
are gifts too lavish to be ignored: “The blessing of sacramental worship is the
thrill and comfort of knowing that God meets us where we are … What my
mind doubts, my mouth tastes as the Lord’s goodness. When my faith falters, my
fingers can touch the truth.”142 The gift of the sacraments is that they not only
deliver divine realities; they meet humans in deeply human ways.
Vander Zee neatly locates evangelicalism’s internal disagreements regarding
divine-through-human action in worship. He speaks of a “great divide” in
Protestant understandings of sacrament. The primary question delineating
the fault line is “whether in the sacraments it is human beings who are doing
something by their understanding and action, or it is God who is doing
something by his gift and promise.” Or, even more simply—sacraments are seen
as either “means of expressing faith to God” or, rather, “a means of receiving grace
from God.”143 With his “great divide,” Vander Zee provides a useful frame for
understanding a pervasive theological dichotomy.
For Vander Zee, sacramental action does something more than merely
communicate information. Much like Marva Dawn, he is emphatic that,
since God is the one acting in the sacraments, something must really happen
when they are celebrated. In other words, God not only expresses Godself and
communicates God’s presence through sacramental signs—but also works
through them creatively and effectually. The idea is not innovative, Vander Zee
points out; rather, it is classically orthodox.
God’s action in the sacraments is, for Vander Zee (as for all the sacramental
recovery authors), distinctly trinitarian. Christ is the quintessential sacrament,
and the gospel sacraments have their meaning and power in him. “Christ is the
139
Ibid., p. 18.
140
Ibid., p. 15.
141
Ibid., p. 18
142
Ibid., p. 25.
143
Ibid., p. 30. Of course, another option would be a blend of the two perspectives.
meeting place,” writes Vander Zee, “of God and humanity, spirit and matter,
invisible and visible.”144 Vander Zee here articulates what is perhaps the ultimate
reality behind the “et” in the formulation sacramentum et res: Jesus, himself.
Jesus is at the center of baptism—the living, present Christ who baptizes, and
into whom participants are baptized.145 And he is also at the center of the Lord’s
Supper, through which participants are united with him—and welcomed in, by
the power of the Spirit, to “participate in the life and worship of our ascended
Lord.”146 Participants in the sacraments are presented with nothing less than
“the very presence and power of Christ through the Holy Spirit.”147
A primary means of encounter with the Christ of the sacraments is, for Vander
Zee, the dynamic of re-presentation. And for him, the sort of remembering
implied in anamnesis is specifically a “remembrance by participation.”148 In that
participative, re-presentational remembering, worshipers are, themselves, “re-
membered.” As participants do something, something is done to them. “We are
being put back together,” writes Vander Zee, “reunited through Jesus with our
Father in heaven, and united with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.”149
While re-presentation is an idea he shares with the other sacramental recovery
authors, Vander Zee sounds a distinctive note. Like Webber, he sets out (without
naming it outright) a classic theology of recapitulation. But while Webber
stresses the way in which salvation history is liturgically recapitulated in worship,
Vander Zee emphasizes the more classically central thesis of recapitulation.150 In
his incarnation, Christ recapitulated the human story and lived it out in perfect,
sinless fashion—and by virtue of Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, and
sending of the Spirit, humans have access to restored communion with the Father.
Again, the word “recapitulation” appears nowhere in Vander Zee’s volume; but
the idea is woven through its pages. “In Christ’s incarnation,” he writes, “God
now fully participates in the life of creation, and his creatures are represented
before his throne with the ascended Lord.”151 And if God participates in the life
of creation, humans may now participate in the life of God:
In him a whole new creation is formed, a new humanity is inaugurated in which

we are now sons and daughters of God, partakers of the divine nature, and
144
Ibid., p. 45.
145
Ibid., pp. 100, 110.
146
Ibid., p. 198.
147
Ibid., p. 34.
148
Ibid., p. 149.
149
Ibid., p. 212.
150
Webber, Worship Old and New, pp. 67–8.
151
Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, p. 19.
citizens of heaven. Christ is the prototype of this new humanity in which all his
people share.152
How do God’s people share in Christ’s new humanity? They do so by faith—but

also more tangibly through re-presentational participation in the sacraments.
In baptism, “we are united with Jesus Christ in his new humanity.”153 In the
Lord’s Supper, we are fed “with Christ, participating in his perfect human life,
death, resurrection and ascension in the bread and the wine.”154 United with
Christ’s new humanity in this way, through sacramental participation, we are
incorporated into a new relationship with God through which Christ “will
finally make us ‘participants of the divine nature’ (1 Peter 1:4).”155 If Vander Zee
sees recapitulation as linking, on one side, with earthly re-presentation, he sees
it, on the other side, as “opening up … the perichoretic embrace of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit to include us in that trinitarian fellowship.”156
Vander Zee’s Horizon 3 vision is a particularly rich one; we can see, here,
that it emerges organically from Horizon 2. Participants in the Lord’s Supper
participate in the “same perichoretic dynamic” at play between the members of
the triune God—as “the Holy Spirit who binds the Father and the Son in love
and purpose, also binds us to Christ.” Worshipers are connected, through the
Spirit, with the perichoretic relations of the triune God, with “the most intimate
relations of the Holy Trinity”—“their intimate union, their dance of love and
salvation.”157
Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper is unique in the approach it takes as
Vander Zee attempts to reconnect evangelicals with sacramental understanding
and practice. In making his appeal, the author quotes an evocative and eclectic
range of material—but he leans especially on the writings of Calvin. Such
a strategy is probably the most effective for a volume intended to convince
evangelical (and particularly Reformed) readers. Beginning with sacramentality
and moving on to the two “gospel sacraments” and their celebration, Vander Zee
leverages Scripture, poetry and theology to open up for his readers a sacramental
vision that bridges the earthly and the heavenly.
152
Ibid., p. 46.
153
Ibid., p. 110.
154
Ibid., p. 51.
155
Ibid., p. 110.
156
Ibid., p. 201. One might see a perichoretic dynamic in the mutuality of participation
suggested by recapitulation: humans participate in Christ by virtue of Christ’s participation
in humanity.
157
Ibid.
Chan—Liturgical Theology (2006)
Simon Chan’s distinctive contribution to the sacramental recovery literature is

rooted in his call to a high(er) ecclesiology. For him, the church is not a mere
means to some end outside of itself; rather, it has a significant, substantial identity
rooted in Christ. He sees participation in worship as deeply enmeshed with that
identity and the mission that flows from it. The various avenues and levels of
participation Chan envisions all unfold from his extremely high theology of the
church.
One impetus for Chan’s book is presumably a desire to respond to
contemporary worship renewal, which often places a premium on being
attractively “relevant.” Much like Dawn, Chan argues that the church must
resist the cultural pull toward pragmatism; it must be less concerned with being
relevant, and more concerned with being the unique, countercultural entity
it was created to be. The power of the church and its worship lie, for Chan,
precisely in the church’s distinctive identity.
The matter of ecclesial identity is central for Chan, and foundational to his
liturgical theology. He begins with that identity, seeking to show that what
evangelicals sorely need “is an adequate ecclesiology.”158 Such an ecclesiology
would not regard the church as “instrumental” (a means to some other end), but
rather as “ontological” (a God-ordained end in and of itself ).159 The church not
only points, through its life and worship, to Christ; its very identity is bound up
with Christ. By virtue of its being the “body of Christ,” the church is not merely
a witness to Christ, but an actual “extension of Christ, the way, the truth and the
life, on earth.”160 This “ontological reality” sits beneath Chan’s understanding of
the church’s identity, its worship, and the nature of participation.
This central theme of Chan’s—the need for an ontological ecclesiology—
gives rise to another theme: the need for evangelicals to re-embrace the larger
tradition of the church. Chan reasons that, “if the church is the living body
of Christ ontologically linked to the Head, then tradition is the life of the
‘embodied Christ’ through time.”161 For him, an ontological ecclesiology calls
evangelicals to a more sympathetic approach to church tradition.
For Chan, reconnecting with the “Great Tradition” of the church means
dialoguing seriously not only with its verbalized theology, but also its practiced
liturgy. The renewing of evangelical worship depends upon “an adequate
knowledge of appropriate liturgical practices.”162 If Webber calls worship
Chan, Liturgical Theology, p. 10.
158
Ibid., p. 21.
159
160
Ibid., p. 28. While Chan makes much of the church’s solid ontological rooting in
Christ, he makes sure to assert its distinction from the unique, transcendent person of Christ.
161
Ibid., p. 31.
162
Ibid., p. 16.
“the gospel in motion,” Chan might additionally call worship “the church in
motion.” He understands worship to be organically expressive and formative
of the church’s very identity. He contends, therefore, that “if the church is
to be definitively formed by its corporate worship, it must discover what are
the normative components or structure through which worship is concretely
expressed.”163
For Chan, these “normative components” emerge from both Scripture and
tradition, and they define the type of worship in which the church is called to
participate. Those norms are critically important, since they shape for the church
both the expression and the realization of its identity. At the core of normative
worship Chan sees “the basic ordo”—a persistent, “deep, abiding structure
which expresses the faith of the church.”164 The ordo is attested to by the Great
Tradition, with a force and authority Chan likens to “the apostolic witness.”
Central to this ordo is the two-step rhythm of Word and sacrament.165
Chan (again like Marva Dawn) takes especially seriously the manner in which
liturgical participation is formative. The church at worship does not merely
reflect its identity—rather, it becomes more fully formed into that identity. It
is through rightly-conceived liturgical participation that “we will be spiritually
formed into the gospel-shaped community.”166 Chan sees liturgy less as a means
of expression, and more as a means of disciplined and effectual formation.167
Chan’s ecclesiological conception, his understanding of the church’s
ontological connection with Christ, leads him to see worship as full of divine-
through-human action. “The worship of the church is, properly speaking,” he
writes, “the action of the triune God in the church.”168 The liturgy is a “synergy”;
it is “divine action working through human action.”169
Not every worship-related act, of course, constitutes divine-through-human
action simply by virtue of occurring within a liturgical context. An act of
worship is, for Chan, only “true to the degree that it corresponds to the work of
163
Ibid., p. 15.
164
Ibid., p. 48.
165
Chan associates Word with “reflection” and sacrament with “participation,” and
contends that both are necessary for “participating fully” in the church’s life. Ibid., p. 66.
166
Ibid., p. 128.
167
“The purpose of the liturgy is not,” for Chan, “to express our thoughts and feelings
but to develop them.” It is here that Chan parts company, to some degree, with the first-
wave sacramental recovery authors. While Webber and White would affirm the importantly
formative power of ordo-centered liturgy, they also affirm, as we have seen, the humanly
expressive dimensions of worship.
168
Ibid., p. 48.
169
Ibid., p. 150.
the triune God and continues and extends the work of the triune God.”170 This
reinforces, for Chan, the need for “liturgical norms.”
Chan’s ontological ecclesiology leads him to a unique approach to Horizon
3, participation in the life of God. Perhaps Chan’s fellow sacramental recovery
authors would agree with him that, “[t]heologically, we could say that the liturgy
and Christian living are ontologically one.” But those other authors might not
go quite so far as Chan when he asserts that the “liturgy itself is the primary
expression of Christian living, and Christian living is actualized primarily in the
liturgy.”171 For Chan, worship-as-life is not merely synergistically linked with
liturgy; it is subsumed by it. The church, filled with the ontological heft of Christ,
himself, is always central for Chan. “Christ’s high-priestly work in heaven finds
its continual fulfillment in the life and worship of his body on earth”—and the
hub of that “fulfillment” is the church at worship.172
Chan’s high ecclesiology also shapes his understanding of the relationship
between the church, its worship, and the missio Dei. The church is not
instrumental, for Chan—it is not merely a means for the accomplishment of
God’s mission. Rather, the church is, to a large degree, an end in itself—the telos
of the missio Dei. “The goal of creation is,” writes Chan, “to become church.”173
The church’s participation in the missio Dei is not so much a matter of doing
as a matter of being—or more specifically, embodying: “The essential nature
of mission is for the church to be the body of Christ.”174 And if the church is
more than instrumental in regard to the missio Dei, so is the church’s worship.
An organic part of the church’s essence and identity, worship is an end and
not a means. “Mission does not seek to turn sinners into saved individuals,”
writes Chan; “it seeks, rather, to turn disparate individuals into a worshiping
community.”175 Both the church and its worship are, for Chan, more than
instruments to accomplish the missio Dei—they are its very destination.
170
Ibid., p. 61.
171
Ibid., p. 148.
172
Ibid., p. 54. So—that in which humans participate, as the church worships, is not
something separate from the worship of heaven. Chan quotes Alexander Schmemann: “[T]his
is not an ‘other’ world, different from the one God has created and given to us. It is our same
world, already perfected in Christ, but not yet in us.” Ibid., p. 145; Chan is quoting Alexander
Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1982), p. 42. On the one hand, worshipers participate in heavenly worship
not analogically, but ontologically (“our same world”); on the other hand, that participation
is, if real, still through a glass darkly (“already perfected in Christ, but not yet in us”). Like
Wainwright, Chan is sensitive to the now-and-not-yet of the present moment between
Pentecost and parousia.
173
174
Ibid., p. 39.
175
Ibid., p. 45.
In Liturgical Theology, Chan treats worship participation in light of an

especially high ecclesiology. While he understands participation to take place
in concrete and tangible ways, and even devotes an entire chapter to such “active
participation”—he nevertheless casts a vision of participation as ultimately less
a matter of doing than of being. The church at worship participates not only
through Christ, but also in Christ—and so, in ontological union with God. The
church and its worship are no mere instrumental means—they are, in Christ, the
telos to which God calls all creation.
Ross—Recalling the Hope of Glory (2006)
What Allen Ross uniquely contributes to the sacramental recovery literature

might well be thought of as a sense of timing. Not only is the author’s approach
(biblical theology) intrinsically chronological; his most distinctive insights are
time-related.
With this volume, Ross takes essentially the same approach as Peterson did
with Engaging with God—an expositional journey through the Bible, beginning
to end. He seeks to help (among others) those involved in the present-day, praise-
and-worship “renewal movement” by providing them with a comprehensive
biblical theology. Ross attempts to forge a theology of worship that spans
“from the beginning of creation to the end of the age” and “traces the unfolding
revelation of God’s design for communion with his people.”176
Since Ross is less rigorously systematic in his approach than Peterson,
extracting Ross’s theology often involves some piecing-together. But a number
of theological themes and convictions do emerge as recurrent motifs, and these
mark the distinctive shape of Ross’s contribution.
Like all the sacramental recovery authors, Ross clearly places a high value on
active congregational participation in worship—and finds that Scripture does
the same. Throughout both Old and New Testaments, he concludes that “God’s
people were never to be ‘spectators,’ but always, rather, ‘a priestly community.’”177
Beyond that, a few central themes recur throughout Ross’s book. One is the now
and not yet liminality that characterizes earthly human relations with God. This
sense of being in-between times strongly shapes Ross’s understanding of symbol
and sacramental mediation. Another prominent thread woven into Ross’s
theology is an understanding of worship as covenant renewal. His “definition”
of worship begins, “True worship is the celebration of being in covenant
fellowship with the sovereign and holy triune God”; the word “covenant” occurs
three additional times throughout the (lengthy) definition, referencing the
176
Allen P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship From the Garden to the
New Creation (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2006), pp. 62, 38, 62.
177
Ibid., p. 297.
chronological contexts of past, present, and future.178 Clearly worship is, for
Ross (as for David Peterson) a celebration of covenant, and also the occasion of
its renewal.
While affirming the all-of-life reverberations of worship, Ross does not
hesitate (as do the all of life authors) to define worship as that which happens
in a gathered, liturgical setting. Worship, anchored in covenantal renewal,
occurs within a corporate “celebration” that involves “ritual acts” and “memorial
reenactment.” Such covenant renewal is, for Ross, participative liturgical
affirmation of participative covenantal relationship. And the covenantal
relationships humans renew in worship are not only with God, but also with
fellow participants. “[E]ach worship service becomes a covenant renewal service
in which we maintain our relationship with the Lord and with each other.”179
Worship renews covenantal relationships, both vertical and horizontal.
When it comes to sacrament, Ross’s understanding is shaped by the now-
and-not-yet cast of his theology. He finds throughout Scripture a gracious God
who desires to engage humanity—but he also recognizes that earthly humans
living between Eden and the New Jerusalem are only able to experience that
engagement via mediatory means. “When immediate access to God came to
an end because of sin,” he writes, “God provided a way for his people to enjoy
mediated access to him.”180 Worshipers in the here-and-now look forward to
“direct, unmarred communion between God and his people,” and even celebrate
that reality in their worship—knowing that the fullness of that experience has
yet to be actualized. For the present, until the realization of that eschatological
hope, God’s people “commune with God by image and symbol,” as opposed to
“in reality.”181
So Ross regards sacramental worship as, on the one hand, “mediated
access”—a means of “commun[ing] with God.” On the other hand, he seems
to regard the primary action in sacramental worship to be human, rather than
divine; he refers to the ordinances as “signs [that] witness to the faith of the
Ibid., pp. 67–8. The “covenant” references in Ross’s definition include human
178
acceptance of “covenant responsibilities” (recommitting in the present), “memorial

reenactment of entering into covenant” (rehearsing the past), and “confident anticipation of
the fulfillment of the covenant promises in glory” (looking forward to the future).
179
Ibid., p. 508.
180
Ibid., p. 82.
181
Ibid., p. 496. Ross’s understanding of symbol (which he does not take the time to
fully articulate) appears to strike an interesting balance. He affirms the role of mediated,
symbolic encounter, on the one hand, yet describes such encounter, on the other hand, as
somehow less than “real.” Some theologians, by way of contrast, subscribe to the Patristic
understanding that sees symbols as participating in the very reality they represent. See Paul
Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, Existence and the Christ (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1975), p. 9.
worshippers.”182 Ross portrays baptism as human action, in which believers

“proclaim,” “declare,” and “commit.”183 In other words, while God may be the
initiator and enabler of baptism, it is human doing that Ross has in view during
its observance.
The Supper, as Ross describes it, also sounds like mostly human action. He
takes the “proper understanding of the meal” to be rooted in the early church’s
word for it, εὐχαριστέω (eucharisteō, “to give thanks”). The essence of the Lord’s
Supper is that “the participants receive the bread and the wine with thanksgiving
for what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for them.”184 Viewed this way, the divine
action associated with the Supper is relegated to the past; what transpires in the
present is a kind of commemoration that sounds like human action, alone.
It would be wrong to think of Ross as marginalizing the Supper. On the
contrary, he regards it as “the central act of Christian worship.”185 It would also
be wrong, despite Ross’s focus on human action, to conclude that he envisions
the Supper as barren of God’s presence and action. Clues abound throughout
Ross’s volume that God is indeed at work in the liturgy. Speaking about worship
in general, the author acknowledges that, despite our present-day inability to
directly perceive God’s glory, we do have “spiritual perceptions of God’s mystical
presence.” God “frequently … reveals his presence in miraculous ways.”186 Ross
points toward divine-through-human action in moments like these; he tips his
hand in such a way that vague but compelling flashes of God’s activity glint
between the lines of Ross’s theology.
Additionally, God’s action is implied (if not emphasized) in Ross’s treatment
of re-presentation. Anamnesis plays a central role for Ross, who sees the all-
important process of covenant renewal as acted out through participative re-
presentation.187 And Ross makes clear that the encounter experienced through
such re-enactment is not with a Christ who is absent, but rather very present. He
quotes the nineteenth-century theologian Marcus Dods:
In the sacrament there is not a mere representation of Christ or a bare

commemoration of events in which we are interested; but there is also an actual,
present communion between Christ and the soul.188
182
Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory, p. 301.
183
Ibid., p. 420.
184
Ibid., p. 396.
185
Ibid., p. 468.
186
Ibid., p. 424.
187
Drawing on biblical material, accounts of the early church, and also some of the
twentieth-century scholarship on anamnesis, Ross arrives at a fairly classic statement of
anamnetic re-presentation, an idea he finds “quite biblical.” Ibid., p. 462.
188
Ibid., p. 399; quoting Marcus Dods, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (New York:
A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1889).
It almost appears as if Ross is at odds with himself. His theology of worship

is rooted in celebration of covenant renewal that tends toward memorialism,
centered on a very human sort of remembering and committing. At the same
time, Ross embraces an idea of Christ as present (and presumably active)—a
vision that seems to infiltrate rather than comprise his theological framework.
Ross’s perspective on Horizon 3, participation in the life of God, is also
profoundly now and not yet. “The greatest hope for us in glory is complete
communion with the living Lord.”189 Clearly the “hope of glory” so central to
this work is the hope for, precisely, participation in the life of God. For Ross,
such hope is a core, overarching theme of Scripture. Participation in the life of
God was once lost, has now been somewhat recovered, and remains to be fully
realized only in the eschaton.
Similarly, as Ross considers human participation in the worship of heaven, he
envisions it to be a future reality only partly accessible in the present.190 While
the Revelation narrative portrays the presence of God unfettered among his
people, access to God in the sin-encumbered now and not yet is still “veiled” and
“restricted.”191
Ross apparently sees earthly fellowship with God in much the same
way—a reality expected fully in the future but experienced only partially in
the brokenness of the here-and-now. Although believers have yearned “down
through the ages … to be with their Lord in perfect communion,” their lives and
liturgies remain filled with “the hope”—rather than the consummation—of that
reality.
Finally, Ross’s distinctive emphases shape his approach to the missio Dei. He
understands worshipers to be reminded, through participative re-presentation,
of their covenant obligations to God and to others. An important dimension of
these covenant obligations is missional—and includes “providing hope to the
world, body and soul, by meeting the needs of the oppressed and suffering in
the world.”192 Is such a covenant obligation simply an assignment, or is it God’s
own mission? Ross implies it is the missio Dei in his exploration of covenant
renewal in the Old Testament, in which worshipers were similarly reminded of
missional covenant duties—which included “ensur[ing] righteousness, justice,
mercy, and love.” Significantly, Ross concludes that “[s]uch worship honors
God because it seeks to extend … to the world at large” not only God’s values—
but “the blessings of his presence among his people.”193 The mission called for
189
Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory, p. 492.
190
Ibid., p. 476.
191
Ibid., p. 189.
192
Ibid., p. 400.
193
Ibid., p. 340.
by covenant is not impersonal, the conveying of values alone, but personal—

conveying the presence of God. It is the missio Dei.
In Recalling the Hope of Glory, Ross seeks to locate present-day worship
in the broadest possible chronology, primarily by examining biblical texts
covering the entire range of the biblical narrative. His chief contribution may
lie less in a successfully comprehensive and integrated theology, and more in
his chronologically-sensitive insights. Furthermore, Ross points to the theme
of covenant as being centrally important. The essence of worship is, for him,
celebration of and commitment to covenant. Christians, celebrating the new
covenant, encounter its past, present, and future dimensions through the
anamnesis of sacramental re-presentation. For Ross, humanity’s present-day now
and not yet is perfectly embodied in sacrament; its symbols offer an encounter
that is both real and mediated, all at the same time, holding in balance Christ’s
absence with his presence.
Ross belongs here with the other sacramental recovery authors by virtue of
his commitment to sacramental celebration. He is atypical, however, in the way
he portrays the balance of human and divine action in worship. He seems to cast
baptism and the Lord’s Supper (and all of worship, for that matter) as primarily
human action. The action of God in worship seems somewhat elusive. Perhaps
the not yet strand of Ross’s theology leads him to emphasize the restrictedness
of present-day human encounter with God. At the same time, an unrestrainable
sense of the now filters through Ross’s writing, hinting that God is indeed present
and active in human worship.
Sacramental Recovery—Final Reflections
In many ways, the sacramental recovery literature is surprising. It is striking,

first of all, for its sheer volume: more than half of our pool authors, primarily
evangelicals, turn out to be sacramentally minded. Furthermore, it is notable that
the earliest, first wave of this literature presents such a sophisticated sacramental
theology of worship. In the early 1980s, such theology was remarkably
progressive in evangelical circles.
It becomes clear in reading these sacramental recovery authors that
participation is tremendously important for them. Robert Webber effectively
uprooted his scholarly career, refocusing it on the field of worship studies—and
at the center of that midlife course correction was his epiphany that worship
is deeply and essentially participative.194 And all of the sacramental recovery
writers regard participation as central not only to worship, but also to the entire
spectrum of life with God.
194
Webber, Worship is a Verb, pp. 2–3.
A rich theology of mediation is at the heart of this sacramental recovery

literature. These authors share the conviction that, in the here-and-now of
earthly life, authentic encounter with God must be mediated. While all
Christians acknowledge the role that Christ plays as mediator between God and
humans, this belief does not always, Torrance points out, inform the theology
and practice of worship—which often remains “functionally unitarian.”
Torrance articulates a trinitarian grammar of worship, framing participation in
liturgy as participation in the triune God—participation, by the Spirit, in the
perfect worship offered by the Son to the Father, and thereby in the perichoretic
interrelations of the Trinity.
Mediation is not only a lofty reality for the sacramental recovery authors—it
also has its down-to-earth dimensions. Most Christians acknowledge the need
for at least a few material symbols (water and bread and wine) in worship; the
sacramental recovery authors are unstinting in their embrace of such palpable
elements of mediation. They argue that physical sacramental symbols are a
gracious gift from God; without tangible mediation, humans in the now and not
yet cannot holistically encounter the God of glory.
This literature sets sacrament squarely on the broader foundation of
sacramentality. If sacramental symbols cater, as John Calvin suggested, to human
weakness—that is not to frame them as necessary evils.195 Symbol and sacrament
are wholesome, and are consonant with the fabric of God’s good creation. These
authors, especially Vander Zee and White, work hard to remind their readers
that physical creation is capable of “declaring the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).
This sense of sacramentality informs the conviction of the sacramental
recovery writers that worship is the “gospel in motion.” Unlike “Protestant
gnostics” who separate the spiritual from the physical, the sacramental recovery
authors regard worship as stunted if it is not tangibly embodied.196 Christian
worship is to be not merely thought about, but also enacted. It is not a mystical
sort of “pure adoration”—but is rather voiced and enacted thanksgiving for
God’s historical, mighty deeds of salvation.197
The celebration of God’s mighty deeds is held aloft, for these sacramental
recovery authors, by the twin pillars of Word and Table. If these writers devote
much of their attention to the Table (and the broader subject of sacrament), it is
not to de-emphasize Word, but rather to reinforce an appreciation for sacrament
that evangelicals so often lack. This literature stresses the indispensability of
For the idea of God’s condescension to human weakness through the sacraments,
195
see Calvin’s Institutes 4.14.1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. Henry
Beveridge (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), p. 843.
196
Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, p. 11. Vander Zee borrows the
phrase from Philip Lee, Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York: Oxford University Press,
1987).
197
sacrament, which it presents as being not only evocatively symbolic, but also
powerfully effectual—a channel of God’s very real self-giving.
While these sacramental recovery authors are predictably (and adamantly)
committed to baptism and the Lord’s Supper, they do not envision God’s action
as tightly circumscribed by these classic sacraments. Their broad sacramentality
implies, for these writers, a wide range of sacramental expressions in gathered
worship. For one thing, they envision a diverse palette of embodied actions,
incorporating the variety and richness of the arts. Music is afforded, especially
in Webber’s hands, a particularly important and sacramentally-inflected role.
For another thing, these authors understand the community, in and of itself, to
be sacramental. As the community makes itself conformable (both liturgically
and personally) to Christ, it may even be said, in the words of Marva Dawn, to
“incarnate God’s presence.”
If Dawn suggests that the community manifests God through “incarnation,”
another perspective running through this literature is that the community
manifests God by participatively reflecting God’s nature. Much like the
perichoresis-conscious practical theologians we encountered in Chapter 3, these
authors understand the church to be grounded in the character and being of the
triune God. Chan affirms Stanley Grenz’s understanding that (in Chan’s words)
“ecclesial life … exist[s] in perichoretic union with the triune God through the
Spirit.”198 Torrance similarly understands the church as welcomed, through
Christ, into God’s “perichoretic unity”—which is characterized by “mutual
love and mutual self-giving.”199 For Wainwright, the revitalization of such
loving relationship (between humans and God, as well as with one another)
is a consummation of the imago Dei—and implies a natural outworking: “The
internal practice of the Christian assembly should obviously evidence brotherly
and sisterly love.”200 In all of this, the sacramental recovery authors resonate
strongly with the recent work of those practical theologians exploring the
relationship between God’s triunity, perichoresis, and the identity and doings
of the church.
As for the sacraments, themselves—surely one would have anticipated the
centrality of the Lord’s Supper in the sacramental recovery literature. What is
striking, however, is the prominent role of re-presentation in these authors’
treatment of the Supper. While they are not the only authors in our pool to
reference anamnetic re-presentation, the sacramental recovery authors embrace
it as integral to their theology. Central to all of Christian worship and life, for
these authors, is the Lord’s Supper—and central to the Lord’s Supper is the
dynamic of re-presentation. Reading their expositions of anamnesis can be both
198
199
Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace, pp. 31–2.
200
exhilarating and dizzying; one is struck by the capaciousness of a vision that

ties together the holistic participation and subjective response of worshipers,
on the one hand, with the personal presence and action of the triune God, on
the other.201 Symbol and sacrament whorl together past, present, and future in a
continuum of salvific and incorporative love. While the idea of re-presentation
is refracted in the all of life literature, it is in the theology of these sacramental
recovery authors that the theme is indispensably integrated.
One line of thinking that dovetails well with re-presentation is the
covenant renewal theme that permeates Ross’s writing. Another is the notion
of “recapitulation” that surfaces in the writings of Webber and Vander Zee—
the ancient idea that, through his incarnation, Christ took on, gathered up, and
savingly perfected humanity.
Recapitulation theory, espoused by Irenaeus and others as early as the second
century, is beginning to gain a hearing among evangelicals.202 To the extent that
recapitulation ends up resonating with evangelicals, it might find an inroad into
their practical theology by means of anamnetic re-presentation.
In the sacramental recovery literature, the connection between Horizon 2
and Horizon 3, the life of God, is especially seamless. White speaks of Christ’s
“sacramental mission” in an all-encompassing way; he understands worshipers
to participate in the life of God liturgically, and also missionally, as they are
prepared for and propelled into outreach and social action. Marva Dawn is
particularly interested in liturgy’s formative capacity for just such missional
participation. But beyond that—worship is understood to be missional, in and
of itself. It is through worship, say these authors, that humans are welcomed,
somehow, into the perichoretic dynamics of trinitarian love.203 Worship is not
only a means for mission—it is the end of mission, as well.204
The commodious flexibility of the concept is one of its recognized virtues. Paul
201
Bradshaw has pointed out that one motivation that spurred on twentieth-century scholarly
research into anamnetic theology was its potential to bridge the classical divide between
Roman Catholic and Protestant views of the eucharist. See Bradshaw, “Anamnesis in Modern
Eucharistic Debate,” p. 73.
202
David Neff, the editor-in-chief of the flagship evangelical publication, Christianity
Today, has favorably noted the theory, along with its surfacing among other evangelical
theologians. Interestingly, Neff credits Webber with being a primary champion of the
idea’s renaissance. David Neff, “What’s the Fuss About Recapitulation Theology?,” Ancient
Evangelical Future, http://ancientevangelicalfuture.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-fuss-abo
ut-recapitulation.html (accessed June 18, 2013).
203
Torrance and Vander Zee make this case, especially. And Wainwright celebrates,
as we have already seen, the “participatory entrance” into the triune life experienced by
Christians at worship. Wainwright, Doxology, p. 23.
204
Chan goes further. He suggests that the church—ontologically united with Christ—
At the root of the sacramental recovery literature is the distinctive core

conviction that the primary actor in worship is God. (All of the authors emphasize
this dynamic, and Torrance diagrams just how it is so.) Also running through
this literature is another theme: the conviction that while the sacraments may
not be the only means of grace, they are the ordinary means through which God
acts in gathered worship. The intersection of these two convictions is the notion
that the primary action in the sacraments is God’s. Vander Zee identifies this
belief as a line drawn in the sand—the “Great Divide” that separates Protestants,
theologically, one from another. Most free church and evangelical Christians are
on the side that emphasizes human action in the sacraments. Vander Zee and
the other sacramental recovery authors have planted their banners firmly on the
other side of the divide—heralding God’s action in sacramental worship.
It is in this confidence in divine-through-human action that the sacramental
recovery authors have such high expectations of worship. They understand
liturgy in human hands to be powerfully formative and, in God’s hands, divinely
transformative. Worship through liturgy and worship in life interpenetrate one
another in profound ways. (Put soberly, liturgy brings all of life into “ritual
focus.”205 Stated in the extreme, the “liturgy itself is the primary expression of
Christian living, and Christian living is actualized primarily in the liturgy.”206)
These authors understand participation in worship as connecting seamlessly
with participation not only in God’s mission, but also in the perichoretic
interrelations of God’s own life. It is not surprising that these sacramental
recovery writers rebuff those who treat worship pragmatically, as a means to
however noble an evangelistic end. They see worship as too valuable a gift to
squander by treating it as anything less than God intends it to be.
In many evangelical circles, a common response to sacramental thought is
that “it all seems so Catholic!” These authors would agree, but would strike the
capital “C” and point out that a sacramental approach to worship represents
the catholic church throughout the centuries, and taps into the Spirit-born
wisdom of the “Great Tradition.” Furthermore, they would have us see that
sacramental worship is anchored in the roots of evangelicalism itself—including
the magisterial Reformation, the theology of the Wesleys, and the sacramental
revivals of the nineteenth century.207 These authors do not understand themselves
to be promoting the introduction of sacrament—but merely its recovery.
is, itself, the terminus of the missio Dei. If Chan’s version of missio Dei is extreme, it does
reflect the high view of worship shared by these authors.
205
206
207
I will further explore in Chapter 10 the idea that there are, indeed, historically
sacramental strands in the DNA of contemporary evangelicalism.
Chapter 7
The Evangelistic Worship Emphasis
Rank
Book Year
(out of 25)
Sally Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism: Inviting Unbelievers into the 1995 7
Presence of God (Zondervan)
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church: Growth Without 1995 22
Compromising Your Message and Mission (Zondervan)
Lynne and Bill Hybels, Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of 1995 24
Willow Creek Community Church (Zondervan)
An apparently fresh approach to blending evangelism and worship captured

the attention of many in the latter decades of the twentieth century. Its “seeker-
sensitive” strategy found its fullest expression in prominent megachurch
ministries, and exerted a great influence on evangelical churches of all sizes.
Three of the books in our pool emerge out of this high-profile “seeker church”
movement. Of all the emphasis groups treated here, this evangelistic worship
literature is perhaps the most well known—as well as the most vigorously
debated.
Two of the evangelistic worship volumes represented here (Rediscovering
Church and Purpose Driven Church) are written by the pastors of the two
foremost seeker-oriented megachurches. While their books are concerned not
only with worship, but rather with the full range of seeker ministry, they do
clearly describe the approach to worship so central to their ministry models. The
third volume, Worship Evangelism, focuses more specifically and thoroughly on
the subject of worship. While author Sally Morgenthaler, a ministry practitioner
and consultant, affirms seeker-sensitive ministry, she suggests a major adjustment
to the seeker church model.
The evangelistic worship authors share an overriding commitment to
evangelism, and draw their vision of a burgeoning church largely from Acts
2:42–47.1 These writers have a notably high regard for worship, regarding it as
1
Acts 2:42–47: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and
many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed
the ultimate human occupation; they see all other ministries of the church—
including evangelism—as subsidiary to it. At the same time, since they
understand worship to be primarily a matter of heart and spirit, they regard
the specifics of liturgical practice as flexible, malleable to the exigencies of
evangelism. Regarding the manner in which evangelism is served by worship,
the literature falls into two camps. On one side are Hybels and Warren, whose
megachurch ministries segregate evangelistic “seeker services” from doxological
“believers’ worship.” On the other side is Sally Morgenthaler, who emphasizes the
evangelistic power of authentic worship; she advocates seeker-sensitive worship
events, designed for believers but keenly mindful of unchurched seekers.
Every book is, of course, a kind of time-bound snapshot or cross-section;
it freezes an author’s thought at one particular moment. Understanding this is
particularly important in the case of this evangelistic worship literature. These
writers are highly practical, and self-avowedly experimental in their ministries.
In the years following the publication of the volumes represented here, at least
two of the authors, Hybels and Morgenthaler, have dramatically revised their
approaches.
In line with our study’s approach, this chapter will focus primarily on the
books, themselves. But, recognizing the degree to which this particular group of
volumes arises out of (and responds to) the “seeker church” movement, a brief
background of that movement will first be offered. An analysis of the literature
will follow, and then an epilogue will indicate the way in which both Hybels and
Morgenthaler have, since the publication of this literature, radically retooled
their philosophies of ministry. The chapter will conclude with some reflections,
suggesting that seeker church worship practices, pragmatically shaped in the
interest of evangelism, failed to produce the long-term results they were designed
to achieve.
Background
Although many of the other books throughout the pool are also penned by
practitioners, these evangelistic worship works are different. They emerge from
an influential movement, its ideas popularized less through literature and more
through the example of high-profile ministries. Both Hybels and Warren were
were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and
belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending
the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad
and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added
to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
The Evangelistic Worship Emphasis 151
already nationally-recognized pastors by the time their books were published.

