Ask the Pastors S7 E4: "Why do we corporately worship the way that we do?”

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Welcome to Ask the Pastors a segment of the West Hills Podcast where you have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. We're insensitive if Austin's hosting. Yeah. Or insensitive. Thanks Austin for hosting last week. Oh, you're welcome. Appreciate it. Thank

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You for giving me the opportunity. It was Austin's favorite episode of all time. Yeah, it

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Was

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Amazing. I learned a lot about

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K-Pop.

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If you're listening more

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About demon hunters than K-Pop, but that's true.

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Yeah. Still need to listen or watch Bryant. I'm here with Pastor Austin. Hi Pastor Thad. Hey. And our lead pastor will, Hey. And in this episode, who submitted this question? Is this one that you thought of?

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I got from someone? Yeah. I mean, you're always,

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It's a great question. You're

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Always sort of implicitly passive, aggressively getting from congregates all the time. Why do we do this?

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Why?

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Yeah. So yeah, we just thought, you know,

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Why do we worship the way that we do

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Is

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The question, right?

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Yeah. Corporately, specifically corporate worship on Sundays. Why does it look the way it looks? Thinking specifically of order of worship? Again, there's so much we can get into with this. I think maybe we'll just see how far we get in half an hour and then go from there. If we need to do a part two follow-up probably. But we've done some zoom ins on why we pick the music we pick, why we say the same benediction, the great commission adaptation every Sunday and end with that. But

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We've also done why we preach the way we preach, haven't we?

• Read more

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  Expositionally, or how do you choose, or

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  How do you choose what

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  You're preaching? How do you choose what you're preaching on

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  Next? Something like

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  That, right? Yep. So we've done zoom ins on various aspects, but I don't think we've maybe ever done a flyover of trying to look at the whole hour 15 or let's be real hour, 23 minute service and why we do what we do.

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  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's a good place to start with the space that we're worshiping in, how it's set up, how it's lit, how it sounds. I mean, do we want to go that big?

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  That might be going back to front. You might want to go from front to back. Those would be the so-called circumstances or forms of worship as opposed to starting with may I suggest the elements of worship and why there are elements of worship. So the biblical and theological undergirding for that is what the nerds call the regulative principle of worship. And that's just a fancy phrase of saying that the only things that will be included in worship as elements, and we'll define that in a second, are those that are specifically prescribed in scripture that's contrasted

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  With like snake handling,

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  Like snake handling. Absolutely. If you take the long ending of

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  Mark, see each other

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  Gets you some snakes.

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  Yeah.

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  This is compared to the normative principle for another $10 term, the nerds use, which basically says as long as the Bible doesn't prohibit it, it's allowed. So we seem to follow a regulative principle of worship, which has basis in scripture, beginning with the giving of the law at Sinai in the second commandment, don't make a grave an image. We see the Israelis do that in Exodus 32 when they try to make an image of Yahweh in the form of a bull, and then people die. We see Nate, Evan be who in Leviticus 10 offering strange fire and then Yahweh consumes them with fire. So the examples go throughout scripture that we are supposed to only worship the Lord in the way that he has prescribed.

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  This doesn't directly answer the question of how were things ordered in our liturgy. And there's debate historically about how that emerges, but instead of the order, I think we can talk about the language of what's called elements of worship and circumstances of worship. Elements of worship are these things that are supposed to be included, like prayer, corporate prayer, prayer is singing, preaching of the word, the administration of the ordinances, baptism, and the Lord's supper, the giving of tithes and offerings. All of those are elements that the Old Testament, the New Testament specifically show being in the case of worship services corporately, the circumstances are like, what time should we meet? Should we use a wireless microphone? What key should we, no microphone. No microphone at all. What key should we sing the song in? And so it's forms just come down to wisdom. Practical matters. Should we have service at 2:33 AM Probably not. No one would show up, but should we have preaching? Absolutely.

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  Absolutely.

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  Yeah. And I'll just say one other quick before we even dive into each of the elements, which I think again, for sake of time maybe, I mean, how would y'all prefer to do? Would you prefer to try and give each one its due and be fine with doing a part two, if we only make it halfway through the service, not even to the sermon yet? Or would you prefer to try and challenge ourselves to three minutes or less on each of these topics?

