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

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Summary: When you know something is wrong with worship.
Review: As a pastor I often meet people who say they know something is wrong with most worship services, but do not know exactly what it is. Jeffrey J. Meyers has written an excellent book in *The Lord's Service* and thereby done a service to the church throughout the world. He proposes that nothing that the church does is more important than worshipping the Lord God Almighty. If this is true (and I challenge anyone to prove him wrong in this) then if we get worship wrong, then we fail at the heart of our whole relationship with the Lord. With clarity and biblical faithfulness (the Scriptural support is extensive) Mr. Meyers points out that worship "styles" are not a matter of personal taste, but rather of obedience or disobedience to the requirements given by the triune Lord; worship must be explicitly trinitarian, or it is implicitly something else. The essays in the third section of the book are good enough for a book in themselves, but their inclusion is just more evidence for biblical worship. Defending the Covenant Renewal pattern of worship found throughout the Bible, Meyers helps us to see where we went wrong, and how to get back to what is right. A must read for anyone involved in leading worship, but also for those who "just know that something is not right."

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Summary: The Best Book on Reformed Worship in Centuries
Review: 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.