Their ministries had burgeoned into megachurches, and were regarded as
exemplars of a new, evangelistically-minded “seeker church” approach to
ministry and worship. Beyond gaining popularity because of prodigious growth
and apparent success, each ministry has intentionally developed large networks
of training and influence.2 It is in this larger context that these books must be
understood.
Hybels launched Willow Creek in 1975, and Warren began Saddleback in
1980. Each leveraged “church growth” strategies and attended acutely to local
demographics; surveying the unchurched of their communities, they crafted
meticulous profiles of target “seekers” who might attend their churches and
be converted to Christ. Their seeker-sensitive approach involved a rigorous
commitment to “relevance” and to meeting felt needs, both in order to aid
the process of conversion. Evangelism was a foremost priority for these seeker
churches.
The seeker approach is informed by a typically evangelical understanding of
conversion as punctiliar, and is consequently driven by the goal of facilitating an
instantaneous “decision” for Christ. In light of this, seeker churches use the word
“seeker” and “believer” in particular ways. As scholar/historian Lester Ruth
explains, they take “seeker” to mean “those adults searching to make Christianity
part of their lives.”3 More specifically, seekers are, in the words of one particular
seeker service practitioner, “people who are in the process of making a decision
for Christ or evaluating Christianity.”4 Seekers may either be unchurched
(“those who had no previous formal relationship to a church”) or those who
have had church experience but have become estranged from churchgoing (or
from Christianity, altogether).5 The word “service” refers quite generically, in
this context, to church-sponsored gatherings.
Author Robb Redman, among others, has identified historical precedents
for the seeker church movement; he traces a long lineage of evangelistically-
minded approaches to worship among evangelicals through history.6 Redman
singles out a primary, immediate seeker-church influence as being the Church
2
The high survey rankings of Hybels’s and Warren’s volumes are probably due as much
to the influence of their ministries as to the popularity of their books.
3
Lester Ruth, “Lex Agendi, Lex Orandi: Toward an Understanding of Seeker Services
as a New Kind of Liturgy,” Worship 70, no. 5 (September 1996): p. 387.
4
Ibid. Ruth is quoting Barbara Stewart, ed., Willow Creek Community Church Leaders’
Handbook, 1st edn (South Barrington: Willow Creek Community Church, 1991), p. 4.
5
Ruth, “Lex Agendi, Lex Orandi,” p. 387.
6
See Redman, The Great Worship Awakening, pp. 5–14.
Growth movement, an offshoot of the work begun in the 1950s by missiologist

Donald McGavran.7
Both Hybels’s and Warren’s churches understand worship and evangelism as
being interrelated ministries that are in tension with one another; in order to
manage that tension, the churches established separate “seeker” and “believers’”
services.8 At both churches, believers’ services met on weeknights, while seeker
services met generally on Sunday mornings—the time at which surveyed seekers
indicated they would be most likely to attend. Most meetings were carefully
programmed, highly polished, and designed to be entertaining and engaging.
Meetings for seekers were clearly understood to be evangelistic events rather
than worship. These seeker services were deliberately non-participative, in line
with the assumption that seekers preferred anonymity, comfort, and low levels
of participation.9
Both Willow Creek and Saddleback grew into prominent, flagship
megachurches.10 As of 2011 (by which time other megachurches had come
along and surpassed them, numerically), Willow was ranked as the fourth largest
church in the United States (with a weekly average attendance of 24,377);
Saddleback ranked as the eighth largest (with 19,742 per week).11 Both churches
have grown not only in size, but also in influence—and have had an enormous
impact on evangelical understandings of ministry and worship. In addition to
gaining media exposure and producing literature, each church has intentionally
established avenues through which it may popularize its approach and equip
other churches to emulate aspects of its ministry model.12
7
While a professor and dean at Fuller Theological Seminary, McGavran directly taught
several prominent megachurch pastors—including Rick Warren. For Warren’s account of
McGavran’s influence on him, see Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church: Growth Without
Compromising Your Message and Mission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 29–30.
8
Warren advises, “Design one worship service to edify believers and another service to
evangelize the unchurched friends brought by your members. This way you can use different
preaching styles, songs, prayers, and other elements appropriate to each target.” Ibid., p. 245.
9
Hybels has been quoted as saying, “Our seekers don’t want to say anything, sing
anything, sign anything, or give anything.” See G.A. Pritchard, Willow Creek Seeker Services:
Evaluating a New Way of Doing Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), p. 105.
10
A megachurch is typically defined as having more than 2,000 weekly attendees.
(Technically, Willow Creek and Saddleback should rather be called “gigachurches”—the
parlance for ministries whose weekly attendance exceeds 10,000.)
11
As ranked by Outreach Magazine. See Kent Shaffer, “Top 70 Largest Gigachurches
in America (2011 Edition),” http://churchrelevance.com/top-71-largest-gigachurches-in-
america-2011-edition/ (accessed June 18, 2013).
12
Hybels’s church established the Willow Creek Association (WCA) in 1982;
its website reports that the WCA has (as of 2010) “inspired and trained more than one
million church leaders and … created and distributed millions of church resources into
tens of thousands of churches representing more than 90 denominations.” (Willow Creek
Overview of the Literature
Hybels and Warren
In Rediscovering Church, Bill Hybels and his wife, Lynne, tell the story of
Willow Creek, candidly recounting the challenges and successes that attended
both their own journey and that of their expanding church. They relate the
values, principles, and strategies that have characterized the ministry for most
of its existence. Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church is, in contrast, more of a
practical guide for pastors and church leaders. While Warren makes it very clear
that he does not advise other churches to mimic the particulars of Saddleback’s
ministry, he anchors his presentation of “transferable principles” in the narrative
of his own church’s development.13
As documented in their books, the approaches that Hybels and Warren
developed in their ministries are strikingly similar. Each pastor was after
a repristinated manner of doing church ministry, free from cumbersome
traditions and anchored in the experience of the apostolic church as described in
Acts 2:42–47.14 Both pastors are especially committed to evangelism, and share
similar convictions about the relationship of evangelism to worship. Both have
featured, as central to their ministries, weekend seeker services separate from
weeknight believers’ worship. Both geared their seeker services toward very
specific and carefully-researched target demographics. And both pastor-authors
have articulated progressive spiritual stages through which their ministries
attempt to shepherd church attendees.
Association, “About Us: Who We Are,” http://www.willowcreek.com/about/ [accessed

September 4, 2010].) The WCA’s “more than 10,000 Member Churches” are located in 35
different countries. Saddleback maintains a ministry support website (www.pastors.com)
and also maintained for some years a church-equipping ministry based on the same “purpose
driven church” model Warren developed and refined at Saddleback. The “Purpose Driven
Church” ministry reported that it had directly trained “more than 400,000 church leaders
in 22 languages.” As of that report, there were reportedly “Purpose Driven congregations”
represented in “more than 100 different denominations and associations,” and “in most
countries throughout the world.” (Purpose Driven Church, “Who We Are [Frequently Asked
Questions],” http://www.purposedrivenchurch.com/PurposeDriven/MCMS_Templates/
Legacy/Generic/AboutUsTemplate.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%
7bA7F460DB-392C-4ADE-9B5F-FA7F92F77E49%7d&NRORIGINALURL=%2fen-
US%2fAboutUs%2f WhoWeAre%2fFAQ [accessed September 4, 2010].)
13
Warren, Purpose Driven Church, p. 27.
14
Lynne Hybels and Bill Hybels, Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow
Creek Community Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1995), pp. 49–50; 28.
For the text of the Acts 2 passage, see footnote 1 of this chapter.
Morgenthaler
It is clear from her book, Worship Evangelism, that Sally Morgenthaler shares
with Hybels and Warren a preoccupation with evangelism and a conviction
that worship services are a potent means for drawing “seekers” to Christ. Where
she differs from the two pastors, however, is in her firm rejection of the idea
that “believers” and “seekers” should be segregated into different services.
Morgenthaler’s volume argues for the evangelistic effectiveness of authentic
worship, and for a model that incorporates seekers into the worship of believers.
The book also offers a plethora of practical guidelines for worship ministry that
is both generationally sensitive and evangelistically minded.
Morgenthaler’s central premise, consonant with Rick Warren’s thinking,
is the notion that authentic worship is inherently evangelistic. Like Warren,
Morgenthaler believes that there is a supernatural dimension to a service in
which believers “fully worship”—and that seekers can be profoundly affected
as they sense and experience that dimension. For Morgenthaler, the best
evangelistic approach to worship is not to mount an event that is something
less than real worship, but rather to plan for genuine worship in a manner that
diligently minimizes obstacles so that seekers may encounter both authentic
worshipers and, more importantly, the God they worship.
While Morgenthaler sometimes argues theologically, she makes her
case primarily from a pragmatic angle. She bases her rejection of the seeker-
service model less on principle than on practical effectiveness. In fact, she
grants that “[t]he current trend toward offering seeker events would be
quite positive if it were not for two significant [practical] developments.”15
In other words, Morgenthaler does not object to the seeker event model in
theory, but rather by virtue of its troubling, observable results. The first of
these “developments” is the matter of priority—the difficulty seeker churches
have in maintaining, among their membership, the primacy of worship
over evangelistic entertainment. The second is a matter of confusion—a
snowballing misperception, now “widespread … within evangelicalism,” that
“equate[s] seeker events with worship.”16 Here Morgenthaler, in agreement
with many other commentators, points out the unintended consequences of
the “seeker event” model: confusion about the priority, and even the nature,
of worship.17
15
Sally Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism: Inviting Unbelievers Into the Presence of
God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), p. 44.
16
Ibid.
17
See, for example, Ruth, “Lex Agendi, Lex Orandi,” pp. 402–5.
Analysis
Worship
Hybels and Warren

Both Hybels and Warren stress the central importance of doxology. They
understand authentic worship as proceeding from conscious faith. At the same
time, they regard many of the specifics of worship practice as contextually
flexible, and they are quick to leverage that flexibility especially for the purpose
of evangelism. They see the needs of seekers and believers as being both similar
and different—and attempt to address these overlapping but distinct needs by
structuring their ministries accordingly.
Hybels’s high esteem for worship developed over time. It was an encounter
with Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul (and that pastor’s teaching regarding
the holiness of God) that first spurred Hybels on to take worship more seriously
than he previously had.18 Deeply impressed by subsequent interactions with
charismatic pastor Jack Hayford, Hybels returned to Willow Creek with
a renewed vision of worship as centrally important, and also as intensely
experiential.19 The church committed to spending, during its gatherings,
“thirty to forty-five minutes exalting God together” in ways that ranged from
“reflective” to “celebrative.”20 Worship became “a central focus” of Willow’s New
Community (believers’) services.
Similarly, Warren regards worship as the church’s primary, ultimate purpose.
For all the emphasis he places on evangelism, he views it as secondary to worship.
Warren proposes that “the goal of evangelism is to produce worshipers of God,”
and that “evangelism is the task of recruiting worshipers of God.”21 When
Warren outlines his short list of God’s purposes for the church, worship is at the
very top.22
If the imperative to worship is non-negotiable, however, the particulars
of worship are another matter. Both Hybels and Warren regard the specific
practices involved in fleshing out worship to be largely flexible. “There is no
correct ‘style’ of worship,” writes Warren. He interprets Jesus as having given
only “two requirements for legitimate worship”—doing so in spirit, and doing
18
See Hybels and Hybels, Rediscovering Church, p. 98.
19
“For the first time in my life,” writes Hybels, “I had experienced worship.” Ibid.
20
Ibid., p. 176.
21
22
Warren takes the biblical command to “Love the Lord with all your heart” (his
“Purpose #1,” drawn from Matthew 22:37–40) as a command to worship: “How do we love
God with all our heart? By worshiping him!” For Warren, “[t]he church exists to worship
God.” Ibid., p. 103.
so in truth.23 Seeing no biblical guidelines beyond these, and feeling bound to

no precedents of tradition, these practitioners claim for their churches a great
deal of freedom to shape their worship services in whatever way seems most
beneficial. And for Hybels and Warren, what is beneficial is that which expedites
evangelism.
Morgenthaler
Central for Morgenthaler is the belief that both believers and seekers need
the same thing, and that it is available to them in authentic worship: “direct,
supernatural interaction with God.”24 Worship is, for her, a relational encounter
between humans and God. While she agrees with Hybels and Warren that
seekers cannot fully worship, she sees the very fact that they are “seeking” as
evidence that God is at work—drawing them, and enabling for them “at least
some spiritual understanding and discernment.”25 For Morgenthaler, both
believers and seekers are able to encounter God in worship.
Morgenthaler understands such an encounter to require several “essentials”;
one is “a sense of God’s presence,” and another is interactive “participati[on]
in a relationship with God and others.”26 So, for Morgenthaler, worship is
characterized both by God’s presence and action, in ways that are somehow
perceptible, and also by responsive human participation. Participation is
relational, and that relationality extends both vertically (with God) and
horizontally (with others). For Morgenthaler, the vertical vector is primary;
“the bulk of worship should be directed heavenward,” she writes. Still, like many
of the authors we have reviewed so far, when Morgenthaler considers gathered
worship she recognizes the importance of mutual edification—that “horizontal
interaction” that involves “ministering to the hearts and needs of others.”27
Sally Morgenthaler understands worship to be necessarily rooted in a
supernaturally-tinged, relational encounter with God. That encounter, which
is participative and interactive, is primarily vertical, but it also involves the
horizontal thrust of mutual edification.
Worship and Evangelism
Hybels and Warren

Both of these megachurch pastors are intensely interested in the relationship
between worship and evangelism. In terms of ministry, both Hybels and Warren
23
Ibid., p. 240.
24
Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism, p. 66.
25
Ibid., p. 89.
26
Ibid., pp. 96ff.
27
Ibid., p. 120.
see these two areas as overlapping, and yet distinct. Warren understands the
“intimate connection between worship and evangelism” to be a reciprocal
one: evangelism “produce[s] worshipers of God,” and worship “provides the
motivation for evangelism.”28
These authors see the church as responsible to attend faithfully to both
evangelism and worship. Unlike Morgenthaler, they maintain that “the needs
of believers and unbelievers are very different”; this conviction sits beneath
their two-pronged strategy of maintaining separate “seeker” and “believer”
services.29 In order to meet the needs of believers (for worship) and seekers (for
evangelism), both Hybels and Warren have opted for models that “specialize …
services according to their purpose.”30
It is true that both Willow Creek and Saddleback were founded to address
the needs of seekers, and to draw the unchurched into a vital relationship with
Christ through engaging seeker services. At the same time, these churches
studiously avoid using the word “worship” to identify these seeker events. “Only
believers can truly worship God,” writes Warren.31 Both Hybels and Warren
embrace the idea—in theory, if not always in practice—that believers’ services,
with their “true” worship of God, are essential to church health.32
Morgenthaler
Like Hybels and Warren, Morgenthaler makes much of Acts 2:42–47, and finds
in that passage a mandate for evangelistically-minded worship. She reads it to
mean that “one of the primary outcomes of the early church’s commitment to
worship was evangelism, the outreach often taking place within the worship
service itself.”33 She affirmingly quotes Gerrit Gustafson’s assertion that, for
the earliest Christians, “[e]vangelism sprang out of throne-room encounters.”34
28
Warren, Purpose Driven Church, p. 242. In this, Warren resonates with von Allmen’s
“diastolic” movements of worship and evangelism.
29
Ibid., p. 245.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid., p. 239.
32
At times, the intense time and energy devoted to seeker services came at the expense
of believers’ worship, at least at Willow Creek. Lynne and Bill Hybels freely acknowledge
that they did not, at first, put adequate care and attention into their believers’ services—
which they later came to regard as vital to the health and calling of the church. See Hybels
and Hybels, Rediscovering Church, p. 129. Decades later, Bill Hybels would lead Willow
Creek in an even larger-scale reconsideration of its ministry balance; see the “Epilogue” later
in this chapter.
33
34
Ibid., p. 40. Morgenthaler quotes Gerrit Gustafson, “Worship Evangelism,” Charisma
and Christian Life (October 1991): p. 49.
Morgenthaler suggests in Worship Evangelism that worship both stimulates and

effects evangelism.
While she allows that evangelistic meetings geared solely for seekers may have
their place, Morgenthaler believes that the most effective evangelistic strategy is
to place the seeker in the context of an authentically-worshiping community.
She cites numerous examples of church leaders discovering that their seeker
services weren’t “cutting it,” and that many seekers apparently want less to be
entertained than to have a genuine encounter with God.35 As seekers participate
in services that are “fully worship,” they “observe the real relationship between
worshipers and God,” and they encounter the “truth about God” through all the
verbal and non-verbal service elements.36
The “central paradigm” of Morgenthaler’s volume is that worship “either
affirms or contradicts our message about God.” Worship services have (or should
have) a perceptibly supernatural dimension, which is transformative for believers
and persuasive for seekers.37
Hybels and Warren

For these evangelistic worship practitioners, a developmental goal for both
believers and seekers alike is “participation” in worship services—but the
baseline of participation, here, is nothing more than regular attendance. Beyond
that, the expectations of Hybels and Warren regarding levels of participation are
different for seekers than they are for believers.
Seekers are generally encouraged to enjoy a tightly programmed presentation,
and allowed the “anonymity” of minimal active participation.38 Warren does
acknowledge that seekers have a variety of preferences regarding spectating versus
participating; he grants that, contrary to popular wisdom, seekers may be open
to at least some sorts of responsive participation.39 But the rule, at both Willow
Creek and Saddleback, has been to create comfortable seeker environments that
demand little or no participation.
Morgenthaler
Worship is, for Morgenthaler, inherently participative. She subscribes to Robert
Webber’s assertion that “[w]orship demands nothing less than the complete,
35
See, for example, Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism, p. 78.
36
Ibid., p. 88.
37
Ibid., p. 9.
38
See Hybels and Hybels, Rediscovering Church, p. 173.
39
See Warren, Purpose Driven Church, pp. 248, 246.
conscious, and deliberate participation of the worshipper.”40 For Morgenthaler,

worship is invariably characterized by active response—both “definitive” and
“deliberate”—on the part of participants.41
While Morgenthaler offers some scriptural and theological arguments for
participation, she leans most heavily on pragmatic arguments. Morgenthaler
contends that all people, seekers and believers alike, desire more than mere
knowledge about the divine: they crave an actual experience of God. It is
interesting to note that Morgenthaler uses this word “experience” more than 200
times throughout the pages of Worship Evangelism. If participation is something
that God desires from humans at worship, the subjective experience of that
participation is something for which those humans hunger. For Morgenthaler,
experiential participation is a felt need the church does well to satisfy.
Beyond being right and good in itself, participation in worship is also, in
Morgenthaler’s eyes, a useful ministry strategy. First of all, participation is
attractive. According to Morgenthaler, many seekers prefer to participate
than to spectate. She agrees with William Hendricks—who hears bored
“worship dropouts” calling not for “more entertainment,” but rather for “more
participation.”42 Second, participation makes for deeper engagement and opens
the door to potential transformation. Accordingly, Morgenthaler provides a
multitude of creative, practical suggestions for making worship services more
actively participative.43
Hybels and Warren

Worship is, for these two church leaders, primarily a matter of human action.
They see not only their seeker services but also their believers’ worship gatherings
almost exclusively through the lens of Horizon 1. Their concern for interiority
(genuine and authentic heart-response on the part of attendees) is matched with
strict attention to exteriority (meticulously planned and polished performance).
The ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are regarded as symbols of
human commitment—and therefore within the borders of this first horizon.
When Warren focuses his discussion directly on worship, he clearly gives
voice to this human action orientation. While “God, not man” is “the focus and
the center of our worship,” Warren maintains that “the direction of worship is
40
Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism, p. 49; Morgenthaler is quoting Webber from
Worship is a Verb. Note that Webber’s vision here is couched in language very similar to the
Vatican II call to “full, conscious and active participation.”
41
42
Ibid., p. 24; Morgenthaler quotes William Hendricks, Exit Interviews: Revealing
Stories of Why People Are Leaving the Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1993), p. 250.
43
Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism, pp. 118ff.
from believers to God.”44 Although it is God-focused, worship is nevertheless

human action—the “expressing [of ] love and commitment to him.”45 Similarly,
after Bill Hybels’s theology of worship had been invigorated by the teaching of
R.C. Sproul, it could be summarized in terms of human action: “worshipping
people … present [their] lives as a sacrifice to God with a fragrant aroma.”46
The sorts of palpable actions these authors envision (and make arrangements
for) in worship include “praying, singing, thanking, listening, giving [and]
testifying.”47 Not only believers’ gatherings but also seeker services include “real-
life testimon[ies] from a person or couple who have been dramatically changed
by the power and love of Christ.”48 (Note that God is understood as active in the
day-to-day of believers’ lives; what characterizes gathered worship, however, is
human response.)
In connection with believers’ worship (as with seeker services), these writers
envision a great deal of latitude regarding practice. Both Hybels and Warren
celebrate their freedom from restrictive “traditions,” and model creative and
flexible handling of the particulars of worship.49 They are firm, on the one
hand, that the “message” should never be “compromised”; they are open-
minded, on the other hand, regarding most other aspects of the service. The
message’s reception should, according to Warren, be facilitated by a comfortable
“environment.”50 That “environment” seems to include most elements of the
service aside from preaching—all of which are treated flexibly in the interest of
maximizing worship’s evangelistic potential.
While in the interest of being “relevant” Willow Creek and Saddleback
generally eschew recognizably religious symbols, they do appreciate the power
and value of symbolism and the arts. Warren is cognizant that “worship employs
both your right brain and your left brain,” and that it “engages both emotion
and intellect, your heart and your mind.”51 Warren encourages churches, in
consultation with their targeted seeker profiles, to incorporate the arts; Hybels
reports that Willow Creek uses the arts “intensively” in both its believers’ and
seeker services.52
Warren, Purpose Driven Church, pp. 239–40.

44
Ibid., p. 239.
45
46
Hybels and Hybels, Rediscovering Church, p. 98.
47
48
Ibid., p. 247.
49
“[W]e’ve been able,” writes Warren, “to experiment with far more ideas than the
average church—mostly due to the fact that we didn’t have decades of tradition to deal with.”
Ibid., p. 28.
50
Ibid., p. 244.
51
Ibid., p. 241.
52
Hybels and Hybels, Rediscovering Church, p. 34; Warren, Purpose Driven Church,
pp. 253–4.
Both Hybels and Warren put a premium on interiority—that which goes on

in the hearts of both seekers and worshipers as they attend corporate services.
Hybels’s description of his own worship epiphany (under Jack Hayford’s
leadership) emphasizes this internal dimension. Enthusing that, for the first time
in his life, he had “experienced worship,” he elaborates that he and his fellow
worshipers “were gently brought to the throne of God and invited to empty our
hearts to Him.”53 He later describes the pivotal importance of believers’ (“New
Community”) worship at Willow Creek in this way: “The hearts of our believers
need to be filled to overflowing with love of another kind.”54 Warren clarifies
that music at his church is aimed at “the heart.”55
But the concern of these authors with the interior moves of the heart does
not keep them from focusing keenly on the outward details of performed
action. When it comes to the execution of ministry (including worship) at both
Saddleback and Willow Creek, “excellence” is an intentional goal. Saddleback
has adopted as one of its leadership mantras the slogan “Evaluate for excellence!”
and a core ministry value for Hybels is the idea that “excellence honors God
and inspires people.”56 Hybels’s primary motivation for excellence is the idea of
rendering to God “the best we can offer,” and “paying tribute” as a “response
to His holiness and greatness, in gratitude for His monumental sacrifice for
us.”57 Additionally, excellence is beneficial on the horizontal level—bolstering
seeker sensitivity by “minimiz[ing] the ‘cringe factor’” during services.58 The
word “programming” is used frequently, particularly at Willow Creek (and in
Rediscovering Church) to describe the planning of both seeker and believers’
services. A commitment to excellence manifests itself in both of these contexts
as rigorous, down-to-the-minute planning for polished performance.59
Morgenthaler
As she treats Horizon 1 participation, Morgenthaler is characteristically practical
and generationally sensitive. Since those who participate in worship are varied
people with a range of generational proclivities, Morgenthaler offers multiple
strategies for facilitating fully engaged participation.
The target group that Morgenthaler considers most thoroughly is the “baby
boomer” generation (born 1945–63). In this she mirrors the primary ministry
53
54
Ibid., p. 177.
55
56
Ibid., p. 113; Hybels and Hybels, Rediscovering Church, p. 191.
57
58
Ibid., p. 173.
59
At the same time, Hybels cautions practitioners not to get carried away by “the
temptation to make everything produced and slick.” Ibid., p. 185.
emphasis of both Hybels and Warren.60 At the time these three evangelistic
worship books were written, many “boomers” who had given up on church were
venturing back.61 How might the church engage and retain these returning
boomers (or “boomerangs”) in order that they not slip away once again?
Morgenthaler prescribes involving them in the business of “fully worshiping,”
and ushering them into active participation.
Morgenthaler culls through the generational characteristics of boomers in
order to prescribe the most effective avenues to draw them into participation.
She distinguishes between “loyalist boomers” (longtime church attendees
with sensibilities similar to the older “builder” generation) and the returning,
unchurched “boomerangs.” The former prefer “standardized” participation,
the latter, “personalized.”62 Since boomerangs prefer to be given choices
rather than being told what to do, Morgenthaler recommends giving them
“a variety of options” and allowing them “to choose their own participation
level.”63 Experience shows, she suggests, that optimal “participation modes”
vary at different points in the service. Morgenthaler accordingly prescribes
an “hourglass” shaped service—beginning and ending with lively corporate
participation, with options for more reflective and personalized participation
in between.64
Morgenthaler also addresses the cultural peculiarities of the younger “buster”
(or “Gen X”) generation. She leverages (primarily through interviews) the insights
of those experienced in Gen X ministry—presumably because Morgenthaler,
herself, has less experience with busters than boomers. Morgenthaler identifies
such buster peculiarities as a greater desire for authenticity, an aversion to the
obviously “programmed,” and a greater proclivity toward community. She
concludes, however, that busters are similar to boomers in at least one respect:
they desire significant engagement and participation in worship.
According to Morgenthaler, services for boomerangs (as well as for, one
imagines, busters) should “incorporat[e] as many of the arts as possible.”65
Worship should be intentionally multisensory, preferably combining several
senses at once. Of all the arts, music is especially important; Morgenthaler gives
many detailed recommendations about selecting songs that balance meaningful
content with seeker-friendliness. She suggests strategies for providing a variety of
singing options, affording different levels of participation for differing attendees.
Although generational demographics are not discussed much in either Rediscovering

60
Church or in Purpose Driven Church, both Hybels’s and Warren’s ministries started out by
consciously targeting the baby boomer generation.
61
See Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism, p. 20.
62
See ibid., p. 149.
63
Ibid., p. 158.
64
Ibid., p. 162.
65
See ibid., p. 158.
For example, a song with more verbose, complex verses and a simpler chorus
might be used antiphonally, in what she calls “worship interchange”: church-
familiar “loyalists” might sing the wordier verses, and unchurched seekers might
join in on the simpler choruses.66
Morgenthaler endorses, on the one hand, the sorts of actions that are
“common … in evangelical churches,” including “congregational singing, prayer,
Scripture readings, celebration of the Lord’s Table, and baptism.”67 But she also
advocates increasing the “interactive quotient” in worship services by creatively
“develop[ing] new categories of interaction.” She gives such examples as “altar
offerings” (in which worshipers write down areas of their lives on slips of
paper, and then bring them forward to symbolically hand them over to God),
spontaneous Scripture sharings, and video or audio recordings of worshipers
expressing thanks to God.68
Morgenthaler’s approach to the human action of Horizon 1 is centered
on an overriding concern: enabling maximal participation in worship by all
who are present. Acutely aware of the cultural differences between differing
demographics, she prescribes generationally-sensitive ministry that provides
a range of inroads and options for participation. Styles, modes, and means
may differ, for Morgenthaler—but what remains constant is the imperative to
maximize participation in worship.
Hybels and Warren

Despite the apparently high regard both Hybels and Warren have for baptism
and the Lord’s Supper, here in their books they treat these ordinances minimally.
On the one hand, Hybels reports that believers at Willow Creek “celebrate the
Lord’s Supper each month, handling it with profound respect as the sacrament
that commemorates Christ’s sacrifice for us.”69 On the other hand, Hybels and
Warren only write about the ordinances cursorily.70 Notably, while both pastors
66
Ibid., p. 219.
67
Ibid., p. 119.
68
Ibid.
69
Hybels and Hybels, Rediscovering Church, p. 176. Hybels also recounts a few deeply
meaningful experiences of both ordinances in connection with both Willow Creek and the
youth ministry that spawned the church. See pp. 37 and 66.
70
While Warren does not even mention the celebration of Communion at Saddleback,
one gathers that he regards the ordinances as being, in some sense, centrally important. A
sample outline of the very first class given to seekers, regarding membership, highlights “the
symbols of salvation”—which are listed as “(1) Baptism” and “(2) Communion.” Warren,
Purpose Driven Church, p. 58.
draw their key ministry elements from expositions of Acts 2:42–47, neither
includes “the breaking of bread” in their lists of biblical mandates for worship.71
If Hybels and Warren do not envision divine-through-human action in the
celebration of the ordinances, they nevertheless do see God as present and active
in the church’s gatherings. “In genuine worship,” writes Warren, “God’s presence
is felt, God’s pardon is offered, God’s purposes are revealed, and God’s power is
displayed.”72 For Warren, the entire enterprise of evangelistic worship depends
upon God’s perceptible action: “God’s presence must be sensed in the service.”
The palpability of God’s presence in a worship service should be such that it is
“even possible for [seekers] to sense when God is supernaturally moving.”73
The question remains, of course: is God’s presence and activity in the service
sensed mystically and immediately, or through some intermediary means? In
other words, is God’s initiative in worship exclusively divine action, or rather
divine-through-human action? The answer seems to be that in addition to a
palpable but amorphous sense of God’s presence (perhaps associated with
music?), Warren and Hybels do understand God to act specifically through
the preaching of Scripture. The first of Hybels’s “core values” is the belief
“that anointed teaching is the primary catalyst for transformation in the lives
of individuals and the church.” He elaborates that by “anointed” teaching he
means “preaching that is empowered by the Holy Spirit from preparation to
presentation.”74 For Hybels (and presumably Warren), God acts through human
preaching of God’s Word.
If Hybels and Warren are aware of God’s presence and activity within a
worship service, they are also especially conscious of God’s work beforehand—
the divine initiating, enabling and equipping without which worship would not
happen. Hybels attributes even the “love” for worship that emerges in seekers as
“the work the Holy Spirit [is] doing” in their lives.75 Both authors are especially
convinced that God has acted sovereignly and powerfully in the shaping and
development of their own ministries; they especially perceive divine-through-
human at this grand, macro-ministry level. “Throughout the history of Willow
Creek Community Church, the assembling of the ministering team has been
one of the most obvious signs of God’s intervention,” writes Hybels.76 “Willow
Creek was, I believe, conceived in the mind of God. He brought together
the right people with the right gifts at the right time in history, and a sort of
See, for example, Hybels’s exposition; Hybels and Hybels, Rediscovering Church,
71
p. 157.
72
73
Ibid., p. 241.
74
75
Ibid., p. 176.
76
Ibid., p. 38.
spontaneous combustion occurred.”77 The pattern Hybels envisions here is

typical of the manner in which he understands God to work through human
action: God intervenes miraculously to set the right elements (and people) in
place, and then what God has set in motion plays out on a largely human level;
a natural “spontaneous combustion” follows a supernatural act of chemical
combination.78
If Hybels envisions divine-through-human action as a sort of holy chain
reaction catalyzed by God, Warren uses a somewhat different image: that of
humans riding a divinely-generated wave:
Our job as church leaders, like experienced surfers, is to recognize a wave of God’s
Spirit and ride it. It is not our responsibility to make waves but to recognize how
God is working in the world and join him in the endeavor.
… At Saddleback, we’ve never tried to build a wave. That’s God’s business. But we
have tried to recognize the waves God was sending our way, and we’ve learned to
catch them … The amazing thing is this: The more skilled we become in riding
waves of growth, the more God sends!79
Like Hybels, Warren is particularly conscious of divine-through-human action at

an overarching, ministry level; he understands the contours of his church and its
ministry to be ordained by God. (Both authors, in relating their own, personal
ministry journeys, point to numerous heightened moments at which they were
emotionally moved and highly aware of God’s direction and intervention.80)
Hybels envisions a series of defining, directional moments of divine intervention
followed by periods of diligent human follow-up; Warren frames a process in
which divine initiative and human action seem, perhaps, more integrated—as
human ministers surf on divinely-induced waves.
For all of the rigorous human effort and polished worship programming at
Willow Creek and Saddleback, these pastor/authors are acutely aware of God’s
hand at work. It is almost as if their ministries are, themselves, sacramental—
humanly-enacted means through which God works for God’s purposes. Not
only do Hybels and Warren see the evidence of God’s intervening and guidance
at many points in their churches’ histories; each began with a vision predicated
on the notion of divine-through-human action. Hybels describes his mindset in
the early days of conceptualizing Willow Creek: “We dreamed of a place where
77
Ibid., p. 144.
78
Hybels implies a similar pattern when he articulates the work of God in awakening a
desire for worship in a seeker. Ibid., p. 176.
79
80
See, for example, Warren, Purpose Driven Church, pp. 34–5, and Hybels and Hybels,
Rediscovering Church, p. 89.
there would be a sense of the miraculous, where what was happening couldn’t be
explained in human terms.”81
The evangelistic worship practitioners believe in, and even rely upon, the
presence and initiative of God in worship. They expect God’s presence to be
palpable. On the one hand, the human sensing of God’s action in worship is
sometimes presented vaguely, implying that it happens either in an unmediated,
mystical manner or perhaps through the amorphous agency of music. On the
other hand, Hybels and Warren recognize divine-through-human action more
specifically through the preaching of God’s word, within the service, and also
through the macro-level intervention of God in shaping and directing a church’s
ministry. So both the preacher and those who listen participate in divine-
through-human action—as does everyone (pastor and layperson, alike) who
participates in the God-given ministries and structures of these divinely-guided
churches.
Morgenthaler
Throughout Worship Evangelism, Morganthaler offers a variety of fresh
strategies to engage worshipers and help them into fuller participation. At the
level of divine-through-human action, she affords due respect to the traditional
ordinances; at the same time, she seems disposed to treat Horizon 2 as a blank
canvas, ready to be filled with innovative, creative means of experiencing God’s
presence.
There are moments when Morgenthaler seems to privilege certain traditional
elements of worship. She suggests, for example, that the crafting of services around
creative themes may only serve to “obscure the Gospel.” Leaders should rather
provide congregations with “real worship, worship that witnesses”—in which
“we enter into the reality of our redemption” through such traditional means
as “song, prayer, the Word, Communion, and all the arts.”82 She approvingly
quotes one advocate of liturgical worship, who asserts that traditional liturgy
“encourages full, conscious and active participation from the congregation”—
in which people “encounter their Creator” as they (among other actions)
“break bread.”83 Morgenthaler unpacks “breaking bread,” here, as meaning to

81

82
83
Ibid., pp. 261–2; Morgenthaler quotes from her own 1993 interview with Tom Booth,
the Life Teen director at St. Timothy’s Catholic Community. The words “full, conscious and
active participation” are, of course, from the Vatican II reform (Second Vatican Council,
“Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” SC 14). Here is a good example of the theology from
Roman Catholic reform (and the ecumenical Liturgical Movement) conversationally cross-
pollinating across traditions.
“encounter the risen Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist.”84 In other words,
she sees the Supper as a locus for divine-through-human action.
Similarly, Morgenthaler recognizes God’s Word as sacramental; she sees
it as an invariable “prerequisite for an experience of God’s presence.” For
Morgenthaler, the Word is sacramental not only when it is “read or preached,” but
also when it is refracted throughout a worship service—“infused into our songs,
prayers, Communion celebrations, baptisms, testimonies, and presentations.”85
The sacramentality of the Word is robust enough that God can speak and act
through its various permutations in public worship.
But despite her appreciation of tradition and sacrament, Morgenthaler’s
regard for time-honored means does not tether her to them; she is open to
creative alternatives. On the one hand, she apparently laments the fact that, in
the name of being “progressive,” evangelicals have “done away with many of the
traditional avenues or vehicles of worship”—including creeds, Communion,
and corporate recital of the Lord’s Prayer. On the other hand, she reveals herself
to be more concerned about the recovery of participation than of the sacraments
or any particular, traditional means. Rather, she calls for creative alternatives:
I am not suggesting that we should go back to the older forms. But participative,
interactive worship cannot take place in a void. It cannot happen without some
form of expression.86
One might well imagine that Morgenthaler, a Lutheran who maintained a

worship arts website with the name “Sacramentis,” leans toward a sacramental
understanding of worship. But she seems, at least, to be open to replacements for
the sacraments, believing that when it comes to divine-through-human action,
alternate means are better than no means at all.
Furthermore, when Morgenthaler does argue for sacramental celebration
and observance of the Lord’s Supper, she does so more on pragmatic than
theological grounds. She cites several examples of ministries making the
discovery that sacramental worship is “popular”—well-received and desired by
their congregations. For example:
[I]n an upscale Western suburb where 75 percent of the population is made up of

unchurched baby boomers, a new church plant has made a fascinating discovery:
Communion and anointing for healing are becoming the most popular events
among the unchurched boomers it has attracted.87
84
85
Ibid., p. 101.
86
Ibid., p. 117.
87
Ibid., p. 130.
Similarly, another “seeker-driven church in a fast growing suburban area”

discovered that newly-added (traditional) elements, including Communion and
baptism, elicited a “reaction from seekers [which] has been extremely positive,”
and “attendance is increasing.”88
Again—Morgenthaler may well be sacramental in her own theology. But here
she treats the sacraments pragmatically. Their rootedness in tradition testifies
to their usefulness (and is, perhaps, attractive in and of itself to postmodern
seekers); at the same time, the sacraments may perhaps be profitably replaced by
alternative sorts of interactive symbolism.
Hybels and Warren

In these two volumes, neither Hybels nor Warren refers explicitly to human
participation in the life of God. One assumes each of them to believe in the
experience of earthly fellowship with God; while the ministry focus of each
book perhaps precludes an exploration of that dimension, the glimpses of each
pastor’s own spiritual experience affirm a sense of such a relationship. Neither
volume refers to heavenly worship or human participation in it.
The dimension of Horizon 3 most clearly implied by these authors is
participation in the missio Dei. Hybels and Warren are especially concerned with
mission and evangelism, and they do envision the mission as God’s own. Hybels
understands his missional “Acts 2” conception for the church to be more than
his own good idea:
We dreamed about Acts 2 … We dreamed about how to be the church. And we

believed that the dream was straight from the heart of Jesus. The church is, after
all, His vision.89
Lynne Hybels also conveys, in her portion of Rediscovering Church, the

understanding that the church’s ministry of outreach is really God’s mission.
Describing her husband’s early conviction that the mission to which he was
called was divine, she writes: “He was gripped with the soul-level awareness that
an all-out effort to touch the lives of lost people pleased God and reflected the
heart of Christ.”90 For Bill and Lynne Hybels, the Acts 2 vision of a multiplying
church and the embodiment of that vision in evangelistic worship are more than
a strategic action plan; they are a participation in the missio Dei.
88
Ibid., p. 78.
89
90
Ibid., p. 42.
Warren’s “catching waves” metaphor even more pointedly conveys the sense
that God is at work, drawing people to himself, and that human mission is a
participation in that which God is already doing. God acts missionally, and
humans have the privilege of participating in the already-in-progress work of the
missio Dei.
Morgenthaler
If Morgenthaler’s methodology stands in distinct contrast to that of Hybels and
Warren, her Horizon 3 thinking is quite similar to that of the seeker church
pastors. For one thing, she assumes some sort of human intersection with the
divine life, especially in gathered worship; she judges worship to be less than
authentic, in fact, if it lacks a perceptible encounter with the divine. Furthermore,
Morgenthaler shares with these megachurch pastors an acute sense of mission,
presumably the missio Dei—an imperative vision that galvanizes the church’s
ministry (and her own) into focused action.
Epilogue: The Changing Perspectives of Hybels and Morgenthaler
All three of the evangelistic worship authors have, over time, developed and refined
their thinking and practice. Some time after the publication of these books, for
example, both Hybels and Warren led their churches toward impressive growth
in the area of compassionate social action.91 Such evolution and adjustment of
perspective is to be expected. But two of these authors, Hybels and Morgenthaler,
have navigated turnarounds dramatic enough that they warrant at least a brief
epilogue.
Willow Creek began navigating dramatic changes in its ministry approach
soon after the turn of the millennium. Because of the high public visibility
of both Hybels and his church, news of those changes garnered a good deal
of media attention. The 2007 publication of Willow’s pivotal “Reveal” study
prompted such dramatic headlines as “Willow Creek’s Huge Shift” and even,
“Willow Repents.”92 Hybels made a public response decrying these “unfortunate”
91
See Nicholas D. Kristof, “Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love (Op.-Ed),” New York
Times (February 3, 2008); David van Biema, “Warren of Rwanda,” Time Magazine 166, no. 8
(August 2005): p. 59; Mark Galli, “Making the Local Church a Hero,” Christianity Today 53,
no. 3 (March 2009): p. 32; Timothy C. Morgan, “Warren, Hybels Urge Churches to Wage
‘War on Aids,’” Christianity Today (online only), www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/
decemberweb-only/12.0.html (accessed June 18, 2013).
92
Matt Branaugh, “Willow Creek’s ‘Huge Shift,’” Christianity Today Magazine 52,
no. 6 ( June 2008): p. 13; Url Scaramanga, “Willow Creek Repents? Why the Most Influential
Church in America Now Says ‘We Made a Mistake,’” Out of Ur Blog, http://www.outofur.
com/archives/2007/10/willow_creek_re.html (accessed June 18, 2013).
exaggerations—but acknowledged, nevertheless, the seminal changes afoot in

the way Willow frames its ministry.93
In a compact overview entitled Reveal: Where Are You?, Willow leaders
present a first-pass interpretation of the study that caused them “to rethink
everything about how [they] do ministry.”94 The results of the large-scale
Reveal study—an extensive and detailed survey conducted by a “world class”
professional—led Willow to adjust the conception and balance of its seeker-
oriented model. The church was troubled by the discovery that their ministry
approach was failing to nurture and develop believers who had matured past
the early stages of discipleship. Willow’s leaders began to question some of
the ministry’s basic premises—in particular, they called into question their
previously-held belief that “spiritual growth” depends largely on “increasing
participation in church activities.”95 Such a principle proves true for new
believers, the study revealed; but not for those further along in Christian
growth. Whereas spiritual “behaviors” (such as tithing, evangelism, and
serving) do indeed increase in proportion to participation, spiritual “attitudes”
(defined as love for God and for others) do not.
The Reveal material has much to do with “participation”—but not in the
specifically worship-related sense under consideration here. It has in view the
larger context of participation in programmed church activities of any kind.
Still, worship participation certainly falls within this broader range, and the
Reveal study is quite pertinent to our discussions.
On the one hand, Willow is at pains to make clear that it is not abandoning
its emphatic commitment to bringing seekers into relationship with Christ.
Seeker sensitivity (and programming) will unquestionably remain a hallmark of
the church’s ministry. On the other hand, Willow does seem to be backing away
from its historically two-pronged model that segregates weekend seeker services
from midweek believers’ services.
Regarding weekend services, Willow determined (post-Reveal) to “extend
[their] impact” so as to “meet the needs of those who are farther along the
journey.”96 In other words, weekends will no longer be focused solely on seekers.
As for the seekers that Willow will presumably still attempt to draw to those
weekend services—the church understands those unchurched attendees to be
ready for something more substantial than its historic seeker fare. This new
understanding was conveyed by executive pastor Greg Hawkins at Willow’s
2008 “Shift” conference; Skye Jethani of Leadership Journal reports:
WillowNews, Bill Hybels Responds to Misinformation About Willow Creek [Video]
93
(2007), www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD1AvbL-iBQ (accessed June 18, 2013).