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  I think it's worship, and for a lot of people they might know this is the litre we do. But it would be helpful to break down why. So I don't mind if it's a part two. Personally don't mean just give it a little extra time, don't rush it. And I think in particular, I think a lot of folks, it could be part three, four. Yeah. I think the one where people are probably going to have the most questions if I had to ask, is on communion on why did we do communion every week? That might be a question. I could be wrong, but that might be a guess I have, and especially in our Catholic geographic context, look up and

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  See if, why do we do community every week? Yeah, we might've done an ask or I might've done an ask the pastor on that back in the day. I feel like that has definitely come up and would've been tackled. But anyway,

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  Why do we do a call to then as a first start from the very beginning, A very good

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  Place to start. Well, it is. Another thought I had even in mentally preparing for this is I thought of also some of the elements that we don't do if we're going to go chronologically through our service. Countdown clock.

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  Huh? Countdown clock.

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  Well, countdown clock. That would be, I think we might need the countdown clock. I didn't even think of, no, I did not think. But church growing up thought you were going. My church growing up did, what do they call it? A time of reflection.

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  And

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  It was the organist for one minute, little instrumentalist that was almost kind of like a pre-call to worship, prepare yourself and hearts people. Stop talking, sit down, be quiet, pray, prepare your hearts for worship. I thought could do that We don't.

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  Don't pass the piece, the handshake.

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  Well, yeah, there's a lot of things. We don't

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  Pass the plates. No, we don't.

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  So there are definitely some things that we don't do.

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  We do testimonies, which is debatable what as an element of worship. So our wilderness videos,

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  Well, not regularly.

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  Regularly. No, we know regularly. But it is an interesting element in our liturgy on occasion that there has been any debate around. But anyway, that's beside,

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  Yeah,

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  You're

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  Getting excited.

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  I know. What do y'all think about the time and

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  Reflection I've seen to be really helpful?

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  Prepare your hearts for worship.

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  I've seen to be really helpful. I also see the call to worship kind of fulfilling that a little bit because you go from corral and your kids in the parking lot, you run right in, maybe you're two, three minutes late, drop your kids off at the kids' ministry and then you're in the sanctuary and we're in the middle of our, and you've missed the call to worship. You've missed the call to worship. So bad example, imagine that you're just skating in at 8 59 right before the service starts and you're frenzied and frazzled. I think the call to worship serves to center people's attention on why we're there, on what we're gathered to do, on who God is most importantly, who God is and what he's done is the desire for call to worship. In my mind, who is God? What has he done for us, and what are we called to do in response is kind what I try to think through what to do for a call to worship.

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  I've heard of Korean churches, having Korean American churches, having that where everybody comes in. Once you come into the sanctuary, you're very quiet. But just to revere what's about to happen.

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  And I guess if you're going to make a case for a time of reflection or whatever you want to call it, you could say that. I dunno, because I like that. A couple things to what the two of you both said. I like that our people connect. Most of the people disproportionately who are there early, you're supposed to are visitors. They don't know the culture. They want to find their seats. So I think I love especially because of that, that we've got some folks who have recognized that and who have strategically decided, I'm going to get there early so that I can be one of the people that help welcome those visitors and make a personal connection before it ever starts. Because I don't want their first experience of the church to be, I made it from the parking lot all the way to Brian's call to worship, and no one's really talked to me. So I like that we don't have this sort of like a, oh, this is this sacred. And it's also that could border on idolatry too, of there's something about this space and it's like, no, all of life is worship.

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  And that's a really good point because all of 'em had that risk. Any circumstance you had to make sure it doesn't become the element of it or the element doesn't become the object of worship, that's all of them have that risk. So I have to be very

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  Careful

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  If I can say what I like in terms of the reflection is that in the way that we pass the communion plate each week, it gives a moment at the conclusion of the preaching

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  To

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  Reflect upon Christ.

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  So I think

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  Definitely that to me, I'm like, if I'm going to have a moment of pause, that's the time to do

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  It. Yeah, I totally agree. So that would be another big point for why we don't do it. But then also to your point about the call to worship though, I guess to go back and say I could maybe be convinced is the call to worship itself is still though it's still, I don't want to say noise or busyness, but it's more talk. It's different from just an instrumental thing. Where're praying. I mean, the call to worship can be a prayer, but I don't know. I don't know. Did anybody else grow up in a church with that?

