Rhythms of Grace by Mike Cosper came out in 2013. I’m pretty sure I bought it soon afterwards, having heard positive things about it, but it’s taken me 8 years to get round to reading it (a common story for me). I read it over Christmas and it was well-worth it. It’s a fantastic book. I guess it’s aimed at both pastors/church leaders and worship leaders (more on this term at the end of the article). However, the first section, in which Cosper gives us a Bible overview through the lens of worship, would be a helpful read for any Christian. It’s written engagingly and perceptively.
Here are some takeaways from Rhythms of Grace, along with some questions that it prompted. There are quite a few questions, which is a good sign – it’s a book that made me think.
Sunday services as a rehearsal of the gospel
“You know,” I thought, “if the gospel is supposed to be that central to the Christian life, we should craft our worship services in such a way that they rehearse the story. Every week, we should gather and remember that God is holy, we are sinners, and Jesus saves us from our sins. We could do it with Scripture readings and songs and sermons and the Lord’s Supper. Every week is an opportunity to reorient ourselves around the greater story of creation, fall, redemption and consummation.” I thought I was brilliant and innovative. In truth, I was only rediscovering what many generations of Christians had discovered long, long before.” (p18)
Here Cosper sets out the main thrust of the book. Sunday services should be a rehearsal of the gospel narrative and its implications. This proposal isn’t new; churches have been following liturgical patterns based on this for centuries.
Here are what I picked out as some of the key planks of his argument
- Our approach to the rest of the week is shaped by what we are being reminded of in the Sunday service.
We live as Christians 7-days a week, but most of that time isn’t spent in church or in the company of other Christians. Our attitudes, thoughts, priorities, words, actions – which collectively forms our whole-life ‘worship’ – are shaped by what we are being reminded of in Sunday services. This is based on the assumption that “We’re habit-formed people.” (91). The psychology of this could be unpacked more, but Cosper gives some helpful examples.
“When people spend months or years praying psalms of lament, they’re better prepared to face the day that tragedy strikes, as the Spirit of God brings these words and prayers to mind. When they learn every week to extend grace and peace to friends and strangers in the gathering, it helps them to do so in the rest of life. As they face and voice their sinfulness and learn to express it together, they will more easily face and voice their sinfulness in their scattered lives. “
Here’s prayer as a notable example:
Consider the way children learn to talk. Notice how they imitate the sounds they hear. The same thing is true of us as we learn to pray. We begin with imitation, copying the phrases and ideas that we hear in the community around us. Soon, these become more and more personalized, until we have a freedom and dexterity in prayer it improves, which feels wholly personal and non imitative.” (119)
I think this is a powerful point. It could also be evidenced with a contrasting list of examples, where Christians encounter these things in their daily life without having been readied for them by their experience in church services.
As I was reading through I’d already felt what Cosper goes on to conclude:
“For pastors and leaders, this reality should make us shudder; our decisions about the practices and rhythms in our church gatherings are forming the character, beliefs, and devotional life of those who attend.” (120)
- We need to be reminded because we forget.
“We’re profoundly forgetful creatures, and the consequences of forgetting our God are frightening. The authors of the scriptures have been crying out warnings for us to remember, to guard our hearts and protect ourselves from forgetting.”
We continue to gather in the light of this profound weakness. Like the children of Neverland, we’re forgetful, or “prone to wander,” as the old hymn says.” (78)
The world won’t help us to remember because it has completely forgotten its maker. And it constantly tells us other things that are not true. So, week after week we go back to church to be reminded of the truths of the gospel. It is a reorienting. I’ve used the illustration in sermons before of a boat going down a river – if no-one has a hand on the rudder it will gradually drift off course. It needs constant correction, and within the context of the Christian life that correction starts with being reminded of the truth.
- Worship is war
Whenever we worship God we are choosing to worship him above and instead of everything else we could worship. We are constantly in a war.
“The declaration that there is one God, that his name is Jesus, and that he has died, has risen , and will come again is an all-out assault on the saviours extended at every level of culture around us.” (103)
“Worship isn’t merely a yes to the God who saves, but also a resounding and furious no to the lies that echo in the mountains around us. The church gathers like exiles and pilgrims, collected out of a world that isn’t our home, and looks hopefully toward a future. (103)
- Church isn’t the place we go to encounter God
We have an ongoing encounter with God. Church is a chance to encounter God with other Christians and encounter the people of God who have Christ dwelling in them.