94
Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, Reveal: Where Are You? (South Barrington:
Willow Creek Association, 2007–8), p. 24.
95
Ibid., pp. 30–31.
96
Ibid., p. 66.
‘Anonymity is not the driving value for seeker services anymore,’ says Hawkins.
‘We’ve taken anonymity and shot it in the head. It’s dead. Gone.’ In the past
Willow believed that seekers didn’t want large doses of the Bible or deep worship
music. They didn’t want to be challenged. Now their seeker-sensitive services are
loaded with worship music, prayer, Scripture readings, and more challenging
teaching from the Bible.97
So Willow has replaced its weekend seeker services, which had been aggressively
tailored toward relevance and accessibility for the unchurched, with what
amounts to believers’ worship and teaching. It does so with two considerations
in mind: a newfound sense of urgency regarding the maturation of believers, and
a changed understanding of the (changing) needs of seekers.
Regarding Willow’s midweek services, aimed at believers from the very
start, a subsequent post-Reveal goal was to “morph” them “into a variety of
‘next step’ learning opportunities.”98 After a gathered time of corporate worship,
attendees would now disperse into smaller, more customized classes and learning
opportunities. These midweek services would remain believers’ events, now with
enriched palettes of discipleship and pedagogy.
Evangelism remains a central concern for Hybels and Willow Creek. The
changes they are making are less at the level of theology or vision than at the level
of strategy. In a statement couched in a video interview, Hybels observes that
seekers have changed generationally and culturally over the years:
When we started trying to reach people who were far from God in the mid-
seventies … they wanted a service that was presented to them, they didn’t want
to participate. We said they didn’t want to ‘say anything, sign anything, sing
anything.’ So they were quite passive about the whole thing. These days …
explorers, seekers, call them what you will, are quite open … to participating in an
event like a weekend church service. They enjoy music—they’ll sing along even if
they don’t understand the full weight of the lyrics … they love the music; you’ll
see them clapping their hands and being as engaged as other people around them.
And so … we believe seekers have changed in a lot of ways, and we are committed
to being relevant to the seeker of 2008 like we were in 1978.99
So seekers have changed their preferences and, in response, Willow has

changed its strategy. But for all the sharp turns and fine-tuning, Willow’s
97
Skye Jethani, “Live at Shift: Deep Ministry in a Shallow World,” www.outofur.com/
archives/2008/04/live_from_shift_5.html (accessed June 18, 2013).
98
Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, Follow Me (Reveal) (South Barrington: Willow
Creek Resources, 2008), pp. 127–8.
99
Willow News, Bill Hybels Responds [Video].
mission remains the same—to “turn irreligious people into fully devoted
followers of Jesus Christ.”100
In line with their evangelistic mission, Hybels and the leaders at Willow
believe that paying closer attention to the spiritual needs and development of
maturing believers will multiply the church’s effectiveness in missional outreach.
As believers become more passionately committed to Christ they grow, in
Willow’s understanding, in their desire to help others know and grow in Christ.101
If Hybels and Willow Creek have become disillusioned about the efficacy of
seeker-focused worship to disciple, Sally Morgenthaler has begun to question its
efficacy to evangelize. Growing skeptical about her own “worship evangelism”
model at the turn of the millennium, by 2006 Morgenthaler had disbanded her
worship resource website (sacramentis.com) and announced her “exit” from
“the world of corporate worship.”102
For one thing, like the leaders at Willow Creek, Morgenthaler realized that
times had changed. In the 1980s and 1990s, the mounting of entertaining, seeker-
sensitive worship events did, indeed, attract the unchurched in droves.103 But
gradually the seeker model failed to produce the desired results. If the attendance
at the largest churches continued to swell, it was not with the unchurched,
contends Morgenthaler—the megachurches were, rather, siphoning off restless
attendees of smaller, less colorful churches. “For all the money, time, and effort
we’ve spent on … culturally relevant worship,” she writes, “it seems we came
through the last 15 years with a significant net loss in churchgoers.”104
Morgenthaler laments the fact that her book contributed, unwittingly, to
the development within the church of an insular “worship-driven subculture.”105
What is called for, she now believes, is not a worship-centered approach to
evangelism—but rather, “living life with the people in their neighborhoods.”106
In a bold turnaround from her attractional worship evangelism philosophy,
Morgenthaler now advocates a more radically missional strategy. She remains
convinced that worship is centrally important for Christians. But when it
comes to evangelizing a culture that “has become incessantly more spiritual and

100
“The evidence is compelling: the more one grows, the more one serves, tithes and
101
evangelizes … We see dramatically higher levels of evangelistic activity [as people mature in
their faith].” Hawkins and Parkinson, Where Are You?, p. 45.
102
Sally Morgenthaler, “Worship Evangelism: Sally Morgenthaler Rethinks Her Own
Paradigm,” Rev! (May/June 2007): p. 53.
103
See ibid., p. 50.
104
Ibid.
105
Ibid., p. 48.
106
Ibid., p. 52.
adamantly less religious,” Morgenthaler believes that “the primary meeting place
with our unchurched friends is now outside the church building.”107
In many ways Hybels and Morgenthaler believe what they have always
believed; the evolution in their thinking and ministry is not, for either of them,
a wholesale repudiation of what they set forth in Rediscovering Church and
Worship Evangelism. At the same time, both of these authors have made profound
changes to the ministry approaches they once embraced and recommended.
Both attribute their turnarounds, at least in part, to changing times.
In response to disappointing reports of stunted maturation among believers
and new insights about the preferences of seekers, Willow has moved away from
a segregated seekers-versus-believers model. The church is developing, instead,
a more integrated approach that seeks to balance spiritual nurture and seeker
sensitivity. While the primary changes at Willow do not center on worship, they
do involve raising the bar of expectations for participation—on the part of both
believers and seekers.
Morgenthaler’s change of heart is even more radical. Rather than trying to
fix the evangelistic worship model by tinkering with its seeker/believer balance,
she envisions a different model altogether: one in which evangelism’s center of
gravity is outside of the church’s walls.
Evangelistic Worship: Summary Reflections
These works by Hybels, Warren, and Morgenthaler are striking in their

unflagging commitment to both evangelism and worship, and their dedication
to discovering the ideal synergy between the two. As practitioners, the balance
these authors seek is not only a matter of theological interest, but also one of
intensely practical concern.
Particularly notable is the extremely high regard these author/practitioners
have for worship. They take doxology to be God’s ultimate call and purpose for
humanity, and understand evangelism as merely a means of ushering people
toward that end. While they frame both worship and evangelism in largely
individualistic terms, these evangelistic worship authors focus intensely on
corporate gatherings.
If reverence for gathered worship is something these evangelistic worship
authors share with their gathered devotion counterparts, so is their sense of
liturgical liberty. For them, worship—a matter of the heart—is inwardly
defined; its outward practices may be flexibly adapted to context and purpose.
So these authors find no contradiction between a theological priority on
worship and a practical priority on evangelism. They seek to honor God
107
Ibid., pp. 52–3.
doubly in their corporate gatherings by accommodating the imperatives of

both doxology and outreach.
Because at a practical level the evangelistic worship approach prioritizes
evangelism, and because it recruits the tangibles of worship toward evangelistic
ends, it has often been referred to as “pragmatic.” While that label is often
freighted with negative connotations, it need not be used in only a pejorative
sense. James White, who is scrupulously even-handed, finds the word
“pragmatic” particularly appropriate and useful in discussing not only twentieth-
century seeker churches, but also their historic precedents.108 Towering among
these forebears is Charles Finney, whose liturgically pragmatic “new measures”
approach exerted a far-reaching influence on American churches of all stripes.
I will return in Chapter 10 to Charles Finney and the way in which these
evangelistic worship authors strongly resonate with him. For now, it is simply
useful to employ for our discussions the descriptive, value-neutral sense of the
word “pragmatic.”
The evangelistic worship literature reflects two distinct approaches to
balancing evangelism and worship in corporate services. One approach, that of
Hybels and Warren, depends upon two separate services: a midweek worship
gathering for believers, and a weekend “seeker service” which is not considered
“worship.” (Henceforward, I will refer to this as the “dual-service” approach.)
The other strategy, which forms the thesis of Worship Evangelism, commends
unified gatherings of “full worship” that balance the needs of both believers
and seekers together. (I will henceforth refer to this as the “unified service”
approach.)
These practitioners clearly invested much thought, prayer, and effort into
their strategies for balancing the ministries of worship and evangelism. Their
strenuous attempts to find solutions bear witness to the magnitude of the
inherent problem. The tension between doxology and outreach is perennially
challenging to navigate—and every solution will inevitably have its weaknesses.
On the one hand, Hybels’s and Warren’s dual-service model affirms the
uniqueness of worship and its requirements by keeping it clearly separate from
evangelism. On the other hand, this approach seems to ignore the inherent
evangelistic power of authentic worship. Sally Morgenthaler resists the dual-
service for precisely this reason; she makes much of the evangelistic potency of
believers worshiping fully. Rich Warren, displaying some ambivalence about his
own model, agrees that worship is, by its very nature, evangelistic. Seen in this
light, the segregated dual-service model seals evangelism hermetically away from
the spiritual powerhouse that ought to vitalize it. In other words, the dual-service
approach takes the evangelistic light of worship and hides it under a bushel.
108
See White, Christian Worship in North America, pp. 161–3.
Furthermore, as the “later” Morgenthaler points out, no matter what

disclaimers are made, the dual-service setup inevitably causes confusion by
blurring the lines between authentic worship and evangelistic entertainment.
And that confusion, Morgenthaler reminds us, is not localized within the seeker
church community; since these megachurches serve as prominent exemplars
of ecclesial practice, many aspects of their ministry are exported wholesale to
churches throughout the country and, in fact, the world. The nuances of what
constitutes worship versus what constitutes outreach are often lost in translation.
The unified-service compromise struck by many megachurches of the 1990s,
on the other hand, keeps evangelism in close orbit of authentic worship. But, as
both Hybels and Warren point out, it is difficult to effectively meet the demands
of evangelism and worship at the same time. Authentic, faithful, Christ-
centered worship is challenging enough to facilitate, in and of itself; if excessive
attention is given to the somewhat different requisites of evangelism, the people’s
worship—purportedly their primary purpose—may be diluted or distorted. The
evangelistic unified-service model does not, says Sally Morgenthaler, work in the
new millennium. And perhaps it never did.109
All three of the evangelistic worship authors value participation. When it
comes to spiritual activities in general, they seek for their people increasing
levels of participation. And regarding worship, specifically, they target tangible
participation from believers. As for seekers, Hybels and Warren are ready to
lower the participation bar in the name of seeker sensitivity. And yet, the idea
that seekers can and should participate is one that Morgenthaler advocates,
Warren allows for, and the post-Reveal Hybels gets around to.
These authors treat participation primarily through the lens of human action
(Horizon 1). Even the ordinances operate on this horizon, in their treatment—
which frames them as largely human acts, expressions of commitment. While
always expecting a palpable, spiritual sense of God’s presence, these practitioners
invest attention in every possible dimension of human action. They believe in
orchestrating a multisensory, multimedia event that is carefully programmed
and polished into excellence.
One question worth pursuing is this: what is the effect of such programmed
performance on congregational participation? On the one hand, these authors
would agree with Tim Keller’s notion that excellence is “inclusive.”110 Minimizing
what Hybels calls the “cringe factor,” polished performance can eliminate a host
of impediments to congregational engagement. At the same time, a tightly
109
Twenty-first century seekers are ready (as Bill Hybels has also acknowledged) for
higher levels of challenge and participation. As for twentieth-century seekers, Morgenthaler’s
statistical analysis suggests they may have been less impressed by “seeker services” than it once
appeared; megachurch attendance seems to have swelled less with seekers, and more with
church-switchers.
110
See Keller, “Reformed Worship,” p. 236.
controlled performance orientation on the part of the “programmers” might

easily serve as a cue for the congregation (or implicitly, “audience”) to be passive
rather than active, and to spectate rather than fully participate.
The evangelistic worship literature sees a narrow range of activity at the level
of Horizon 2. They generally do not locate the ordinances here.111 They come
closest to identifying divine-through-human action in connection with two
media, quite apart from the ordinances. First, they see God’s Word, especially
as it is preached, as a means through which God acts. Second, Hybels and
Warren both seem to see their ministries—the conception and mission of their
churches—as manifestations of God’s guidance, power, and action.
This grand sense of God’s divine-through-human action, at a meta-ministry
level, can be understood in two ways. One might think of it is a refraction of
the missio Dei, a participation in God’s own mission. One might also think of
it as something different: participation in a venture that is not so much God’s
overarching mission as a particular mission designed for a particular ministry.
In light of Hybels’s and Warren’s narratives, one imagines their congregants
as having, at their best, a sense of participating not so much in the mission of
God, but rather in a mission of God. During a given church service, what is on
the minds of those participants who have invested themselves in the Willow
program—those who bring seeker friends on Sundays and attend believers’
worship on Wednesday evenings, who participate in small groups and pray for
the church? One does imagine that they have a sense, during a particular event,
of participating not only in tangible human acts of worship, but also in the large
evangelistic enterprise that God has put together at Willow Creek. And while
such a vision intersects, certainly, with the idea of the missio Dei—it does not
necessarily keep that larger, overarching perspective in view.
It is hard to identify precisely the influence of the evangelistic worship model,
and especially of its megachurch practitioners, on evangelical understandings
of participation. Certainly two factors must be taken into account: first, the
extreme breadth of these ministries’ influence, and second, the admittedly
unintended consequences that some of their strategies have had.
The “background” section of this chapter demonstrated how influential
Hybels and Warren (and their churches) have been. Both Saddleback and Willow
Creek have established deliberate (and successful) organizations precisely to
serve as agents of influence. The Willow Creek Association calls itself “the most
influential ministry to evangelical pastors in the U.S.,”112 and the statement does
Sally Morgenthaler’s Worship Evangelism does include passages that imply

111
sacramental leanings. But if she hints at such a perspective, she does not sustain it throughout
the volume.
112
Willow Creek Association, “About Us: Who We Are,” www.willowcreek.com/about/
(accessed September 4, 2010).
not appear to be much of an exaggeration. Moreover, we have observed that

these megachurches are, by virtue of their prominence and numerical success,
exemplars to which countless other churches look for inspiration and guidance.
Seeker church ministry has been pointedly challenged by a wide range of
critics, including those wary about its influence on evangelical understandings
of worship.113 But we need look no further than the evangelistic worship authors,
themselves, to hear concerns voiced about the model’s repercussions. The
“Epilogue” section above observed the significant changes of heart (or at least
of strategy) that both Hybels and Morgenthaler have had in regard to their
former ministry approaches. They acknowledge that their approaches have had
quantifiable consequences that were not at all intended. Two of these are worth
considering, here, briefly.
First, both Hybels and Morgenthaler have come to realize that their models
fail to produce the intended results in either of the two areas with which we are
here concerned—evangelism and worship. Whether their previous approaches
were originally misbegotten or only subsequently outmoded, they are, both
authors agree, presently ineffective. In terms of evangelism, the old seeker-
focused approaches do not appear to work in the current cultural milieu.
(Morgenthaler suggests that even their previous, purported successes may be
exaggerated—that the seeker megachurches encouraged more church-hopping
than actual wholesale conversion.) Morgenthaler has given up altogether on
worship as a primary means of evangelism. As for ministry to believers, the
extreme evangelistic focus of seeker churches created a vacuum in which the
already-converted lacked enough spiritual air to breathe. Hybels and Willow
Creek, seeing that their approach ultimately stunted the spiritual development
of believers, have backed away from dual services and seem to be gravitating
toward the seeker-sensitive, unified-service model Morgenthaler outlined in
Worship Evangelism.
Second, as Morgenthaler has pointed out, the two-service model has caused
confusion about what constitutes authentic worship. Despite the best efforts
of these ministries, their attendees have often taken the colorful trappings of
seeker events to be authentic worship—simply more exciting and entertaining.
The passive (largely unparticipative) dynamics of these events have been
indiscriminately imported into the “believers’ worship” of churches throughout
the United States (and perhaps the world). The seeker churches are hardly the
first influence in the American church toward mitigated participation; Webber
113
For example, James White—who exhibits admirable fairness in crediting the seeker
church movement’s strengths—also expresses concern about its weaknesses. He attempts
to set the movement in historical perspective, and to compare it with a more organic,
community-based model of evangelism, in “Evangelism and Worship From New Lebanon to
Nashville,” in Christian Worship in North America, pp. 155–72.
and White outline a long legacy of philosophical and cultural influences that
have, over the centuries, vitiated active congregational participation. But the
seeker churches have been a particularly prominent and persuasive influence
toward low levels of participation in worship.
Beyond these two unintended consequences identified by Hybels and
Morgenthaler, a third might be suggested. On one level, the pragmatic approach
taken by the evangelistic worship authors makes sense in the context of their
theology: convinced that they are guarding worship’s inviolable spiritual core,
they shape its tangible aspects—which they regard as arbitrary—to noble
purposes. So worship’s effectiveness is measured functionally, according to how
well it nurtures, or evangelizes, or even conveys a felt sense of God’s presence. But,
as well-intentioned as this approach may be, it conveys an unintended message:
worship is always secondary, always in the service of some goal other than itself.
While the evangelistic worship authors are adamant that they believe worship to
be primary, their pragmatic approach conveys a very different message.
What is wrong with the evangelistic worship approach? As we have seen,
neither Hybels nor Morgenthaler find it viable any longer. They conclude
(pragmatically) that worship is not effective to accomplish the goals they have
in mind. Both authors have given up on the notion that worship is conducive
to the ends of evangelism and discipleship. Hybels now looks to supplemental,
didactic “learning opportunities” for the spiritual growth of believers;
Morgenthaler looks to extra-ecclesial community engagement for evangelism.
While these adjustments are certainly excellent measures, it is curious that these
authors despair of worship’s power altogether—rather than more pointedly
questioning their own approaches to it. Is it possible that what lacks evangelistic
and formative power is not worship, itself, but rather a reductionist approach to
worship?
Chapter 8
The Organically Missional Emphasis
Rank
Book Year
(out of 25)
Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for 2003 9
New Generations (Zondervan)
At the turn of the millennium, the words “emerging church” and “postmodernism”
seemed to crop up in almost every discussion of evangelicalism and its possible
twenty-first century trajectories. One of the books in our pool—Dan Kimball’s
The Emerging Church—emerges (if you will) from that moment. As the lone
representative of what was then a relatively new trend, the volume forms an
emphasis group, here, all by itself. Kimball, whose approach might be called
organically missional, shares with the evangelistic worship authors a preoccupation
with the church’s outreach to the unchurched—but, for him, that imperative is
more a matter of being than doing. In Kimball’s understanding, deeply shaped by
a deliberate engagement with postmodernism, worship is an organic expression
of the church’s missional character.
While Kimball may be the only representative of the organically missional
focus in our pool, he is certainly not alone.1 Sally Morgenthaler’s (later)
thinking, introduced in the last chapter, aligns closely with Kimball’s. Many
other commentators have considered the implications of the “postmodern turn”
for Christian ministry, and numerous practitioners have theologized about,
embraced, and experimented with postmodern-minded ministry models.2
1
Perhaps had the survey for this study been conducted a few years later than it was,
more organically missional literature would have been tagged by the respondents.
2
Leonard Sweet has responded to the postmodern cultural shift with an approach
to ministry described by the acronym “EPIC” (Experiential, Participative, Image-rich,
Communal). (See Leonard I. Sweet, Post-Modern Pilgrims: First Century Passion for the
21st Century World [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000] and Leonard I. Sweet and
Edward H. Hammett, The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living With a Grande Passion
[Colorado Springs: Waterbrook Press, 2007].) Robert Webber has celebrated the way in
which postmodernism occasions a questioning of rationalistic modernism, and opens the
church to “ancient future” insights into theology, ministry, and worship. See Webber’s
The Younger Evangelicals, as well as his Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five
If Kimball is the sole spokesman for an organically missional focus in our

pool, however, he is a good spokesman. Kimball falls near the middle of the
range of responses the church has made to postmodernism; he neither overturns
traditionally evangelical theology nor makes merely token, surface-level
adjustments. Furthermore, The Emerging Church presents a good introductory
overview not only of Kimball’s own ministry journey, but also of the general
landscape of “emerging” postmodern ministry. Rather than attempting to sketch
out that larger landscape, therefore, this chapter will simply allow Kimball’s
work to serve as a microcosm of the larger movement. For clarity’s sake, however,
one question should be considered: precisely which movement does Kimball
represent?
Dan Kimball might best be understood as representing three distinct but
intersecting movements. First, he typifies the broad phenomenon of evangelical
practitioners and thinkers who consciously engage postmodernism. (Much
has been written about the profound significance of this cultural change; the
remainder of this chapter will allow Kimball to surface those particular strands
of that broad subject that are pertinent to our discussion.3) Second, Kimball
represents a particular, high-profile stream of that larger movement: the
“emerging church.” (While the “emerging” movement has quite possibly run
its course—even Kimball, himself, having eventually distanced himself from
the label—it garnered much attention in the years surrounding the turn of the
millennium.4) And third, Kimball represents a “missional” approach to church.
Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007). For a serious volume outlining postmodern-
aware ministry, see Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches. Some volumes document material
used in postmodern worship; among these are Jonny Baker, Doug Gay, and Jenny Brown,
Alternative Worship: Resources From and for the Emerging Church (Grand Rapids: Baker
Books, 2004), and Isaac Everett, The Emergent Psalter (New York: Church Publishing, 2009).
Notable postmodern/emergent ministries include Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis (Doug
Pagitt), Mars Hill Fellowship in Seattle (Rob Bell), and Ecclesia in Houston (Chris Seay).
Among the myriad bloggers who have contributed to shaping the “emerging conversation”
are Andrew Jones (www.tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com and http://tallskinnykiwi.com/) and
Scot McKnight (www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/). (All sites accessed November 25,
2013.)
3
For general discussions of postmodernism and its significance for ministry, see Gibbs
and Bolger, Emerging Churches; Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans, 1996); Sweet, Post-Modern Pilgrims; Leonard I. Sweet and Andy
Crouch, The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives (El Cajon: Youth Specialties,
2003).
4
Articles and blog entries, only partly tongue in cheek, report the “death of the
emerging church”—and suggest the range of its lifespan as being something like 1989–
2009. (See Andrew Jones, Tall Skinny Kiwi blog, http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/
tallskinnykiwi/2009/12/emerging-church-movement-1989---2009.html [accessed June 23,
2013]; Url Scaramanga, “R.I.P. Emerging Church: An Overused and Corrupted Term now
The Organically Missional Emphasis 181
The missional movement—which factors together cultural change with fresh

rethinkings of missiology and ecclesiology—has proved to be a catalytic force
for evangelicals (among others), sparking discussion, action, and retooling of
ministry.
Overview
Kimball’s point of view as expressed in The Emerging Church is best thought

of as transitional. Much like the cultural moment Kimball describes (a sort of
crossfade between modernism and postmodernism), his thinking seems to exist
in the transition from one thing to another. Having decisively put aside “seeker-
sensitive” ministry, his thinking demonstrates both continuity and discontinuity
with that paradigm.
One point of obvious continuity is the conspicuous visibility of Rick Warren
throughout the pages of Kimball’s book. Warren not only warmly enthuses,
in the foreword he penned for the volume, about Kimball’s approach; he also
serves (along with Sally Morgenthaler) as one of six commentators whose
thoughts are interwoven as call-outs throughout the pages of the book. In the
foreword, Warren takes pains to make clear that he and Kimball are kindred
spirits, operating from a shared set of values. In Warren’s understanding, the
timeless purposes of the church (worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry
and evangelism) remain the same, but the culture perpetually changes and calls
for new ministry methodologies.5 Kimball is, according to Warren, a reliable
guide to “purpose-driven” ministry among “cultural-creatives who think and
feel in postmodern terms.” 6 In his comments throughout The Emerging Church,
Warren affirms Kimball’s insights and recommendations. He frames Kimball’s
innovations as methodological—the clothing of purpose-driven ministry in
new, postmodern garb.
Sleeps with the Fishes,” Out of Ur Blog, www.outofur.com/archives/2008/09/rip_emerging_

ch.html [accessed June 23, 2013].) The “emerging conversation” encompasses a wide range
of theologies, some of which remain fairly conservative, and some of which radically rethink
what have typically been thought of by Christians as orthodox theological tenets. The term
“emerging” became all the more ambiguous (and untenably controversial) by its similarity
to the word “emergent”—used as a label by The Emergent Village (www.emergentvillage.
com and http://www.patheos.com/blogs/emergentvillage/—both accessed June 25, 2013),
a cadre of thinkers and communicators whose theological musings many evangelicals have
found unsettling.
5
For his exposition of the church’s five purposes, see Warren, Purpose Driven Church.
6
Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), p. 7.
It is true enough that Kimball’s own switch from “seeker-sensitive” to “post-

seeker-sensitive” ministry began for pragmatic reasons. After a successful start
in youth ministry that drew deliberate inspiration from Willow Creek and
Saddleback, Kimball began to notice significant changes in the young “seekers”
his church targeted.7 Although unable to articulate the difference at first, he and
his church were “feeling the effects of emerging generations being born into a
post-Christian (and … post-seeker-sensitive) world.”8 These seekers “desire[d]
spiritual experiences” and responded to symbol, stillness, and mystery; they were
less responsive to tightly-programmed presentation, and more open to authentic,
explicitly religious dialogue.9 Kimball soon discovered that the shift was not
age-dependent; using his new, post-seeker approach, he began a successful adult
ministry called “Graceland,” and eventually planted Vintage Faith Church.10
On the one hand, Kimball’s separation from the “seeker-sensitive” paradigm
is an amicable one. He affirms “seeker-sensitive style ministry,” and expresses
certainty that God has used—and will continue to use—such ministry.11 Kimball
acknowledges that thousands upon thousands of unchurched people continue
to be drawn by seeker-sensitive ministries into a relationship with Jesus and the
church.12 On the other hand, Kimball’s conversion to “post-seeker-sensitivity”
was, in actuality, substantially more than methodological. It was grounded in
the recognition of profound cultural changes. While these changes do, indeed,
call for renewed methodology—they also call, moreover, for deeper and more
thoroughgoing theological adjustment.
Kimball recognizes the sweeping cultural turn from modernism to
postmodernism as a deep sort of change, profound and tectonic: more than
a mere “generation gap,” it has to do with “how people view the world.”13
Throughout the culture, modernism (scientific, technological, absolutist,
rationalistic, individualistic, and systematic) is giving way to postmodernism
(holistic, perspectival, relativistic, relational, and communal).14 The change is a
transition between not merely generations, but rather epochs.
Kimball observes that the church is affected not only by these broad cultural
changes, but also by those changes more specific to the way in which people
relate to the church. The United States is now largely post-Christian, with a
population of unchurched people that amounts to “the largest mission field in
7
Ibid., pp. 31–2.
8
Ibid., p. 32.
9
Ibid., p. 35.
10
Ibid., pp. 36–7.
11
Ibid., p. 27.
12
Ibid., p. 103.
13
Ibid., p. 59.
14
Ibid., p. 50.
the English-speaking world.”15 In the face of this new reality, Kimball concludes
that “we must rethink virtually everything we are doing in our ministries.”16 He
intends his book to be a guide to that “rethinking”—the deconstructing and
reconstructing of ecclesial self-understanding and practice.
The church simply must respond, argues Kimball, to the advent of
postmodernism, and its adjustment must be authentic and profound. And if
the church’s broad life and ministry need a comprehensive overhaul, so do its
liturgical practices, those worship-related changes must be more than skin deep,
more essential than merely introducing candles, artwork, and lectio divina into
worship services. First of all, corporate gatherings should embody a “no-holds-
barred approach to worship,” writes Kimball; they should leave “no doubt we
are in the presence of a Holy God.”17 The believer/nonbeliever conundrum that
plagued the seeker-sensitive model is no longer, for Kimball, an issue; those
things that were jettisoned in the name of seeker-sensitivity are “the very things
nonbelievers want to experience.”18 So Kimball advocates a “vintage” approach
to worship—one that celebrates (with a postmodern twist) the classic and
overtly Christian symbols and practices that defy seeker-sensitive “relevance”:
A post-seeker-sensitive worship gathering promotes, rather than hides, full

displays of spirituality (extended worship, religious symbols, liturgy, extensive
prayer times, extensive use of Scripture and readings, etc.) so that people can
experience and be transformed by the message of Jesus.19
Such a “vintage” strategy is based on the conviction that “both believers and
nonbelievers in this emerging culture are hungry” for such embodiments of
spirituality. Worship conceived along these lines not only evangelizes the
unchurched, for Kimball; it also edifies and nurtures those who believe.20
Beyond methodology, Kimball is insistent that deeper changes, still,
are called for. Postmodern-aware practitioners must change not merely the
way they do church, but even the way they “think of the church.”21 Between
the deconstructing of modernist understandings and the reconstructing of
something new, the church must face the question of its very identity. For
Kimball, that identity is bound up with mission. For all its various forms, the
15
Ibid., p. 14. Kimball quotes statistics from Tom Clegg and Warren Bird, Lost in
America (Loveland: Group, 2001), p. 25.
16
Kimball, The Emerging Church, p. 14.
17
Ibid., p. 116.
18
Ibid., pp. 15–16.
19
Ibid., p. 26.
20
Ibid., p. 116.
21
Ibid., p. 15.
uniting characteristic of the emerging church will be its “missional emphasis.”22

At its core the emerging church is “about the Spirit of God producing missional
kingdom-minded disciples of Jesus.”23 This missional identity is not for those
in leadership, alone; the people are to understand themselves as “be[ing] the
church on a mission together.”24
The idea of the “missional church” did not originate with Dan Kimball, of
course. But although he references some important missional thinkers (such as
Lesslie Newbigin and Darrell Guder), Kimball, who is essentially a generalist
and practitioner, does not delve much into missional theology nor its history.25
He treats the primary ideas of missional theology broadly, simply taking mission
to be rooted in the character and action of God, as well as central to the identity
and action of the church.
Worship
Throughout The Emerging Church, Kimball frequently echoes the all of life
writers as he earnestly frames gathered worship as part of a larger, organic
whole. Kimball always has in view the broader missional life of the church that
takes place day to day, outside of the church building. But Kimball also pays
close attention to corporate gatherings, regarding them as uniquely important
moments in the life of the community. He understands present-day Christians as
having the same “reason for gathering” as did the earliest church: to “worship the
risen Jesus through song, prayer, the Lord’s Supper and teaching.”26 For Kimball,
those human actions of worship must happen in the context of a transformative
encounter with the very presence of God.
Ibid., p. 92.
22
Ibid., p. 17.
23
24
Ibid., p. 95.
25
One might find precedent for late twentieth century missional theology in the earlier
articulation of the missio Dei—which sparked from Karl Barth’s thinking in the 1930s, came
into sharper focus at the 1952 Willingen missions conference of the International Missionary
Council, and found its way into such classic articulations as David Bosch’s Transforming
Mission. The missional movement, itself, is usually thought of as anchored in the mid-century
work of Lesslie Newbigin; its classic development was a collaborative volume sponsored by
the GOCN (The Gospel and Our Culture Network). Darrell L. Guder, Missional Church: A
Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.,
1998).
26
Kimball, The Emerging Church, pp. 115–16.
It is clear throughout The Emerging Church that Kimball both believes in and
works toward a high degree of congregational participation in worship. Like Sally
Morgenthaler, he often equates the participative with the “experiential.” Kimball
argues for “experiential” worship for both scriptural and pragmatic reasons.
He contends that such engaged participation is consonant with Scripture;
briefly reviewing biblical conceptions of worship, Kimball demonstrates their
multisensory, experiential character.27 Furthermore, he stresses the way in which
participative worship is pastorally useful in ministry with postmodern people,
who are particularly compelled by experience.
Kimball emphasizes this aspect of the postmodern cultural turn—the shift
away from the abstract toward the experiential. He relays the apt quotation,
“Experience is the new currency of our culture.”28 A related cultural change
Kimball references is the shift “from broadcast to interactive.” Postmodern
people are less interested in spectating than participating;29 they are repelled
by church services that suggest a hierarchy of privileged performer over passive
spectator.30 Kimball asserts that those who are “post-seeker-sensitive” gravitate
more toward worship “gatherings” than “services”; they prefer events that are
participative over ones in which a “program” is “served to the attender.”31
Kimball’s goal is not simply to resonate with the culture, of course—but
to lead it into worship. The goal behind experiential worship is that “people
would participate in the service rather than remain spectators.”32 On the one
hand, Kimball does not prescribe an indiscriminate embrace of postmodernism;
but he does see the culture-shift as presenting an invaluable opportunity. In a
discerning encounter with postmodernism, the church may gain perspective; it
may shake itself free of cultural encumbrances that have kept it blind to some
of its birthrights. One such forgotten birthright that Kimball longs to see the
church recover is fully engaged congregational participation in worship.
Worship, Evangelism, and Participation
For Kimball, every aspect of the church’s life is missional. Worship is, therefore,
evangelistic. But Kimball, moving past the seeker-sensitive model, does not
27
Ibid., pp. 128–9.
28
Ibid., p. 186. Kimball quotes Leadership Network, Explorer no. 57 (March 11,
2002).
29
Kimball, The Emerging Church, p. 187. Again, Kimball quotes Leadership Network’s
Explorer no. 57.
30
Kimball, The Emerging Church, pp. 137–40.
31
Ibid., p. 106.
32
Ibid., p. 112.
center the work of evangelism in church gatherings. He rather seeks to refocus

evangelism “away from events and onto community.”33 Unbelievers are welcomed
into community with the church—in the arenas of both life and liturgy—and
invited to encounter Jesus. The agenda for worship gatherings is no longer acutely
evangelistic; the aim is rather, simply, to “truly worship.”34 If such an approach is
not aggressively seeker-driven, neither is it seeker-indifferent; it recognizes that
present-day seekers attending a service desire an authentic worship experience.35
From Kimball’s missional perspective, the main thrust of evangelism should
be “the church’s simply being what the church should be.”36 The church does
this inherently and organically evangelistic work of “simply being” in every
dimension of its existence, including its worship. For Kimball, the church
reaches out most naturally and effectively not through labored evangelism so
much as through organic mission.
The missional church operates not only out of a new relationship to its
own identity, but also out of a newly-conceived relationship with unbelievers.
Missional Christians no longer understand evangelism to be a performed “sales
pitch,” but rather a relational “conversation”;37 they see it as “less of an invitation
to an event and more of an invitation to … community.”38 Such a model, typical
of missional churches, invites the unchurched to richly participate, immediately,
in the life and worship of the community. While maintaining a distinction
between believers and nonbelievers, the model also highlights a commonality
between the two groups, casting them all as fellow pilgrims on a similar spiritual
journey. This understanding, common among missional churches, opens up new
dimensions of participation. Seekers are welcomed as authentic co-participants.
Believers participate both in partnership with seekers at the level of spiritual
pilgrimage, and also in partnership with fellow believers at the level of missional
witness.
Kimball’s approach to worship majors in the human action of Horizon 1, and

this is true for at least two reasons. For one thing, Kimball’s foundational
understanding of worship (a fairly standard evangelical one) highlights such
Greek terms as proskuneo (to “kiss toward” or “bow down”) and latreuo (“to
serve or minister”), as well as the old English worthship (“to attribute worth”).
Ibid., p. 206.
33
Ibid., p. 116.
34
35
Ibid., p. 115.
36
Ibid., p. 205.
37
Ibid., p. 197. Kimball draws the “sales pitch”/“conversation” contrast from Brian
McLaren, More Ready Than You Realize (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002).
38
Such a conception pictures worship as reverent human action. Furthermore,

Kimball’s extreme focus on the experiential dimension of worship also slants his
treatment toward the tangibly human.
At the same time, Kimball advocates emphasizing the way in which the
perceptible actions of worship point beyond the merely human. The inherently
supernatural referents of worship need not be suppressed in the name of
“seeker-sensitivity”; postmoderns are attracted more to the “mystical” than
the “rational.”39 In contrast to modern services, which were “designed to be
user-friendly and contemporary,” postmodern gatherings are “designed to be
experiential and spiritual-mystical.”40
At this Horizon 1 level of human action, Kimball models (citing the
worship at his own church) new approaches to participation. Promoting the
reconceptualization of worship service as “holistic” gathering, Kimball proposes
an organic, rather than linear, way of laying out a service.41 Rather than planning
a tightly delineated progression of elements, one after the other, he recommends
charting a flow of interactions that allow for more congregational spontaneity,
choice, and exploration. Time and space may be laid out in a way that presents
gathered worshipers with a variety of options, providing multiple, customized
paths through the service. (During a song, for instance, worshipers might
choose to participate by sitting and listening, by moving to an area for prayer,
or by engaging with an interactive prayer station.) Worship planned in this way
deliberately opens up avenues of significantly individualized participation.
If the culture’s new lingua franca is experience, worship must be fully
experiential—and, therefore, multisensory. This is, for Kimball, true to the way
in which God created humans, and it is “through all of our senses” that God
chooses “to reveal himself.”42 The Emerging Church is full of suggestions for
engaging all five senses in experiential worship.43
Kimball is much in favor of using the arts to foster and make visible both
the horizontal and vertical dynamics of worship. The furnishings of the room
communicate, on the one hand, the shared and communal nature of the
gathering; the space is designed to emphasize community, to “feel more like
a living room or coffeehouse while worshiping.”44 On the other hand, artistic
elements within the space communicate mystery and transcendence. Kimball
agrees with Neil Postman’s assertion that, in order for “a nontrivial religious
experience” to take place, “the space in which [a service] is conducted must
be invested with some measure of sacrality.” The people must be “immersed in
39
Ibid., p. 63.
40
Ibid., p. 106.
41
Ibid., pp. 105, 121–3.
42
Ibid., p. 128.
43
Ibid., pp. 155–78.
44
Ibid., p. 185.
an aura of mystery and symbolic otherworldliness.”45 In postmodern services,

therefore, the traditional symbols that once were sidelined in the name of seeker-
sensitivity are now to be “brought back into [the] meeting place to promote a
sense of spiritual reverence.”46
Some of the specific human actions Kimball advocates as means of experiential,
participative worship are common enough: singing, times of silence, and
corporate readings.47 Others are less common, such as an “open-mike time” in
a service, during which congregants may speak spontaneously.48 Some practices
he recommends are ancient, but not traditionally done in gathered worship—
for instance, the practice of lectio divina (periods of scripture reading followed
by times of silence for meditative reflection and listening for God to “speak”
through the text).49
It is difficult to tell from the pages of The Emerging Church whether Kimball
regards communion as involving divine-through-human action, or whether he
sees it primarily as human action. When he refers to the Table as “the ultimate
experiential act of worship,” Kimball does appear to locate the ordinance here in
Horizon 1; but this is probably more a matter of his focusing on the humanly
“experiential” than his limiting the dynamics of the meal to purely human
action.50
Preaching is also, in Kimball’s hands, treated as a process that is both
communal and interactive. Rather than being cast as an elevated expert, the
preacher is reframed “as shepherd and fellow journeyer.”51 Kimball envisions, at
many levels throughout the church’s life, the cultivation of “a culture that allows
dialogue.”52 Relative to preaching, this might involve (as it does at Kimball’s own
church) online weekday discussions about theology, among the congregation
and including the pastor, that inform the shaping and direction of sermons.
“[Q]uestions, dialogue, and discussion” percolating among the community
become the stuff of sermons; in this way preaching may become—even when it
retains the appearance of a solo—a harmonized, choral event.53 Members of the
congregation participate in the preaching event in ways beyond mere listening.
It is in connection with one particular element of worship—prayer—
that Kimball’s church has been at its most creative in exploring participative
45
Ibid., p. 123. Kimball quotes Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public
Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Viking, 1985).
46
47
Ibid., pp. 157–64.
48
Ibid., p. 164.
49
Ibid., pp. 164–5.
50
Ibid., p. 162.
51
Ibid., p. 194.
52
Ibid., p. 192.
53
Ibid., pp. 193–4.
interactivity. Kimball encourages incorporating into services a “wide variety” of

options for prayer. For one thing, worshipers are given time and freedom to pray,
at certain points in the service, in whatever way they choose: remaining in their
seats, kneeling, moving from their seats to other parts of the room.54 Worshipers
can learn to take full advantage of such open-endedness; Kimball reports that
during “Communion nights” at his church it is not uncommon “to see hundreds
of young people flat on their faces or on their knees praying as they confess sin
or just do business with God before taking communion.”55 Another opportunity
for participative prayer is frequently offered at the end of the church’s services,
when people are invited to pray with those with whom they came.
Beyond such relatively conventional means, Kimball commends a practice
common among many postmodern ministries: giving people an opportunity,
during the service, to visit and engage with a variety of “prayer stations.” The
stations, set up in advance, are designed to offer interactions with aspects of
a theme central to that day’s service. They generally consist of round, cloth-
covered tables with arrangements of props and written instructions.56 Such
stations “allow people to experientially interact with the message or theme in
a variety of ways … [that often] involve more of the senses by adding elements
to touch and interact with in some way.”57 Worshipers may visit these prayer
stations at designated times during the service, or may be given permission to
do so whenever they wish. Once at the station, they read, reflect, engage their
senses, and sometimes make a written or enacted response.
A similar stational approach is sometimes taken in connection with other
aspects of worship. Kimball describes the use of such stations as an alternative
way of conducting the offertory.58 His church also apparently makes a regular
practice of using stations, replete with interactive visual symbols, for the
celebration of the Lord’s Supper; worshipers are given the freedom to approach
and “take communion any time they want to during the twenty-five to thirty
minute worship period following the message … It is common to see married
couples serving communion to one another off to the side while kneeling
together.”59 Alternatively, Kimball’s church sometimes celebrates communion
by arranging tables in a more centralized manner and celebrating as a “gathered
community.” But apparently this approach is only “occasional,” and the stational
sort of celebration is preferred.
The human action of Horizon 1 features prominently in The Emerging
Church. Such an emphasis may well be due to the ultimately practical goals
54
Ibid., pp. 155–6.
55
Ibid., p. 166.
56
Ibid.
57
Ibid., pp. 167–8.
58
Ibid., p. 161.
59
Ibid., p. 163.
of the volume, written by a practitioner and for practitioners. In Kimball’s

treatment, the human actions of worship are to be angled in such a way that
they point beyond themselves toward transcendent “spiritual-mystical” realities.
Kimball aggressively emphasizes the participatory (closely linked, for him, to
the “experiential”). He favors providing a variety of opportunities for creative,
self-expressive participation in worship. He prefers an “organic” (rather than
linear) service structure that makes use of stations for prayer and worship. This
approach not only opens new possibilities for experiential worship; it also gives
worshipers latitude to choose the specific ways in which they might most fully
participate.
For all of his focus on human action in worship, Kimball emphatically prioritizes
(theologically, at least) the work of God in worship. Occasionally throughout
the pages of The Emerging Church it becomes clear that Kimball envisions God
acting through human agency, but the manner in which this happens remains
vague. He implies divine-through-human action most clearly in connection with
the planning of worship and the proclamation of God’s Word.
Kimball takes pains to counterbalance his practical recommendations and
his call for creativity with a sober recognition: authentic worship is sparked not
by human ingenuity, but by God’s initiative. Much like the gathered devotion
authors, Kimball voices a keen belief in God’s agency in the planning of
worship—and is satisfied to leave the logistics of that involvement unexplored.
(Kimball makes an explicit disclaimer acknowledging this: although he feels
compelled to point to the Spirit’s role in worship planning, his book, he reminds
the reader, “is not a study of the Spirit’s role in worship.”60) Also like the gathered
devotion writers, Kimball identifies, at different junctures, both Jesus and the
Holy Spirit as guiding the development of worship. He presents these two
persons of the Trinity as somewhat interchangeably entering into the process of
planning worship sessions.61
Kimball believes that God is active not only before a worship service, in its
planning and development, but also during the service itself. In warning against
over-reliance on “programming and technique,” Kimball laments (via the words
of Jim Cymbala) the wrongheadedness of worship leadership in which “there is
Ibid., p. 124.
60
Kimball developed the practice of placing an empty “Jesus chair” in the middle of
61
the room during staff meetings, in order to help his planning team remain mindful of the
transcendent dimension of their work. When faced with questions or problems, the team
would be “reminded to pray and ask Jesus to show [them] what to do.” Ibid., p. 238. At other
times, the focus is more on “the Holy Spirit’s role as the true designer, the one who convicts
and moves.” Ibid., p. 124.
no allowance for God to lead anyone in another direction—certainly not during

the meeting itself.”62 In an appendix in which Kimball presents a closely-timed
roadmap for a particular worship service, he makes the following qualification:
“We allow the Spirit to change things as we go.”63 To some extent, at least,
Kimball envisions God’s action in and through the leaders of worship, not only
as they plan but also lead the worship event.
For Kimball (as for most of our authors), the Word of God figures
prominently into Horizon 2. Although he does not elaborate much, he clearly
states his understanding that the Word is a primary locus of divine-through-
human action in worship. He recognizes God’s Spirit as “an evident participant
in our midst” during the public reading of Scripture.64
As for the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, it is difficult to
ascertain from The Emerging Church the extent to which Kimball reckons them
to be loci for God’s action rather than action that is merely human. To the extent
that Kimball envisions Jesus and the Spirit as generally active in worship, he
must understand communion (the “ultimate experiential act of worship”) as
involving divine-through-human action. But (perhaps because of the generalist,
practical slant of this volume) Kimball’s explicit statements treat the celebration
at the Table as essentially human action.
There is little outright reference in Kimball’s volume to those dimensions of

worship we have identified as participation in the life of God. Again, this is
perhaps less a reflection of Kimball’s theology and more a matter of the practical
focus of this book. His frequent affirmations that worshipers can “experience
God,” along with his depiction of a human/divine partnership in worship
planning, attest to Kimball’s conception of an immanently accessible God who
does indeed “fellowship” with humans.
The missional authors that Kimball references (such as Lesslie Newbigin and
Darrel Guder) explore in particularly rich ways the idea of human participation
in the life of God.65 To the extent that Kimball directs his readers toward
62
Ibid., p. 124. Kimball quotes Jim Cymbala, pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle and
impassioned advocate of prayer-based church ministry. Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), p. 78.
63
64
Ibid., p. 116.
65
In one of Newbigin’s most well known volumes, he writes that the church “gathers
every Sunday, the day of resurrection and of Pentecost, to renew its participation in Christ’s
priesthood.” Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: W.B.
Eerdmans, 1989), p. 230. Even more explicitly, he writes elsewhere that the church’s life is
“a real participation in the life of God Himself.” Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God
missional theology, he also directs them toward an understanding that in worship

