9Marks Churches

[Tim Bonney]

Do the Sovereign Grace churches have a strong authoritarian pastoral leadership?

I have a theory that churches where the pastor is allowed to be, and theologically expected to be, an authoritarian leader are more susceptible to problems of abuse.

[William Thornton]

Yep. Not necessarily a single authoritarian figure. Sometimes a plurality of elders.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

My wife and I worshipped at Capitol Hill Baptist Church this morning. It was not any different than many other Baptist churches these days that have revitalized and approach ministry in a different way than they did back in the '70's.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Sounds like it was an enjoyable service Sandy. Certainly God is involved in good worship flow. But I'm also willing to bet they do good solid worship planning to get that kind of flow.

Because my church is live on the radio we have a highly scripted service but it doesn't feel scripted because of how the worship flows and keeps moving without a lot of empty space, wasted time in movement between one part of the service or another. We learned to do it to eliminate dead air. Now when I visit churches without a will thought out worship flow it seems disjointed and slow.

[Sandy]

I would guess there's a lot of planning that goes on in order to get to the point where a worship service "feels" spontaneous or interactive. I think it takes a conscious awareness that worship is directed at God as the audience to bring elements into worship that direct people to God and lead to a genuine encounter, rather than just a feeling that you're checking off the bulletin. I'm sure being live on the radio is an interesting experience, since you have worshippers whom you can't see, but you want to have a similar experience to those in the congregation. We used to video our services, and use them in worship planning, and it was amazing to see the reaction of people to things like inadvertent noise, lengthy transitions that interrupted the flow, "dead air" so to speak, and things that occurred which didn't really contribute to an atmosphere of worship. People could see that things which were not "worship" (like announcements) could be disruptive after the "call to worship."

I don't think I was expecting to see anything really "different" at Capitol Hill with regard to their "Calvinist" position. They are one of just two or three churches in the inner city of Washington that have been able to reach into the large, and growing, 30-50 year old age group in the city and that's a much more visible focus than doctrine or church polity.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]