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  You

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  Did? What do you think

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  That under the conviction, whoever said it first, there's debate, like Sunday morning worship is a Saturday night decision, and I think that also should be reflective of how we are preparing for worship on Sunday, Saturday

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  Night. In other words, if you need that minute at nine o'clock, from nine o'clock to 9 0 1, then you've already done something wrong. Is that kind of what you're thinking?

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  I'm just saying I'm not convinced someone needs that time to prepare their heart for worship. Hopefully they've already done that. Hopefully they've already done that. And for me, it created, it seemed to create a culture of we care more about the space and behavior than actually coming in worshiping. Stop talking like a legalistic standpoint from my growing up is what the experience was. That's not how you act in church.

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  Yeah, I think you're right. I think part of it is a, it sets it apart from what was happening before, but potentially in maybe an un unhelpful, unhelpful way is what you're saying. Okay. So we don't do that. See that. So we do start with a call to

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  Worship. Yeah, definitely.

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  So why do we do a call to worship?

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  I think people need to hear from God's word at the top of a service to respond to it. I think there's plenty of scripture that are great to point our affections to what God has done just to warm our hearts to the gospel as well. I've been in context where it's like a three minute mini sermon from the worship pastor where it's all kind of his words and nothing from scripture. I think that's problematic. I think it can be done well, but I think it's important to hear from God's word and respond to that from the beginning of the service to the sermon of course, to the way we pray to communion, obviously rooted in scripture as well. All of it in God's word, and rooted in that I think seems to be really important. I think. Now I don't want to get legalistic with the call to worship. Is it explicitly required? I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's explicitly required.

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  No. Yeah, the regulative principle. But I do think that you're making a really important point that I would wager to say that I bet most of our people have not ever really consciously thought of, which is at most of the, I'm just going to stereotype, but it's true. They exist for a reason, non-denominational, big whatever, megachurch thing, you walk in and the countdown clock and then right at nine. Yeah, it's good morning, whatever church, we're so glad you're here. Stand and let's sing. And I think that part of what is missed in that is what you just said, Brian, is that all of worship is a response. It is a response to what God has done.

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  Yes, absolutely.

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  And when you immediately go to us singing, you're responding and yeah, you don't explicitly lay out for him, here's what God has done and here's why we're doing everything that we're about to do for the next 80 minutes is a response and here's why we're responding. And here what we're responding to, I think yeah, is Ill

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  Conce, and those are all those episodes in scripture. Just if someone's listening and they're trying to think of where do I start to find that in the Bible? I would point in first to Xs 24, but repeatedly you see God's people undergoing covenant renewal in worship and the technical term to describe what we're talking about here that goes throughout the service is the dialogical principle that God speaks through his word and the people respond. So they speak through his word right at the call to worship and the people respond. And so it happens again in the preaching, you preach the word, the people respond again. So the response in the first portion is that we were responding corporate prayer that is a type of prayer, namely singing

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  At one point in time to skip ahead to your point about responding. At one point in time we were celebrating, we were observing communion here at West Hills. I think this is right, and I've definitely been in churches. If it wasn't here, I think it was here. There was a time when we were doing communion here before the sermon, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

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  I tried to, and I don't remember if we were doing it all the way up until when I became lead pastor, but I definitely remember having conversations with the elders about, do we continue doing this every week? And it was like, well, no, it makes no sense to observe the Lord's supper before you because it is a response. I mean, there's just other practical things too about fencing the table and having preached the gospel and letting people know this meal is for those of us who believe what I just said, whose lives belong to Christ. So anyway, and just how confusing that would be for, I mean, of all the things we do, that is one that as far as even just trying to think sensitively about unbelievers being there, who unchurched people who don't really know what's going on, how do you explain, we're going to pass this around, but we don't want you to take a cup. I mean, doing that before somebody is really settled into everything that's going on here anyway, but it just reminded me of what you're saying with the response as well to what God has done.

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  Yeah. It's patterned all throughout the Bible. So that's why we keep the principle in place. God acts. That's exactly what you said, Brian. God acts, we respond, God acts, we respond. In this case, primarily the way that he acts is what he speaks. Yeah, yeah,

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  Yeah. I've been in churches where you kind of whip yourself up at the beginning of the service to kind call God into the room. And I think that's hugely problematic. Hugely problematic. And it teaches people a wrong view of God and his sovereignty.