(and in every aspect of the church’s experience, for that matter), humans may
participate in the missio Dei that is central to God’s character and life. But such
an understanding is never articulated within the pages of The Emerging Church.
Summary Reflections
If Kimball represents the “emerging church,” broadly, it might also be said that
he represents a quite specific type of “emergence”—out of one school of ministry
and into another. Beginning with a squarely “seeker-sensitive” methodology,
Kimball followed the cultural sensitivity so central to that model down a road
that led him to something quite different. Grappling with postmodernism
led Kimball first to a “post-seeker-sensitive” methodology, and later to a more
significant deconstruction of modernist understandings.
Reformulating the relationship between worship and evangelism, Kimball
uncouples the two without losing sight of their inherent interrelatedness. He
exchanges evangelistic worship for an organically missional approach—one in
which the church’s life is seen as rooted in the dynamic of God’s own mission to
the world. Evangelism becomes a matter more of being than doing, and worship
is set free for unguarded and unrestrained relational encounter with God.
Rather than mounting evangelistic performances, the church now engages in
give-and-take dialogues. Seekers are welcomed into authentic community and
are invited to participate as fully as they care to. The previously sharp border
between insiders and outsiders is now reimagined; believers and nonbelievers
are thought of as co-participants on a spiritual journey. Kimball’s approach
redraws the boundaries of participation in worship.
Participation is, in fact, a central theme for Kimball. Often speaking in terms
of “experience” (the “new currency” of the culture), Kimball looks for creative
ways to amplify and personalize congregational participation.
The human action of Horizon 1 is especially prominent in The Emerging
Church. Kimball models a multifaceted approach to designing participative
worship that is multisensorally experiential. His most innovative (if not wholly
original) Horizon 1 contribution is an organic, nonlinear service design that
allows for spontaneous and individualized participation.
Kimball is typically evangelical at the level of Horizon 2. He sees divine-
through-human action most clearly in the preparation and leading of worship
(albeit in unspecified ways), and also in the proclamation of God’s Word. While
(London: SCM Press, 1953), p. 147, quoted in Geoffrey Wainwright, Lesslie Newbigin: A
Theological Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 295.
he has the highest regard for the Lord’s Supper, Kimball emphasizes human
rather than divine action in its celebration. Despite a few statements throughout
the book that hint at Horizon 2, it must be acknowledged that Kimball simply
does not linger on nor highlight the specifics of God’s actions in worship.
Kimball’s missional theology of ministry points essentially toward the missio
Dei, and thus toward Horizon 3—participation in the life of God. While The
Emerging Church does leave the reader with a vague sense of such participation,
and while it is implied throughout the volume, Kimball does not focus or
expand upon the idea.
A seminal dynamic for Kimball is the tension between evangelism and
worship. An attempt to hold these two together is at the heart of the seeker-
sensitive ministry model from which the author emerged. At a certain point
Kimball discovered, quite pragmatically, that the culture had gradually
changed—and that both seekers and believers now welcomed a more holistic,
tradition-embracing, and symbolically rich approach to worship. Further
grappling with the postmodern cultural change he had begun to recognize,
Kimball began a thoroughgoing process of deconstruction and reconstruction
that went far beyond matters of methodology. Having shaken free from some
of the constrictions of modernist presuppositions, Kimball embraced a fresh
understanding of the church’s identity—one that was organically missional.
The pages of The Emerging Church are full of collegial affirmations: Warren’s
for Kimball and his approach, and Kimball’s for Warren and seeker-sensitive
ministry. But for all the commendable graciousness, Kimball’s writing makes
it clear: the differences between post-seeker-sensitivity and what came before
it are more than methodological. Those differences are rooted in profound
cultural change. On the far side of the cultural divide, having deconstructed
modernist assumptions, there is no turning back; having made that transit, it is
really no longer possible to give an unqualified endorsement to seeker-sensitive
ministry. Speaking of another era of cultural change, Kimball quotes Darrel
Guder’s assertion that the Reformation-era church drifted from understanding
the church as a people to understanding it as a place—and so “narrowed the
definition of the church” and “unintentionally redefined itself.”66 In other words,
it misdefined itself. Kimball, either failing to follow his position to its natural
conclusions or restraining himself out of diplomacy, does not state the obvious:
from a postmodernist perspective, the seeker church movement narrowed the
definition of the church to the point of unintentionally misdefining it. Without
ignoring the many excellent contributions of the seeker movement, one would
be compelled—after jettisoning modernist presuppositions—to conclude that
Kimball, The Emerging Church, p. 93; Kimball is interacting with a quotation from
66
Guder, Missional Church, pp. 79–80.

the seeker movement’s dismantling of worship participation was a harmful

constriction of the church’s organic, God-given identity.
One area of blurriness creeps in as Kimball reimagines the relationship
between worship and evangelism: which of the two is primary? The way in which
Kimball sets the worshiping church free of its evangelistic agenda—giving it
permission to “truly worship”—seems to run counter to the idea that evangelism
takes precedence. But elsewhere Kimball suggests that the “primary function
of the church is her evangelism”—and that (borrowing words from theologian
Millard Erickson) evangelism is the church’s “very reason for … being.”67 Such
a position reverses the contention even of seeker-sensitive pastor Rick Warren,
who gives primacy to worship, and makes evangelism instrumental to the
purposes of doxology.68 Missional theologian Lesslie Newbigin has envisioned
a nuanced relationship between the church and its worship, on the one hand,
and its evangelistic witness on the other—a relationship that acknowledges
doxology’s evangelistic function without relegating worship to a subsidiary
role.69 Kimball, however, does not address the question of primacy clearly.
One cannot fault Kimball, of course, for failing to close every open loop in his
book’s argumentation; he covers a surprising amount of material. Yet, while he
presumably does not intend to reduce worship to a role secondary to that of
evangelism, Kimball’s writing does leave an opening for such an interpretation.
It is true that parsing out the relationship of doxology and evangelism is, to
some extent, a matter of semantic abstraction—but it does help the church to
address a critical question: when it gathers for worship, in what, precisely, does
it participate?
The organically missional ministry model Dan Kimball developed through
his interactions with postmodernism has many implications for worship and
participation. Three of these are worth pausing to consider.
First, it is clear from Kimball’s “vintage” approach that an encounter
with the postmodern may lead to a recovery of the premodern. The peeling
off of modernist lenses allows for a fresh vision of not only the future, but
also the past. When the status quo becomes less opaque, early (or earlier)
church values and traditions can be seen in a new light; they may be revisited
and possibly reappropriated. One such reappropriation, for Kimball, is an
enthusiastic commitment to holistic participation; such a commitment is not
Kimball, The Emerging Church, p. 93. Kimball interacts with and quotes from
67
Millard Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992/2001), p. 347.
68
“It is the goal of evangelism to produce worshipers of God.” Warren, Purpose Driven
Church, p. 242.
69
Newbigin writes that “worship and fellowship, offering up praise and adoration
to God” are both “a real foretaste of heaven” and also “the witness and instrument of the
kingdom of heaven.” Newbigin, The Household of God, p. 147, quoted in Wainwright, Lesslie
Newbigin, p. 295.
only resonant with contemporary culture, but also with centuries of the church’s
lived experience.
On the other hand, a second implication of Kimball’s model—a sort of
corollary to the first—is this: the lens of postmodernism, itself, is hardly free
from its own distortions. To his credit, Kimball engages postmodernism not
only deeply, but also discerningly; still, he adopts aspects of the postmodern
ethos that embody a variety of values—some of which might be questioned. For
example, one such debatable value concerns the sort of radical remixing involved
in a postmodern reappropriation of tradition.70 How far can traditional elements
be sampled, spliced and remixed before the end-product subverts the spirit of
the original source material?71
A final implication of Kimball’s work: new approaches to ministry
may be cause for both celebration and concern. For example, Kimball’s
commendably fresh modes of participation in corporate worship raise some
red flags concerning their distinct individualism. While such elements as prayer
stations allow a personalized kind of participation that may indeed deepen
individual engagement, those private experiences may come at the expense of
more communal ones. It would take some nuanced study and consideration
to begin to evaluate the benefits and liabilities here. Perhaps such an ebb and
flow between the private and the communal ultimately enriches participation
without overly compromising the corporate nature of worship. Even an open-
minded observer might be concerned, however, to learn that Kimball’s church
takes such an individualized, stational approach even to the Lord’s Supper—the
quintessentially communal act of worship.
Kimball’s organically missional focus is probably still a work in progress—
and was certainly so at the time The Emerging Church was written. One thing is
clear, however: engaging postmodernism has spurred Kimball, among others, to
profoundly re-evaluate both ministry methodology and ecclesiology. As a result,
participation in worship has been both revitalized and also expressed in new
(and perhaps problematic) ways.
70
See Stanley J. Grenz’s discussion of the postmodern practice of “bricolage” in
A Primer on Postmodernism, pp. 21, 37.
71
This theme will be revisited in Chapter 10.
Chapter 9
Summarizing and Analyzing
Here on the far side of a trek through more than 20 evangelically-popular books
about worship, it is fair to ask: where have we arrived? What has come clear?
The preceding chapters have examined a pool of literature published between
1980 and 2010, grouped according to five distinct emphases. Each emphasis
group was scrutinized through a trifocal lens designed to bring into focus three
simultaneous horizons: participation in human action, participation in divine-
through-human action, and participation in the life of God. It is now possible to
summarize, compare, and integrate the study’s findings across the groups—as
well as to consider its broader implications.
***
Table 9.1 briefly summarizes the previous chapters’ analyses of the five emphasis
groups. The primary thrust of each group is presented, along with the salient
features of its general approach to worship and worship participation. To be
sure, the table is inevitably somewhat simplistic; it captures only a handful of
details regarding each literature group’s distinctives. However, seeing the groups
side by side does reveal some interesting patterns and correlations.
Immediately apparent is at least one theme that is constant across all the
groups: a belief in the vital importance of worship participation. The books
from every one of the emphasis groups devote many pages to affirming and
promoting congregational participation, and to exploring ways in which it
might be expanded, enriched, and enlivened.
The Horizons
In addition to the motifs that become apparent merely by contrasting the

emphasis groups with one another, certain patterns are distinctive to the way in
which the various groups inhabit the three horizons. These are summarized in
tables 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4.
Reviewing the various aspects of Horizon 1 in Table 9.2, it is clear that
virtually every author stresses the interior dimension of the human heart. One
might expect any responsible treatment of worship to give attention to such
interiority, and it is not surprising that this mostly-evangelical literature does so
Table 9.1 The emphasis groups: general findings
Aspect All of Life Gathered Devotion Sacramental Recovery Evangelistic Worship Organically Missional
Primary Gathered worship Gathered worship as Gathered worship as Gathered worship important Gathered worship as a
Thrust (adoration) as continuous devotion to God, who is actualization of church’s as an end in itself— multisensory, experiential
with lived-out worship encountered immediately in identity as Christ’s body; but its outward expression encounter with God—
(action) the heart God is actively present is flexible enough to serve one that is missional in
and self-giving—especially the God-given imperative of an organic rather than
through sacramental media evangelism performative way
God has designated
Worship • Cautious not to over- • Eager for renewal of • In worship, God speaks • All agree: only believers • Conscious response to
elevate corporate worship worship—the “missing and acts can truly worship postmodernism
• Horizontal emphasis jewel” • Worship is “the gospel in • Two schools of thought re: • “Post-seeker-sensitive”
• Inherent evangelistic power • Worship is a celebrative motion” best setting for evangelism— • “Vintage” approach—
in worship response to God • Worship is anchored in God’s (1) special seeker events; both seekers and believers
• Immediacy of individual’s mighty, historic deeds of (2) authentic “full” worship appreciate mystery, symbol,
experience of God salvation with believers and seekers tradition
• Worship brings the Christian side by side
life into “ritual focus”
• Word and Table “narrate”
relational encounter between
God and God’s people
Worship • Tangible participation • Worship is to be engaged • Worship is to be highly • Believers encouraged to • Worship to be
Participation rooted in invisible and participative—rooted in participative fully participate participative, multisensory,
participation in Christ heart, expressed with body • Priesthood of all believers— • Seekers allowed non- experiential
(covenantal, not ontological) who make up the body of participative “anonymity” • Services designed to
Christ maximize individual
• Word and sacrament: means participation
for participation in perichoretic
life of triune God
Table 9.2 The emphasis groups: dimensions of Horizon 1 (participation in human action)
Dimension All of Life Gathered Devotion Sacramental Recovery Evangelistic Worship Organically Missional
Interior • Wholeheartedness • Worship is rooted in heart! • Importance of heart and • Worship largely a matter of • Heart is important
(emotion and more; all- interiority the heart
encompassing)
Bodily • Basic actions assumed • Expressed in engaged and • Use of whole body • Range of participative • Multisensory
(but not emphasized) tangible ways (gestures, postures, action (for believers) • Experiential
• Bodily expression! processions, senses) • Interactive
Arts/Symbols • Ordinances—seen as acts • Ordinances— seen as • Rich use of arts to serve • Arts—to engage “right • Stational worship for
of human commitment priority, but not much worship’s inherent drama brain” engaging art and symbol
treated in literature • Music as expressive • Ordinances: treated as • Ordinances: here in
• Ordinances are human acts human acts of commitment Horizon 1
of commitment • Space that suggests
mystery
Other • Mutual edification! • Worship essentially a • Worship as human action/ • Organic (vs. linear)
• Links with ongoing human response to God’s expression to God ordering of worship service
community life grace • Environment/ style should (and space)
be “comfortable”
• Priority: ministry
excellence
with special enthusiasm. Also, the ordinances (baptism and the Lord’s Supper)
fall largely into this first horizon—as acts that are primarily human—for all
except the sacramental recovery group.
Particularly noteworthy is the like-mindedness of these authors regarding
what sorts of specific Horizon 1 actions are appropriate for gathered worship.
(While the range of these actions is not fully captured in Table 9.2, it can be
gleaned from the analyses in chapters 4 through 8; a summary table can be
found in Appendix 5). It is remarkable how similar are the palettes of practices
the pool authors envision for congregational participation. For most of these
writers, the primary human actions of worship participation involve singing,
Scripture reading, and preaching, as well as corporate prayer, financial giving,
personal testimonies, the Lord’s Supper, the arts (including music and drama),
and the sharing of news and announcements about community life. Also in
view are silent reflection, informal ministry and prayer, and bodily gestures and
postures of reverence and praise. The convergence of the pool authors around
this repertoire of actions will be explored further in the “Enduring Past” section
of the following chapter.
Looking at Table 9.3, one is struck that the five emphasis groups diverge
dramatically at the level of Horizon 2. While the sacramental recovery group
locates divine-through-human action most centrally in (of course) sacramental
celebration, most of the other groups treat the sacraments as “ordinances” that
are essentially a matter of human action (Horizon 1). The all of life authors, who
see the ordinances first and foremost as humanly-enacted events, do allow for
God’s action through them by means of re-presentation. But despite the diversity
of theology regarding this horizon, there are still points of agreement. Most of
the authors agree about at least one medium that serves as a means of divine-
through-human action: the Word of God. In addition, both the all of life and
sacramental recovery authors also emphasize the community, itself, as a human
medium through which God works in worship. For the gathered devotion and
organically missional emphases, God works through a special sector of the
community: those who plan and lead worship. The evangelistic worship authors
take such a divine-through-human dynamic to an even more meta-ministry
level, perceiving God’s hand in the shaping and resourcing of the overall church
ministry ultimately responsible for the worship service.
As can be seen in Table 9.4, all of the emphasis groups envision worship
as being connected, in one way or another, with participation in the life of
God (Horizon 3). While the various groups all understand Christ’s death
and resurrection to have restored earthly fellowship with God, they treat
participation in such fellowship differently. The all of life authors frame it
in terms that are mostly covenantal and—in the hands of these particular
authors—primarily sober and down-to-earth. The gathered devotion authors
emphasize the intimate immediacy of such fellowship with God. The
Table 9.3 The emphasis groups: dimensions of Horizon 2 (participation in divine-through-human action)
Community • Christ works through • Community, itself,
members of body edifying as sacramental
one another
Word • Reading, preaching, • Spirit works through Word • God speaks through Word • God works through • Spirit speaks through
proclamation, and response (implied) “anointed” preaching of Word
Word
Ordinances • Holy Spirit active in [really in Horizon 1] • sacraments as ordained
Supper, through means through which God
re-presentation effectually communicates
• sacraments understood
relationally
Re-presentation • Some sort of • Re-presentation
re-presentational dynamic understood as central
dynamic
Other • God works through • Arts may work • God seen as active in • God works through
leaders—in planning (both sacramentally—especially inspiring/shaping/staffing leaders—in planning
Jesus and Spirit) music ministry (both Jesus and Spirit)
• God works through the
liturgy to form believers
(indiv. and corp.) in their
new identity in Christ
Table 9.4 The emphasis groups: dimensions of Horizon 3 (participation in the life of God)
Fellowship with God • Restored fellowship • Intimate fellowship with • Human participation in
through Christ God triune, perichoretic life of
God
Heavenly worship • Seen in largely horizontal • Participation in heavenly • Human participation in
terms worship—through lived- worship that Son offers to
out, daily worship Father
• Human worshipers join
heavenly worship around
the throne of God
Missio Dei • Worship both encourages • Worship propels believers • Worship symbolizes • Implied • Implied (esp. via
and forms community for into mission justice, sends participants references to missional
evangelism and mission out into mission authors)
Summarizing and Analyzing 203
sacramental recovery writers understand such fellowship to be anchored

in and most profoundly experienced through participation in the Lord’s
Supper (Horizon 2), which they envision as an entrée into the perichoretic
interrelations that characterize the very life of God.
Other dimensions of Horizon 3 are significant for all of the groups, as well. To
some extent, each group envisions participation in worship as connecting with
participation in the missio Dei. References to another Horizon 3 dimension, the
worship of heaven, appear occasionally in several of the literature groups, but it
is the sacramental recovery literature that features the most direct treatment of
vertical human participation in that heavenly worship.
The Horizons: Summary
In considering how the emphasis groups intersect with the trifocal schema, three
general patterns emerge:
Pattern 1: strong sense of Horizons 1 and 3; largely sidesteps Horizon 2.

(gathered devotion, evangelistic worship, organically missional)
Pattern 2: all three horizons; Horizon 2 emphasis on mutual edification

(all of life)
Pattern 3: all three horizons; Horizon 2 emphasis on sacramental celebration

(sacramental recovery)
All three patterns are fairly similar to one another in the ways they inhabit both
Horizons 1 and 3. And all three patterns share at least a minimal sense of divine-
through-human action, agreeing that God works in worship—through the
mediation of Scripture and, in one way or another, through the community. But
the patterns differ significantly at Horizon 2. Pattern 1 (shared by the gathered
devotion, evangelistic worship, and organically missional groups) largely sidesteps
this middle horizon; it favors immediacy over any sense of earthly mediation.
The other two patterns stress different elements as primary to Horizon 2—
Pattern 2 (particular to the all of life group) especially emphasizes mutual
edification; Pattern 3 (particular to the sacramental recovery group) emphasizes
the sacraments.
Interestingly, the relationship between the emphasis groups and the three
patterns corresponds closely with the historic resonances for each group that have
been suggested in previous chapters. These resonances will be further explored in
the following chapter. At this point, however, it is worth highlighting one thing:
the fact that two of the emphasis groups are historically derivative. Evangelistic
worship grew out of the gathered devotion focus, and the organically missional
approach emerged, in turn, from evangelistic worship. Figure 9.1 depicts the
emphasis groups graphically, as a sort of family tree.
Figure 9.1 The emphasis groups (families)
Considered this way, the five emphasis groups are reducible to three primary
ones: all of life, sacramental recovery, and the gathered devotion family. How
appropriate that these three emphases evidence their kinship by falling together
into Pattern 1.
Participation: Three Lexical Dimensions, Revisited
A preliminary observation offered near the beginning of this book was that the
word “participation” implies, by definition, three dimensions. One participates
in something, with some co-participants, by doing certain things. It is useful,
accordingly, to consider the pool literature in light of three questions: (1) What
is it, exactly, in which gathered worshipers participate? (2) With whom do
worshipers participate? (3) By what actions do worshipers participate?
Participation In …?
This study has addressed the first question—in precisely what do worshipers
participate?—largely by means of the trifocal schema. In the face of the in-what
question, the three horizons suggest (simultaneous) levels of participation
ranging along a sort of vertical axis. At the same time, a more lateral analysis of
the five emphasis groups, side by side, has surfaced other important participation-
related themes. Among these themes are several dialectic polarities that are
particularly helpful in addressing the in-what question. These polarities set in
tension with one another dimensions of Christian life and ministry that are
understood (to different degrees by different authors) to be the primary whats
in which worshipers participate. Three especially important tensions that arise
from the literature are the dialectic between adoration and action, the dialectic
between individual and corporate worship, and the “trialectic” between the
ministries of doxology, edification, and evangelism.
Dialectic 1: adoration/action
All the authors in our pool believe that worship plays out in two arenas: explicit
adoration and lived-out action. Furthermore, they all recognize (and hope for)
generous interplay between the two arenas. The point at which the writers
differ, however, is the borderline between action and adoration—or rather, how
thickly they draw that boundary. When the church gathers for worship, does it
participate in a unique sort of doxology set apart from daily living, or rather in
something more continuous with everyday life?
This adoration/action tension in worship has occasioned a perennial tug-
of-war among evangelical scholars. Ralph Martin epitomizes those who affirm
gathered adoration as a uniquely elevated moment for the church; I. Howard
Marshall, by way of contrast, prioritizes the action of worship-as-daily-life.1 It
is the all of life group that, of course, resonates most strongly with Marshall; the
other emphasis groups esteem corporate adoration in ways that resonate, either
squarely or partially, with Martin.
The all of life writers stress the continuity between worship-as-adoration
and the worship-as-action embodied in daily living. Such lived-out doxology
is actually, for them, the dominant strain of worship. The outright worship the
church voices in its gatherings is, while irreducibly important, merely explicit
expression of the life of worship in which it participates throughout the week.
The gathered devotion literature, in contrast, celebrates the unique importance
of adoration. The two other emphasis groups that derive from gathered devotion
also stress corporate adoration, but in different ways. The evangelistic worship
authors, on the one hand, carry forward the imperative of giving God explicit
1
See Chapter 4, p. 67.
glory, at least in the context of “believers’ services.” The organically missional

approach, on the other hand, invests itself intentionally and creatively in
doxological worship, but seeks also to counterbalance adoration with missional
action.
The sacramental recovery authors envision life and liturgy in intimate
dialogue with one another, and understand the essential point of connection to
be liturgical celebration of the sacraments.They note that sacramental worship
incorporates tangible elements (water, oil, bread, and wine) that are common to
daily living. Accordingly, these writers affirm a generalized sort of sacramentality
that permeates day-to-day life and promotes an embodied sort of spirituality—
one that resists splitting the spiritual from the sensible. For the sacramental
recovery authors, worship both reflects life and also formatively models the
kind of spiritual/ethical interrelations that must play out if the church is to live
authentically in the world.
Dialectic 2: individual/corporate
The second dialectic tension concerns the what of participation—is it essentially
corporate or individualistic? The various emphasis groups handle this dialectic
in some surprising ways.
On the face of it, the gathered devotion literature is particularly enthusiastic
about corporate liturgy—but, at the same time, it is in primarily individualistic
terms that it understands worship participation. That is to say, as worshipers
assemble they participate in that which is essentially the same sort of private
worship they might experience at home, only amplified and intensified. In
contrast, other of the emphasis groups understand corporate worship to
be fundamentally different from private worship. For them, participation
in gathered doxology is not only participation with community, but also
participation in community. The all of life authors, with their theological
commitment to horizontal edification, are especially attentive to the community
dimension of assembled worship, and the sacramental recovery literature paints a
rich picture of the community, itself, as sacramental.
The evangelistic and organically missional emphases each take interesting
approaches to the individual/corporate dialectic. While the evangelistic authors are
even more event-centered than the gathered devotion writers, they understand the
externals of those corporate events to be quite flexible—malleable for the purpose
of facilitating personal conversion. So the proponents of evangelistic worship
simultaneously invest themselves wholeheartedly in corporate worship events and
also gear their ministries purposefully toward the individual. (In both of these
respects the evangelistic worship group resembles its gathered devotion forebears.)
Kimball’s organically missional approach is also ambivalent in regard to the
individual/corporate polarity. On the one hand, Kimball emphasizes the value,
so common among postmoderns, of community. His church deliberately extends
its re-envisioned community to seekers, and that missional community becomes

the essential context in which worship happens. On the other hand, Kimball
stresses the personally experiential in such a way that inherently corporate
elements of worship can become distinctly individualistic.2
A trialectic: doxology/evangelism/edification
All of the literature in the pool portrays the ministries of doxology, evangelism,
and edification as intimately interwoven; the three are frequently discussed as an
explicit triad.3 Still, the emphasis groups differ on how the three ministries are
connected and how they should be prioritized.
When the all of life literature treats corporate worship, it leans heavily toward
edification. For David Peterson, especially, edification is the singular distinctive
of the church’s corporate gatherings. If doxology and evangelism are not exactly
subordinated to edification, they are at least conformable to its purposes. The
other all of life authors also emphasize edification, but take care to argue for
balance. Mark Ashton contends that the “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions
of gathered worship work synergistically: “Christians can gather for church
services,” he writes, “with an eager expectation of being dealt with specially by
God in that context. But … God’s Word will direct us [both] up to heaven and
[also] out to one another as we meet. ”4 Of all the all of life authors, Tim Keller
champions doxology; he is most emphatic that a balance of the three ministries
is properly maintained only by keeping doxology at the center.5
The evangelistic worship authors emphasize, of course, evangelism. While
they give theological pride of place to doxology, when it comes to practical
ministry they prioritize evangelism. These evangelistic practitioners/authors
are the recipients of the most outright critique the various emphasis groups
direct at one another. Keller, an all of life author who actually appreciates the
many good contributions of the seeker-sensitive megachurches,6 still challenges
the “strict Willow Creek model” assumption that the needs of believers and
2
As, for example, in the case of the Lord’s Supper being celebrated by means of prayer
stations.
3
The triad is usually referred to as “worship, edification and evangelism”; see, for
example Allen and Borror, Worship, p. 95; Carson, Worship by the Book, p. 67. What the
authors really intend by the word “worship” is explicit doxology; the word “doxology” is used
here for clarity’s sake.
4
5
In discussing approaches to evangelism (a high priority for Keller), he opts for
“doxological evangelism”—a concept he borrows from theologian Edmund Clowney. See
Keller, “Reformed Worship in the Global City,” p. 218.
6
See Timothy Keller, “The ‘Kingly’ Willow Creek Conference,” Redeemer City to
City Blog, http://redeemercitytocity.com/blog/view.jsp?Blog_param=44 (accessed April 7,
2010).
unbelievers cannot be addressed in a single service.7 And the sacramental recovery

proponents see the evangelistic advocates as short-circuiting the edifying power
of worship by replacing formative, God-ordained means of grace with pragmatic
evangelistic action. As Willow Creek’s own Reveal study demonstrates, at least
some of the evangelistic worship practitioners have come to a similar conclusion:
their evangelism-centered treatment of worship has left their churches with a
significant deficit in the areas of nurture and edification.8
The remaining emphasis groups, while concerned about evangelism and
edification, put doxology first. The gathered devotion authors regard doxology
as the “missing jewel” that needs to be restored to its rightfully central position.
And if the organically missional emphasis frames worship as missional, it does
not reduce worship to mere instrumentality; rather, it balances doxology,
edification, and evangelism in synergistic equilibrium. The sacramental recovery
group sees doxology (and specifically the sacraments) as central to edification and
evangelism, as well as to the church’s full range of ministries—not to mention its
wider life. Simon Chan goes so far as to see the church at sacramental worship
as the telos of Christian mission—the rightful, vital destination to which every
human being is called.
Each of the five emphasis groups affirms the importance of these three
interconnected ministries—doxology, evangelism, and edification—both
to the life of the church and to its corporate worship. The way in which each
group frames the balance of the three shapes its understanding of the in-what
dimension of worship participation.
Participation With …?
In connection with the second lexical dimension of the word “participation”—

with whom?—there are two primary questions with which the literature
grapples. First of all, to what extent and in what manner is God a co-participant
in worship? Second, which human persons are regarded as co-participants, and
in what way?
James White points to the divine dimension of the with-whom question
in his treatment of the German word for corporate worship, Gottesdienst. The
word, meaning “God’s service,” embodies a useful ambiguity; it leaves open
the question, who is serving whom? White likes Gottesdienst precisely because
it implies both directions: not only our service to God, but also God’s service
to us.9 While all of the literature in our pool recognizes the human side of this
7
Keller, “Reformed Worship in the Global City,” p. 203.
8
Hawkins and Parkinson, Reveal: Where Are You?
9
White, Introduction to Christian Worship, p. 25.
transaction, the various emphasis groups differ as to the manner in which God
may be thought of as active in worship.
God as co-participant in worship

Certainly none of the pool authors are deists. All of them celebrate God’s
activity in the world and in the lives of Christians, including their worship
gatherings. All share a belief that in corporate worship God acts, at the very
least, in human hearts. But beyond such immediacy, the groups diverge on the
subject of mediacy in worship—the degree to which God acts in partnership
with human actions and symbols.
It is enlightening, on this point, to read A.W. Tozer (gathered devotion) and
James Torrance (sacramental recovery) side by side. One senses that the two
authors are kindred spirits: they share a radiant, joy-filled vision of the life of God
in which humans are privileged to participate. The two also agree emphatically
that humans are to worship God in explicit and corporate ways. In other words,
Tozer and Torrance share much in common at the levels of Horizon 1 (human
action) and Horizon 3 (the life of God). But the two authors part company at the
level of Horizon 2. Torrance’s understanding of Christ’s mediatorial ministry
and sacramental self-giving lead him to enthusiastically endorse a rich vision of
divine-through-human action in worship. Tozer’s perspective is quite different;
his overwhelming conviction about the immediacy of God’s fellowship leads him
to virtually bypass Horizon 2 altogether. He does not see the path to Horizon 3
as leading up the slopes of Horizon 2, but rather up a sheer cliff of rigorous and
deliberate spiritual effort.
Allen Ross, with his articulation of the now-but-not-yet, provides a useful
bridge between these ideas of immediacy and mediacy. In the now, unmediated
experience of God is a consummation not only devoutly to be wished, but
confidently to be hoped for. But the reality of such immediacy is largely not yet;
in a still-being-redeemed world, humans experience intimate fellowship with
God most fully through mediated (sacramental) means.10
Those who understand God to use mediated means of grace (and of
presence and action) in worship have in mind some version of Horizon 2
(divine-through-human action). For them, the question becomes (to recycle the
medieval Latin for this horizon): what is the “et” in res et sacramentum? What
practices or media embody the actions of humans and God in cooperative
participation? Lester Ruth’s notion, developing a thought of John Witvliet’s,
is that there are three “primary sacramental principles” among present-day
North American Christsians. In other words, there are three “normal means” by
10
See Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory, p. 82.
which a congregation might expect to experience God’s presence: music, Word/

preaching, and the Lord’s Supper.11
Regarding music, none of the authors in our pool treat it as explicitly
sacramental.12 Of all the emphasis groups, one might expect the gathered devotion
authors to come nearest to doing so, as music is sometimes afforded such a role
in churches with an emphasis similar to theirs. Surprisingly, however, it is the
sacramental recovery literature that attributes the most sacramental power to
music. While in no way allowing music to usurp the central roles of Word and
Table, the sacramental recovery authors do understand it to be endowed with a
sort of borrowed glory, a sacramentality-by-association.
Notably, all the emphasis groups acknowledge divine-through-human
action in the reading and preaching of Scripture. For some (especially the
gathered devotion authors), Word serves as the only identifiable medium for
God’s activity in the assembly. For others, Word works alongside, and often
in conjunction with, other media of God’s presence; the sacramental recovery
authors understand Word and Table to work inseparably together.
It is at the point of the traditional sacraments, or ordinances, that the authors
draw a theological line in the sand—what Leonard Vander Zee calls the “great
divide.” On one side are those who take the ordinances to be enacted signs of
thanksgiving and commitment to God—that is, primarily human action. On
the other side are those who also recognize that other dimension of Gottesdienst:
the work of a very present God. The sacramental recovery authors stand on the
God-is-active side of the sacramental divide; all of the other emphasis groups
stand on the other side, framing the ordinances mainly as human doing. This
“great divide”—and a possible bridge over it—will be considered further in the
Theological Reflections section to follow.
One corollary of Vander Zee’s “divide” concerns yet another dialectic:
expression versus formation. The many evangelicals on the human side of the great
divide think of all of worship as primarily human expression. This is especially
true of both the gathered devotion and evangelistic worship authors. These writers
understand corporate worship as an assembly of individuals expressing hearts
of gratitude and praise to God. For them, outward forms are less formative
than expressive. Rather than shaping human hearts, outward forms of worship
simply prod (or relax) people in such a way that they are able to express heartfelt
praise to God. And, as instrumental means rather than formative realities, those
outward worship forms are flexible enough to accommodate the requisites of
either edificatory or evangelistic ministry.
11
Ruth, “A Rose By Any Other Name,” p. 48. Ruth draws from Witvliet, “At Play in the
House of the Lord,” p. 23.
12
That is not to say that Ruth’s typologies are wrong; he qualifies that his categories are
meant to describe liturgical practice (rather than articulated theology).
The sacramental recovery authors (such as James White and Robert Webber)
also affirm the role of human expressivity to worship. But, recognizing God to
be active in liturgy, they understand it to be not only humanly expressive, but
also divinely formative. Simon Chan uses the word “pathic” to denote the idea
that worshipers are receptively shaped by God through worship; Marva Dawn
like-mindedly contends that if God is purposively active in worship, it not only
expresses hearts from within, but also forms character from without.13 If God is
not only the object of worship, but its subject—co-participating with humans
via divine-through-human action—then humans will inexorably be changed in
the process.
Human partners/co-participants
By definition, worship that is corporate is shared with human co-participants.
The literature varies in its approaches to both the who and the how of that
co-participation.
Most of the pool authors agree with Tozer’s assertion that “true worship
demands the new birth.”14 They are unanimous in the evangelical conviction
that humans can only worship authentically in and through Jesus Christ. But the
various emphasis groups understand the relationship of believers and “seekers”
to worship (and to one another) somewhat differently. The evangelistic Willow
Creek model follows the line of demarcation between believer and seeker to
one possible, logical conclusion: the two groups should be segregated into
separate events appropriate for each. Believers actively participate in worship;
seekers passively spectate at evangelistic events. Mark Ashton, one of the all of
life authors, argues against such a sharp boundary; he advocates viewing the
congregation as having “a clear center but fuzzy edges,” with a mind toward
“making it easy for those on the outside to find their way in.” He cautions
against “making distinctions that God does not make.”15 Ashton resonates, on
this point, with Dan Kimball’s organically missional approach to nonbelievers
and worship. While Kimball understands believers to be importantly distinct
from nonbelievers by virtue of their rootedness in Christ, he sees the two groups
as being on a common spiritual journey. If seekers cannot worship in the same
full way in which believers can, they are still able (and welcomed) to participate
richly in community and worship alongside believers. In the eyes of such authors
as Ashton and Kimball, such participation in authentic worship (rather than in
tailored outreach events) is a powerful means of evangelism.
13
Chan, Liturgical Theology, p. 97. Chan borrows the word from Reinhard Hutter,
Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice, trans. Doug Stott (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2000). Also see Dawn, p. 119.
14
15
Communities of participation
This book has, like the literature it examines, focused primarily on corporate
worship. People gathering for such worship understand that they are meeting to
participate—in something, in some sort of way, with some sort of community.
Consciously or not, worshipers are surely aware at some level that they are
engaged with an assembly of co-participants—a “community of participation.”
And since that community has assembled to worship, the expectation is that
it will in some manner attempt to engage with God. In other words, people
participate in a community in order to participate with that community in
something larger than itself.
Table 9.5 describes the communities of participation envisioned by the
various groups. The first two groups, all of life and sacramental recovery,
envision communities of participation characterized by a genuinely corporate
partnership between co-participants. The all of life authors envision a
covenantal community that tends its God-given, corporate identity through
deliberate acts of mutual edification. That community engages God primarily
in ways that center on the covenant—celebrating its benefits and committing
to and rehearsing its obligations. The sacramental recovery authors envision a
sacramental community that is actualized as the body of Christ in its worship;
that community engages God most directly through its celebration of Word
and sacrament.
Table 9.5 Communities of participation

Emphasis Community of Participation Participation Participation
Group Participation in … with … by …
All of Life Covenantal celebrating covenant co-participants in fulfilling covenant
benefits covenant obligations and
encouraging one
another to do so
Sacramental Sacramental the triune life and sacramental heartfelt engagement
Recovery mission of God community, triune of sacrament-
God, all of creation centered worship
Gathered Heartening heart-centered fellow regenerated offering heartfelt
Devotion adoration, believers praise
celebration of
restored relationship
with God via the
cross
Emphasis Community of Participation Participation Participation