“The gathering is unique not as an encounter with God (it is that, though God’s presence is a constantly available comfort and help to the Christian); rather it’s unique because it is an encounter with the people of God, filled with the Spirit of God, spurring one another along in the mission of God. Christ in me meets Christ in you. (81)
If the Sunday service is the place – the only place – where you encounter God, people will have expectations of it that the Bible doesn’t say it will fulfil.
“Such an attitude loads up the worship service with burdens it simply can’t carry. When a one-hour worship service is our only encounter with God’s presence, we will intuitively become much more demanding of that gathering – and divisive.” (88)
We have an ongoing encounter with God because we are in Christ, and he is the way we have access to God. That access doesn’t turn on for an hour and a half on a Sunday morning then turn off for the rest of the week.
“There at God’s right hand, Jesus is serving as a “Minister in the holy places.” The language used here indicates that Jesus is leading a cosmic worship service, into which all who follow him are invited to participate. This means that for every Christiain, at all times and in all places, there has only ever been on Worship Leader, one who is worthy to enter that sacred space and able to endure the wrath of God in our places, making us able to “boldly enter in” with and through him.”
This does leave me questioning whether there is anything special about meeting together in corporate wordship. Recognising that we have an ongoing encounter with God all week is a hugely important corrective for a lot of contemporary evangelical churches, but there is a danger that we swing so far that corporate worship holds no real significance apart from as a functional, practical context in which to teach (like all coming to a lecture hall at the same time each week).
- Worship has 3 audiences
Our worship has 3 audiences: God, the Church and the World.
“Worship that celebrates the gospel brings all three audiences together; the God who saves by the gospel, the church formed by the gospel, and the world in need of the gospel.” (90)
This impacts how we plan and lead our services. For example:
“…worship that’s intended for God’s attention alone doesn’t need to be comprehensible to anyone but an all-knowing God. Language can become dense and archaic in the name of honouring God’s holiness and transcendence.” (87)
- The outward looking push of gathered worship
Church services are the gathering in or assembly of scattered Christians, before sending them back out into the world.
“Gathered worship then feeds scattered worship, building up and equipping worshippers to live in the power and wonder of the gospel, able to persevere amid the trials that surround them. Likewise, scattered worship feeds gathered, as each worshipper brings his or her growth, suffering and maturing faith to the gathering.” (81)
There were many other parts of the book that I found extremely helpful, including Biblical worship being Trinitarian in nature (we’re not just worshipping the Triune God, we we are also joining in their mutual love and adoration of each other), Adam as the first worshipper (living for God with all his activities and without a specific worship service), the importance of confession, offering and benediction, as well as the practical advice for musicians at the end of the book. It is a book that I’d encourage church leaders, music leaders and songwriters to read, if only to make you think more carefully about what happens when Christians meet together, and to audit your practices against what the Bible teaches rather than what you’ve always done. It’s the kind of book that will be helpful even if you don’t agree with every practical detail of what Cosper suggests.
One of the positives of the book was that it left me with a number of questions. The first is perhaps most closely connected to the thrust of the book.
What should the narrative of a church service be?
In my experience, the structure of church services often falls into one of 3 models. (I’m aware this is a
massive generalisation!).
Model A – There are consistent elements (e.g. singing, preaching, prayers, notices) but there is no thread running through them. E.g. 3-4 songs are chosen that the worship leader thinks the congregation will appreciate and sing well, then someone else prays, then the preacher does his talk on an unconnected passage.
Model B – The structure that Cosper is advocating, where the elements of the service are slotted together to form a narrative, and this narrative is the same each week. Sometimes this is completely reshaped each week, but around the same basic narrative, and sometimes it is based around a liturgy that remains substantially the same week to week (down to the specific words said).
Model C – The elements of the service are slotted together to form a narrative, and this narrative flows out of the themes of the passage that is being preached on, and the applications from it.
Most churches I have been part of over the past 15 years have followed model C, but with elements of model B.
I can see the arguments for model B. But I can also see some problems. Because the narrative will be the same each week, it is easier to ‘go through the motions’, intellectually, emotionally and ultimately spiritually. The response to this is that the gospel is both at the centre and encapsulates all that the Bible says, and can never be said to be ‘boring’, and therefore returning to it weekly should not be a problem. I agree, however my concern is not about ‘the gospel’ but about the way it is presented. The Bible doesn’t have chapter after chapter that runs through the same narrative of creation – fall – redemption – redemption, etc; instead it pulls us in different directions to show us the same thing in different ways and at different times.