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  Yeah. Omnipresence.

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  Yeah.

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  All kinds of things. Yeah. Okay. Then we go from

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  Call to worship and then what we do

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  For song.

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  Yeah.

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  Oh, we stand. Why do we stand?

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  Why do we stand? I

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  Don't know.

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  That's a good question for the room.

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  I mean, there's certainly a practical, I mean, there's certainly a practical, you're going to be sitting for most of it, so just not, but fatigue. But I think there's, the scripture talks about all kinds of different postures when it comes to worship, but I think there's an active passive thing too, with if you're sitting for an entire hour and 10 minute service or whatever it might be, what does that say about, that's what you do for a movie. It's

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  Passive. I'm observing. I'm not participating.

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  That's

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  Good. The congregation of Israel would often stand and gather around what was being said. The priest would, and actually this is interesting in the way they would pray, is they'd often raise their hands to pray. We usually just hold that for the benediction. And I wondered at what point it was in the church history. I'm sure somebody listening has probably been nerdy enough to look into that. At what point did we kind of bow our heads and close their eyes kind of thing, as opposed to sort of the handing and standing.

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  No one's fold your hands anymore though.

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  Yeah. First for song. Song, we've talked in another episode about how we kind of choose the songs we choose, but we haven't necessarily, I don't think, talked about where we put 'em in the service. We typically try and put a more upbeat song at the opening. Again, I think that's mostly a practical, get people singing along, excited, encouraged to be there. I mean, you can speak

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  More about that, get people engaged with it,

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  Get the blood pumping.

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  And I think our hype song, I think it's for sure a practical thing. Start of the morning, people are maybe groggy. You want them to be engaged with the truth that's being sung and what they're being taught through the content of the song. And sometimes the music prompts us to listen to the lyrics. And I think music and lyrics work together in some really cool ways to plant truth deep in us. But yeah, energetic, fast-paced, faster paced song. Song one is a bit of a stereotype in a church, but I think it's really practical and it's helpful. One of that emerges

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  Out of the Sunday being the Lord's day in the celebration of the resurrection. If someone's done that kind of work to see it. That's how it found its way in the church tradition. Or is it purely pragmatism? Is it to your point? It's early. Coffee hasn't kicked in and we need to wake up.

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  Yeah,

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  You could probably take that one.

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  Maybe either

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  Way.

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  Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Celebratory or remember when God's done and joyfully responding to it, sing for joy scripture. That's

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  Where my mind goes to of a call to worship has been given. So now it's a song of worship, of praise and response.

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  And when you think about so many of the Psalms that talk about Let us worship the Lord, the rest of it is like, let's worship him with symbols and tambourines and this and that, but it's let's him with gladness and it's that kind of a, yeah, that call to worship those types of psalms that we read oftentimes. Again, not that it would be unbiblical if we opened with a song of lament or something like that, per se, but it does, even if you wanted to make a regulative principle kind of an argument for that, I think you certainly see it modeled in scripture in that way.

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  Yeah. I think you see that in Leviticus nine when the high priesthood is established, the corporate worship is established, the fire comes out and consumes their offerings, the people renan. It's the Hebrew word that basically has the sense you're at the championship game and you're team scored, team scored, and everybody takes their number one and jumps up and down. That's what renan means. So there is ample evidence in scripture of God's people when they're assembled for worship, of just celebrating that Yahweh is accepting their worship, which I don't think we quite totally get that sense. We accept it because of what Jesus has done, and so

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  We took it for granted. Yeah, we

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  Really do.

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  Yeah. The fact that we're even here doing this. Yeah, that's good. So first song, now a lot of times, most times we'll go straight from that into a song two, I don't know, again, I mean at a lot of churches, it's just, again, it's the three, four songs back to back pretty much. I don't know what the alternative would be per se. I mean, I can tell you we used to, maybe this we can talk about, we used to do a passing of the piece in between songs one and two.

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  Did we really?

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  Yeah.

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  Was that before COVID or what? Yes. I have never seen that since I've been here.

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  Yeah. And it may have. I

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  Don't think I have either.

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  I can't remember if that was something we killed before COVID or not. Now somebody who is still mad about it will be able to remind us, but we could pass some smiles. I've heard that before too. Oh, my smile

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  Across the room.