Group Participation in … with … by …
Evangelistic Evangelizing heartfelt adoration, fellow believers (also worshipping with
Worship evangelizing seekers with seekers) great sensitivity to
seekers
Organically Missional missionally-minded co-participants engaging with
Missional worship in mission, also community, also
with fellow (pre- engaging God
believing) journeyers individually
The remaining three visions of community are more individualistic than the
first two. The gathered devotion literature envisions what may be thought of as a
“heartening” community—one that encourages and strengthens the heart-based
worship of the individual. Participants in such a heartening community engage
God together, but in primarily privatized ways. The evangelistic worship approach
seeks, similarly, to hearten individuals toward a Godward response—believers
toward worship, and seekers toward conversion.16 The organically missional
focus balances a strain of individualism with a strong sense of being a corporate,
missional community. From one angle, the missional community identifies itself
as the believers in its midst, who participate in mission together; from another
angle, it identifies itself more broadly, hospitably incorporating those fellow
journeyers who participate together, Christian and not-yet-Christian alike, in a
common pilgrimage of worship.
Participation By …?
If the pool authors range widely in their conceptions of both the in-what and
the with-whom of worship participation, they are remarkably like-minded about
the actions by which participation is enacted. In other words, their visions of
Horizon 1 are extremely similar.17
These evangelical authors affirm many of the human actions common to
all gathered Christian worship: singing and praying with engaged hearts; the
reading of Scripture and preaching; the giving of offerings and the expressing of
commitments; the celebration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper; and dismissing
missionally into the world. Some elements favored by these authors are not
unique to evangelicals, but are perhaps more common among them—such as
16
In another sense, of course, the evangelizing community (of believers) partners
together, at least implicitly, in a large-scale evangelistic endeavor.
17
See Appendix 5 for a summary of the sorts of Horizon 1 actions envisioned by the
various emphasis groups.
the giving of testimonies and focusing on evangelistic mission. And if there are
typically evangelical acts of worship these authors and their churches are more
likely to practice, there are also some ecumenically catholic acts they are less
likely to practice. (For example, some will not use creeds; some will include only
a single Scripture reading rather than a full complement of multiple lectionary
readings; some will not use fixed liturgical texts and responsive readings in their
services.) But by and large, these authors are very much in agreement about the
core actions by which the assembly is thought to participate in worship.
Observing all this agreement is not to say, however, that the worship services
described and implied by these books should be imagined as uniform. Robert
Webber makes the useful distinction between the inner “content” of a worship
service and the closer-to-the-surface dimension of “style.”18 The pool authors
exhibit a good deal of variation in their preferences regarding structure, and
especially style. Furthermore, each emphasis group accentuates those Horizon 1
actions that are especially consonant with its theology of worship. For example,
the all of life authors, so focused on edification and life-as-worship, emphasize
those Horizon 1 practices that embody and display horizontal relations and
ministry.
Surveying Horizon 1 across the emphasis groups reveals one curious point
of commonality. While many of the authors in the pool represent (or are
sympathetic to) free church worship, none of the worship they describe seems
all that “free.” While the approaches prescribed and described in these volumes
are not tightly formal, neither are they very spontaneous. Most of the worship
envisioned here is carefully planned and prepared ahead of time by a team of
specialists; the congregation is assigned a role within fairly restricted parameters.
There is not much congregational participation in the planning of worship, and
not much congregational spontaneity or creativity during the worship service. It
is true that there are some exceptions; Peterson describes a hypothetical worship
service that includes some fellowship-oriented fluidity, and Kimball’s organically
missional model edges toward more personalized participation. But by and large
the entire pool assumes a top-down model of planning and leadership. The
congregation is invited to a mode of participation that is more cooperative than
creative.
***
Having stepped back from the group-by-group analysis at the center of this study,
it has been possible to identify what themes and patterns have come into sharper
focus. Now that one question—what has come clear?—has been answered, the
next chapter will move on to another: what does it all mean?
18
Chapter 10
Reflections (Part 1): The Enduring Past,
the Surprising Present
In bringing to a close a study such as this one, it might feel good to be vindicated
by arriving at conclusions one anticipated from the start. Far more gratifying
than being vindicated, however, is being surprised. Here at the end of this
investigation, I am glad to note that the results are surprising, indeed. On the one
hand, the past captured our attention over and over again, historical traditions
proving themselves remarkably indelible. On the other hand, the present—
teeming, as it is, with a great variety of understandings concerning worship
participation—also proved striking in a number of ways. Before looking to the
future (in the next chapter), it is worth reflecting upon the past and the present
as they have come into focus here.
The Enduring Past (Historical Reflections)
Evangelicals are often disinterested in any history at all, let alone their own;
they are also often impatient with discussions of “tradition.” It is fascinating,
therefore, to note that each of the five emphasis groups resonates strongly at
a number of points with a discernible stream of evangelical tradition. Such
resonances may be genetic—the result of actual family lineage, either direct or
circuitous. The resonances may also be sympathetic vibrations—less a matter of
direct contact than of harmonic likeness. In other words, the resonant similarities
to traditions may simply reflect the way in which certain characteristics cluster
naturally together around particular core values. Without attempting to sleuth
out exact lines of transmission, the following section will simply observe and
briefly consider these historical resonances.
It has been proposed that two of the five emphasis groups are derivative,
both of them outgrowths of the gathered devotion group. Seen this way, the
five emphasis groups are collapsible to three primary ones: all of life, gathered
devotion, and sacramental recovery. We saw in the previous chapter that each of
these three primary groupings falls into a distinct pattern with regard to the three
horizons of our schema. And, interestingly, these three groupings also happen
to correspond closely with the three historical Protestant “tributaries” that were
most formative, according to historian Mark Noll, for early evangelicalism:
Anglicanism (particularly as influential on the Wesleys), Puritanism, and

Pietism.1 If Noll’s Methodist-mediated “Anglican” tradition is taken more
broadly, as a wider, evangelically sacramental tradition within evangelicalism,
then it is precisely these three historic traditions that are echoed by our three
primary emphasis groups.
All five of the emphasis groups, however, display distinctive historic
resonances. The traditions echoed by each group will now be briefly considered.
The All of Life Emphasis and Puritanism
While the English Puritans of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries
were long characterized derisively by historians, a fresh wave of scholarship in
the mid-twentieth century began to paint them in a more favorable light.2 This
restored and more fully-dimensioned portrait of the Puritans conveys an ethos
that the all of life literature echoes in many ways.
One obvious point of commonality is a reverence for John Calvin.3 The
Puritans held tightly to Calvin’s commitment to including in liturgy only that
which has explicit scriptural warrant. Such veneration of God’s word as the sole
rule for worship reverberates in the extreme rigor with which David Peterson
develops his closely-read biblical theology.4
The central preoccupation of the all of life authors, that corporate worship
be continuous with daily life, resonates with Puritan thought, as well. Puritan
spirituality had, according to author John Tiller, “a great concern for the
practical details of everyday living.”5 That concern sought to ever keep in view
the connection between liturgy and life, both through family devotions that
“integrated their worship with their life”6 and also through deliberately regarding
Moll, “The Rise of the Evangelicals.”

1
James Packer points to the work of such scholars as Perry Miller, William Haller,
2
Marshall Knappen, Percy Scholes, and Edmund Morgan. J.I. Packer, “Why We Need the
Puritans,” in Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were, ed. Leland Ryken (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), p. x.
3
According to Horton Davies, the Puritans were satirically ridiculed in their time for
their fierce allegiance to Calvin, whom they regarded as their spiritual leader. Horton Davies,
The Worship of the English Puritans (Morgan: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997), p. 7.
4
Regarding the bibliocentrism of Puritan worship theology, see ibid., p. 5.
5
John Tiller, Puritan, Pietist, and Pentecostalist: Three Types of Evangelical Spirituality
(Bramcote: Grove Books, 1982), p. 12. (All quotations from this work used by permission
of Grove Books, www.grovebooks.co.uk.) Tiller’s volume is very much in the same spirit
as this portion of this chapter; he sketches out three traditions that have broadly informed
evangelical spirituality and practice. Tiller devotes chapters to two of the traditions under
consideration here—Puritanism and Pietism.
6
Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, p. 258.
Reflections (Part 1) 217
worship as an all-of-life activity. “Puritan worship was never an escape from life,”
writes historian Horton Davies; “[w]orship was never a substitute for Christian
service; indeed it was the Puritan’s incentive to perform his Christian duties.”7
The concern for “edification” in (and as) worship so prominent in the all of
life literature is also consonant with Puritan concerns. If the purpose of their
gathered assemblies was “first to glorify God by obedient worship of him,” it
was also “to build up the faith of the Church”—and the Puritans would have
referred to this horizontal, mutual upbuilding precisely “by the New Testament
term ‘edification.’”8
Finally, the approach of the all of life literature to the Lord’s Supper largely
reflects Puritan thought. On one hand, the Puritan view of the Supper was, like
the all of life view, more than merely memorial.9 In this may be heard echoes
of John Calvin, whose theology of the Supper resisted sacramental excesses
but deeply affirmed Christ’s sacramental presence in the meal.10 On the other
hand, both the Puritans and the all of life writers resist anything that smacks
of superstition, mysticism, or sacramentalism.11 The Puritans were not ones for
“spiritual mysticism,” according to Tiller; they took the sacraments as “signs of
the covenant.”12 Indeed, both the Puritans and the all of life authors share an
understanding that the Supper is largely a sober celebration of covenant—its
“benefits” and its “privileges.”13
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid., p. 259.
9
Peterson’s theology of the Table, like Carson’s and Keller’s, transcends cognitive
memorialism via his version of re-presentation; Harold Best parts company with the other
all of life authors by exhibiting, almost in spite of himself, a near-mystic reverence for the
Supper.
10
Nathan Mitchell writes: “Calvin wished to affirm that Christ is really present to
people as they participate in the eucharist, but he opposed any view of ‘presence’ that would
diminish God’s freedom.” Nathan Mitchell, “Eucharistic Theologies,” in The New Westminster
Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, ed. Paul F. Bradshaw (Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2002), p. 201.
11
For example, the Puritans drew a liturgical line in the sand when it came to kneeling
in order to receive Communion; they associated such a posture with superstitious “Roman”
veneration of the elements, and would have none of it. See Davies, The Worship of the English
Puritans, p. 8.
12
Tiller, Puritan, Pietist, and Pentecostalist, p. 10.
13
While the emphasis on participation in “covenant benefits” appears in Peterson, it
did not originate with him. Matthew Henry uses archetypically Puritan words regarding
the way in which the Supper holds forth covenental “Gospel-Benefits”: “all those precious
benefits and privileges … assur’d to us upon gospel terms, in the everlasting covenant.”
Matthew Henry, The Communicant’s Companion [1704] (New York: Crocker & Brewster,
1828), p. 54.
The Gathered Devotion Emphasis and Pietism
The gathered devotion literature strongly echoes the central concerns of Pietism.
From the start, the continental Pietism of the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries emphasized the affective dimension in piety and worship.14
John Tiller distills the essence of the Pietist vision down to, simply, “religion of
the heart.” For the Pietists, he writes, “true religion is a matter of the heart, as
well as of the head, and worship of the living God must involve the emotions as
well as the intellect.”15 These words could easily have been written by any of the
gathered devotion authors.
While most of the pool authors are eager for the renewal of evangelical
worship, the gathered devotion authors sound particularly eager as they call
for such revival. They long for the recovery of the “missing jewel” of worship,
and envision such renewal coming through increased lay engagement and
participation. This is precisely the sort of church reformation that the Pietists
were after.16
The gathered devotion literature tends, by virtue of its heart orientation,
toward individualism. Such is also the case with Pietism. According to Brethren
scholar Dale Brown, the religion of the Pietists was not, on the one hand, wholly
privatistic; it acknowledged the importance of community. On the other hand,
it was “basically individualistic because there was no substitute for each member
experiencing a personal conversion.”17 Like the Pietists, the gathered devotion
authors embrace a spirituality that affirms community but settles easily into
pronounced individualism.
A.W. Tozer called himself an “evangelical mystic”—an unusual turn of phrase
for a twentieth-century evangelical, but quite resonant with Pietism’s near-mystic
sense of immediate fellowship with God. To describe Pietism, Dale Brown sifts
down the wide range of connotations of the word “mysticism” to its simplest
sense, “the experience of direct contact with God.”18 If one side of such qualified
“mysticism” involved, for the Pietists, a preference for inner communion, on the
other side was the eschewing of extraneous outward means. “When applied to
Radical Pietism,” writes Brown, “the word [mysticism] expresses their prejudices
“Continental pietism” here refers to the tradition that began with Philipp Jacob
14
Spener and August Hermann Francke, expanded through Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
and the Moravian Brethren, and significantly influenced John Wesley.
15
16
Dale W. Brown, Understanding Pietism, rev. edn (Nappanee: Evangel Publishing
House, 1996), p. 22.
17
Ibid., p. 15.
18
Ibid., p. 69.
against outward forms, structures, and organizations.”19 Both Tozer and Matt
Redman especially exemplify such an attitude.
Finally, the studied ambivalence with which the gathered devotion literature
regards the ordinances (both revering and also largely ignoring them) may indeed
be seen also to echo pietist attitudes. While the founders of Pietism, Spener and
Francke, balanced subjective piety with objective sacramentality, succeeding
generations of Pietists drifted into a much more subjective conception of
sacrament. Brown suggests that the founders may well have left the door open to
later marginalization of the ordinances by “fail[ing] to make clear the absolute
necessity of the sacraments and the Word for the new creation.”20
The Evangelistic Worship Emphasis and Pietistic Pragmatism
The evangelistic worship approach is grounded, it has already been suggested, in

the gathered devotion emphasis. Accordingly, like the gathered devotion literature,
the evangelistic worship literature exhibits clear resonances with Pietism. These
include an emphasis on the heart, a religious neutrality about outward forms,
and an emphasis on personal response.
But in addition to reflecting Pietism in general, evangelistic worship echoes
one particular (and pervasive) stream of Pietism. With its focus on the individual
heart and the necessity of personal conversion, Pietism naturally gives rise to
a powerfully missional impulse.21 In nineteenth-century North America, that
evangelistic drive burgeoned and spawned what has become, according to James
White, “the most prevalent worship tradition in American Protestantism (and
maybe in American Christianity).”22 Evangelistic worship resonates strongly not
only with Pietism in general, but also more specifically, with this evangelistically-
focused strain of Pietism—the “Pragmatic tradition.”23
There are at least two primary pulse-points in the development of pragmatic
revivalism. The first, which James White suggests may be reasonably thought
of as the launch of the Pragmatic tradition, is the dramatic series of revivalistic
camp meetings that propelled the Second Great Awakening forward at the
very start of the nineteenth century. The second pulse-point is the ministry of
19
Ibid., p. 23.
20
Ibid., p. 74.
21
A central thread of Pietist identity is, according to Brown, a strong sense of being
“ambassadors for Christ.” He contends that “[t]he outstanding characteristic of Pietism has
been its missionary endeavor.” Brown, Understanding Pietism, p. 16.
22
White, Protestant Worship, p. 171.
23
Sociologist Stephen Ellingson links Pietism’s “imperative to bring about conversion”
with pragmatism in ministry throughout his study of American megachurches. See Stephen
Ellingson, The Megachurch and the Mainline: Remaking Religious Tradition in the Twenty-
First Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), p. 180.
Charles Finney in the mid-nineteenth century. Finney, whom White suggests

may be “the most influential liturgical reformer in American history,” refined
frontier-birthed revivalism and parlayed its approach to worship into an
enduring legacy.24 Arguing that Scripture sets forth few norms for the practice
of worship, Finney commended liturgical innovation and creativity geared
above all toward personal conversion. The correlation is obvious, according to
numerous scholars, between Finney’s liturgical pragmatism and the approach of
seeker-oriented megachurches like Willow Creek and Saddleback.25
The evangelistic worship approach resembles the Pragmatic tradition at many
points. Its intense liturgical focus on evangelism reflects what White tells us
was a frontier innovation: “conversion itself [as] a main function of worship.”26
And not only the ends of evangelistic worship, but also its means, echo frontier
pragmatism. Both Hybels and Warren admit that, in the service of their
evangelistic worship vision, they have taken a prayerfully improvisatory, make-
it-up-as-you-go-along approach to ministry; this resounds squarely with Finney’s
understanding of the apostles’ commission: “Do it—the best way you can—ask
wisdom from God—use the faculties he has given you.”27 And both Hybels and
Warren celebrate (and capitalize on) a thorough freedom from the strictures of
church tradition—a freedom that continues what Finney began: “a tradition of
no traditions.”28
Finally, the evangelistic worship literature implies an ecclesiology redolent
of pietistic pragmatism. Charles Finney’s theological writings imply, finds
scholar D.G. Hart, an extremely low ecclesiology—and the same must be said
of the evangelistic worship literature.29 Stephen Ellingson describes their pietist/
pragmatist mindset in this way: “The church often is viewed instrumentally as
24
Ibid., p. 173.
25
White himself regards both the church growth and seeker church movements
as continuations of the “Pragmatic tradition” (see White, Christian Worship in North
America, p. 161). See also, for example, Ruth, “Lex Agendi, Lex Orandi,” p. 392.
In his dissertation on Finney, John Michael Jordan argues that while some lines may be
drawn between Finney’s approach and that of the seeker churches, the connections are more
problematic and nuanced than liturgical scholars have realized. See John Michael Jordan,
“‘What Are the Things That Set Your Soul on Fire?’: Charles Finney’s Approach to Emotion
in Worship” (PhD Diss., Drew University, May 2009), pp. 4–5.
26
27
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, ed. William G. McLoughlin
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 251, quoted in White, Protestant
Worship, p. 177.
28
29
See D.G. Hart, “The Church in Evangelical Theologies, Past and Future,” in The
Community of the Word: Toward an Evangelical Ecclesiology, ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel
J. Treier (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005), pp. 31–3.
a context that may facilitate conversion and personal faith but is ultimately not
necessary since God works through the individual’s heart rather than human
institutions.”30 Despite the high premium the evangelistic worship author/
practitioners place on their own robust church ministries, they do hold (at least
theologically) to such a low ecclesiology.
The Organically Missional Emphasis: Pietistic Pragmatism and …?
Dan Kimball’s organically missional approach is “emerging” in more than one

sense of the word; it literally emerged out of evangelistic worship. Certainly at
the time The Emerging Church was written, the organically missional ministry
model was still in a liminal, adolescent stage. From one angle, it might be seen
as the next iteration of evangelistic worship, applying a pragmatic “purpose-
driven” methodology to a new generational and cultural context. (Rick
Warren’s imprimatur on Kimball’s book accentuates that perspective.) From
another angle, the organically missional emphasis not only seeks to minister
to postmoderns; it disowns, itself, much of modernism. Repurposing Horton
Davies’s words about Puritanism, one might say that the organically missional
approach “began in a liturgical reform, but it developed into a distinct attitude
towards life.”31 Kimball is not only methodologically “post-seeker-sensitive”; he
has crossed an epistemological threshold from which there is no turning back.
Still, since the organically missional emphasis retains at least a degree of
continuity with evangelistic worship, one would expect it to reverberate with
pietistic pragmatism—and it does. Connections between “emerging church” and
Pietist distinctives have been observed by such respected commentators as scholar
Scot McKnight and the late theologian Stanley Grenz.32 Kimball’s emphasis on
the experiential dimension of participation echoes not only postmodernism, but
30
Ellingson, The Megachurch and the Mainline, p. 180. The ecclesiology of the
evangelistic worship authors may, however, be seen from different angles. On the one hand,
these writer-practitioners relegate the church to being an instrumental means to an end—the
conversion and edification of individual hearts. On the other hand, they have a high vision
of church as the locus of God’s work (through their own evangelistic ministry). The church’s
missional enterprise is, if malleable in its particulars, understood nevertheless to be the locus
of divine-through-human action.
31
Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, p. 9.
32
McKnight, a respected observer of the “emerging” movement, looks at the “defining
characteristics of 18th Century Pietism” and sees “a glimmer of the emerging movement.”
Scot McKnight, “Emerging as Pietism?,” Jesus Creed Blog, http://blog.beliefnet.com/
jesuscreed/2007/05/emerging-as-pietism.html#_jmp0_ (accessed October 3, 2010). And
Stanley Grenz suggests that “the postmodern world provides the occasion for us to
reappropriate the older pietist belief that a right head has no value apart from a right heart.”
Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, p. 173.
also Pietism—with its “theology of experience” or “experiential existentialism.”33

If Kimball’s multisensory approach locates experience outwardly, in contrast to
the inward focus of the early Pietists, the underlying motive is the same—“right
belief is not enough,” and God must be not only understood but experienced.34
On the face of it, Kimball’s “vintage” ministry reverses the Pietist/pragmatist
penchant for dismissing tradition; in true postmodern fashion, the organically
missional approach revels in connectedness with the ancient and the traditional.
But such a postmodern approach to tradition is not traditional; rather, through
bricolage and juxtaposition, it celebrates classic elements by fracturing and
remixing them, making them into something new. Tradition is regarded as more
formable than formative.
If such an approach to tradition may be seen as postmodern, it may also be
seen as pragmatic. Finney, unlike the Puritans, did not reject human traditions
on principle—but rather evaluated them pragmatically. Finney “discarded
traditions when they did not prove as effective as newer methods,” writes White.
“The essential test, then, is a pragmatic one: Does it work? If so, keep it; if not,
discard it.”35 Similarly, the organically missional appreciation of tradition may be
understood as tactical—a strategic assimilation of that which works.
So the organically missional approach, much like the gathered devotion focus
with which it has so much in common, resonates at significant points with the
Pietist/pragmatist tradition. But since there are also discontinuities between the
organically missional and gathered devotion emphases, one would expect to hear
other strains mixed in with those Pietist echoes.
The organically missional emphasis is, as we have seen, deeply committed to
multisensory experientialism; in this it strongly echoes one particular evangelical
tradition stream: the charismatic movement.36 Charismatics had a profound
influence on late twentieth-century evangelicalism, and much of that influence
was mediated through popular praise and worship music. Even non-charismatic
churches have thereby gained, almost by osmosis, some of the values incubated
in charismatic churches. Steeped in the conviction and experience of the Spirit’s
immanence among earthly humans, “modern charismatics have adopted a more
positive attitude to the physical realm than has often been apparent in the
evangelical spirituality of the past.” In addition to using the human body more
freely, charismatics have learned to use “gesture, colour, dance and drama to
express worship.”37 The organically missional openness to symbol and sacrament
33
Brown, Understanding Pietism, pp. 22, 90–91.
34
35
36
Interestingly, the third tradition that John Tiller highlights as particularly formative
for contemporary evangelicals (alongside the Puritan and Pietist streams) is “Pentecostalist”—
by which he means charismatic.
37
may owe more to a generalized charismatic sort of sacramentality—a confidence

that created things can “be put to good use by supernatural means”38—than to
traditionally sacramental thought.
Another insight into the tradition-resonances within the organically missional
focus comes by way of James White. In assessing the historic relationship
between worship and evangelism in North American Christian worship, White
discerns two very different sorts of models. On the one hand, he points to
the pragmatic, seeker church approach. (This, we have seen, is the organically
missional approach’s point of origin—the evangelistic worship of Hybels and
Warren.) On the other hand, White highlights an alternative approach, one
found at some distance from mainstream evangelicalism. This alternative way
of integrating worship and evangelism envisions conversion more as a process
and less as an instantaneous event. White recognizes such an approach in such
disparate traditions as Roman Catholicism and Quakerism. This “older and
once more prevalent” approach “consists of initiation into a community of
faith.” Over the course of time, “the community plays a major role in enabling
the individual to become a Christian.”39 This approach is much like the “Celtic”
model Kimball describes (by way of evangelical scholar George Hunter); it is, in
fact, the very approach that the organically missional emphasis favors.40
This organic, progressive, community-based model of conversion is
postmodern; it also resonates strongly with the patristic catechumenal process
of Christian initiation. It is not clear with exactly which stream of tradition,
evangelical or otherwise, the organically missional approach resonates as it
moves toward such an organically ecclesial interweaving of worship and
evangelism. Clearly Kimball has moved away from the punctiliar-conversion
“seeker” approach. His organically missional approach has stepped toward
a model that seems to resonate not only with pietistic pragmatism and the
charismatic tradition, but also with traditions that have been quite peripheral
to evangelicalism.
The Sacramental Emphasis and Dormant Evangelical Sacramentalism
It was suggested earlier that, for the purposes of listening for tradition-echoes
in this literature, Noll’s Anglican/Methodist tradition be broadened into a
“sacramental” tradition within American evangelicalism. Is such a strain really
a part of evangelical tradition? Wesley’s sacramentalism was lost, according
to a commonly reiterated narrative, somewhere in Methodism’s transit from
38
Ibid., p. 21.
39
White, Christian Worship in North America, p. 164
40
Kimball, The Emerging Church, p. 204. Kimball refers to George G. Hunter III,
The Celtic Way of Evangelism (Nashville: Abingdon, 2000).
Britain to the United States.41 But recent scholarship offers a corrective here—it
depicts early evangelicalism as steeped in sacrament from early on. The largest
of the camp meetings that propelled forward the Second Great Awakening took
place at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1802; the intensely demonstrative revival in
which more than 10,000 attendees participated was anchored in sacramental
celebration.42 Cane Ridge and other camp meetings like it—mainstays of the
“awakening” so formative for evangelicalism—“originated in preparations for
the Lord’s Supper,” “gave the sacraments a major role,” and inevitably culminated
with “the baptism of converts and the eucharist.”43 Leigh Eric Schmidt emphasizes
the deeply sacramental strand that runs through early North American revivals,
and predicts a turnaround in scholarly consensus: “[T]he deep rituals of
American revivals will emerge; the eucharistic piety of a good number of the
early evangelicals … will show itself anew; sacramentalism and revivalism, it will
become clear, could happily intertwine.”44 A decade later, Lester Ruth (fulfilling,
for his part, Schmidt’s prophetic words) unearthed much evidence of significant
sacramentality among early Methodists. “Instead of a sacramental depreciation,”
he writes, “they exhibited a deep piety toward the Lord’s Supper, a spirituality
in continuity with Wesley in thought and practice.” And the character of that
sacramental piety was far from staid; “they struggled to find words adequate to
describe it.”45
It is true enough that, historically, the sacramental strain within
evangelicalism did not remain dominant. Rather than emulating Wesley’s ideal
of “constant communion,” evangelicals have, by and large, celebrated the Supper
infrequently.46 Rather than embrace a sacramental vision characterized by God’s
action, they have envisioned ordinances characterized by human action. But
even though a genuinely sacramental tradition was largely dormant among
evangelicals throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
Lester Ruth refers to such a conception (as a prelude to refuting it). See Lester
41
Ruth, A Little Heaven Below: Worship At Early Methodist Quarterly Meetings (Nashville:
Kingswood Books, 2000), p. 12.
42
See White, Protestant Worship, p. 174.
43
Ibid., p. 173.
44
Leigh Eric Schmidt, “Scottish Communions and American Revivals: Evangelical
Ritual, Sacramental Piety, and Popular Festivity From the Reformation Through the
Mid-Nineteenth Century” (PhD Diss., Princeton University, May 1987), p. 8. Schmidt’s
important dissertation and its subsequent reworking into a book extensively explores the
roots of camp meeting sacramentalism in the “sacramental seasons” transplanted by Scottish
Presbyterians onto the American continent.
45
Ruth, A Little Heaven Below, p. 14.
46
John Wesley, “Sermon 101 (The Duty of Constant Communion),” The Sermons of
John Wesley, http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/101 (accessed December
10, 2010).
there were ways in which its memory stayed alive. For one thing, despite their
predominantly non-sacramental approaches to the ordinances, evangelicals
have been unable to shake the conviction that those actions are somehow
central to their identity and their worship. And, galvanized by Cane Ridge and
similarly sacramental camp meetings, the Restoration movement spawned a
number of denominations deeply committed to the Lord’s Supper, celebrated
weekly.47 If Restorationists’ eucharistic theologies have most often been non-
sacramental, leaning toward memorialism, their commitment to centering their
weekly worship on the “breaking of bread” echoes at least faintly a once vibrant
evangelical sacramental tradition.48
If the phrase “evangelical sacramentalism” is not an oxymoron, and if a
sacramental strain is indeed embedded in evangelicalism’s very DNA—then
what drove that stream underground, into near dormancy? The limiting
factors may have been cultural: modernist rationalism and philosophical anti-
supernaturalism. They were certainly also theological—an amplification of the
Reformation pushback against medieval sacramental abuse, which eventually
snowballed into a non-sacramentalism that would have made the Reformers
cringe. In any case, bolstered by a number of influences (the ecumenical Liturgical
Movement, the “Protestant” worship theology of Vatican II, the cultural turn
toward the experiential, and refreshed scholarship on early evangelicalism),
many evangelical scholars are newly energized for the work of sacramental
recovery.49
47
The Restoration movement gave rise to such denominations as Churches of Christ
and Disciples of Christ. Its emphasis on the Lord’s Supper is not only a continuation of the
eucharistic piety of Cane Ridge; it is also grounded in a deliberate primitivist harking back to
apostolic practice. The Plymouth Brethren have been like-minded in centering their worship
on the Supper in an attempt to repristinate their worship practice.
48
According to scholars Paul Blowers and Byron Lambert, Restoration (Stone-
Campbell tradition) theology of the Supper has “ranged between seeing it primarily as an
ordinance of commemoration … and viewing it in broadly sacramental terms.” Still, the
memorialist understanding so firmly embraced by the movement’s founder, Alexander
Campbell, was both “predominant in the early Movement” and “still prevails in many quarters
today.” Paul M. Blowers and Byron C. Lambert, “The Lord’s Supper,” in The Encyclopedia
of the Stone-Campbell Movement, ed. Douglas A. Foster, Paul M. Blowers, Anthony L.
Dunnavant, and D. Newell Williams (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), p. 493.
49
James White refers to the essentially “Protestant” nature of the Vatican II liturgical
reforms; he quotes the late Mark Searle’s assessment that “Catholics found that it was all right
to be Protestant when it came to worship.” White, Christian Worship in North America, p. 10.
The Significance of Historical Resonances
It is not surprising that evangelical understandings of worship and participation

are divergent, nor that they resonate with a wide-ranging variety of traditions.
John Stackhouse, Jr. reminds us that when evangelicals recognize one another by
means of Bebbington’s four distinctives, they do so across boundaries—and so
exhibit a fifth distinctive: transdenominationalism.50 Evangelicalism is anything
but uniform; rather than a monolithic whole, it is a “network of networks.”51
One would expect from the books in the pool exactly what one finds: a variety
of approaches and influences, reflecting and refracting diverse traditions.
There are clearly a number of different tradition streams running through
the pool literature. Still, those swimming in a particular channel generally
recognize the others as paddling in parallel tributaries of a common evangelical
river. In that way, evangelicalism, often resistant to broad ecumenism, comprises
a vibrant sort of ecumenism within itself. Those who have plunged (whether by
tradition or affinity) into a certain stream find themselves splashing back and
forth with those immersed in other waters. There is often in this interplay an
energetic and generative exchange. At its best, evangelicalism is all the richer for
being a multidimensional “network of networks.” We will revisit this thought in
the concluding section of this chapter.
The Surprising Present (Theological Reflections)
Three Horizons, Revisited
This study’s findings are striking at every level of our schema—but striking in
quite different ways. Comparing the treatment of the three horizons across the
five emphasis groups, one is struck by the degrees to which Horizon 1 is uniform,
Horizon 2 is diverse, and Horizon 3 is vague.
Horizon 1—strikingly uniform

Two things stand out at the level of the first horizon. First of all, nearly all the
authors stress the way in which worship participation must be based in the heart.
If a good many of them would balk at being labeled “pietists,” the pool authors
are obviously the beneficiaries of pietistic cross-pollination.
50
Bebbington’s “quadrilateral” consists, again, of Biblicism, conversionism, crucicentrism,
and activism; Stackhouse appends transdenominationalism to the list. Stackhouse, Evangelical
Landscapes, p. 50.
51
Krapohl and Lippy, The Evangelicals, p. 8.
The second notable discovery is this: across the entire pool, the literature
envisions congregational participation in terms of a surprisingly uniform and
narrowly-circumscribed palette of human actions. (See the summary table in
Appendix 5.) What accounts for such convergence? The agreement among these
authors may be seen, from one perspective, as consensual affirmation—over
time, evangelicals have, like all Christians, distilled down a handful of essential
worship practices that line up with their theologies and their understandings
of Scripture. In that sense, the common practices on the list may be taken as an
evangelical ordo: an irreducible collection of actions understood to be integral
to worship.
The boundaries around the list of Horizon 1 practices may also be seen in terms
of consensual negation. Evangelicals often (like everyone else) define themselves
by means of contradistinction—by drawing a line between what they are and
what they are not. When they resist traditional ecumenical, catholic practices
(such as using lectionary readings, kneeling for prayer, or coming forward to
receive communion), evangelicals are often bracing reactively against Roman
Catholicism. In other words, evangelical distinctives at the level of Horizon 1
are shaped not only theologically and pragmatically, but also polemically.
Another constraint in Horizon 1 practice, across most of the pool, is the
restricted range of participatory modes afforded to the congregation. For a “free
church” tradition that values spontaneity and believes in the “priesthood of all
believers,” the literature seems conservatively restrained in the way it envisions
the congregation’s participatory role. On the whole, a small group of experts
carefully programs the worship service; congregational participation is delimited
and defined in advance. Even in the most creatively flexible models presented
here (the hypothetical service in Peterson’s “epilogue,” and the “organic” worship
at Dan Kimball’s church), participation is more cooperative than creative, and
falls within carefully pre-drawn lines.52
Peterson’s model does allow for a moderate level of congregational
spontaneity. And Kimball’s “organic” (versus “linear”) approach to worship
planning allows worshipers to invest themselves in ways that are authentically
intentional and interactive. In light of the postmodern turn, however, it is
surprising that the pool authors have not more fully explored modalities that
move participants from consumers to creators. If the culture’s hunger for such
interactive engagement is real enough that marketers and advertisers spend
lavishly to engage it, and if the church really does embrace the “priesthood of
52
It is interesting to observe what these authors regard as exceptional. Peterson
describes a sermon interpolated with a lay testimony—certainly not a radical innovation—
as an “unusual contribution” and a “creative technique.” Peterson, Engaging with God,
pp. 290–91. Peterson seems to be of a similar mindset to Erickson, who allows for liturgical
spontaneity in the case of—a heart attack. Erickson, Participating in Worship, p. 29.
all believers”—then why does the church invite worship participants to nothing
more than relatively tame levels of polite cooperation?
One possible response to this surprisingly restrained range of congregational
participation might be to develop and explore new modes of participation. This
will be touched upon in Chapter 10.
Horizon 2—strikingly diverse

There is a notable diversity of opinion among the emphasis groups regarding the
divine-through-human action of Horizon 2. It is when looking through the lens
of this second horizon, in fact, that the literature diverges most dramatically.
The landmark at which the pool authors part company is Vander Zee’s “great
divide.” While all of the authors affirm the literal observance and theological
centrality of the ordinances, they differ in their understandings of who is the
subject of sacramental action. On one side of the divide are the sacramental
recovery authors, who emphasize the activity of God; on the other side are the
rest of the pool authors, who primarily highlight the action of humans.
It has been noted that by far the largest contingency in our pool of books—
nearly half— stands squarely on the sacramental side of the great divide. That,
in itself, is cause for surprise. First, it is remarkable that, for a tradition so largely
unsacramental in thought and practice, such a large proportion of its scholars
and thinkers are intent on imparting to it a sacramental vision.53 Second,
these authors serve to remind evangelicals of something that many would
find surprising: their heritage is, actually, profoundly sacramental. Whatever
their reasons for disowning (or remaining largely ignorant of ) that heritage,
most present-day evangelicals stand on the opposite ledge of the great divide
from their enthusiastically sacramental forebears.54 For a tradition nurtured in
distinctly sacramental revival, evangelicalism is strikingly non-sacramental.
Looking at the other side of the divide is instructive, as well. Virtually all the
non-sacramental writers pronounce the ordinances to be supremely “central” to
worship. But, at the same time, throughout the bulk of their writing they sideline
baptism and the Table. In this sense, these non-sacramental authors exhibit their
own, internal “great divide”—an interior tug-of-war that both prioritizes and
marginalizes the ordinances all at once.
53
It may fairly be suggested that our literature pool is perhaps (as previously discussed)
skewed to some extent by the survey respondents’ academic orientation. Popular evangelical
literature certainly leans less in a sacramental direction. The survey respondents would
argue, however, that the large quotient of academic books that they have identified has been
particularly influential on those studying for ministry, and so on evangelicalism as a whole.
54
White suggests that a primary obstacle for evangelicals in approaching sacrament is
their inheritance of Enlightenment philosophy. He points to such hurdles as Kantian anti-
supernaturalism and modernist rationalism. White, Christian Worship in North America,
pp. 110, 156.
Throughout the literature, baptism receives even less attention than the
Supper. It may be that baptism, as an occasional service element, is thought of
as being outside the boundaries of normal (weekly) worship. More than that,
however, this literature’s silence about baptism probably evidences a kind of
ambivalence. On the one hand, since conversionism is a core distinctive for
evangelicals, one might expect them to focus lavishly on baptism, the ritual
associated with that distinctive. On the other hand, by virtue of their non-
sacramentalism, most evangelicals do not understand baptism to be organically
connected with the spiritual realities behind conversion.55 It must be said that,
in practice, most evangelical churches do make much of their baptismal services.
And yet, the mindset is such that—even among these largely academic authors—
baptism is not treated as an integral (let alone central) act of worship, worthy of
consideration and creativity.
While the Lord’s Supper receives somewhat more attention in the literature,
it suffers from reverent marginalization, as well. These writers proclaim that the
Supper is supremely important, and yet they afford it little attention in their
discussions of the theory and practice of worship.
The all of life authors are the most explicit in attempting to rationalize this
dualism. Peterson suggests that what is truly important about the Supper are
those principles that apply to all worship gatherings, regardless of whether
or not the Table is literally celebrated.56 But since Peterson hangs on to the
need for at least occasional literal observance, refusing to go the thoroughly
non-sacramental route of Quakers and the Salvation Army, he is left with an
unresolved tension—an “ordinance” that, while essentially metaphorical,
refuses to fully dematerialize. Harold Best attempts to offset the uniqueness of
the Supper in favor of the broader vision of Christ’s constant indwelling; Best
candidly admits, however, that his own spiritual experience at the Table vies with
his theology.57 While they maintain the highest of esteem for the ordinances,
the non-sacramental authors seem unable to integrate them coherently and
organically into their visions of worship.
One of the findings of this study might give hope to those who, challenged
by the great divide, would set their hands to bridge-building. Visible throughout
the pool literature (on both sides of the divide) are refractions of one particularly
promising theological theme: anamnetic re-presentation. That early church
conception, recovered by theologians in the mid-twentieth-century, has been
touted as an ecumenical bridge between Protestant and Roman Catholic
55
Most evangelicals are particularly wary about “baptismal regeneration”—the idea
that the act of baptism contributes effectively in some way to the process of conversion and
salvation.
56
57
See Best, Unceasing Worship, p. 56.
understandings of the Table.58 Similarly, it may be for evangelicals a welcoming

and sturdy bridge over their own great sacramental divide.
Interestingly, re-presentation surfaces most explicitly in the literature of
the all of life and sacramental recovery emphases—two groups who do, indeed,
stand on opposing sides of the divide. As utterly resistant as David Peterson is
to sacramental thinking, he and the other all of life authors appear open to the
idea that God’s Spirit works actively in worship by means of re-presentation. The
sacramental recovery authors similarly embrace (and make much of ) that same
re-presentational dynamic.
Re-presentation has much to commend itself to evangelicals: it articulates
a central dimension of God’s action in worship, rooting it in the gospel story;
it preserves the central importance of God’s word, gazes at the cross of Jesus,
and allows room for the free work of the Spirit; it invites personal response and
commitment to a present God in the here and now. Re-presentation seems to
offer an ideal point of convergence for many evangelicals—and especially a way
to bridge their differing understandings of the Supper.
Horizon 3—strikingly vague

