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The Lord's Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship

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I have a proposal. All sides of the so-called "worship wars" should declare a truce until all sides have read the new book by Jeff Meyers, The Lord's Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship. Meyers is pastor of Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church (PCA) in St. Louis, Missouri. Instead of going to the Bible to find support for our strongly held worship practices (whether old or new), Meyers allows Scripture to clearly teach us how we are to approach our Triune God in worship. This may require us to abandon some strongly held ideas (both old and new) concerning worship.
In Part I of the book, Meyers begins his study by asking a simple question, "Why go to church on Sunday?" Various answers are given to this question. Is the purpose evangelism? Is it education? Is it experience? Is it praise or exaltation? The tendency has been to reduce the Sunday morning service to a technique to accomplish either an evangelistic purpose, an educational purpose, an experiential purpose, or a praise purpose. Meyers shows that while Lord's Day worship should include all of these purposes, the Biblical answer to the purpose of the Sunday service is that it is covenant renewal. God's Word clearly teaches a covenant renewal pattern for worship from Genesis to Revelation. Our worship should also follow this rhythm beginning with the call to worship, to confession and forgiveness, to Scripture readings and sermon, to the Lord's Supper, and ending with the benediction and commissioning.
After laying the Biblical foundation for worship as covenant renewal, Meyers discusses the practical importance of this pattern of worship, answers objections to it, and in Part II gives us a detailed description of the covenant renewal service at his own church, Providence Reformed in St. Louis. Part III of The Lord's Service contains ten essays by Meyers on various current issues such as the regulative principle of worship, the liturgical calendar, the minister's attire both in and out of the pulpit, and covenant children at the Lord's Table. The last essay is a bibliographical essay which shows the depth of the author's knowledge of the vast subject of liturgics. This final essay alone is worth the price of the book.
Meyers points out that Reformed seminaries have generally done a poor job at training future pastors in the whys and hows of Lord's Day corporate worship. To rectify this shortcoming, you should purchase a copy of The Lord's Service if you are a pastor, or purchase a copy as a gift for your pastor. While you're at it, purchase a copy for yourself, for your elders, and for your church library.

Saying this book is "original" would be wrong and misleading. There is nothing new or novel about it. Thank the Lord! There is just too much "new and novel" when it comes to most books on worship. Yet this book is packed with fresh insight and perspective. Chapter 6 & 7 alone are worth the price of the book. They give a year's worth of reflection on what you really believe about worship and why you are doing what you do in worship. In these chapters, Meyers discusses the relationship between practice and belief and the role of the Trinity in our worship. Nothing new about these subjects or issues - yet his approach to these subjects will leave you and your church wondering why you haven't spent more time dealing with them. It may very well cause you to significantly change what you sing, how you pray and the structure of your service.

The overall statement of the book is that worship is only rightly understood in light of the biblical doctrine of covenant. The weekly worship service is a Covenant Renewal service and therefore its style, form and content are defined by covenantal relationship between the Triune God and the church.

The book is straightforward, easy to read and packed full of needed insights. This is the kind of book you will want to read with a pen, highlighter, ruler, and notebook nearby. This is the kind of book you don't simply read - you work through it - not because it is hard but because it is full.

Michael Horton's "A Better Way" and D. Hart's "With Reverence and Awe" are great compliments to this work. Each develops a similar view of worship with nuances of differences and each with their own needed contribution. If you are seriously working through what the Bible says about how we rightly approach God in worship read all three of these books. If you can only read one, make it "The Lord's Service". Great place to start, but I guarantee that it will move you forward in your thinking and cause you to want to read more.

Soli Deo Gloria

Reverend Meyers has done a great job of explaining true Biblical covenant worship. As a Church, especially my fellwo Presbyterians, have often been afriad of liturgy. Anything that seems Catholic or Lutheran is to be feared. Meyers lets us know that that fear is unfounded in illogical. He is helping us, especially us reformed guys, to rethink our worship and to restore the dignity and reverance demanded at the Divine Service. The other reviews did a fine job of summing up the book. I especially enjoyed this take on Robes and the "minster's uniform". Meyers helps us renew the blessed honor of the office of Minister. Every Pastor and member of sessions or elder boards must read this book. I would also recomment, "In the Face of God: also by Michael Horton.

In His Grace,

Rik

This book is fascinating because it touches on alot of thinking about liturgy that reformed Protestants don't always prioritize. The author is well-grounded Biblically and the writing is deep, yet readable.

Before reading this book I was very happy with mixed worship. I didn't mind singing songs to God that I could also sing as a love song to my wife. I didn't mind not participating in worship except for in the first 30 minutes during the "praise" section of the service. I was cool with skits promoting the exciting thing that's happening this week. Then Jeffrey Meyers introduced me to a latin phrase, "Lex orandi, lex credendi." The law of prayer is the law of belief. What I sing and pray in worship is what I believe. If I sing a sappy love song to God and do not participate in corporate prayer at all, my life will reflect that. If I sing the war psalms of the Bible and confess my sins during the service along with the rest of the body, my life will reflect that. Worship is the centerpiece of our lives and some thought should go into what we do in the service. It should be solidly biblical. What Jeffrey Meyers lays down in this book is thoroughly biblical, the elements of the service have a purpose derived from Scripture. If you are interested enough in the subject of worship to be reading these reviews, then this book is for you.

This was the best book that I have read thus far this year! I recommend Meyer's work to you if you desire to glean and increase knowledge in regard to Covenant, Trinity, and Worship. My eyes were opened on so many occasions. I truly thank Meyers for his hard work and hope that my PCA church catches up with His Biblical vision of worship.

This is the book to get if you are curious about the concept of "Covenant Renewal" worship. Meyers brilliantly explains and defends what I think is the most consistently Christian and biblical expression of worship. The last part of the book is comprised of essays on several related topics, including a tremendous defense of paedocommunion that turns the traditional reformed argument against the practice from 1 Corinthians 11 on its head. Well, what are you waiting for? Get/read this book now!

The Good: The writing is extremely accessible, with plenty of other texts mentioned for further study. With an interesting discussion of the relationship between worship and the sacrificial system, Chapters 3 and 4 are by far the best in the book. Although at times it feels as though Myers takes the parallels further than he reasonably can, the concept is generally well presented and worthy of further discussion.

The Bad: For a book on worship, the discussion of the regulative principle is shockingly short.

The Ugly: The Biblical references range from prolific to non-existent -- unfortunately they tend to be most prominent in those descriptive cases where they are least needed and almost invisible when stronger claims are being made. Clearly not all propositions will have a proof-text behind them, but in those cases other justifications must be carefully given to defend one's less obvious point. The positions might very well be correct, but Myers spends little to no time arguing for why they are, leaving one with the impression that perhaps no such justifications exist. This is particularly problematic because Myers uses absolutist language in a shockingly irresponsible fashion without even a semblance of argumentation to back it up -- simply because a certain practice can be good or useful does not demonstrate that it is good and/or useful for all, and even if a certain practice is universally good or useful it does not follow that it must be the highest good or the most useful. The book desperately needs a critical editor to force Myers to be more careful and precise with his language, which is extraordinarily poor.