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  Oh, no, no, you've heard that. Oh my. That makes me so embarrassed for Christianity.

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  Pass the smile. Pass the smile, turn to smile.

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  Ill just tell you I want to pass the piece back in there so people like and share if you want it or whatever. So we can get double

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  You passing piece. I do. If you want to pass the piece, you got to like and share. So we have that. That's one

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  Vote. Okay.

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  So if you don't want to pass the piece, give us an angry smile and a comment on this video

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  Is your case for that biblically, again, regular where there's a lot of the right-handed fellowship and the greet each other holy, holy kiss,

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  That could be one, greet each other with a holy kiss, I think would be an easy one because it's essentially just saying that you're supposed to greet one another, and you might say, well, yeah, we do that in the lobby. So then the question is, should it just be in the building or it should be a part of the service in general. But one of the primary passages for how the New Testament sort of unfolds worship is Acts 2 42 and they devoted themselves to the apostle teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers and all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done and so forth. So I do think that you could make the argument that the fellowship of the people would be strengthened and the greeting enforced by having a 62nd passing of the peace.

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  My counterargument would be that that's not, I mean, certainly for us knowing what koinonia means, the richness of that word and vision for the church, that a forced handshake and smile thing with a stranger is, I would say the opposite. And for most people, I think practically. And yeah, I think to me, I've always thought about it as a, if you need that for somebody to get a handshake and a hello and what's your name, how you doing? Glad you're here, then you're already just failing so much as a church that again, that's not to say that maybe they don't get a couple extra hellos and handshakes, but the single biggest, I think argument for me against it is really the pragmatic one, which is in all of the surveys when people have asked unchurched people who come in, what do you think about that? They're turned off by it. So that to me is, again, if those are the people that you want to feel welcomed, and this is one little thing we can do to make 'em feel more seen and cared for and maybe come back, whatever, you're actually doing the opposite. So that to me is the single biggest reason. What are you thinking? Yeah, I know you don't like it.

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  I think if you want to make an argument for it, it would help us with our space issue. Hey, while you're moving around, go ahead and scoot too. But they will do. They won't do it. But I also can remember a time when we did passing of the piece, how disruptive it was for people getting back to their seats because we had well-meaning folks who would intentionally go across the whole entire sanctuary to greet people to then come back. And so I'm the same way of, I think if that's offputting to a visitor, it's something that should be really considered. And I'm very thankful that our church, the fellowship piece, I think that happens before or after sometimes during the call to worship and done really well, but

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  Agreed.

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  I do think also if you see someone, you should say hello and greet them. You should not have to be instructed. And I think our people do a pretty okay job.

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  Yeah,

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  I would agree.

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  And you would certainly never want somebody to feel like that was a substitute for,

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  I don't

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  Doing that before and after the service. Like, oh, I don't have to be as welcoming the box. Yeah, extroverted because there's a time for that kind of thing. Yeah. Anyway,

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  Yeah.

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  Anything else that needs to be said about that? Should

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  We talk more about holy kisses by now that Austin's pushing for I'll submit it for you.

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  Well, and just one more practical thing on

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  It,

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  If you want to make darn sure that a visitor doesn't come back,

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  Give them a holy kiss. Sorry, go ahead.

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  Well, depending on who it is, it could be that or have your 92nd team grading time and my filter is so bad. I almost, I mean, I did think of specific people at our church that I know if you're sitting behind that person, they're not turning around. We're all works of progress. God love that person

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  And we hope you're listening to the

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  Podcast. But anyway. Yeah, but if you're in front of that couple and behind that couple, it's a couple. No one's saying hey to you, and so now you got 90 seconds of everyone else's greeting but me. Okay, well I'm out of

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  Here.

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  So anyway. Definitely. What else we got second song,

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  Second song's, the Be More Reflective is what we have in introduction. It's

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  A wild card.

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  Yeah, it can be whatever.

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  That's where you stick your song. We just haven't song in a while. It's a good song. New song. We don't know where else it goes in. The service goes

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  Here. Totally. All of it's gospel center. We wanted to tell the story of the gospel. I love the Wildcard slot. Other than that second song, I would say for sure introducing a new song. Yeah. One that we haven't sung for a while. I think you nailed it with that. Trying to think of anything else that we put as Song two or with mentioning about Song two. Nothing comes to mind.