What is striking at the level of Horizon 3 is a pervasive lack of clarity. While all
the authors affirm some sense of divine fellowship and participation in God-
partnering mission, the literature is mostly vague in its articulation of these
themes.
One might argue that some haziness is appropriate when discussing so great
a mystery as human participation in the life of God. And yet, at least one of our
groups—the sacramental recovery literature—does seem able to maintain an
appreciation for the mystery while reverently articulating some of its contours.
And such articulation has proven its appeal not only to the sacramentally-
minded, but to others, as well. James Torrance’s Worship, Community, and the
Triune God of Grace struck such a resounding chord among many evangelicals
precisely because of its uniquely clear (and worshipful) enunciation of the way in
which humans are ushered into fellowship with the Trinity. Clearly evangelicals
are receptive to understanding more specifically the manner in which worshipers
are privileged to participate in the very life of God. But, for them, that frontier
remains largely unmapped.
Mindful of those as-of-yet uncharted regions, the next chapter turns to the
topic of further exploration. Venturing into the murky waters of speculation,
it considers how the elements of this study might humbly contribute to that
(un)foreseeable future.
58
See Frank C. Senn, Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1997), p. 218.
Chapter 11
Reflections (Part 2):
The (Un)Foreseeable Future
A customary way of winding down a study such as this is to suggest directions

for “further study.” Riding high on the momentum of a nearly-completed
journey, it is easy enough to dash off a list of neighborhoods that might have
been visited if only there had been more time—places the next traveler should
certainly not fail to explore. But momentum is, of course, only the force on the
present exerted by the past. An itinerary for the future will also have to factor in
changes and developments that simply have not yet happened. So, despite all the
earnest conviction behind it, an agenda for further study must be penned in ink
that is easily erasable.
In this particular case, envisioning the way forward necessitates at least two
questions. First, in light of this study’s findings (as outlined in the preceding
chapter), what future trajectories are implied? And second: what about the
“emphasis groups” and the “trifocal lens”—are these analytical tools best left
behind at the close of this study, or do they have a useful life beyond its pages?
Trajectories for Future Study
In considering the directions in which future research might be taken, the three
horizons utilized throughout this study make a helpful grid. Before briefly
revisiting those horizons, however, it is worth mentioning two ways in which
further analysis might be profitably broadened. First, it has already been noted
that future research would benefit immensely from incorporating Pentecostal/
charismatic understandings of participation.1 (It would be helpful not only to
factor in that tradition’s theology and practice, but also to examine the extent
and nature of the tradition’s influence on other, non-charismatic strains of
evangelicalism.2) Second, it would also be useful to move beyond the largely
white demographics that issued from this study’s initial survey and to analyze
1
For a brief consideration of Pentecostals and participation, see my Appendix 1.
2
Robb Redman correctly associates the “Praise and Worship” movement, so influential
upon late twentieth-century evangelicalism, with Pentecostal and charismatic worship.
Redman, The Great Worship Awakening, pp. 22–46.
literature across a broader range of cultures. African-American worship,

in particular—a tradition that overlaps with but is not synonymous with
Pentecostalism—manifests a unique and vibrant vocabulary of participation to
which any comprehensive study of worship participation must attend.3
Horizon 1
One of this project’s most notable findings at the level of human action is both
simple and striking: when envisioning a congregation at worship, most of the
pool authors have in mind a quite limited repertoire of participatory modes. It
would be natural to probe the reasons for this restricted vision of participation.
A researcher might explore historical, theological and cultural factors in order to
better understand the affirmations and negations behind those shared, narrow
boundaries. But again, the inclusion of a Pentecostal/charismatic emphasis
(as well as a more robust treatment of the organically missional focus) would
broaden the literature, undoubtedly increasing its quotient of spontaneous,
unscripted participation. With a larger and more diverse demographic in view,
a comparison might be made between various groups, as well as an investigation
into the tensions in the larger evangelical community between fixity and
freedom in worship.
So any sequel to this study will benefit from attentiveness to a broader range
of cultures, folding into the mix their various understandings and propensities
regarding participation. In considering Horizon 1, in particular, it will also
be helpful to think in terms of overarching cultural trends. It has been noted
that both Mark Searle and practical theologian Pete Ward place a great deal of
emphasis on the cultural materials that form the fabric of this humanly-enacted
level.4 Accordingly, it will be important to consider the broad culture-shifts
that have reshaped (and continue to reshape) conceptions of participation.
One tectonic cultural change—the dawn of postmodernism—does receive
some attention in this literature. But aside from the evangelistic worship authors
(whose cultural analysis led them to recognize and accommodate preferences
for nonparticipation), only Dan Kimball begins to deal significantly with the
implications of postmodernism for participation. Kimball is to be applauded
for his recognition of the ways in which postmoderns embrace participation
and interactivity, but his book only begins to skim the surface of this important
cultural shift and its implications for worship. Author Leonard Sweet addresses
this cultural phenomenon head on; his well-known prescription for postmodern-
3
A good starting point for the study of African-American worship would be Costen,
African American Christian Worship. Other cultural approaches to worship and participation
might be investigated in Black, Worship Across Cultures.
4
See Chapter 3, pp. 52–3.
savvy ministry is captured in the acronym “EPIC”: Experiential, Participatory,

Image-Rich, and Connective.5 Worship-oriented researchers might begin
further exploration by using as a springboard Sweet’s evocative overviews of
“participatory” trends in culture and their implications for ministry. While
Christian ministry must be discerning and selective in borrowing from the
larger culture, surely new cultural forms of participation (crowdsourcing, open
sourcing, wiki-collaboration, and the consumers-as-creators model) have the
potential to spark some fresh ideas and approaches for a church committed to
the “priesthood of all believers.”
One cultural dimension, in particular, merits close attention: the role of
media in participation. As the last century has given way to the current one,
broadcast and interactive media have reshaped cultural expectations and
habits regarding participation. Those interested in worship participation must
look into such questions as: how have new forms of media shaped cultural
predispositions connected with participation? What forms of media have
already been introduced into Christian worship, and what effects have they
had on participation? What newer forms of interactive media have yet to be
leveraged in worship—and what benefits and pitfalls might be anticipated?6
In addition to these sorts of changes to mainstream Western culture, there
are, of course, even broader cultural issues to consider when discussing worship
participation. How do various global cultures experience and inform evangelical
5
Sweet unpacks “EPIC” in several of his books. See Sweet, Post-Modern Pilgrims, and
Sweet and Hammett, The Gospel According to Starbucks.
6
A useful starting place for such considerations is the work of Eileen Crowley, who
advocates the incorporation of multimedia into worship while placing a high premium
on congregational participation. See her Liturgical Art for a Media Culture (Collegeville:
Liturgical Press, 2007), as well as A Moving Word: Media Art in Worship (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Fortress, 2006). Further work would address the use of interactive and social media
in worship settings. Even the secular press has taken note of the way such technologies are
finding their way into Christian worship; see Bonnie Rochman, “Twittering in Church—
With the Pastor’s O.K.,” Time Magazine ( June 1, 2009): pp. 51–2; and Paul Vitello, “Lead
us to Tweet, and Forgive the Trespassers,” The New York Times ( July 5, 2009): p. A1. Leonard
Sweet exhorts churches to openly embrace and utilize text messaging and Twitter during
worship services, as well as to foster collaborative partnerships with VJs (Video Jockeys) who
spontaneously curate projected images to accompany preaching and worship. See Sweet’s
2013 presentation at Baylor University’s Center for Christian Music Studies, www.youtube.
com/watch?v=IEUfmeCGUsY (accessed November 14, 2013), as well as his Viral: How
Social Networking is Poised to Ignite Revival (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook Press, 2012).
Some commentators are less than enthusiastic and find these technologies inappropriate for
worship; see, for example, Joshua Harris, “Should We Use Twitter During Church?” www.
joshharris.com/2009/05/should_we_use_twitter_during_c.php (accessed November 14,
2013).
worship? And how does the increasingly multicultural character of worship,

even in North America, affect the theology and practice of participation?
The time may be ripe for a new typology of participation—something
along the lines of Erickson’s “patterns of participation,” but retooled for a
richly participatory, postmodern culture. The commercial sector is well on its
way toward re-envisioning consumers as creators, and even mapping out the
spectrum from passive to active engagement. Such reframing might be useful
to leaders of worship who seek to explore modes of “full, conscious, and active
participation” that authentically inhabit a twenty-first-century context.7
Horizon 2
Four rifts
In the course of this project, two “great divides” have been identified at the level
of divine-through-human action. The study actually points, however, to no less
than four noteworthy rifts, each of which calls for further research.
First, Vander Zee’s “great divide” separates those Protestants who emphasize
God’s activity in the sacraments from those who emphasize human activity.
It would be interesting to analyze current evangelical trends and to evaluate
their impact on this particular divide. For example: many evangelicals have
unintentionally imported into their churches elements of charismatic theology
via praise and worship music; it would be useful to investigate whether or not
evangelical expectations have consequently changed regarding God’s action in
worship. If a generalized sense of sacramentality has been reinvigorated, it might
serve to narrow Vander Zee’s divide among evangelicals.
A second gulf identified in this study is that which separates present-day
evangelicals, who are predominantly non-sacramental, from forebears who
were intensely sacramental. What accounts for such a change? James White
points to one factor (in connection with the non-sacramentality of Protestants,
in general): a widespread desacralization of worldview brought on by the
Enlightenment. A careful historical study of the years following the Second
Great Awakening might yield insight about the decline of sacramentality among
evangelicals, in particular.
Yet a third rift identified in the course of this project is that which exists between
rank-and-file evangelicals and their scholars. If present-day evangelicalism is, by
and large, non-sacramental—its scholars include a surprisingly high proportion
See Paul Boutin, “Crowdsourcing: Consumers as Creators,” Business Week Online,
7
www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2006/id20060713_755844.htm (accessed
October 14, 2010). Also see the work of Elizabeth B.N. Sanders, particularly her “levels
of creativity,” which describe participatory modes ranging from “doing” to “adapting” to
“making” to “creating.” Elizabeth B.N. Sanders and Pieter Jan Stappers, “Co-Creation and
the New Landscapes of Design,” CoDesign 4, no. 1 (March 2008): p. 12.
of sacramentally-minded authors. It is not unusual for academics to be more

progressive in their thinking than the traditions in which they are rooted. But
it would be instructive to probe the reasons for this particular gap between
evangelicals and their scholars. Are these sacrament-friendly academics at the
cutting edge of evangelical thinking—and do they represent the shape of general
evangelical thought to come? Or are these scholars riding on a train of thought
that runs on a perpetually parallel track—one that will not intersect with
popular evangelical thought unless something unexpected happens?
Finally, one “great divide” that surfaced in this study is not between two
groups—but is rather a more internal type of rift. Most of the non-sacramental
authors acknowledge that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are centrally
important to worship—but, at the same time, these authors largely ignore
those “ordinances” in their discussions of worship theology and practice. What
accounts for such a blatant disconnect? From one angle it might be asked and
investigated: since these authors effectively marginalize the sacraments, what
keeps them from going the full distance (as the Quakers and the Salvation Army
have) and abandoning literal observance altogether? From another angle: if these
authors truly value baptism and the Lord’s Supper as much as they profess to—
why are those ordinances not front and center in their writings about worship?
Genuinely researching these questions—not accusingly, but rather in a spirit of
collegial inquiry—would make a helpful contribution to spanning several of the
rifts apparent at Horizon 2.
Re-presentation: a bridge?
As previously discussed, a theology of re-presentation seems to hold out hope for
bridging Vander Zee’s “great divide.” It may also help to span the other Horizon 2
divides mentioned above. The bridge-building possibilities of re-presentation are
hinted at by the fact that the concept echoes through both the sacramental and
non-sacramental literature analyzed for this project. What gives re-presentation
its potentially wide appeal among evangelicals is its strong resonance with
a number of their core values: the pre-eminence of Scripture (biblicism), the
historic work of Jesus on the cross (crucicentrism), the imperative of personal
response (conversionism/activism), and a conviction of God’s immediate
presence by the Holy Spirit. Further work is warranted, however, to determine
how a theology of re-presentation might be popularized. (The scholarly authors
examined here probably learned about re-presentation through ecumenical
sources that would not currently be compelling for all evangelicals.) Additional
investigations might be made into just how fully re-presentation does, actually,
bridge scholarly differences of opinion about sacrament. Also, attention might
be given to such questions as: how best to teach re-presentation to evangelical
worship practitioners? How might the theology be compellingly explained and
applied? What sorts of evangelical-friendly practices might be incorporated into

worship services, in general, and celebration of the Lord’s Supper, in particular?
Horizon 3
While all the dimensions of Horizon 3 (participation in the life of God)

reverberate throughout the writings of the pool authors—those dimensions
remain largely vague and unarticulated. (It is the sacramental recovery authors
who offer the most specific treatments of Horizon 3.) But it is interesting to
have noted that evangelical scholars, as they have recently focused more intently
on the Trinity, have begun exploring trinitarian dynamics and their implications
for practical theology. In light of this development, a natural course of further
study would be to leverage the insights of these theologians in order to begin
delineating Horizon 3 more clearly for evangelicals. As present-day scholars
seek to integrate trinitarian participation, mission, and church ministry, their
work might lay a helpful foundation for more fully-realized treatments of
Horizon 3—as well as for generally enriched theologies of worship participation.
As for the “missio Dei,” even if many present-day evangelicals are somewhat
allergic to the Latin in which that phrase is couched, they are enthusiastic as they
discuss the underlying idea. Articulating the missional dimension of Horizon
3 will not only be inspiring and energizing for evangelicals; it will also help
them connect the heavenly realities of participation in the life of God with the
practicalities of human action.
Emphasis Groups and Horizons: Future Uses?
A good deal of effort went into developing this project’s analytical apparatus.
But, of course, that is hardly reason enough to suggest recycling its components
for future use. In assessing the five “emphasis groups” and the tri-level schema, it
must be frankly asked: did they, indeed, serve their purposes here? And also—
do they genuinely hold promise for the future?
The Emphasis Groups
This study began by recognizing that the books in its literature pool clustered
around five emphases—all of life, gathered devotion, sacramental recovery,
evangelistic worship, and organically missional. Here at the end of the project, it
is worthwhile to ask: how useful and valid have the emphasis groupings proved
to be?
Adequately discrete from one another, the groups have indeed helped make
sense of the differences between various authors. They have suggested why
certain values, preferences, and theological convictions tend to cluster together.

Furthermore, they have surfaced ways in which various historic evangelical
tradition-streams persist within the melting-pot of present-day evangelicalism.
Still, although the emphasis groups do a good job of describing the pool
of literature for this project, the five groups fail to account for the entire
phenomenological range of evangelical worship. It has already been suggested
that if that broader task were the goal, at least one particular group would be
conspicuously absent: a Pentecostal/charismatic one.8 Any attempt to adapt the
emphasis groups into an adequate typology for evangelical worship would need
to include such a Pentecostal/charismatic perspective.9
Another way of strengthening the group categories would be to further
develop the organically missional category. This project’s snapshot of that
particular emphasis group rested precariously on the work of a single
author, Dan Kimball. Even though Kimball is an excellent representative
of postmodern-aware, “organically missional” ministry during the period
treated here, any further use of this category would require tracking the
ongoing evolution of such postmodern ministry. The label “emerging church”
was seldom heard after the opening decade of the twenty-first century, and
the category cross-faded into something often described by a term nearly as
ambiguous: “missional.” This transition may serve to tip the tottering balance
in postmodern ministry, often skewed in its worship practices toward the
privatistic, toward the more corporate practices implied by its embrace of
community and corporate outreach. So, in addition to fleshing out a fuller
picture of the (largely outmoded) category, “emerging worship,” research must
be carried out to identify the current shape of postmodern, missional ministry.
8
For whatever reason, literature fully inhabiting a charismatic perspective neither made
the final cut of pool literature, nor even appeared (despite some prompting and solicitation
of respondents) in the larger bibliography of pool candidates. It may be that such literature is
presently not only under-read, but also under-published. Although a few of the pool authors
do touch briefly on Pentecostal and charismatic worship, none identify with the tradition;
lacking appropriate literature, it was not possible to include a Pentecostal emphasis group
in the main body of this project. (I have attempted at least a minor remedy in Appendix 1,
“Pentecostals, Worship, and Participation.”) While it may be true that not all Pentecostal and
charismatic traditions are evangelical, many are. As early as 1978, Robert Webber identified
both Pentecostal and charismatic strains as evangelical subcultures. Robert Webber, Common
Roots: The Original Call to an Ancient-Future Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978/2009),
pp. 56–7.
9
Much like the evangelistic worship group, the Pentecostal/charismatic emphasis
certainly both derives from gathered devotion and also manifests enough distinctives of its
own to warrant treatment as a discrete focus.
Either the classification “organically missional” will need to be adjusted

accordingly, or perhaps it might be split into more than one group.10
But even if the emphasis groups used in this project do, indeed, have a
future—are they suited for wider application? Would the categories (once
supplemented and fortified) be useful for other studies and discussions? To
begin with, it would be enlightening to test the groupings against a broader
range of literature. Beyond that, the question might be explored: does the
“emphasis group” typology work not only for worship theology, but also when
applied to worship praxis? If so—does that typology hold up (or break down)
when applied across a variety of cultural contexts?
Based on their eminent usefulness here and their surprisingly rich historical
resonance, I suspect the emphasis groups do have the potential for a useful future
life. But the scope of their usefulness will come clear only as they are more fully
engaged and explored.
The Tri-level Schema
Credit must be given to Mark Searle and the wisdom of the tradition that fed his
thinking; the traditional tri-level schema adapted here has proved exceptionally
useful. Each of the three reframed horizons has served to highlight categories
and concerns that are squarely evangelical. As Christians who put a premium
on turning theological belief into tangible practice, evangelicals are very much
at home in Horizon 1, and this is clearly reflected in their worship literature.
10
As for those who worked contemporaneously with Kimball, there were both other
practitioners who experimented with postmodern worship, and also other theorists who
explored organically missional theologies of ministry. “Emerging” approaches to worship are
treated in such books as: Baker et al., Alternative Worship; and Bob Rognlien, Experiential
Worship: Encountering God With Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength (Colorado Springs:
NavPress, 2005).
Organically missional approaches to ministry are explored in volumes such as: Joseph
R. Myers, Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect (Grand
Rapids: Baker Books, 2007); Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional
Church (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006); and Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The
Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church (Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003). Leonard Sweet has penned a number of books about
missional, postmodern ministry, including: Sweet, Post-Modern Pilgrims; Leonard Sweet,
Aquachurch 2.0: Piloting Your Church in Today’s Fluid Culture (Colorado Spring: David
C. Cook, 2008); Sweet and Hammett, The Gospel According to Starbucks. Looking past the
opening decade of the third millennium, one might note that author Phyllis Tickle continued
to regard the “emergent” model with great optimism. See her books The Great Emergence:
How Christianity Is Changing and Why (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012) and Emergence
Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters (Grand Rapids: Baker Books,
2012).
And despite the fact that they are hardly “of one accord” regarding Horizon 2,
evangelicals do testify deeply and unanimously to God’s presence and activity
among God’s people at worship. Finally: it may be true that much evangelical
literature is foggily vague regarding how, precisely, earthly humans participate
in the life and mission of their triune God. Still, the writing examined here
not only acknowledges, but becomes nearly incandescent, as it describes that
amazingly graced reality.
Versions of the tri-level schema have been useful to the historic church
and inspiring to some of the scholars (notably Mark Searle) working out
the implications of twentieth-century conciliar reform. The three levels of
participation have also intrigued, along the way, at least a few Protestant
theologians of worship. In light of all this ecumenical testimony to the value
of the three horizons—along with how clearly valuable they have proved here,
in an evangelical context—the question naturally arises: what of the tri-level
schema’s future?
Just as in the case of our emphasis groups, the future usefulness of the three
horizons (especially for ecumenical, and even non-sacramental, application)
will be bolstered by efforts to fortify them. For many Christians (including
evangelicals), the horizons’ medieval heritage will not be enough to commend
(and may actually serve as an obstacle to) their adoption. Ecumenical (and
evangelical) acceptance will be more likely if attention is given to refining the
descriptors used for each horizon, to deepening and enriching the language that
sketches their dimensions, and to anchoring them more explicitly in biblical
theology.11
To echo the question previously asked about the “emphasis groups”: how
suitable would the tri-level schema be if it were used not only to analyze
literature (as it was here), but also to speak descriptively and prescriptively about
worship practice? Surely it would be useful in calling attention to dimensions
of participation that are not usually articulated. But might the horizons not
also inspire practical application in connection with the shaping and leading of
11
One means toward that end would attend to the language used to describe each
horizon; in this regard, inspiration could be drawn from John Frame’s tri-perspectivalism—
which suggests rooting categories such as the horizons in God’s triune nature. See John
M. Frame, “A Primer on Perspectivalism,” www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/Primer
OnPerspectivalism.htm (accessed April 7, 2010). Inspiration might also be drawn from
Leonard Sweet’s So Beautiful, in which he associates three primal dimensions of Church
ministry and life—Missional, Relational, and Incarnational—with the Father, Son and
Spirit, respectively. Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 49. A natural mapping of the persons of the
Trinity onto the schema might be to correlate Horizon 3 with God the Father, Horizon 2
with the Son, and Horizon 1 with the Holy Spirit. Further investigation would be needed
to determine if such correlations are overly simplistic, or whether they do perhaps open up
helpful understandings.
worship? If so—how might the more abstract and ethereal aspects of Horizon 3
be practically applied?
It is encouraging to note that these sorts of explorations have already begun.
The scholarly work of James Torrance has spurred on evangelical authors to discuss
(implicitly) Horizons 2 and 3 in writings at a more popular level. Two examples
are Ron Man’s volume Proclamation and Praise, and Robb Redman’s Worship
Magazine article, “The Mediation of Christ in Worship.”12 These excellent
resources lay the foundation for further investigation into how insights about
Horizons 2 and 3 might translate into Horizon 1 practice. David Cunningham’s
These Three Are One (see my Chapter 3) is particularly instructive, providing a
model that demonstrates how transcendent trinitarian virtues can be distilled
into tangible, on-the-ground practices. Following Cunningham’s lead, the three
horizons might be fruitfully correlated one with another, and renewed Horizon
1 practices might find their wellsprings in Horizons 2 and 3.
Many present-day evangelicals recognize that they, along with their fellow
twenty-first century Christians, have inherited a task that is as exhilarating as it
is daunting. They have been left to explore and map out (so far as is reverently
possible) the trinitarian geography rediscovered by the theologians of the
twentieth century. To the degree that the tri-level schema provides a useful
means of surveying that territory—perhaps even beyond the boundaries of
worship, alone—its three horizons should continue to prove their worth.
***
A Final Thought: Evangelical Polyphony—Music or Noise?
The “emphasis groups” that emerged out of the pool literature are hardly
arbitrary. They encapsulate very real differences in thought, and each one
resonates in strong, thematic ways with a distinct evangelical tradition-stream. It
is hard to imagine these groupings easily converging and coalescing into an easy
synthesis. If anything, I have flagged the need to increase, rather than decrease,
the number of groups.
All this theological diversity should not be surprising. At the very start of
this study I noted the insistent pluriformity that characterizes evangelicalism.
When evangelicals hold forth on any topic, including worship participation,
they rarely sing in unison, or even in harmony; the music they make is downright
polyphonic (if not polytonal!). With so many different parts sounding at once,
it is fair to wonder whether evangelicals are making music, or simply a great deal
of noise.
***
12
Man, Proclamation and Praise; Redman, “The Mediation of Christ in Worship.”
As scholars have reflected upon the evangelical movement, the metaphors they
have used to describe its diversity have tended more toward the visual than the
aural. Timothy Smith, who devoted much of his career to probing the nature
of evangelicalism, sometimes described the movement as “kaleidoscopic,” and
at other times as “a mosaic.”13 The tension between these two quite different
metaphors challenges us to wonder about the variety among our pool authors. Are
the differing traditions/emphases we have observed simply parallel approaches,
kaleidoscopically colorful in their variety? Or do they perhaps interact, more
like the tiles in a mosaic, making up together a whole that is somehow greater
than the sum of its parts?
Robb Redman, in The Great Worship Awakening, seems to opt for the
kaleidoscope. He envisions a great, contemporary “worship awakening” made
up of various streams and traditions, each a work of the Holy Spirit. Although he
balances his appreciation for each tradition with “issues” which require critical
discernment, Redman treats the varieties of renewal evenhandedly, implying
they are parallel and equally valid paradigms.
Tim Keller communicates a more mosaic-like conception, understanding
multiple traditions as tiles that somehow fit together and depict an image larger
than any single tile.14 Discussing (and defending) Willow Creek, Keller leverages
theologian John Frame’s “perspectival” theology, which simultaneously affirms
God’s truth as absolute and human understanding as perspective-bound.15 Keller
sees Seeker, Reformed, and Emerging churches as embodying three perspectives
that reflect the three offices of Christ:
The Willow Creek style churches have a ‘kingly’ emphasis on leadership, strategic
thinking, and wise administration. … The danger there is that the mechanical
obscures how organic and spontaneous church life can be. The Reformed
churches have a ‘prophetic’ emphasis on preaching, teaching, and doctrine.
The danger there is that we can have a naïve and unBiblical view that, if we just
expound the Word faithfully, everything else in the church—leader development,
community building, stewardship of resources, unified vision—will just happen
by themselves. The emerging churches have a ‘priestly’ emphasis on community,
liturgy and sacraments, service and justice.16
13
See Sweeney, The American Evangelical Story, p. 21.
14
While kaleidoscopic images are dynamically vibrant, they are inevitably abstract; a
mosaic may, in contrast, be assembled representationally—depicting a pattern beyond itself.
15
Keller, “The ‘Kingly’ Willow Creek Conference.” See also John M. Frame, “A Primer
on Perspectivalism.”
16
Keller, “The ‘Kingly’ Willow Creek Conference.” The notion of Christ’s three offices
was articulated by Eusebius, and later developed more fully by Calvin and Luther.
Keller suggests here not only the unique contributions (and potential dangers)
of three of our emphasis groups—evangelistic worship (“Willow Creek
style churches”), all of life (“Reformed churches”), and organically missional
(“emerging churches”); he also suggests a useful way of correlating the traditions.
For him, each tradition excels at embodying a particular aspect of Christ-shaped
ministry.17
Beyond Keller’s particular characterizations, one might envision each of our
five emphasis groups as inspiringly modeling for the others some important
shared values—perhaps those evangelical distinctives as articulated by
Bebbington. To oversimplify, the all of life literature might be seen as modeling
biblicism; the gathered devotion literature, conversionism; the evangelistic worship
and organically missional emphases, activism. The sacramental recovery literature
might even be understood to model a particularly full brand of crucicentrism—
encompassing in anamnesis not only Jesus’ death and resurrection, but also the
ascended priestly ministry of the “Lamb who was slain,” as the ultimate basis of
our worship and sacramental celebration.18
Or, thinking in terms of this project’s schema, one might recognize the
emphasis/tradition groups as being in vital conversation with one another about
the three horizons. Even if they do not use the lingo of “horizons” (much less that
of sacramentum and res), their current dialogues and debates do constitute an
ongoing exchange that most surely grapples with participation as seen through
the lenses of human action, divine-through-human action, and the life of God.
Frame’s perspectivalism acknowledges that not all perspectives are created
equal. It is not the case, of course, “that all ideas are equally true, or equally false,”
nor that “as our perspective grows larger we inevitably agree with everybody
else.”19 Keller acknowledges as much when he outlines the “dangers” associated
with each Christ-reflecting paradigm. Similarly, our five traditions/emphases
not only complement one another; they critique one another. For example: it
cannot be true both that God prefers usually to work immediately in the human
heart and also that God prefers usually to work through ordinary, mediatory
means of grace. The advocates of each position may, indeed, have an important
gift to offer the others—the gathered devotion authors celebrating the intimacy
of being indwelt by an always-present God, the sacramental recovery writers
holding out God’s merciful gift of accommodating human senses. But if the
latter group is correct that its own convictions are in agreement with both God’s
biblically-revealed intentions and the evangelical church’s earliest experience, all
It is notable that the pastor of a world-class church like Redeemer Presbyterian,

17
known for the scope and excellence of its ministries, acknowledges that it is, by itself,
incomplete.
18
Revelation 5:12.
19
Frame, “A Primer on Perspectivalism.”
pointing toward God’s self-giving through sacrament—then the proponents of

the other emphases here will need to make some adjustments in order to receive
that gift.
Returning for a moment to Keller and his three paradigms (the equivalents
of our Evangelistic Worship, All of Life, and Organically Missional emphases): he
has framed them in such a way that each is—quite significantly—rooted in and
reflective of some aspect of the character and work of Christ, himself.20 This
suggests human participation in the life and work of God on a grand scale.21
Here is a compelling thought: if it is indeed the Holy Spirit who is behind such
multiple understandings of worship, one imagines they must be something
more than a series of parallel sketches; they must, rather, be the contours of a
single, larger, composite portrait. One might ask: what sort of portrait would
merit the Spirit’s artistry? According to the Gospel of John, the Spirit’s mission
is to glorify Christ by taking what is his and making it known.22 If the Spirit truly
breathes into multiple perspectives all of which contribute to an overarching
portrait, one imagines that the subject would be none other than Christ—who
is, after all, “the head of the body, the church” and the One in whom “all things
hold together.”23
So—to shamelessly mix (or at least toggle) metaphors: the many-voiced
singing of evangelicals might be thought of as being (in its finer moments) not
cacophony, but rather polyphony. Despite the many dissonances, those various
evangelical melodies held together in tension make for counterpoint that is far
richer than any of the lines in isolation. In a manner perhaps quite different
from that intended in the classic hymn lyric “O for a thousand tongues to
sing,” evangelicals may, indeed, be singing their “great Redeemer’s praise”—and
enriching one another’s worship (and understanding of worship) through their
many-tongued diversity.
A final thought about the distinctly polyphonic theology that arises as
evangelicals consider worship and participation: it may have the potential also
to bless those outside the evangelical tent. Birthed as a movement for reform and
renewal, evangelicalism is its truest self only when it dialogues with the larger
church. If Simon Chan is correct, there is a connection between low sacramentality
and low ecclesiology. Evangelicals are not only regaining an appreciation for
sacrament; they are becoming more and more open to ecumenical dialogue.
They are finding themselves fortified by a recovered vision of the catholic
20
In this Keller is faithful to Frame’s “tri-perspectivalism,” which sees truth as
often stamped in triads, and which sees reality as rightly understood only in light of the
characteristics of its Creator.
21
It also begins to articulate, theologically, Hybels’s and Warren’s sense that God is at
work in their churches on a meta-ministry level.
22
John 16:4.
23
Colossians 1:17–18.
church they first sought to revive. Reawakened to the larger koinonia in which
they participate, they are poised to dialogue in meaningful, deep ways about
participation. In the give and take of that refreshing conversation, they have the
opportunity to be both catalysts and recipients of renewal.
Appendix 1
Pentecostals, Worship and Participation
Pentecostalism has been called “perhaps the single most significant development
in twentieth century Christianity.”1 The burgeoning movement (“the most
rapidly growing element of Christianity today”2) is characterized by, among
other things, notably dynamic and vibrant worship participation. Although the
literature-based approach taken in our project failed to surface Pentecostals, any
responsible discussion of participation among evangelicals would be incomplete
without considering this significant sector of the church.
Pentecostals: Who Are They?
Pentecostalism is characterized by post-conversion “baptism in the Spirit,”

and subsequent, perceptible manifestations of the Spirit. It “differs radically
from other Christian groupings,” writes evangelical Alister McGrath, in that it
emphasizes “speaking in tongues and … highly experiential forms of worship,
which involve prophesying, healings, and exorcisms.”3 Despite the movement’s
pluriformity—which rivals that of the larger evangelical tradition with which
it is (sometimes uneasily) associated—observers have surveyed and attempted
to quantify it.4 Even if a large margin of error is allowed for, the numbers are
astounding. In less than a century, the number of Pentecostals worldwide has
1
R.G. Robins, “Pentecostal Movement,” in The New International Dictionary of
Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
2002), p. 885. Note: henceforth this volume will be abbreviated to “NIDPCM.”
2
Alister McGrath, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution—A
History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First (New York: HarperOne/Harper
Collins, 2007), p. 415.
3
Alister McGrath, The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the
Modern World (New York: Doubleday, 2004), p. 194; quoted in Kenneth J. Archer, The
Gospel Revisited: Toward a Pentecostal Theology of Worship and Witness (Eugene: Pickwick/
Wipf and Stock, 2012), p. xv.
4
Daniel Albrecht speaks of the broad diversity of Pentecostalism, which “moves
in and through a host of networks, groups, fellowships, and even independent churches
locally and globally.” Daniel E. Albrecht, “Worshiping and the Spirit: Transmuting Liturgy
Pentecostally,” in The Spirit in Worship: Worship in the Spirit, ed. Teresa Berger and Bryan D.
Spinks (Collegeville: Pueblo/Liturgical Press, 2009), p. 223.
grown from nil to, as of 2000, at least half a billion.5 In 2006, the Pew Foundation
determined that Pentecostal or charismatic “renewalists” accounted for 28
percent of US Protestants, and a striking 23 percent of the total US population.6
Despite the stunning diversity of Pentecostal/Charismatic (Pent/Char)7
movements, it is common (and helpful) practice to break them down into three
“waves.”8 These three “waves of 20th-century renewal” are typically labeled
“Classical Pentecostals,” “Charismatics,” and “Neocharismatics” (or “Third
Wave”).9
Classical Pentecostalism began near the very start of the twentieth century.10
While Pentecostals trace a number of outbreaks of Spirit-inspired phenomena
to various places around the globe at that time, the markers almost universally
agreed upon for the start of the movement are the 1901 revival that broke out
in Topeka Kansas under the ministry of Charles F. Parham, and the highly
influential Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles (1906–9) associated with William
J. Seymour.11 Those early, revival-birthed experiences of “Spirit baptism” and
the resulting charisms (especially speaking in tongues) remained central to the
movement, buttressed by a theological framework called the “full” or “fivefold”
gospel. We will return to this fivefold scheme shortly.
The Charismatic Movement began in the 1960s when Pentecostal-like
phenomena started cropping up among mainline churches. The renewal began
first with Episcopalians, and soon spread to other Protestants, as well as to
Catholic and Orthodox churches. Compared with classical Pentecostals (and
by virtue of their not having “roots in some of the extremes of the Holiness
movement”), charismatics have “typically been more overtly supernaturalistic
and culture-affirming in their perspective on the Christian life.”12
McGrath, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, p. 415.

5
“Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals,” The Pew Forum on

6
Religion and Public Life, 2006, www.pewforum.org/files/2006/10/pentecostals-08.pdf

(accessed December 7, 2013), p. 4.
7
I am following Daniel Albrecht’s usage (abbreviating “Pentecostal/Charismatic” to
“Pent/Char”) from his book Rites in the Spirit.
8
As with Webber’s three-fold typology for twentieth-century evangelicals (Traditional,
Pragmatic, and Younger), Pentecostalism’s waves unfolded historically without replacing one
another. Each remains an ongoing, living tradition.
9
See NIDPCM, pp. xvii–xxi; also pp. 290–291.
10
Interesting, it was a (charismatic) Roman Catholic, Kilian McDonnell, who came up
with the terminology “classical pentecostalism.” See C.M. Robeck, Jr., “McDonnell, Kilian,”
in NDPCM, p. 853.
11
Alister McGrath reports on recent scholarship that finds the origins of the movement
to have been globally diverse: “a series of local ‘Pentecostalisms’ emerging in the first decade
of the twentieth century.” McGrath, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, p. 422.
12
NIDPCM, p. xix.
Appendix 1 247
The Third Wave (Neocharismatic) is the most diverse of the three. Best
thought of as a “catch-all category,” it comprised (as of 2002) “18,810
independent, indigenous, post denominational denominations and groups that
cannot be classified as either pentecostal or charismatic but share a common
emphasis on the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, pentecostal-like experiences …
signs and wonders, and power encounters.”13 Neocharismatics range across
dramatically different contexts, from the US Vineyard movement that arose out
of the ministry of John Wimber to neocharismatic churches in Africa, China,
and South America.
Pent/Char theology has often been embedded in practice more than it has
been articulated in writing.14 That is not to say, however, that the movement
has lacked distinctive underpinnings, both practical and theological. Kenneth
J. Archer describes Pentecostalism as being phenomenological on the one hand
(characterized by “experiential worship services”), but also theological (having
“a common doctrinal commitment to the Full Gospel”).15 The importance
to Pentecostal thought of the “Full Gospel” or “Fivefold Gospel” cannot be
overstated. Its tenets “served as the central narrative convictions of the earliest
North American Pentecostal communities and can still be heard with some
important modifications throughout Pentecostalism globally.”16 Built upon
A.B. Simpson’s fourfold formulation, the Fivefold Gospel acknowledges Christ
as Savior, Sanctifier, Baptizer with the Holy Spirit, Healer, and Returning
King.17 These tenets reflect Pentecostalism’s Holiness Tradition roots, with the
conspicuous addition of Spirit baptism.
In addition to Spirit baptism (and the gift of tongues), Pentecostals have
emphasized other themes within and beyond the Fivefold Gospel. The movement
has been characterized by a particularly urgent (if waning) eschatology.18 And,
not surprisingly for Christians who self-consciously identify with Pentecost,
Pentecostals have always harbored great enthusiasm for mission. Sometimes
referred to simply as a “missionary movement,” Pentecostalism’s evangelistic
fervor goes back to its earliest roots. “As early as 1908, J.R. Flower, one of the
13
Ibid., p. xx.
14
At least, that is, until the energetic burst of Pentecostal scholarship that emerged in
the late twentieth century.
15
Archer, The Gospel Revisited, p. xix.
16
Ibid.
17
D.B. Barrett and T.M. Johnson, “Global Statistics,” in NIDPCM, p. 291.
18
“What theologians call ‘eschatology,’”writes Harvey Cox, “was not merely one
conviction among others. It was their [Pentecostals’] escutcheon, their trademark, their
rallying point. It was utterly focal to the other features of the movement.” Harvey Cox, Fire
from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-
First Century (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1995), p. 317.
pioneers, contended that ‘carrying the gospel to hungry souls in this and other
lands is but a natural result of receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost.’”19
Pentecostals: Evangelicals?
The easy identification of Pentecostals as evangelicals is somewhat problematic.

On one hand, certain conservative (cessationist) evangelicals question the
spiritual sanity and health of Pentecostals, and would most probably be reluctant
to label them “evangelicals.”20 On the other hand, some Pentecostals, themselves,
resist the label “evangelical.” In The Gospel Revisited, Kenneth J. Archer surely
speaks for many Pentecostals when he resists “subsuming [Pentecostalism’s]
identity under the rubric of ‘Evangelical.’”21 His concern, however, is less any sort
of quibble with evangelicalism than it is a conviction that Pentecostalism needs
freedom to spread its theological wings and better articulate its own, distinctive
theology. Whatever tensions exist, however, Pentecostals are usually identified
in one way or another with evangelicalism; prominent Pentecostal Vinson
Synan labels early Pentecostalism as having been “a powerful new evangelical
movement.”22 It might also be noted that the Assemblies of God, a foremost
Pentecostal denomination, was a founding member of the National Association
of Evangelicals.
How to “Read” Pentecostals
It should not be surprising that, despite every good intention, Pentecostal

literature failed to show up in this project’s pool of literature. Whatever the
shortcomings of my methodology, one reason for such results overshadows all
the others: Pentecostal culture is not essentially literary. Pentecostals, themselves,
are the first to point out that their tradition’s primary concern is “experiential,”
a way of “being in the world,” and that it lives and moves and has its being in
the oral/aural dimension more than by reference to the written word.23 “A man
V.M. Kärkkäinen, “Missiology: Pentecostal and Charismatic,” in NIDPCM, p. 879.