Model B is also not a foolproof option (I know he’s not arguing it is). As another reviewer has noted, churches with the historical liturgies Cosper refers to have drifted into liberalism, apathy and nominalism. I am a big fan of liturgy and think it is hugely underrated in the conservative evangelical world. I have used the BCP with my children, think we should say the creeds more, think that confession in services is underused and so on, but I think it’s a question worth asking.
I guess it comes down to whether the weekly service is driven by the big picture of the Bible’s storyline (the gospel?), or by the thrust of that week’s passage (e.g. how we use our money, church unity, the qualities needed for elders, the place of sex, etc.)
As an additional note, I would love to read more of Cosper’s thoughts on preaching. The book isn’t about singing in church; it’s about the whole service. But given that, it only deals briefly with preaching (a fact he acknowledges). I think given the importance and primacy of preaching I would value his thoughts on how it interacts with all the other elements – and this may address to some extent this question.
Other random thoughts and questions (which I don’t have answers to at the moment!)
What about other services? Is this discussion only about Sunday services? Sunday morning services or evening also? What about prayer meetings and Bible study groups? Meetings at conferences? Should the rhythms of grace shape all of those meetings?
Who is responsible for shaping this? The implication from the start of the book is that some young believer who’s good at playing guitar and wants to serve gets dropped in it. I’ve definitely seen that happen with people leading music; less so with choosing songs. But given that Cosper is talking about the whole service shouldn’t it be the church leader’s responsibility? If it’s that important in shaping the attitudes and beliefs of the congregation shouldn’t it be the elders who lead on this? I’m reluctant to argue this as non-musical church leaders choosing songs can be a car-crash but leaving it wholly to ‘the guy on guitar’, however good he is, seems like an abdication of spiritual responsibility. At least there has to be some conversation each week.
The internet and the congregation. If our Sunday service shapes the beliefs, etc, of the congregation, what about all the talks and songs they are listening to online, and the books and articles they are reading during the week? These are also shaping them, and perhaps church leaders need to be on the ball at pointing their flock to good resources and away from bad ones. (I listen to a lot of talks, read a lot of books, etc., from other sources, so I’m not being down on those things – simply raising a question).
The importance of language. If we accept that what we say and do in church each Sunday shapes the thoughts, attitudes and beliefs of the congregation (with which I completely agree) then it follows that churches can cause a lot of confusion by the terms they use for certain things. Sometimes this is because they have an unhelpful understanding of certain words (i.e. they have a different theology to what I would say the Bible has) but sometimes words are just used because they have always been used and no-one’s thought it through or it’s easier to keep the same. Church leaders and those involved in music at the very least need to be clear on what they mean if they use the terms worship leader, church service, any song lyrics about coming into God’s presence, welcoming Jesus, etc. As a teacher I put a big emphasis on pupils having ‘bullet-proof’ definitions for key vocabulary, so that they and I are 100% clear on what the terms they are using means. I think a lot of the terms I’ve just listed are open to a range of interpretations. (That isn’t necessarily completely dismissing any biblical usefulness for those terms, but there seems to be a lot of confusion and/or vagueness surrounding them, which can’t be helpful for our congregations).
Was the Reformation helpful in this area? The Reformation was obviously a huge blessing from God but there may have been a couple of negative consequences that we are still feeling today. One is that churches moved from a set pattern to a whole range of ways of running services. (Another is that church discipline became harder, because you could just jump denomination). On this, I’m particularly interested in the liturgical calendar – I think there’s huge value in remembering the ascension, pentecost, etc, on particular days.
Songwriters’ intentions. Do songwriters need to be clearer what is meant for Sunday services and what are album recordings? Sometimes we try to replicate songs on albums then criticise the songwriter for them being unsingable, over-complicated or using confusing language.
Over-prioritising one of the audiences. With the 3 audiences, is every change in danger of prioritising one over the other? I think lots of churches in the past 2 decades, for example, have over-prioritised the outsider – everything is run through the lens of ‘will it look weird/will it appeal/will it be relevant to them?’, rather than ‘what’s needed to build up the congregation?’.
The offering. The offering has been taken out in many churches, partly for the sake of outsiders. Should it be put back in?
Lament. How do we get songs of lament into our song repertoire?
Should churches teach on this more regularly (i.e. the purpose of meeting together as a church)? There’s a lot of different understandings in most congregations, and more explicit teaching, perhaps built into the church’s calendar to focus on once per year, would be helpful.
You can buy Rhythms of Grace from The Good Book Company here.
Mike Cosper tweets at @MikeCosper .
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