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  No. If you've not sung a song in a long time, let us know request so we can put it in there, request, put it in slot number two.

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  Then we get to call to confession

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  Confessing our sin. Why do I need to confess my sins if Jesus already forgave my sins? Somebody submitted

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  That. Well, I think it was worded even more strongly and we pastor worship the pastor on, right?

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  Yes,

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  It was Why does I know what exactly? Because we all know who it was. We remember that. And He's no longer with us.

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  He's still alive, Lord Church,

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  Not at the church. No, but I've mentioned him as a heretic in multiple. Now this heresy of Christian perfectionism, because that was his thing was the preaching was gospel centric. But yeah, the worship pastor made us do a call to confession and why are we confessing ourselves? If Jesus already paid for him, you're asking him to do something he's already done. So yeah. What's the deal? Worship

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  Pastor one, John one. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and it cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, it goes on to say, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. All of us have sinned. And to be reminded of that, to not puff ourselves up, I think is a really good reminder of God's holiness and how we are forgiven in Christ, that we are redeemed, bought by the blood of Jesus, and also us turning from God and pursuing things that are against His laws affect our relationship with him.

  (30:47):

  Correct me if this is the wrong wording. They don't affect our standing before him. They don't affect our standing before him, but they affect our relationship. Is that a good way to say it like that? That's good. I think it also, of course, reading ahead here, it produces gratitude in our hearts for like, man, we're forgiven of these things in Christ. We stand redeemed to be reminded of the gospel. I think it's a retelling of the gospel story, confession and assurance apart him. It's a big deal, a hopeful reminder to remember that God is big and holy and that we're sinful and we choose not to follow him. And he forgives us and we come to him and ask him for it.

  (31:36):

  Follow up question. Why wouldn't we do that earlier in the worship set?

  (31:42):

  That's a fair question.

  (31:43):

  First thing you do

  (31:45):

  Profess like,

  (31:45):

  Hey, is Kelly to your point about the fact that we're even able to worship God and he invites us to do that in light of our sinfulness? Maybe start with that.

  (32:00):

  I can see that.

  (32:02):

  Well,

  (32:05):

  I know where you're going on this. You go for it. Where are we going? You're going to the Lord's Prayer, aren't you? I hope you're going to the Lord's Prayer. It's modeling after the Lord's Prayer is that the confession occurs later. And where God instructs us, Jesus instructs us how to pray the confession of sin and the ask for forgiveness isn't the first thing. It is first focused upon God and that it is a focus upon things that we bring for him for partition, including forgiveness. And we ask and we confess our sins partly just because it provides relief from the guilt that we feel, but also sin before it is breaking a rule, breaking the heart of God. You mentioned that. But in the relationship, we've broken a relationship with a person. We haven't just broken the rules of a courtroom

  (32:46):

  And even more so than just the Lord's prayer, I would say, and this maybe we should have started with, we are trying to, even in our liturgy, retell the story of the gospel every Sunday.

  (33:02):

  Totally.

  (33:03):

  And we shape all of our worship around the story of the gospel. What's the gospel? God, man, Christ's response. God is supreme, man is sinful. Christ is savior. Responses is required. What was my S for that one? They're all S's. Faith is sufficient. Faith is, you call faith as a response is sufficient. So you start, like you said with God and then Yeah, then we get to, yeah, but I'm sinful. And then we're going to get to assurance of pardon and Psalm three, which is Christ and what he's done for us to take care of our sin problem. And then we get a whole sermon and then we get response of, and the sermon itself is always going to be gospel centric. It's not a foregone. I mean, not everybody believes that, but I believe that. And that's what we do. Gospel. Then the response, Lord supper closing song, the benediction and sending out, that's all response. So it's that Godman Christ response gospel shaping our liturgy and modeling it after the pattern of the gospel.

  (34:25):

  Yeah. An article I read, it was just positional forgiveness and relational forgiveness, sins of forgiveness, salvation. But our daily fellowship with God needs to stay in good standing through relational forgiveness.

  (34:34):

  And I think we did a whole, did we do a whole ask the pastors on

  (34:42):

  Which one

  (34:42):

  Called a confession and why we do that every week?

  (34:46):

  I don't know.

  (34:47):

  I feel like we did, man, I wish my memory was better.