19
John MacArthur is a prominent cessationist critical of Pentecostals and Charismatics.

20
He accuses the Pent/Char movement of “blatant blasphemy” and “desecration” in regard to

the Holy Spirit. John F. MacArthur, Jr., Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit
With Counterfeit Worship (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Books, 2013), p. 181.
21
Archer, The Gospel Revisited, p. 1.
22
Harold Vinson Synan, “Evangelicalism,” in NIDPCM, p. 615.
23
Pentecostal scholar Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen embraces Harvey Cox’s application of
the label “experientialist” to Pentecostalism. See Kärkkäinen’s introductory chapter in the
volume he edited, The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), p. xiii. Wolfgang Vondey has noted the narrative orality
Appendix 1 249
with a doctrine,” Pentecostals like to say, “doesn’t stand a chance against a man
with an experience.”24 Wolfgang Vondey and Chris Green write approvingly of
the assessment made by fellow Pentecostal James K.A. Smith, that “Pentecostal
epistemology is always … a kind of aesthetic that privileges … experience
before … intellection.”25 Vondey and Green add: “Among Pentecostals,
knowledge of reality is thus not intellectual knowing but rather a kind of
emotional and affective awareness.”26 Since the natural (or at least primary) level
of discourse for Pentecostals is oral/aural and narrative, it makes sense that their
most revealing conversations would not be captured in written literature.
At the same time, it must be noted that the last decades of the twentieth
century saw a burst of Pentecostal scholarship, a rich flurry of—to borrow
Anselm’s motto—faith seeking understanding.27 Balancing energetic, ecumenical
engagement with a deep commitment to honor Pentecostalism’s distinctive
identity, scholars have creatively attempted to put vibrant praxis in conversation
with disciplined academics. Evangelical theologian Clark Pinnock (a frequent
dialogue partner with Pentecostal theologians) acknowledges that “[a]t one
time (and by some [people] even today) such scholarly work would have been
frowned on as diminishing vitality and mission, but others are now recognizing
that theology has a role to play as the movement matures.” In light of the
(experiential) nature of Pentecostalism, it is “only right and inevitable that
experiences of God would come first and then theological explanations would
follow.”28
that gives rise to Pentecostal doctrine (see his Pentecostalism: A Guide for the Perplexed
[London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2013], p. 71); he, among others, has sought to honor
that narrativity even in the construction of more formalized theology.
24
Cox, Fire From Heaven, p. 312.
25
James K.A. Smith, Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Philosophy
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), p. 81; quoted in Wolfgang Vondey and Chris W. Green,
“Between This and That: Reality and Sacramentality in the Pentecostal Worldview,” Journal
of Pentecostal Theology 19 (2010): p. 248.
26
Vondey and Green, “Between This and That,” p. 248.
27
Pentecostal scholar Daniel Albrecht employs Anselm’s formulation to describe his
own scholarly motivations; see “Worshiping and the Spirit,” p. 230. That is not to deny the
solid academic work done by Pentecostals earlier in the twentieth century. But Pentecostal
theologizing with an academic bent began in earnest in the last two decades before the
turn of the millennium. It was in 1979 that the Society for Pentecostal Studies started
publication of its academic journal, Pneuma. More than a decade later, the year 1992 saw two
significant milestones: the launch of the Journal of Pentecostal Theology, and also J. Rodman
Williams’s completion of the final volume of his Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from
a Charismatic Perspective, 3 vols (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988–92).
28
Clark Pinnock, “Divine Relationality: A Pentecostal Contribution to the Doctrine
of God,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 16 (2000): pp. 3–4.
Among the many fine academics contributing to this wave of vibrant

scholarship, a few provide an especially helpful orientation to the understanding
and practice of worship among Pentecostals. Daniel Albrecht is well known for
his attentiveness to praxis; his Rites in the Spirit offers description and analysis
of Pentecostal worship using the language of liturgical and ritual studies.
Albrecht’s purpose is not to impose alien (“etic”) concepts on Pentecostal
spirituality, but rather to articulate its own (“emic”) experience in language
that helps to bring clarity for both outsiders and insiders.29 Also instructive is
Chris E.W. Green’s Toward a Pentecostal Theology of the Lord’s Supper, which
ventures into constructive theology—but not without first widely surveying
both the testimonies of early practitioners and also the theological explorations
of a broad range of Pentecostal scholars.30 As accessible overviews to both praxis
and theology, Albrecht’s and Green’s books will help us get our bearings as we
consider Pentecostals and their participation in worship.
The question might be raised: do the opinions of these turn-of-the-
millennium Pentecostal scholars represent average, on-the-ground practitioners,
let alone the rank-and-file Pentecostals to whom they minister? An honest
answer would be: probably not. Not only is it unlikely that these scholars are
presently gaining a wide reading within their own tradition; their perspective,
moreover, would probably prove challenging for many Pentecostals. Veli-Matti
Kärkkäinen considers the grapplings of contemporary Pentecostal scholars with
the subject of sacraments and sacramentality, and concludes that their views
may indeed be “theologically and ecumenically significan(t).” But those views,
he qualifies, “cannot be taken as representative of grassroots Pentecostalism,
whether via pastors, leaders or church members.”31 More optimistic is William
K. Kay, who envisions more continuity between “three levels” of Pentecostal
theology: that which is “represented by the person in the pew, the minister,
and the academic theologian.” In Kay’s estimation, the three levels are “by no
means necessarily in conflict with each other”—but rather may be different
permutations of that which is ultimately “identical.”32
Granted, it would be a mistake to assume that readings from the new wave
of Pentecostal scholarship would gain unqualified “Amens” from a broad cross-
section of rank-and-file Pentecostals. But one thing that comes through loud
See Daniel E. Albrecht, “Pentecostal Spirituality: Ecumenical Potential and

29
Challenge,” Cyberjournal For Pentecostal-Charismatic Research 2 (1997), www.pctii.org/

cyberj/cyberj2/albrecht.html (accessed November 27, 2013).
30
Chris E.W. Green, Toward a Pentecostal Theology of the Lord’s Supper: Foretasting the
Kingdom (Cleveland: CPT Press, 2012).
31
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “The Pentecostal View,” in Five Views of the Lord’s Supper, ed.
Gordon T. Smith (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005), p. 119.
32
William K. Kay, Pentecostalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011), p. 57.
Appendix 1 251
and clear from this literature is that, for all the “etic” language it dares to use,
its core theological convictions constrain it to be as faithfully sensitive to the
“emic” thought and practice of the very grassroots Pentecostals it might perplex.
So those who would “read” Pentecostalism’s take on worship and participation
need look no further. Contemporary Pentecostal scholarship makes for good
reading.
Pentecostals as an Emphasis Group
Here, as we finally have the opportunity to focus on the Pentecostal/

Charismatic tradition, it becomes abundantly clear that adding a Pentecostal
emphasis group into the mix beneficially rounds out our classification system.
It takes no more than a modest exposure to the worship practices of Pent/Char
believers to recognize their vibrant distinctiveness, especially with regard to
worship participation. They are a valid (and welcome) emphasis group by virtue
of the uniqueness of both their practices and also their understandings of how,
precisely, God is at work in their worship.
A fascinating realization regarding the other emphasis groups identified for
this project was that each resonated in strong and obvious ways with particular
streams of tradition. The Pent/Char tradition is, of course, a distinct historical
tradition (or rather set of traditions) in and of itself. Its history, at least in its
conventional telling, has a relatively focused starting date and just over a century’s
worth of unfolding narrative. Like two of our other emphasis groups (Evangelistic
Worship and Organically Missional), the Pent/Char group might well be seen as
an heir of the Gathered Devotion emphasis. Insofar as Pentecostalism’s roots are
often seen as being in the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition, the movement may be
seen as flowing out of the same pietistic streams as the Gathered Devotion group
and its derivatives.33 Roger Olson has, as a matter of fact, pushed even deeper
to probe the close association between Pentecostalism and Pietism, proper, and
found the two movements to be no less than “spiritual cousins” with strong
“ancestral links.”34
33
See Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in
the Twentieth Century, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), p. xi. Daniel Albrecht
concurs, writing: “Early Pentecostals … adopted their cardinal theological themes from
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pietistic positions.” He looks to scholarship that sees
the early Pentecostals as “bor[ing] deep into the strata of the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition
among other so-called radical groups of the nineteenth century.” Albrecht, “Worshiping and
the Spirit,” p. 227.
34
Roger E. Olson, “Pietism and Pentecostalism: Spiritual Cousins or Competitors?”
Pneuma: Journal for the Society of Pentecostal Studies 34 (2012): pp. 334, 343.
Pentecostals and the Three Horizons
Looking at Pentecostals through the trifocal lens is, in one sense, similar to
looking at evangelicals more broadly: the most interesting sights play out on
Horizon 2. (This is hardly surprising, considering the Pent/Char tradition
understands God to work in tangibly supernatural ways during gathered
worship.) After glancing briefly at the vista on Horizons 1 and 3, we will return
to the fascinating view at that middle horizon.
Horizon 1
At the level of the first horizon, human action, Pentecostals have a well-deserved
reputation for times of praise that are often boisterous and loud. Some of the
energetic activity is understood by the gathered worshipers to be prompted or
even directed by the Holy Spirit. Some of the activity, however, is understood
to be human initiative: a willed response to “Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4). (The image of the Old Testament
tabernacle does, in fact, play a significant role in many Pentecostal services,
which are patterned as a means of entrance into God’s presence—outer courts
to inner courts to holy of holies.35) In response to God’s initiative and invitation,
humans intentionally engage (Horizon 1) in the business of coming joyfully into
God’s presence.
A sort of praxis-creed used widely by Pentecostal churches begins like this:
We pray together aloud because in the Bible we read, ‘They lifted up their voice to
God with one accord’ (Acts 4:24).
We lift our hands in praise because in the Bible we read, ‘Lift up your hands in the
sanctuary, and bless the Lord’ (Psalm 134:2).
We sing with all our hearts because in the Bible we read, ‘Make a joyful noise
unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise’
(Psalm 98:4).36
Pentecostal theologian and worship minister Judson Cornwall promoted the

35
“tabernacle model” of worship beginning in the 1970s. See Barry Liesch’s exposition in The
New Worship: Straight Talk on Music and the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002),
pp. 67ff.
36
See “Pentecostal Worship” (online), www.shiloahbooks.com/download/Worship.
pdf (accessed December 7, 2013), pp. 3–4. The statement, which proceeds in much the same
way, can be found on the websites of hundreds of Pentecostal churches.
Appendix 1 253
It is apparent that Pentecostals not only envision themselves carried along by

the Spirit; they also engage in willed human action in obedience to what they
understand the Bible to teach. Pentecostal “liturgical rites and sensibilities,”
writes Daniel Albrecht, “encourage becoming consciously present to God—
even as God’s presence is expected to become very real in worship.”37
Albrecht, a Pentecostal who describes the distinctives of Pent/Char liturgy in
an academically disciplined and closely observed manner, highlights some of the
Horizon 1 actions of Pentecostals at worship. During their extended times of sung
worship, he writes, Pentecostals “become more actively involved in the music by
standing and engaging themselves kinesthetically in the music. They clap to the
beat, sway with the rhythm and may sign with their hands or raise them as acts
of praise. They sing the chosen songs with eagerness and enthusiasm.”38 Among
the “kinesthetic expressions of praise and worship” visible throughout a service
he lists standing, kneeling, bowing, swaying, hopping, jumping, lifting hands,
dancing, signing, various types of applause, clapping with music, touching, laying
on of hands in connection with prayer, anointing with oil, holding hands, and
“reaching out toward” someone or something. Other visible or audible (human)
actions include petitionary prayer, testimonies, and sharing.39 Although none
of these actions are unique to the this tradition, animated celebration featuring
them is a salient characteristic of Pent/Char worship.
Horizon 3
There are at least two senses in which Pentecostals are robustly aware of the third
horizon. The first is their rich sense of being in intimate earthly fellowship with
God. In his article “Divine Relationality,” Clark Pinnock speaks of the “Spirit-
filled community” as knowing “God … to be personal, dynamic, and relational.”40
He suggests that a unique gift (charism?) Pentecostals might share ecumenically
is their “relational theism,” which is rooted in their very experience of God.41
(One practice common among Pent/Char worshipers since the 1990s ritualizes
the Pentecostal expectation that God’s fellowship is accessible and available;
in “soaking prayer,” a type of contemplative meditation, the worshiper fully
“expects to experience the presence of God.”42)
37
Albrecht, “Worshiping and the Spirit,” p. 240.
38
Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit, pp. 157–8.
39
Listed in Appendix B of Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit, p. 255.
40
Pinnock, “Divine Relationality,” p. 9.
41
Ibid., p. 7.
42
Matthew T. Lee, Margeret M. Poloma, and Stephen G. Post, The Heart of Religion:
Spiritual Empowerment, Benevolence, and the Experience of God’s Love (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), p. 254 (chapter 2, footnote 6).
Another dimension of Horizon 3 with which Pentecostals solidly connect is

the missio Dei. While they do not, like most evangelicals, gravitate towards the
Latin nomenclature, Pentecostals identify powerfully with the account of the
Spirit’s outpouring in the second chapter of Acts—a major effect of which was
empowerment for mission. (The centrality of mission was apparently not lost on
seminal Pentecostal William Seymour of Azusa Street revival fame; according
to William Kay, Seymour “saw [Pentecostalism’s] missionary implications
very early on”—as well as the social justice implications of the “fundamentally
egalitarian” movement.43) Frank Macchia picks up on the theme of participation
in the missio Dei, envisioning it as an act of communion with Christ in which
believers “renew [their] dedication to participate in his act of reconciling the
world to God.” 44 Albrecht is also sensitive to the missional dimension inherent
in Pentecostal liturgy; “worship … functions for Pentecostals as preparation and
transformation for their ministry, for the service to the world to which God calls
and sends them.”45
From the start, Pentecostals have been keenly aware that the outpouring of
the Spirit was not only for inward filling, but also for outward mission. They
strongly sense their call and empowerment for, to borrow the words of Peter
Althouse, “participation in the missional life of the triune God.”46
Re(en)visioning Horizon 2
By definition, Pentecostalism—a movement distinguished by the conscious

experience of God acting by God’s Spirit through human persons—is anchored
in Horizon 2. According to Chris Green, the Pentecostal ethos is, “[a]t its heart
and in its embodied expression(s), a spirituality of divine-human encounter and
intercommunion.”47 Pentecostal spirituality is physical, expecting God to “grab
hold of the body in all sorts of ways.”48 And, contrary to popular opinion (much
Kay, Pentecostalism, p. 27.

43
Frank D. Macchia, “The Church of the Latter Rain: The Church and Eschatology
44
in Pentecostal Perspective,” in Toward a Pentecostal Ecclesiology, ed. J.C. Thomas (Cleveland:

CPT Press, 2010), p. 258; quoted in Green, Toward a Pentecostal Theology, p. 37.
45
46
The words come from the subtitle of Althouse’s article, “Towards a Pentecostal
Ecclesiology: Participation in the Missional Life of the Triune God,” Journal of Pentecostal
Theology 18 (2009): pp. 230–45.
47
Chris Green, “Being and (Im)mediacy: Reflections on the Metaphysics of Divine-
Human Encounter in Pentecostal Experience,” www.academia.edu/1466837/Being_and_
Im_Mediacy_Reflections_on_the_Metaphysics_of_Divine-Human_Encounter_in_Pente
costal_Experience (accessed December 1, 2013), p. 1.
48
Smith, Thinking in Tongues, p. 39; quoted in Green, “Being and (Im)mediacy,” p. 2.
Appendix 1 255
of it Pentecostal), “Pentecostal spirituality is also dynamically mediational.”

Throughout their history, Pentecostals “have known God to act through all
kinds of means of grace (media gratia), including but not limited to rites and
practices such as baptism, footwashing, the Lord’s Supper, fasting, devotional
study of and meditation on Scripture, testimony, and singing.”49
Understood properly, the ecstatic Pentecostal sense of God’s immediacy and
the recognition that God makes Godself known in mediated ways are by no
means mutually exclusive. “God’s nearness,” writes Green, “does not edge out
but includes, takes up, the various ‘media’ that bear the divine presence to us.”50
The last decade of the twentieth century saw a flurry of Pentecostal
scholarship thoughtfully probing, among other things, Pent/Char worship
and sacramentality. Such scholarship took a couple of primary approaches; we
might call one “Recounting” and the other “Re(en)visioning.” The Recounting
literature (primarily represented by the work of Daniel Albrecht) was ecclesially-
focused and descriptive; the “Re(en)visioning” literature was more theologically
focused and, consequently, prescriptive.
Recounting
Daniel Albrecht’s work is well known both because of its careful scholarship
and also because it continues to fill a unique and important niche. Albrecht
sensitively applies the categories of ritual and liturgical studies to the existential
realities of Pentecostal worship. He seeks to articulate and illuminate present
practice rather than to forcefully usher it in a particular direction.51 To hear a
faithful and illuminating phenomenological recounting of Pentecostal worship,
one can do no better than listen to Albrecht.
We have already heard Albrecht’s testimony about Pentecostals at the level
of Horizon 1. In connection with Horizon 2, the pentecostally-important
dimension of divine-through-human action, Albrecht speaks of “charismatic
practices.” By these he means actions that Pentecostals, themselves, most readily
recognize as being “in the Spirit”—that is, those acts and gestures of worship
thought to be activated and energized by God through the Spirit. These include
“charismatic speech acts” (spontaneous, Spirit-inspired words, including
prophecy and speaking in tongues), “charismatic demonstrations” (including
the “working of miracles”), and “charismatic improvisations” (“spontaneous
49
Green, “Being and (Im)mediacy,” p. 2.
50
Ibid., p. 10.
51
That is not to say that Albrecht has no suggestions for scholars and practitioners. He
honors, however, both his academic discipline(s) and the tradition he studies by treading
lightly and guiding transparently.
innovation[s] to a recognized rite”). Albrecht goes on to list, additionally, a wide

range of “charismatic actions and behaviors”:
These may include the rites connected to prayers for healing (e.g. laying on of
hands, anointing with oil, holding hands, reaching out toward one in need)
and to other behaviors that are often recognized as charismatic. Behaviors and
gestures that are potentially regarded as charismatic include standing, kneeling,
bowing, swaying, hopping, jumping, dancing, signing (like sign language), ‘praise
offering’ (applause), ‘falling in the Spirit.’52
According to Albrecht, Pent/Char communities make a clear distinction

between those actions which are purely human (Horizon 1) and those which
are directed and empowered by God’s Spirit (Horizon 2). They do so according
to “charismatic criteria”—explicit or implicit benchmarks for assessing which
actions are “in the Spirit.”53 But whatever the interpretation of any given
moment in worship, it is critically important for Pent/Char worshipers that
their assemblies not be “the mere work of humans”; rather, they desire “the work
of God in and through and with humans.”54 This is, of course, the very definition
of Horizon 2.
It would not take long for a person observing a Pentecostal worship service
to note the high level of congregational participation. Such broad engagement
is not merely a matter of style nor ecclesial culture, but rather it reflects a core
Pent/Char distinctive: the “transmutation” of spirituality resulting from the
“Baptism in the Holy Spirit.”55 That shared, “catalytic” experience gives rise to the
“democratization of worship roles, practices, and charisms”—or, in other words,
the actualization of what the broader tradition has often called “the priesthood
of all believers.”56 The leveling effect is such that “[n]either ethnicity, gender,
nor even age [remain] a barrier” to the taking on of authentically “participatory
roles” in worship.57
As Pentecostals partner responsively with God at the level of Horizon 2,
“they know that the Spirit invites them to participate in the works of God.”58
While liturgy “may be the people’s work in worship,” Albrecht observes that “for
Pentecostals it is also the Spirit’s work, and the Spirit’s work is more than mere
manifestations.”59
52
Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit, pp. 172–3.
53
Ibid., pp. 174–5.
54
55
Ibid., p. 233.
56
Ibid., p. 234.
57
Ibid.
58
Ibid., p. 242.
59
Ibid., p. 241.
Appendix 1 257
Re(en)visioning
Pentecostal scholars are the first to admit that, within their tradition, theology
has not always matched experience. It is this gap their recent scholarship seeks
to bridge as it freshly expresses and articulates Pentecostal realities in ways that
are, if unfamiliar, deeply faithful to the tradition. Two terms that are frequently
used by Pentecostal scholars to describe their exploratory theologizing are
“re-visioning” and “re-envisioning.”60 I have chosen to use the hybrid “re(en)
visioning” to refer to the multifaceted project in which they are engaged.
In their work of re(en)visioning, Pentecostal scholars have turned much
of their focus in an unexpected direction. Speaking of the first decade of the
twenty-first century, Chris Green writes: “there appears to have been … what
can rightly be called a ‘turn’ to the sacraments among Pentecostals.”61 The reason
this attentiveness to sacrament is surprising is, of course, the seemingly obvious
fact that Pentecostalism is a non- (or even anti-) sacramental tradition. When
Pentecostals have discussed the sacraments, they “often have spoken about
[them] in predominantly negative terms.”62 But their resistance to sacramental
language belies an existential experience of, for example, the Lord’s Supper
that is anything but bare memorialism. As early as 1972, Walter Hollenweger
pointed out a disconnect between the “Zwinglian understanding of the Lord’s
Supper” prevalent among Pentecostals, on the one hand, and their “clear and
well-developed pattern of Eucharistic devotion and practice,” on the other hand.63
The fresh wave of Pentecostal scholarship has focused increasingly on
sacramentality, “sometimes with a view to developing a self-consciously
Pentecostal theology of the sacraments.”64 Such an approach is pregnant with
possibilities both for Pentecostals and also for a wider, ecumenical community. It
60
Albrecht refers to the wholesale spiritual “re-envisioning” in which the early
Pentecostals engaged (Albrecht, “Worshiping and the Spirit,” p. 231); Wesley Scott Biddy
promotes the idea of a present-day “re-envisioning” of the Lord’s Supper in “Re-envisioning
the Pentecostal Understanding of the Eucharist: An Ecumenical Approach,” Pneuma 28,
no. 2 (Fall 2006): pp. 228–51. Kenneth Archer believes faithful Pentecostal theology
always involves “re-visioning” (The Gospel Revisited, p. 5); Chris Green points to a large-
scale “project of ‘revisioning’ Pentecostal theology” (Toward a Pentecostal Theology, p. 1).
Also note the titles of such books as Daniel Castelo’s Revisioning Pentecostal Ethics: The
Epicletic Community (Cleveland: CPT Press, 2012), and Matthew K. Thompson’s Kingdom
Come: Revisioning Pentecostal Eschatology, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series
(Dorset: Deo Publishing, 2010).
61
Green, Toward a Pentecostal Theology, p. 71.
62
Ibid., p. 5.
63
Walter J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1972/1988), p. 385,
quoted in Green, Toward a Pentecostal Theology, p. 14.
64
additionally provides a particularly helpful window into understanding current

Pentecostal thinking about vitally important Horizon 2 questions regarding
mediacy and immediacy.
Green identifies two primary lines of thought Pentecostal scholars have
pursued in connection with sacrament and sacramentality.65 Some have focused
on “the need for Pentecostals to learn from the sacramental theology of the
wider Christian tradition”;66 we might call this approach “Re-connecting.” The
other approach majors in “developing a uniquely and authentically Pentecostal
account of the sacraments,” deliberately sidestepping the perceived hazard of
merely tacking charismata onto an essentially mainstream sacramentalism.67 We
might call this second approach “Re-framing.” While there are no hard lines
between the “Re-connecting” and the “Re-framing” approaches, the distinction
can be helpful for the purpose of recognizing significant themes in Pentecostal
scholarship on sacramentality.
Re-connecting
The “Re-connecting” theologians seek to refresh ties with the dormant

sacramentality within their own tradition as well as with the larger catholic
church, and, in so doing, to encourage an unashamed embrace of sacrament
within Pentecostal worship. If we allow Chris Green to be our guide, these
Re-connecting scholars include Simon Chan and Wesley Scott Biddy. Their
approach is much like that of the more broadly evangelical Sacramental Recovery
authors identified in this study, except for the fact that the richly sacramental
kindling they seek to fan into flame is embedded in the roots of their own
Pentecostal tradition.
Hollenweger’s classic survey of pluriform Pentecostalism, Green reports,
convinced him “that the celebration of the Eucharist rite is the ‘central point of
Pentecostal worship,’ a veritable ‘holy of holies’ of the worship service,” and “a
means of ‘intimate communion’ with Christ.”68 Such rich eucharistic experience
does not, for Hollenweger, represent a deviation from but rather faithfulness to
a distinctively Pentecostal spirituality.
Hollenweger and others—including scholar Steven Land—have proposed
that Pentecostal spirituality was largely forged in its first decade; to probe those
I have relied often, here, on Green’s writings as a helpful way into the spectrum of
65
Pentecostal scholarship on sacramentality. Even his discussions of sources with which I was
already familiar were helpful in that they provided useful context. I am indebted to Green for
pointing me toward many of the quotes from Pentecostal authors that follow.
66
67
Ibid.
68
Ibid., p.14, quoting Hollenweger, The Pentecostals, pp. 385–7.
Appendix 1 259
earliest years is to uncover that which is authentically and centrally Pentecostal.69

And what does an examination of those early twentieth-century Pentecostals
reveal? Green sums up his careful survey of the period by concluding that—
aside from a “small, always marginalized minority”—a preponderance of early
US Pentecostals “engaged in sacramental practice and thought.” Despite a good
deal of diversity, “there was widespread agreement that water baptism and Holy
Communion, as well as laying on of hands—and, to a lesser extent, footwashing—
remained critical and even central to Pentecostal worship.” And what is more,
these early Pentecostals celebrated their “ordinances” with sacramental, Horizon
2 expectations—“that God would act uniquely and powerfully in and through
these rites.”70 When he spoke of the Lord’s Supper at the very outset of the
twentieth century, A.B. Simpson called it “a direct personal touch of God.”71
What, then, accounts for the cautiously cerebral and memorialistic
(“Zwinglian”) theology that grew to dominate Pentecostal understandings of
the Lord’s Supper? Green proposes one possibility: when it came to theological
formulation, Pentecostals borrowed heavily from the larger (pietistic) evangelical
tradition around them, and the sacramental became, for them, “subsumed” into
language that treated it as “metaphor for mystical/pietistic experience.”72 The
theological “trajectory” of Pentecostals has been such that, according to Green,
they now resonate with the “modern secular refusal of mediation” and cling,
instead, to an immediate, “non-mediated” model of “direct contact with the
divine.”73
Seeing sacraments and sacramentality as central not only to the larger,
ecumenical church but also to their own movement, the Re-connecting scholars
argue for a Pentecostal reappropriation of sacramental worship. Wesley Biddy,
among others, argues that some of the most distinctive Pentecostal practices (such
as speaking in tongues and divine healing) imply the same sort of sacramentality
that rightly applies to the Lord’s Supper, as well.74 Simon Chan has written about
69
See Albrecht, “Worshiping and the Spirit,” p. 225; Albrecht references Hollenweger,
The Pentecostals, p. 551, and Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993; Cleveland: CPT Press, 2010), p. 26.
70
71
A.B. Simpson, Christian and Missionary Allliance 26.20 (May 18, 1901): p. 4;
quoted in Green, “Being and (Im)mediacy,” p. 11. Although he parted ways with the early
Pentecostals, A.B. Simpson’s theology was formatively important for their movement; he
formulated the “fourfold gospel” that would be so central to their theology.
72
Green, “Being and (Im)mediacy,” p. 4.
73
Ibid., pp. 4–5. Green quotes John Milbank, “Culture, Nature, and Mediation,” The
Immanent Frame Blog, December 1, 2010, http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/12/01/culture-
nature-mediation/ (accessed January 16, 2012).
74
See Kärkkäinen, “The Pentecostal View,” pp. 132–3, referring to Biddy, “Re-envisioning,”
p. 230.
sacramentality and ecclesiology both in works aimed specifically at Pentecostal

readers, and also in a number of crossover books (including Liturgical Theology)
geared toward a broader evangelical readership.
Author and practitioner Daniel Tomberlin makes an interesting contribution
with his book, Pentecostal Sacraments. Like many other Pentecostal scholars,
Tomberlin argues for an embrace not only of the two dominical sacraments
(baptism and the Lord’s Supper), but also footwashing and anointing with oil. All
of these actions can be understood, for Tomberlin, as truly being “sacraments”—
or “mediatory gifts” through which “believers encounter the Spirit of grace.”75
Using surprising language for a Pentecostal, Tomberlin speaks of “real presence”
in the celebration of Communion—the presence of “Christ and Spirit” which
serve as “a means of grace—sustenance, strength, and peace.”76
Re-framing
While the Re-connecting scholars are ready to listen to the wider catholic
tradition (and perhaps broaden and embellish what they hear), their Re-
framing counterparts are eager also to speak into that larger tradition. They value
historical and ecumenical discussions of presence and sacramentality; at the same
time they are adamant about maintaining enough freedom from that tradition
that they might express and contribute insights born out of their distinctively
Pentecostal spirituality. They balk at the idea of producing a theology that
merely supplements traditional sacramentality with Spirit baptism.
The Re-framing authors share the conviction of their Re-connecting
colleagues that all human experience is, in fact, mediated. In their articulation
of how this is so—and how it plays into worship—they enthusiastically adapt
the grammar of sacrament. They seek both to express and articulate familiar
Pentecostal realities in freshly unfamiliar ways, and also to illuminate, for the
ecumenical church, sacramental realities with the light of their Spirit-kindled
experience.
Frank Macchia has been a prominent voice calling for a Pentecostal re-
framing of sacrament. Focusing on the quintessentially Pent/Char phenomenon
of glossolalia, he argues (in his classic article, “Tongues as Sign”) that whether or
not they realize it, Pentecostals experience God in mediated ways that involve
“objective means of grace.”77 Despite Pentecostal discomfort with the word
“sacrament,” he concludes that “if defined carefully”—re-framed?—it “can shed
Daniel Tomberlin, Pentecostal Sacraments: Encountering God at the Altar (Cleveland:
75
Center for Pastoral Leadership and Care, 2006), pp. 86, 104; see also p. 206 (footwashing)
and p. 237 (the “anointed touch”).
76
Ibid., p. 74.
77
Frank D. Macchia, “Tongues as Sign: Towards a Sacramental Understanding of
Pentecostal Experience,” Pneuma 15, no. 1 (Spring 1993): p. 75.
Appendix 1 261
new light on the heart of Pentecostal spirituality and open the door for fruitful
ecumenical dialogue.”78
Macchia is typical of the Re-framing theologians in that he holds two impulses
in tension. On the one hand, he wants to point out the mediated sacramentality
that is woven into the very essence of Pentecostal experience, and to foster
an appreciation for the way in which that mediation plays out in what have
customarily been called “ordinances.” Despite the limitations of their theology,
Pentecostals have usually experienced those ordinances as graced media—or
“occasions for God’s redemptive presence through the power of the Spirit.”79 On
the other hand, Macchia resists pressing Pentecostal experience too neatly into
traditional sacramental categories. New wine, he might point out, calls for flexible
new wine skins. While the Bath and the Supper are centrally important media
of encountering God through the Spirit, Pentecostal sacramentality stretches
wider still. Speaking in tongues, for instance, is a distinctively Pentecostal
“sacrament”: one that “accents the free, dramatic, and unpredictable move of the
Spirit of God.”80 For Macchia, Pentecostal spirituality re-frames sacrament in a
pneumatological way that is helpful for both Pentecostals and also the larger,
catholic church.
One development that builds on Macchia’s work is well worth noting. John
Christopher Thomas has suggested that, in the same way that glossolalia may be
seen as a sacrament of Spirit baptism, other Pentecostal practices might also be
seen as sacramental of the remaining four dimensions of the “fivefold gospel.”
Thomas proposes the correlation of “Jesus as Savior” with water baptism, “Jesus
as Sanctifier” with footwashing, “Jesus as Healer” with chrismation, and “Jesus
as Coming King” with the Lord’s Supper.81 Numerous scholars have resonated
with Thomas’s scheme and, in so doing, affirmed a Pentecostal sacramentality
that is both broader than the traditional Protestant formulation and yet, at the
same time, centered on specific practices understood to be “sacraments” in a
special sense.82
Another voice contributing the theological re-framing of sacrament is
that of Amos Yong. Like Macchia, Yong seeks to avoid some of the traditional
formulations associated with sacrament, while re-envisioning sacramentality
from a uniquely Pentecostal perspective. He makes much of the thought
78
Ibid., pp. 61, 76.
79
Ibid., p. 241; quoted in Green, Toward a Pentecostal Theology, p. 35.
80
Macchia, “Tongues as Sign,” p. 163.
81
See John Christopher Thomas, “Pentecostal Theology in the Twenty-First Century,”
Pneuma 20, no. 1 (Spring 1998): pp. 18–19.
82
See, for example, Kenneth J. Archer, “Nourishment for Our Journey: The Pentecostal
Via Salutis and Sacramental Ordinances,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 13, no. 1 (October
2004): pp. 90–95; see also the helpful chart on p. 88 of Tomberlin, Pentecostal Sacraments.
that Spirit-imbued worship practices are “supremely embodied.”83 Far from

being unmediated, the “Spirit’s reality is mediated through the particularly
embodied experiences of the community of saints.” Yong envisions a “unique
sort of pentecostal sacramentality”—one that “acknowledges the Spirit’s being
made present and active through the materiality of personal embodiment and
congregational life.”84 Whether through speaking in tongues, healings, shouting,
dancing—or through baptism or the Lord’s Supper—Pentecostals experience an
always-mediated sacramentality. Yong promotes an understanding of baptism
and the Supper as “living and transformative act[s] of the Spirit of God on the
community of faith”—and hence, “fully sacramental.” He finds that such a view
of sacrament, carefully re-framed, is “fully consistent with pentecostal intuitions
regarding the Spirit’s presence and activity in the worshiping community.”85
In Toward a Pentecostal Theology of the Lord’s Supper, one of the many
authors whose work Chris Green synopsizes is Wolfgang Vondey of Regent
University. Vondey, a particularly agile and eclectic scholar, later collaborated
with Green on an intriguing article entitled, “Between This and That.”86 The
two scholars are Re-framers in that they resist, on the one hand, “contemporary
sacramental theology”—which they find to be “often too narrowly confined” for
direct application to Pentecostals.87 On the other hand, they not only affirm a
broad sort of sacramentality (“a hermeneutic key that speaks to the significance
of the Christian reality in which Pentecostals are included”); they also envision
“Pentecostal activities, practices, and rituals” as being drawn, together with the
traditional ordinances, into the orbit of such a sacramental understanding.88
Vondey and Green favor, in other words, a generous understanding of
sacramentality, but a reticent use of the label “sacrament.”89
At the same time, Vondey and Green maintain a high (if re-framed) view
of the Lord’s Supper, and are comfortable using language very much in keeping
with their sacramentally-minded colleagues across ecumenical borders. In his
83
Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian
Perspective (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2002), pp. 202–3.
84
Amos Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of
Global Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), p. 136; quoted in Green, Toward a Pentecostal
Theology, p. 47.
85
Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh, p. 160; quoted in Green, Toward a
Pentecostal Theology, p. 47.
86
Vondey and Green, “Between This and That,” pp. 243–64.
87
Ibid., p. 261.
88
Ibid., p. 262.
89
See ibid., p. 245. Elsewhere, Green characterizes Vondey’s “expansive sacramental
vision” as “extending beyond the rites of baptism and the Eucharist to include the church and
indeed all creation.” Green, Toward a Pentecostal Theology, p. 67.
Appendix 1 263
book, People of the Bread, Vondey explores a nuanced theology of symbol. Green
encapsulates Vondey’s thinking:
[T]he Eucharistic breaking of bread ‘is the divine reality breaking into the
present companionship’ of the Christian community. [Vondey] wants also to
hold attention on the absence of Christ, on the ‘empty space’ left in the wake
of Jesus’ ascension, a space that is ‘filled with the broken bread as a token of his
continuing presence’ and a ‘sacred sign’ of the future realization of the kingdom.90
In Green’s constructive formulations for the Table, he takes time to discuss and
explore the idea of anamnesis. He recognizes that anamnesis encompasses not
only the past (the “historical realities” of the life and ministry of Jesus), but also
the present (“Christ as he is: the once-dead, now-risen-and-enthroned one”) and
the future (“Christ as he shall be.”)91 And that same trans-temporal Christ is, as
Pentecostals are so particularly aware, experienced in the here-and-now by those
who gather at the Table. Interacting with Wolfhart Pannenberg, Green writes:
What happens in the Eucharist-event is not only ‘recollection of the earthly

story of Jesus and his passion,’ but also is, in some real sense the ‘descent’ of the
enthroned Lord, the coming of Christ to the church in and with the bread and
wine given and received in thanksgiving for the one who was, is, and is to come.92
Green, like a number of other contemporary Pentecostal scholars, touches on

matters of remembrance and presence in a way that is very much in keeping
with the broader, ecumenical community’s discussions about anamnetic
representation.
More explicitly than any of the evangelical authors examined in this
study, Vondey and Green reference the three levels of our (medieval) schema.
“[S]acrament operates at multiple levels of reality simultaneously,” they remind
us, “always participating in several dimensions at once.” The authors specifically
appeal to Aquinas’ formulation, appreciating the insight that “a sacrament is
not merely signum + res but stands in a three-fold structure of signum, res, and
signum et res.”93 The signum et res—our Horizon 2—is a “middle reality” that
“serves as the space in which the divine life touches creaturely life.” A “Pentecostal
90
Green, Toward a Pentecostal Theology, p. 67, quoting Wolfgang Vondey, People of the
Bread (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2008), pp. 172–3.
91
92
Ibid., p. 256, quoting Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3 (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 315.
93
perspective” on all of this acknowledges that this middle space was “won by Jesus
Christ,” and sees it as being opened or held open by the Holy Spirit.94
This “middle reality”—once again, our second horizon of divine-through-
human action—is territory with which Pentecostals are well familiar. Central
to “the Pentecostal view” is the understanding that the Christian life plays
out “between the reality of this world and that of another.”95 For Pentecostals,
however, such an understanding is not merely cognitive, but is rather powerfully
experiential. Vondey and Green make much of Lutheran scholar Robert
Jenson’s treatment of sacrament. Jenson likens the classic concept of sacramental
“character”—an articulation of signum et res—to the “charisms” mentioned in the
Pastoral epistles.96 Vondey and Green find that connection “especially promising
for Pentecostals who understand themselves as people of the charismata, and
so already affirm that the Spirit affords the believer the ‘spiritual power’ that
both conforms one to Christ, and authorizes and impels one to ministry in and
with him.”97 Vondey and Green note that the sacramental character conferred
at that middle level is, in the words of Roman Catholic scholar Mark Francis, a
“spiritual power that conforms an individual more to Christ, forever changing
one’s relationship to God and the Church, giving one a share in Christ’s
priesthood, and deputing the Christian to engage in acts of worship.”98 If this
is so, then Horizon 2, held open by the Spirit, is the place where worshipers are
embued with power specifically for the purpose of participation.
Summarizing and Reflecting
Those on the outside are not always sure what to make of the Pentecostal
tradition. Reactions run from bewilderment to admiration. While those from
more staid traditions are often, indeed, unsettled by Pentecostal worship, they
also might well envy the vibrant sort of active engagement Pentecostals enjoy.
To be sure, Pent/Char believers have always been among the most highly and
demonstratively participative of worshipers. Not only does their theology
incline them toward expressive worship; the commonality of their experience
of Spirit baptism impels them toward a largely egalitarian “priesthood of all
believers” that welcomes highly invested, spontaneous participation.
Ibid., pp. 258–9.

94
Ibid., p. 250.
95
96
See Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), pp. 252–3, and Vondey and Green, “Between This and That,” p. 257.
97
98
Mark R. Francis, “Sacramental Character,” in The HarperCollins Encyclopedia
of Catholicism, ed. Richard P. McBrien (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995),
pp. 1147–8; quoted in Vondey and Green, “Between This and That,” p. 257.
Appendix 1 265
If participation is envisioned as playing out on three horizons, it is certainly

true that both Pentecostal scholars and the rank-and-file believers they represent
robustly inhabit each of the levels. They clearly understand a good proportion
of worship to be human action (Horizon 1)—a very purposive sort of “entering
the gates of praise,” an act of the community as it makes itself present and
available to God in the expectation of real encounter. Pentecostals also make
a strong showing at Horizon 3. In addition to their obvious delight in enjoying
fellowship with God, they have (and have had from the start) a zeal for mission
that flows out of their identity in and experience of God’s Spirit. They are well
aware of Jesus’ words associating the outpouring of the Spirit with the call to be
his witnesses far and wide;99 they understand gathered worship as leading them
into and empowering them for participation in the missio Dei.
It is readily apparent that Pentecostals believe—as a tenet central to their
very identity—in the divine-through-human action that characterizes Horizon
2. And contrary to what one might expect, Pentecostals recognize—despite
their sense of God’s intimate, immediate presence—the mediated manner
in which they encounter the divine. It is here, at this horizon, that the new
Pentecostal scholars are particularly energized. Their tradition’s spiritually
tangible experience of being “between two worlds” leads them to an inescapable
sense of sacramentality. More fueled by experience than bound by traditional
formulation, they look for creative ways to articulate the relationship between
res and sacramentum.
The Pentecostal scholars embrace a very broad brand of sacramentality.
They tread carefully when discussing sacraments, proper; they seek to dialogue
knowledgeably with historic tradition without becoming entangled in all of its
formulations. Still, they do recognize certain sacraments as having pride of place:
baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and, for some scholars, such rites as footwashing,
anointing with oil, and even glossolalia.
Surprisingly, contemporary Pentecostals demonstrate a striking concern
for ecumenism. One might easily imagine Spirit baptism to be regarded as a
benchmark that privileges the spirituality of some over others, creating a climate
of spiritual haves and have-nots. Yet the current generation of Pentecostal
scholars is eager to constructively engage and dialogue with the broader
Christian tradition. They seem to have grabbed hold of yet another characteristic
scripturally attributed to the Spirit: that of Christian unity.100 And it is not
only Pentecostals, but also those outside their tradition who are eager for such
99
Acts 1:8.
100
See 1 Corinthians 12:12–13, Ephesians 4:3–5, and Philippians 2:1–2.
ecumenical dialogue; they believe the Pent/Char community has significant

gifts to offer the larger church.101
As those who appear to be fully engaged on all three horizons of participation,
and those with a uniquely energized conviction about divine-through-human
action, Pentecostals do, indeed, have the potential to offer prodigious gifts to
those outside their movement. For one thing, their acute mindfulness of the
sovereign, unpredictable work of God’s Spirit positions them to model what
Alister McGrath refers to as the “resacralization of everyday life.”102 The Pent/
Char movement, especially as it is articulated by its scholars, might well help
twenty-first century Christianity (and its onlookers) to recapture the sense of
a sacralized universe. One might build on some of McGrath’s observations and
usefully think of the following progression:
1. Protestant desacralization/rational mediation. (McGrath suggests that

“traditional Protestantism’s emphasis upon an indirect knowledge of
God, mediated through reading the Bible, led to ‘desacralization’—the
creation of a culture with no sense or expectation of God’s presence in its
midst.”103)
2. Pentecostal resacralization/intimate immediacy. (“Pentecostalism declares
that it is possible to encounter God directly and personally through the
power of the Holy Spirit. God is to be known immediately and directly,
not indirectly through study of a text.”104)
3. Pentecostal re-sacramentalization/ritual mediation. (Moving past McGrath:
new wave Pentecostal scholars help their community to re(en)vision
sacramentality in such a way that they recognize the mediacy inherent
in their own tradition and embrace both traditional and extended
sacraments as privileged places of encountering God.)
It is fascinating to envision Pentecostals, long thought of as non-sacramental,

helping the larger ecumenical community to re-envision its way to a richer and
more vital grasp of sacrament. Ecumenical discussions have already flagged many
aspects of the eucharist as crying out for study and enriched understanding—
101
Respected evangelical scholar Roger Olson has suggested that “[F]uture
evangelical theology must take its cue from the dynamic movements of God’s Holy Spirit
among charismatic evangelicals.” Roger E. Olson, “The Future of Evangelical Theology,”
Christianity Today (February 9, 1998): p. 48. Clark Pinnock yearns, as has been mentioned,
for Pentecostals to successfully share with evangelicals and others their unique “relational
theism”—that is, their experiential knowledge that God is dynamic and relational, lovingly
and actively engaged with Creation. Pinnock, “Divine Relationality,” p. 21.
102
McGrath, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, p. 433.
103
Ibid., p. 429.
104
Ibid., p. 439.
Appendix 1 267
and these are precisely realities that Pentecostals know about in existential ways.
Their scholars are eager to probe and discuss such dimensions of the Supper as
the pneumatological (a natural for Pent/Char scholars), the eschatological (a
renewed and renewing Pentecostal distinctive), the time-warping spirituality
of anamnetic re-presentation, and the elusive relationship between sign and
signified.
***
Like the evangelicalism with which it is inextricably (if problematically) linked,

Pentecostalism’s genesis as a renewal movement is embedded in its DNA.
Evangelical Alister McGrath acknowledges the renewalist role Pentecostals
might play—not only in refreshing Protestantism, but also in serving the
ongoing Protestant project of reformation.105 Such a recovered connection—
between Pentecostalism and the larger Church—promises to be healthy, indeed.
I have already suggested that renewal movements are at their best when they
are in lively and intimate relationship with those entities they arose, in the first
place, to renew. In the absence of such relationship, movements of renewal lack
an ontological center and become lopsided. In light of that, both Pentecostals
and Evangelicals need the larger church.
At the same time, the church is, as the Reformers recognized, always in need of
reform—ecclesia semper reformanda est. (In noting the passive verb tense of that
maxim, Reformed scholar Michael Horton points out that the church “is ‘always
being reformed’ by the Spirit of God through the Word.”106 If the work of the
Spirit is, indeed, central to reform, as Horton suggests, would not Pentecostals
be the most natural—or rather, supernatural—of reformers?) Frank Macchia,
Amos Yong, Wolfgang Vondey, and the new generation of Pentecostal scholars
desire the renewal of not only their own movement, but also the ecumenical
church. They are engaging with the larger Christian tradition in ways that are
fresh and new, and also leveraging enough common vocabulary to make real
conversation possible. It is heartening to note that such dialogue has already
begun to take place in very intentional ways between Pentecostals and various
denominations.107
105
In fact, McGrath sees Pentecostal renewalism as an organic outgrowth of Protestant
reform. “Pentecostalism is to be seen,” he writes, “as part of the Protestant process of reflection,
reconsideration, and regeneration. It is not the consequence of a ‘new Reformation,’ but a
legitimate outcome of the ongoing program that has characterized and defined Protestantism
from its outset.” McGrath, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, p. 435.
106
Michael Horton, “Semper Reformanda,” Ligonier Ministries website, www.ligonier.
org/learn/articles/semper-reformanda/ (accessed December 9, 2013).
107
Ecumenical dialogues have been ongoing between Pentecostals and, for example,
Roman Catholics since 1972. Similar exchanges have been going on between Pentecostals
When it comes to worship and participation, twenty-first-century

Pentecostals are especially poised to make a unique contribution. Their
distinctive theologies and practices of participation have often inspired (if
sometimes frightened) those outside their movement; their engaging music
and its theological payload have profoundly influenced countless Christians
via the juggernaut of the contemporary Praise and Worship industry. And now
their scholars demonstrate the “gift of interpretation” as they translate their
movement’s participatory charisms into intelligibility for the larger church.
At the very first Pentecost in Jerusalem, the upper room believers were set
ablaze with tongues of fire; they found themselves speaking to those around
them with fresh, compelling words that triggered renewal. Now, near the turn
of a much later millennium, Pentecostals—and especially the scholars who
represent them—are attempting to do the same. It has not always been the case
that Pentecostals and the larger church have been able to dialogue constructively;
but those who are often known for speaking in “other tongues” have learned the
language of the academy. As those of us around them hear “our own language
being spoken,” may we all—Pentecostals, evangelicals, and all the rest—get wind
of the Spirit.108
and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. See Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., “The Achievements
of the Pentecostal-Catholic International Dialogue,” and Ralph Del Colle, “Pentecostal-
Catholic International Dialogue: A Catholic Perspective,” both in Celebrating a Century
of Ecumenism: Exploring the Achievements of International Dialogue, ed. John A. Radano
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), pp. 163ff. and 195ff., respectively. Regarding Pentecostal/
Reformed dialogue, see World Alliance of Reformed Churches, “Word and Spirit, Church
and World: The Final Report of the International Dialogue Between Representatives of
the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and Some Classical Pentecostal Churches and
Leaders, 1996–2000,” Pneuma 23, no. 1 (Spring 2001): pp. 9–43.
108
Acts 2:6.
Appendix 2
Survey Methodology
In order to compile this project’s bibliographic pool for analysis, a survey

was conducted. Responses were solicited from professors who teach worship
classes at major evangelical institutions of higher education throughout North
America. Approximately 30 professors expressed a willingness to participate;
ultimately 20 of these submitted completed surveys. A full list of respondents
may be found in Appendix 3.
The respondents were asked to identify those books that have been most
influential, over the past quarter century, on evangelical conceptions of worship
and worship participation. The survey instrument provided a list of 35 books, as
well as space to write in the names of other volumes. Respondents were asked to
rate each book (write-ins as well as those on the initial list) in terms of its degree
of influence; ratings ranged on a scale ranging from a low of “1” to a high of “5.”
The survey instrument may be found in Appendix 4.
Survey results were compiled into a single master list. Ranking points were
summed together for each volume, including write-ins, and the list was sorted
by composite rank. The top 25 books were flagged to be in the analytical pool
for this project.
Appendix 3
Survey Respondents (by Institution)
A.W. Tozer Theological Seminary, Dr Robb Redman

Simpson University Dean
Redding, CA
Alliance Theological Seminary Dr John Ng
Nyack, NY Associate Professor of Pastoral Studies
(also Bethel Seminary)
Asbury Theological Seminary Dr Lester Ruth
Asbury, KY Lily May Jarvis Professor of Christian
Worship
Ashland Theological Seminary Dr Jay Robert Douglass
Ashland, OH Associate Professor of Practical Theology
Assemblies of God Seminary Dr Earl Creps
Springfield, MO Professor of Leadership and Spiritual
Renewal
Azusa Pacific University/Haggard School Dr Kent Walkemeyer
of Theology Associate Professor of Ministry,
Azusa, CA Graduate School of Theology
Biola University Dr Barry Liesch
La Mirada, CA Professor & Area Coordinator, Music in
Worship
Biola University/Talbot School of Theology Dr Gary L. McIntosh
La Mirada, CA Professor of Christian Ministry and
Leadership
Calvin College/Calvin Theological Dr John Witvliet
Seminary Director, Calvin Institute of
Grand Rapids, MI Christian Worship,
Professor of Music and Religious Studies
Dallas Theological Seminary Dr Timothy J. Ralston
Dallas, TX Professor of Pastoral Ministries
Denver Seminary Larry Lindquist
Littleton, CO Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry and
Evangelism
Fuller Theological Seminary Dr Todd Johnson

Pasadena, CA William K. and Delores S. Brehm Associate
Professor of Worship, Theology and the Arts
George Fox Evangelical Seminary Dr Chuck Conniry
Portland, OR Professor of Pastoral Studies,
Vice President and Dean
Liberty University Dr Vernon Whaley
Lynchburg, VA Director of the Department of Worship &
Music Studies
Northern Seminary Dr Sam Hamstra
Lombard, IL Affiliate Professor of Church History and
Worship
Regent College Dr Darrell W. Johnson
Vancouver, BC, Canada Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Dr Carl Stam
Louisville, KY Professor of Church Music and Worship,
Director of the Institute for Christian
Worship
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Dr H. Wayne Johnson
Deerfield, IL Director, MDiv Program
Westminster Theological Seminary Dr Laurence Chapell Sibley, Jr.
Philadelphia, PA Lecturer in Practical Theology
Wheaton College Dr Tom Schwanda
Wheaton, IL Associate Professor of Christian Formation &
Ministry
Appendix 4
The Survey Instrument
Instructions
Please provide feedback as indicated on the following pages. You’re helping me

to edit down (and possibly supplement) the following bibliography. What I’m
looking to assemble is a list of the 25 or so books that have been most influential
among evangelicals in shaping notions about worship—and, in particular, about
congregational participation in worship.
Here are some parameters:
1. This bibliography seeks to target a particular angle on worship: the

theology and practice of congregational participation. This may lead you
to favor certain books over others. (It may even suggest some titles that
are not specifically about worship—for example, a book about church
leadership.)
2. I’m looking primarily for books written by evangelicals. Yet I want to
include those works by others which have been especially formative for
evangelicals seeking to understand worship and worship participation.
3. As I want to emphasize those books that have been influential on
evangelical seminarians, there will naturally be many academic books on
the list. I do, however, want also to include some of the popular books
that have been especially influential.
4. Please do be opinionated! The more critical you allow yourself to be, the
more you’ll help me trim down my list.
With all of this in mind … please annotate the following pages by following
the instructions (in red). You’ll have an opportunity both to rate books in my
existing pool, and also—at the end—to write in your recommended additions.
The Top 35
Using the leftmost column, please RATE the following books from 0 to 5,
roughly according to this scale:
5—Definitely yes!—should be on the Top 25 list.

4—Feel pretty strongly the book should be on the list.
3—Good to have on the list.
2—OK to have on list—but there are better books.
1—Don’t really think this book should be on the list.
0—Definitely should not be on the list.
If you have any comments, feel free to type them in the rightmost column.
(Don’t worry if the pagination becomes messy.)
RATING (0–5) BOOK COMMENTS

Allen, Ronald and Borror, Gordon.
Worship: Rediscovering the Missing
Jewel. Portland: Multnomah, 1982.
Best, Harold. Unceasing Worship:
Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the
Arts. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press,
2003.
Bloesch, Donald G. The Church:
Sacraments, Worship, Ministry, Mission.
Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press,
2002.
Boschman, Lamar. Future Worship:
How a Changing World Can Enter
God’s Presence in the New Millennium.
Ventura: Renew, 1999.
Carson, D.A., et al., eds. Worship By the
Book. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.
Chan, Simon. Liturgical Theology: The
Church as Worshiping Community.
Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press,
2006.
Cornwall, Judson. Elements of Worship.
Plainfield: Bridge Publishing, 1985.
Appendix 4 275

Costen, Melva. African-American
Christian Worship. Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1993.
Dawn, Marva J. Reaching Out Without
Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship
for the Turn-of-the-Century Culture.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 1995.
Frame, John. Worship in Spirit and
Truth. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing,
1996.
Hayford, Jack. Worship His Majesty:
How Praising the King of Kings Will
Change Your Life. Ventura: Regal
Books, 2000.
Hustad, Donald W. Jubilate II: Church
Music in Worship and Renewal. Carol
Stream: Hope Publishing, 1993.
Hybels, Lynne and Bill. Rediscovering
Church: The Story and Vision of
Willow Creek Church. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1995.
Johansson, Calvin. Music and Ministry:
A Biblical Counterpoint. Peabody:
Hendrickson Publishers, 1998.
Kimball, Dan. Emerging Worship:
Creating Worship Gatherings for New
Generations. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
2004.
Liesch, Barry Wayne. The New Worship:
Straight Talk on Music and the Church.
Revised edition. Grand Rapids: Baker
Book House, 2001.
Miller, Kim, and the Ginghamsburg
Church Worship Team. Handbook for
Multi-Sensory Worship, Vol. I. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1999.
Morgenthaler, Sally. Worship
Evangelism: Inviting Unbelievers into
the Presence of God. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1995.

Navarro, Kevin J. The Complete Worship
Leader. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001.
Park, Andy. To Know You More:
Cultivating the Heart of the Worship
Leader. Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 2002.
Peterson, David. Engaging with God:
A Biblical Theology of Worship. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1992.
Redman, Matt. The Unquenchable
Worshipper: Coming Back to the Heart of
Worship. Regal Books, 2001.
Redman, Robb. The Great Worship
Awakening: Singing a New Song in the
Postmodern Church. San Francisco: John
Wiley, 2002.
Ross, Allen P. Recalling the Hope of
Glory. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006.
Siewert, Alison, ed. Worship Team
Handbook. Downers Grove:
InterVarsity Press, 1998.
Sorge, Bob. Exploring Worship. Lee’s
Summit: Oasis House, 1987.
Sweet, Leonard. Post-Modern Pilgrims:
First Century Passion for the Twenty-first
Century Church. Nashville: Broadman
and Holman Publishing, 2000.
Torrance, James B. Worship, Community
and the Triune Grace of God. Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997.
Tozer, A.W. Whatever Happened
to Worship? Camp Hill: Christian
Publications, 1985.
Vander Zee, Leonard J. Christ, Baptism
and the Lord’s Supper. Downers Grove:
Warren, Rick. The Purpose Driven
Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1995.
Appendix 4 277

Webber, Robert E. Worship is a Verb:
Eight Principles for Transforming
Worship. Second edition. Peabody:
Webber, Robert E. Worship Old
and New: A Biblical, Historical, and
Practical Introduction. Revised edition.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing,
1994.
White, James F. A Brief History of
Christian Worship. Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1993.
White, James F. Introduction to
Christian Worship. Third edition.
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000.
Runners Up
Please RATE the following books in the same way you did for “The Top 35.”

Dearborn, Tim A. and Scott Coil, eds.
Worship at the Next Level: Insight from
Contemporary Voices. Grand Rapids:
Baker Books, 2004.
Hawn, Michael. One Bread, One Body:
Exploring Cultural Diversity in Worship.
Bethesda: The Alban Institute, 2003.
Hill, Andrew E. Enter His Courts with
Praise: Old Testament Worship for the
New Testament Church. Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1996.
Kauflin, Bob. Worship Matters: Leading
Others to Encounter the Greatness of
God. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008.
Lathrop, Gordon W. Holy Things:
A Liturgical Theology. Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1993.

Smith, Gordon T. A Holy Meal: The
Lord’s Supper in the Life of the Church.
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.
Wainwright, Geoffrey. Doxology: The
Praise of God In Worship, Doctrine, and
Life; a Systematic Theology. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1980.
Write-Ins
Please suggest any books you might add to the list.

Appendix 5
Horizon 1 Practices Across
the Five Emphasis Groups
Gathered Sacramental Evangelistic Organically

Practice All of Life
Devotion Recovery Worship Missional
Video/multimedia ✓
Greetings ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Singing
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
(performance/solo)
Scripture reading ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Preaching ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Congregational
feedback ✓
(to preaching)
Confession of
✓ ✓ ✓
faith/creed
Acclamations
✓ ✓
(“Amen,” etc.)
Collection/alms ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Physical gestures/
✓ ✓ ✓
postures
Corporate prayer ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Informal ministry/
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
healing prayer
Cluster prayer ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Prayer stations ✓
Testimonies ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Lord’s Supper ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Drama ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Lectio divina/
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
silent reflection
Arts/visuals ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Commissioning ✓ ✓
Announcements/
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
community life
Ministry news ✓
Select Bibliography
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________. Rites in the Spirit: A Ritual Approach to Charismatic/Pentecostal
Spirituality. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press Ltd, 1999.
________. “Worshiping and the Spirit: Transmuting Liturgy Pentecostally.” In
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Allen, Ronald Barclay, and Gordon Borror. Worship: Rediscovering the Missing
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Althouse, Peter. “Towards a Pentecostal Ecclesiology: Participation in the
Missional Life of the Triune God,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 18 (2009):
230–245.
Ammerman, Nancy T. “North American Protestant Fundamentalism.” In
Fundamentalisms Observed, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby,
pp. 1–65. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Archer, Kenneth J. The Gospel Revisited: Toward a Pentecostal Theology of Worship
and Witness. Eugene: Pickwick/Wipf and Stock, 2012.
________. “Nourishment for Our Journey: The Pentecostal Via Salutis and
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2004): 79–96.
Baker, Jonny, Doug Gay, and Jenny Brown. Alternative Worship: Resources From
and For the Emerging Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004.
Barrett, D.B. and T.M. Johnson. “Global Statistics.” In The New International
Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess,
pp. 283–302. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.
Bebbington, David W. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History From the
1730s to the 1980s. London/Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
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Best, Harold M. Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the
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Black, Kathy. Worship Across Cultures: A Handbook. Nashville: Abingdon Press,

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Boice, James Montgomery. Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? Recovering
the Doctrines That Shook the World. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001.
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Bradshaw, Paul. “Anamnesis in Modern Eucharistic Debate.” In Memory and
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Burgess, Stanley M., and Ed M. Van der Maas. The New International Dictionary
of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, rev. and expanded edn. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2002.
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. Henry Beveridge. Peabody:
Carson, D.A., ed. Worship by the Book. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.
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York: Crossroad Publishing, 1999.
Castelo, Daniel. Revisioning Pentecostal Ethics: The Epicletic Community.
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Chan, Simon. Liturgical Theology: The Church as Worshiping Community.
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Collins, Kenneth J. The Evangelical Moment: The Promise of an American
Religion. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.
Costen, Melva Wilson. African American Christian Worship, rev. edn. Nashville:
Cox, Harvey. Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the
Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Da
Capo Press, 1995.
Crockett, William R. Eucharist, Symbol of Transformation. New York: Pueblo
Publishing Co., 1989.
Crouch, Andy. “Life After Postmodernity.” In The Church in Emerging Culture:

Five Perspectives, ed. Leonard I. Sweet and Andy Crouch, pp. 63–102. El
Cajon: Youth Specialties, 2003.
Crowley, Eileen D. Liturgical Art for a Media Culture. Collegeville: Liturgical
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Yong, Amos. The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility
of Global Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005.
________. Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian
Perspective. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2002.
Zizioulas, John D. Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church.
Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985.
Index
action 69, 71, 73, 74, 75, 205–6 Archer, Kenneth J. 247, 248, 257n60
activism 18–19, 24, 235, 242 Ashton, Mark 70, 72, 74, 81, 86, 207, 211
adoration 205–6
all of life emphasis 69, 70, 71, 74n34, baptism 52, 97, 191, 213, 228, 229, 235
205 all of life emphasis 76, 77, 80
gathered devotion emphasis 91–2, 98, evangelistic worship emphasis 159, 163
101, 102, 103, 205 Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition 245,
Albrecht, Daniel E. 61n74, 249n27, 250, 246, 247, 256, 260, 261, 262, 264,
253, 254, 255–6, 257n60 265
all of life emphasis 36, 37, 40, 67–8, 106, sacramental recovery emphasis 105,
197, 198, 204, 215, 236–7, 242 118–19, 134, 135, 141, 143, 145
action 69, 71, 73, 74, 75, 205 Bebbington, David W. 7–8, 10n23, 18, 24,
adoration 69, 70, 71, 74n34, 205 25, 226, 242
baptism 76, 77, 80 Best, Harold M. 68, 69, 72, 73, 75, 80–81
communities of participation 212, 212 divine-through-human action
divine-through-human action participation 76, 80–81
participation 76–82, 87–8, 200, edification 70, 75, 87n89
201, 229, 230 life of God participation 78, 83, 84
doxology 71, 75, 83, 85, 87, 205, 207 Lord’s Supper 76, 78, 217n9, 229
edification 68, 69–71, 73, 74, 75, 80, biblicism 18, 19–20, 24, 235, 242
82, 87, 88, 207, 217 big tent evangelicals 24
human action participation 73–6, 80,
87, 199, 200, 214 ‘card-carrying’ evangelicals 21, 24–5, 27, 29
life of God participation 82–6, 87, 88, Carson, D.A. 78, 81
200, 202 divine-through-human action
Lord’s Supper 77–9, 80, 87–8, 217, 229 participation 76, 77, 81, 82n69
missio Dei 83, 84–5, 86, 88 edification 70, 75
worship 68–71, 80–81, 83–5, 86, 87 life of God participation 83, 86
worship participation 71–3, 86–7, 205, worship 69, 73–4, 82n69
206, 216–17 Chan, Simon 35n7, 58, 132, 136–9, 208,
Allen, Ronald Barclay and Borror, Gordon 211, 243
89–90, 91, 92, 98–9, 100, 102, 103 ecclesiology 132, 136, 137–8, 139, 243,
human action participation 93, 94, 95, 259–60
96, 97 missio Dei 138, 146n204
anamnesis 59–60, 79, 121–2, 128, 134, Charismatic movement 43n8, 222, 246
141, 143, 145–6, 242, 263 charismatic worship 28, 29, 33, 35, 43n8,
‘announcements’ 76 57, 61, 222, 231, 237n8, 255–6
Classical Pentecostalism 246 emerging church 179, 180, 181, 183–4,

Communion, see Lord’s Supper 192, 221, 223, 237
communities of participation 212, 212–13, Erickson, Craig Douglas 2, 43–4, 55, 57–8
213 eucharist, see Lord’s Supper
congregational participation, see worship evangelical empire 10–11, 23
participation evangelical literature 32–6, 35–6, 37–8, 38,
Contemporary Worship Music industry 28 39, 40, 40, 236–7, 240–41
conversionism 18, 24, 235, 242 evangelical sacramentalism 223–5
crucicentrism 18, 20, 24, 235, 242 evangelical worship 1, 89–90, 91–2, 136–7,
Cunningham, David S. 51, 240 218, 237
evangelicalism 5, 6–8, 9–13, 14–20, 21–5,
Dawn, Marva J. 127, 129–31, 145, 146, 211 26–30, 34, 223–5, 226, 234–5,
Dayton, Donald W. 14 240–41
divine-through-human action participation evangelicals 1, 2–3, 5–6, 7–8, 9–16, 16,
58–62, 63, 65, 200, 201, 203, 209, 17–21, 23–5, 26, 27–9, 215, 240,
210, 228–30 243–4
all of life emphasis 76–82, 87–8, 200, evangelistic worship emphasis 37, 40, 149–52,
201, 229, 230 153–4, 169, 173–8, 197, 198, 204,
evangelistic worship emphasis 163–8, 219–21, 242
176, 200, 201 baptism 159, 163
gathered devotion emphasis 90, 96–8, communities of participation 213, 213
102, 103, 200, 201 divine-through-human action
organically missional emphasis 188, participation 163–8, 176, 200, 201
190–91, 192–3, 200, 201 doxology 155, 173, 174, 207
Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition human action participation 159–63,
234–6, 254–6, 257–64, 265 165, 175–6, 199, 200, 232
sacramental recovery emphasis 111, life of God participation 168–9, 202
114–23, 125–6, 131, 133, 137–8, Lord’s Supper 159, 163–4, 166–7
141, 147, 200, 201 missio Dei 168–9, 176
doxology 207–8 Saddleback Community Church 21,
all of life emphasis 71, 75, 83, 85, 87, 151, 152, 153, 157, 158, 160, 161,
205, 207 165, 176
evangelistic worship emphasis 155, 173, Willow Creek Community Church
174, 207 21, 151, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158,
gathered devotion emphasis 89, 91, 92, 160–161, 163–5, 169–72, 173,
101, 103, 206, 208 176–7, 208
organically missional emphasis 194, 206, worship 155–8, 164–5, 166, 174–5,
208 178, 208, 210
sacramental recovery emphasis 110–11, worship participation 158–9, 167–8,
113, 124, 208 175–6, 205–6
experiential worship 155, 159, 185, 187–8,
ecclesiology 132, 136, 137–8, 139, 243, 189, 190, 192, 207, 221–2
259–60
edification 68, 69–71, 73, 74, 75, 80, 82, Fiddes, Paul S. 51–2, 58, 63
87, 88, 207, 217 Finney, Charles 174, 220, 222
Index 297
free churches 26–7, 72–3, 107, 147, 214, Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition

227 232–4, 252–3, 256, 265
fundamentalism 11–12, 22 sacramental recovery emphasis 111–14,
115, 126, 141, 143, 147, 199, 200
gathered devotion emphasis 37, 40, 89–90, Hustad, Donald W. 29, 95, 107–8, 109,
101–4, 197, 198, 203, 204, 210, 111, 113, 119–20, 122
215, 218–19, 242 Hybels, Bill 149, 150–51, 153, 168, 169,
adoration 91–2, 98, 101, 102, 103, 205 171, 173, 174, 175, 177, 220
communities of participation 212, 213 divine-through-human action
divine-through-human action participation 163–5, 166, 176
participation 90, 96–8, 102, 103, human action participation 159, 160,
200, 201 161
doxology 89, 91, 92, 101, 103, 206, 208 Willow Creek Community Church
human action participation 93–6, 97, 151, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158,
102, 199, 200 160–61, 163–5, 169–70, 172, 177
life of God participation 90, 98–101, worship 155, 156–7, 158, 178
102, 200, 202
Lord’s Supper 97, 103 Jenson, Robert 264
missio Dei 98, 100–101
worship 91–2, 93–6, 98–101, 102–3, Keller, Timothy 72, 74, 76, 77, 79–80,
210, 218 81–2, 84–5, 207–8, 241–2, 243
worship participation 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, doxology 92n9, 207
98–101, 102, 206 Kimball, Dan 40, 179, 180, 181–4, 192–5,
God’s Word, see Word of God 221–2, 223, 227, 237
Graham, Billy 5, 6, 12 divine-through-human action
‘Great Awakening’ revivals 8, 10, 23, 27, participation 190–91, 192–3
219, 224, 234 human action participation 184,
Green, Chris E.W. 250, 254, 255, 257, 258, 186–90, 192, 232
259, 263 life of God participation 191–2, 193
worship participation 185–6, 188–9,
Hollenweger, Walter J. 257, 258–9 194–5, 206–7, 211, 214
Hughes, R. Kent 70n12, 72–3, 74, 76, 77,
81, 85 Larsen, Timothy 8–9, 10, 11, 13, 17,
human action participation 57–8, 65, 197, 18n50, 20, 48n27
199, 200, 203, 209, 210, 213–14, life of God participation 59, 62–4, 65, 200,
226–8, 232–4 202, 203, 209, 230, 236
all of life emphasis 73–6, 80, 87, 199, all of life emphasis 82–6, 87, 88, 200,
200, 214 202
evangelistic worship emphasis 159–63, evangelistic worship emphasis 168–9,
165, 175–6, 199, 200, 232 202
gathered devotion emphasis 93–6, 97, gathered devotion emphasis 90, 98–101,
102, 199, 200 102, 200, 202
organically missional emphasis 184, organically missional emphasis 191–2,
186–90, 191, 192, 199, 200 193, 202
Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition missional church 179, 180–81, 184, 185–6,

253–4, 265 237
sacramental recovery emphasis 123–4, missional movement 180–81, 184n25
127–9, 138, 142, 146, 202, 203 Morgenthaler, Sally 158–9, 161–3, 166–8,
Liturgical Movement 28, 29, 44, 105, 107 169, 172–3, 174, 175, 176n111, 177
Lord’s Supper 54, 60–61, 115, 142, 144, seeker-sensitive ministries 149, 150,
145, 147, 200, 225, 229–30, 235 154, 177
all of life emphasis 77–9, 80, 87–8, 217, worship 156, 157–8, 178
229 music 28, 60–61, 75, 77n44, 98n37, 113–14,
evangelistic worship emphasis 159, 115–16, 145, 162–3, 210, 253
163–4, 166–7
gathered devotion emphasis 97, 103 neo-evangelicalism 5–6, 11, 12–13, 14, 22,
organically missional emphasis 189, 191, 24–5, 27, 28
193, 195, 207n2 Neocharismatic Pentecostalism 246, 247
Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition 257, New Testament church 9–10, 23, 70
258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 265, Noll, Mark A. 6, 9n19, 15, 215–16
267
sacramental recovery emphasis 105, 115, oblique evangelicals 24
118–21, 122, 134, 135, 141, 143, Olson, Roger E. 7, 25, 30, 251
145, 203, 224 ordinances, see baptism; Lord’s Supper
organically missional emphasis 37, 40, 40,
Macchia, Frank D. 254, 260–61, 267 179–80, 192–5, 197, 198, 203–4,
Marsden, George M. 6–7, 21, 24, 27 204, 221–3, 237–8, 242
Marshall, I. Howard 67, 205 communities of participation 213, 213
media 58, 60–61, 76, 77, 82, 87, 96, 110, divine-through-human action
233 participation 188, 190–91, 192–3,
media publishing 22, 28, 29, 152 200, 201
mediation 52–3, 54, 58–9, 60, 61, 76, 77, doxology 194, 206, 208
80, 203 human action participation 184,
Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition 186–90, 191, 192, 199, 200
260–61, 262, 265, 266 life of God participation 191–2, 193,
sacramental recovery emphasis 106, 118, 202
122, 127–8, 140, 144, 209 Lord’s Supper 189, 191, 193, 195,
medieval sacramental model 41, 45–7, 48–9, 207n2
58n62 worship 186–7, 190–191, 192, 194,
missio Dei 63–4, 193, 203, 236 206, 208
all of life emphasis 83, 84–5, 86, 88 worship participation 185–6, 187–9,
evangelistic worship emphasis 168–9, 192, 194–5, 206–7, 211, 214
176
gathered devotion emphasis 98, 100–101 parachurch organizations 21–2
Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition 254, participation, see worship participation
265 Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition 222n36,
sacramental recovery emphasis 124, 245–8
128–9, 131, 138, 142–3 as emphasis group 35, 231, 232, 237,
251, 252, 264–8
Index 299
divine-through-human action re-presentation 78–80, 121–3, 125–6, 128,

participation 234–6, 254–6, 134, 141, 145–6, 229–30, 235–6
257–64, 265 recapitulation 125–6, 134, 135, 146
human action participation 232–4, Redman, Matt 89, 90, 97, 102, 103, 219
252–3, 256, 265 divine-through-human action
life of God participation 253–4, 265 participation 96, 97–8
Lord’s Supper 257, 258, 259, 260, human action participation 93, 94, 95,
261, 262, 263, 265, 267 96
mediation 260–61, 262, 265, 266 life of God participation 99, 100–101
missio Dei 254, 265 Redman, Robb 28–9, 151–2, 231n2, 241
sacramentality 61, 257–8, 259–60, res et sacramentum 45–6, 48–9, 58n62, 62,
261–2, 265, 266 134, 265
Spirit baptism 245, 246, 247, 256, res tantum 45, 46, 48, 49, 63
260, 261, 262, 264, 265 revivalism 27, 219–20
worship 33, 258–60 Ross, Allen P. 132, 139–43, 209
worship participation 28, 251, Ruth, Lester 60–61, 151, 209–10, 224
252–3, 254–6, 260–64,
265–6 sacrament 45–6, 48–9, 52, 53–4, 108–9,
Pentecostalism 245–8, 249–51, 267 117–18, 127–8, 133–4, 135, 144–5
Peterson, David 67, 68–9, 75–6, 227, 230 sacramental recovery emphasis 29, 37, 40,
divine-through-human action 40, 105–7, 131–2, 143–7, 197,
participation 76, 80, 82 198, 204, 223–5, 242–3
edification 69–70, 74, 87, 207 baptism 105, 118–19, 134, 135, 141,
life of God participation 83 143, 145
Lord’s Supper 77, 78–9, 217n9, 229 communities of participation 212, 212
worship participation 71–2, 73, 214 divine-through-human action
Pew Research Center survey 16, 16–17, participation 111, 114–23, 125–6,
26, 246 131, 133, 137–8, 141, 147, 200,
Pietism 9, 103–4, 218–19, 221–2, 251 201
Pietistic pragmatism 219–21, 222, 223 doxology 110–11, 113, 124, 208
postmodern ministries 29, 179, 180, 181, human action participation 111–14,
182–3, 185, 187–8, 189, 194–5, 115, 126, 141, 143, 147, 199, 200
221–2, 232–3, 237 life of God participation 123–4, 127–9,
Pragmatic Evangelicals 13, 17, 27 138, 142, 146, 202, 203
Praise and Worship movement 28, 234n2 Lord’s Supper 105, 115, 118–21, 122,
prayer 46, 59, 81, 188–9, 190, 195, 200 134, 135, 141, 143, 145, 203, 224
preaching 60–61, 80, 88, 117, 160, 164, mediation 106, 118, 122, 127–8, 140,
166, 188, 210 144, 209
Protestant Reformation 9, 23, 193, 267 missio Dei 124, 128–9, 131, 138, 142–3
Puritanism 9, 216–17 worship 108–9, 111–13, 115, 125,
127–8, 129–31, 144, 147, 206,
re-connecting 258–60 210–11
re-enactment 79–80, 141 worship participation 109–11, 113–14,
re-framing 258, 260–63 125–6, 128–9, 147, 206
sacramentality 52, 60, 105–6, 114, 117–18, life of God participation 99–100, 209
125, 132–5, 144–5, 167, 206, 224, Traditional Evangelicals 13, 17, 27
234–5 transdenominationalism 20, 21–3, 24, 25,
Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition 61, 226
257–8, 259–60, 261–2, 265, 266 tri-level schema 41, 45, 46, 47, 48–9, 54–6,
sacramentum tantum 45, 48 65–6, 238–40
Saddleback Community Church 21, 151, trinitarian participation 2, 49–50, 51–4,
152, 153, 157, 158, 160, 161, 165, 62–3, 128, 144, 236
176
Saliers, Don E. 47 Vander Zee, Leonard J. 131, 132–5, 144,
Schmidt, Leigh Eric 224 146, 147, 210, 228
Scripture 55, 56, 62–3, 76, 80–81, 117, divine-through-human action
123–4, 129, 139, 210; see also Word participation 133, 135, 234
of God Vatican II Reform 1–2, 44, 105, 123, 125,
Searle, Mark 2, 41, 44–5, 46–7, 53, 54, 55, 166n83, 225n49
63, 65 verticality 54–6, 65
divine-through-human action Vondey, Wolfgang 262–3, 267
participation 59, 61 Vondey, Wolfgang and Green, Chris E.W.
human action participation 57, 232 249, 262, 263, 264
tri-level schema 45, 46, 47, 55, 65, 238
seeker-sensitive ministries 27, 149, 150, Wainwright, Geoffrey 107, 108, 109,
151, 154, 161, 170–72, 173, 175, 110–11, 125, 145, 146n203
177–8, 182, 183, 193–4 divine-through-human action
Seeker Service movement 28, 29, 129, 149, participation 115, 116, 118–19
150 human action participation 111, 112,
sermons 81, 90, 101, 117, 188 114
Shelley, Bruce L. 15–16 life of God participation 123, 124
Smith, Timothy 241 Ward, Pete 52–3, 54, 58, 60, 232
Spirit baptism 245, 246, 247, 256, 260, 261, Warren, Rick 13, 149, 150–51, 155, 156–7,
262, 264, 265 158, 169, 173, 174, 181, 193, 194,
Stackhouse, John G., Jr. 18, 20, 25, 226 220
Stephens, Mitchell 31 divine-through-human action
Sweet, Leonard I. 11, 31, 179n2, 232–3 participation 163–4, 165, 166, 176
human action participation 159–60,
Table, see Lord’s Supper 161, 175
Thomas, John Christopher 261 life of God participation 168, 169
Tomberlin, Daniel 260 Saddleback Community Church 151,
Torrance, James B. 127–8, 144, 145, 209, 152, 153, 157, 158, 160, 165, 176
230, 240 Webber, Robert E. 2, 13, 14, 15, 17, 27, 29,
Tozer, A.W. 89, 90, 91, 92, 97, 101–2, 209, 107, 108, 109–10, 143, 179n2, 214
218, 219 anamnesis 121, 122
divine-through-human action divine-through-human action
participation 96, 98, 209 participation 114, 115–16, 117,
human action participation 93, 94–5, 118, 120, 121, 122, 125–6
209
Index 301
human action participation 111, 112, gathered devotion emphasis 91–2, 93–6,
113–14 98–101, 102–3, 210, 218
life of God participation 123, 124 organically missional emphasis 186–7,
Lord’s Supper 119n75, 120 190–91, 192, 194, 206, 208
music 113–14, 115–16, 145 Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition 33,
recapitulation 125–6, 134, 146 258–60
sacrament 117, 118 sacramental recovery emphasis 108–9,
Wesley, John 1, 10, 48, 60n71, 223–4 111–13, 115, 125, 127–8, 129–31,
White, James F. 105n2, 125, 174, 177n113, 144, 147, 206, 210–11
219, 220, 223, 228n54 worship participation 1–3, 25, 26–9, 32,
divine-through-human action 33, 34, 41, 43–7, 51, 197, 198,
participation 116n53, 117, 119, 204–10, 211–14, 212–13
120, 234 all of life emphasis 71–3, 86–7, 205,
human action participation 111–12, 206, 216–17
113, 114 evangelistic worship emphasis 158–9,
life of God participation 123, 146 167–8, 175–6, 205–6
sacramentality 117, 118, 144 gathered devotion emphasis 90, 92, 93,
worship 107, 108–9, 115 94, 95, 98–101, 102, 206
worship participation 110, 208 organically missional emphasis 185–6,
Willow Creek Community Church 21, 151, 187–9, 192, 194–5, 206–7, 211,
152, 153, 155, 157, 158, 160–61, 214
163–5, 169–72, 173, 176–7, 208 Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition 28,
Word of God 19–20, 60–61, 80–81, 88, 251, 252–3, 254–6, 260–64, 265–6
108–9, 115–17, 164, 167, 191, 210 sacramental recovery emphasis 109–11,
worship 1–2, 25–6, 31–2, 33–4, 107, 113–14, 125–6, 128–9, 147, 206
110–11, 198, 211
all of life emphasis 68–71, 80–81, 83–5, Yong, Amos 261–2, 267
86, 87 Younger Evangelicals 13, 17, 27, 29
evangelistic worship emphasis 155–8,
164–5, 166, 174–5, 178, 208, 210 Zizioulas, John D. 50–51

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Evangelicals, Worship and Participation - Taking A Twenty-First Century Reading

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In discussions of worship, the term “participation” covers a lot of ground. It refers

Offering a fresh contribution to the liturgically-informed study of evangelical worship

Dave Leal, Brasenose College, Oxford, UK

Other titles in the series:

Richard Baxter’s Reformed Liturgy

The Rite of Christian Initiation

The Blessing of Waters and Epiphany

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

ISBN 9781409469193 (hbk)

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

List of Tables vii

4 The All-of-Life Emphasis  67

5 The Gathered Devotion Emphasis  89

6 The Sacramental Recovery Emphasis  105

7 The Evangelistic Worship Emphasis  149

8 The Organically Missional Emphasis  179

9 Summarizing and Analyzing  197

10 Reflections (Part 1):

11 Reflections (Part 2):

Appendix 1: Pentecostals, Worship and Participation  245

Select Bibliography  281

1.1 The composition of American evangelicals  16

2.1 Final literature pool sorted by rank  35

9.1 The emphasis groups: general findings  198

1. using a statistical compilation of books studied to establish a corpus of

The result is not only an instructive reading of evangelical liturgical theology

precisely a call to “full, conscious, and active participation in worship.”3 Many

This is a time of remarkable convergence. Postmodern culture hungers for

a contentious “coalition of submovements, hardly unified in outlook or action.”10

Bebbington. At this point it will be useful to examine another, more recent

The Historical Dimension

significant moments in history: the Protestant Reformation, the New Testament

Five Historical Moments

The Protestant Reformation

The New Testament church

repristinating “restoration” that would strip back centuries of tradition in an

The Great Awakening(s)

The “evangelical empire”

evangelicalism birthed a plethora of social reform organizations—an informally

The rise of neo-evangelicalism

theology in the churches or to changes in cultural values or mores, such as those

Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, p. 1.

Regarding oppositionalism: George Marsden is perfectly serious (and accurate)

Evangelical History: The Broader Story

Other evangelical realities

diversifying on a global scale. Scholar Mark Noll reports turn-of-the-millennium

It is surely true that “[t]he days of Western hegemony seem to be over.”43

Roots into branches

1. Evangelicals in the Reformation tradition, primarily Lutheran and Reformed

7. The spiritual heirs of fundamentalism found in independent churches

Table 1.1 The composition of American evangelicals

Affiliation Percent of evangelicals

Bruce L. Shelley, “Evangelicalism,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America, p. 416.

(Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2008), http://religions.pewforum.org (accessed

The Theological Dimension

Larsen includes a number of theological distinctives in his hybrid definition of

committed to a dependence upon Scripture as the unique and ultimate source of

The Associational Dimension

Evangelicalism’s transdenominational character manifests itself in ways beyond

Conclusions and Significance for this Project

If evangelicalism is notoriously difficult to delineate, that notoriety is well-

List of Tables vii

4 The All-of-Life Emphasis 67

5 The Gathered Devotion Emphasis 89

6 The Sacramental Recovery Emphasis 105

7 The Evangelistic Worship Emphasis 149

8 The Organically Missional Emphasis 179

9 Summarizing and Analyzing 197

Appendix 1: Pentecostals, Worship and Participation 245

Select Bibliography 281

1.1 The composition of American evangelicals 16

2.1 Final literature pool sorted by rank 35

9.1 The emphasis groups: general findings 198