  (34:50):

  Why do we confess our sins that I

  (34:51):

  Don't even have a concussion to blame it on. But anyway,

  (34:53):

  You can blame it on mine. I really don't

  (34:55):

  Mind. Okay. I am blaming it on Austin's concussion. Yeah, I feel like we did something on why do we confess our sins? Yeah, I was pretty heated up about it. I thought I would've tackled that one anyway. I'm

  (35:09):

  Not finding it on a quick search.

  (35:11):

  Well, I mean, maybe, I don't know. We need to, sure. We did need do a deeper dive now that, because that heresy's not new and I remember even Got

  (35:22):

  It.

  (35:22):

  You did.

  (35:23):

  Oh, I see the question. Do I have the episode though? No, I don't have the episode. Oh, really? I see the question

  (35:29):

  Though. Yeah, no.

  (35:32):

  Is the question on confession or Christian perfectionism that you wanted to address, confess, or both?

  (35:37):

  Mainly confession and why we do the confession every week. Yeah. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe that's why I went straight to the, I did a thing on maybe Christian perfectionism instead. Anything else we want to say about that, about the confession

  (35:54):

  And assurance? We do assure people love their part.

  (35:57):

  Do we? Well, yeah, but before we go to that, sometimes we do the confession differently. Sometimes it's spend a few moments on your own confess. Sometimes it's a guided,

  (36:14):

  Do a

  (36:14):

  Variety

  (36:15):

  Of,

  (36:15):

  I think it's helpful to mix it up, mix it up. And in some parts I've heard from people at times like one of two responses to when it's a, use this as a reflective time to confess your sins. Either it's too long or it's too short. And I think that probably tells me a lot about an individual by their response to that. But also a guided response at times gives a teaching opportunity for here is what a confession of your sins could look like and model after scripture or some other liturgies that we've pulled from. But it helps give language for people to use. I'm of the opinion confession of sin does not probably occur as often as it should in the life of believers in American evangelicalism.

  (37:09):

  Yeah.

  (37:09):

  You take for granted Christ forgiveness

  (37:12):

  Or something that one, his greatest kind of thing.

  (37:14):

  And I do think the benefit of doing the corporate one is it really infringes on our category of my confessions or just my own, my sins are just my own, it's my own personal problem, whatever. As opposed to, there's just so much testimony throughout scripture of this being sort of collective a corporate iniquity or corporate culpability.

  (37:38):

  See Israel doing it all the time.

  (37:39):

  And to think that that wouldn't somehow be abrogated with the church is going to be really hard to sustain in the New Testament in the sense that we, even we at West Hills as a church, fail to worship God in spirit and truth and to fulfill his great commission, so forth. So even on those two things alone, we could each have reason to confess corporately.

  (37:59):

  Well, and you'd like to think that in the best way. So I know you were probably mentioning that in the negative sense of, oh, well, my sins are just between me and God. But also you'd like to think in the best way possible for especially, again, I'm trying to view a lot of this, all of this through the lens of an unchurched person coming in as well, and how is this going to hit all them for the power of them seeing this room full of people? And we know that the number one reason that people that are unchurched don't want anything to do with the church is hypocrisy. So for them, the visual of them coming in, having this picture of I'm going to be the one center, and they're all going to think, and then for them to see, oh, this is actually, they're actually taking time.

  (38:46):

  All of these people to confess their sins, I think could be a powerful. Now I can also see the flip side because that is, again, you haven't even gotten to the sermon yet with all of its opportunities for apologetic moments of trying to bring unbelievers along. And now you're asking them to confess to this being that they might not even believe in, but we're here. And I don't know. So I could see it also being weird or off-putting or whatever. But again, that maybe gets to another big thing that should be said in this whole conversation of why we do what we do. We are not a seeker driven church in the sense that Sundays are for visitors. And if you really want to go deeper as a Christian, you got to come on Wednesday nights or whatever. We believe Sunday mornings are primarily the time for corporate collective worship for the church and equipping of the saints. And we hope and pray and ask and invite others to also be a part and see and be safe through it. But we're not at the end of the day going to gear our, and I do think that that's frankly, if I want to be, hopefully not just uns charitable, but just honest about it. I think that that is why if we were at a nondenominational megachurch church that does, because everybody's got a liturgy.

  (40:31):

  Oh, we're not liturgy. I had somebody, you get these ex Catholics, Lutherans that come and they're coming from those megachurch things and they sit through ours, and by the time they get Ben in a shape about why do we do all this liturgy? And it's like, well, do you realize you're getting a liturgy? It's like everybody's got faith. If it's not in God, it's in something else.

  (40:57):

  So you are being sent a message when you get welcome and here's the silly video from the pastor, and we spend the time we would've spent on confession on announcements or whatever it is. I mean, that's its own liturgy. And that's telling you something about what they believe. And frankly, I think that a lot of what it's telling you is we just want this to be entertaining production, and we want this to be be well received by people with shorter attention spans and who don't like to be reminded of their sin and those kinds of things.

  (41:37):

  I would also add most likely a visitor, an unbeliever who's coming, they're probably not participating in singing because they won't know the songs and can't pick up the tune. So they're also probably not participating in the confession and assurance. And that's also okay that if someone's there and doing that, we're not shaming them for not, I don't think people in our congregation are looking around to see who is and who is not doing whatever. Wouldn't you rather 'em see what,

  (42:08):

  Again, regularly, what Christians are supposed to be doing, confession and all of that. That's good. Yeah, I think that's good. So then assurance of, pardon, anything else that needs to be said on that? Hopefully that one doesn't need a lot of explanation. We've confessed our sins.

  (42:27):

  Just real quick, the only thing I'd add for confession of sin when it's meditative and invite people to have a time of prayer, I always wait an uncomfortably long period of time. I think you all felt that as you're preaching me too

  (42:39):

  With a confession, give

  (42:40):

  Space, you want

  (42:41):

  To get, I always feel like I need more time.

  (42:44):

  I

  (42:44):

  Need more time. I want you to make people as uncomfortable.

  (42:47):

  Maybe when you're preaching, when you're just on the platform, time seems to go to me, I'm more aware of time is what I'm trying to say. So it feels like it's a

  (42:55):

  Timekeeper.

  (42:55):

  Yeah, it feels like a long amount of time, but I know it's a good amount of

  (42:58):

  Time for folks. I think it's probably even more so since probably one of the more tweetable things I've ever said that people have said, keep coming back to him. Reminded me now years later was when I said, I said, I'm still waiting for somebody to pull me aside and say, Hey, when you and Brian give us time to confess sins, you need to give us more time because I don't have enough time.

  (43:22):

  I've thought about that. That'd be an,

  (43:24):

  I said it better in the sermon, but it was something like that. So anyway, assurance.

  (43:28):

  I was just going to say I need a little bit more. Give people time up. Hold up, pastor, a

  (43:33):

  Couple more minutes. That would be awesome. It would be awesome. Don't do it anyway.

  (43:36):

  That's it. Just real quick.

  (43:38):

  Yeah. Assurance of pardon. And also we've been forgiven and we need to be reminded of

  (43:43):

  It.

  (43:44):

  And so straight to the gospel in Christ, you're forgiven. And then celebrating him for it, singing and praising him for the truths of the gospel. Just a very gospel rich third song. Anything else there before we get to the pastoral prayer, maybe in part two we can pick up with pastoral prayer sermon.

  (44:07):

  That sounds good.

  (44:08):

  Lord Supper closing song. And what

  (44:11):

  About baptism

  (44:12):

  Addiction? And we could, if we need to figure out Yeah, yeah.

  (44:17):

  Other things. Yeah,

  (44:18):

  You're right. Yeah. Other

  (44:19):

  Things we do in our baptisms

  (44:20):

  Sometimes go there. So yeah,

  (44:21):

  That sounds good.

  (44:22):

  Why we do what we do with baptisms. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Even just like why we, it's an

  (44:26):

  Element of worship

  (44:27):

  And why do we do it the way? Why do we do videos now instead of the public live in person?

  (44:34):

  Why don't we baptize people twice? Once in each service?

  (44:38):

  Yeah. All kinds of fun questions. We'll do a part two.

  (44:41):

  Yeah. We hope this is helpful as you're worshiping with us on a Sunday morning, just to know why behind what we do, what we do. So yeah, join us next week for four billing part two of Why We Worship the way that we do. That's it for this week's episode of Ask the Pastors. Also, remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar or by asking them online through our website. If you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button, subscribe, share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week.