The Poll-Parrot Stage of Worship

Grammar Class on Sundays

“…some have compared worship to the process of mastering a foreign tongue.

‘We must learn Christianity,’ writes William Willimon, ‘even as we learn a foreign language.’

Peter Leithart suggests that ‘worship is language class, where the Church is trained to speak Christian.’

One learns a language by mastering difficult rules through repetition. We have no hope of speaking any language fluently if its conjugations and declensions change every week.”

D. G. Hart and John Muether in the book, With Reverence and Awe, p. 59.

Dorothy Sayers gave lectures in 1947 at Oxford University on a method of teaching children called the Trivium. The poll-parrot stage capitalizes on a younger child’s ability to gobble up facts easily, store them away and recite them back.

Similar to children in their learning, in public worship, the mastery of words, order and routines will come by heart with repetition and recitation.

G. Mark Sumpter

Our God and the Gods of Gilgamesh

Another Affirmation about Covenant Theology

I wrapped up an eight-nine month home-school class on the World of the Old Testament yesterday. Two sharp, fun-loving young men have been the students.

Recently, we’ve had discussions on the story of Gilgamesh, a story related to the biblical flood story of Genesis 6-8, and how the main character, Gilgamesh, hungers and thirsts for immortality. In one way the epic is like a Paul and Timothy story. There’s a master teacher and a student disciple: Utnapishtim (Paul) is a model for Timothy (Gilgamesh).

The story, however, centers on a catastrophic flood event like the Noah episode.

In his pursuit for eternal life, Gilgamesh learns how Utnapishtim, the Noah-like figure, obtained eternal life.

Enil, one of the gods sitting as audience watching the wretchedness of man on the earth, determines to destroy the world with a flood. Utnapishtim learns of Enil’s plan and he, Utnapishtim, makes haste to build a huge vessel as a refuge for animals, and off we go with a Genesis 6-8-like story. Utnapishtim and his wife are saved from the deluge; they park the boat, step onto dry land and offer sacrifices to the gods. The assembly of the gods honors them with eternal life.

Gilgamesh likes what Utnapishtim has earned; he wants it too.

As the story unfolds we learn about the theology of the gods. There are twists and turns about the actions of the Assembly or Council of the gods.

In short, they are unpredictable, easily ticked off and flighty. One god comes along and usurps another. Another god comes along and flexes his muscles to squash another.

While reading Gilgamesh, I was waiting for one god to pipe up and say, “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?”

They are not covenanting gods.

Their relationship is not characterized by love, unity and bond.

The Church knows her God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—the God bound in peace, and fostering peace in His gracious revelation of Himself to His people.

He is the God unchanging, ever reliable. He is so because He is the God who makes and keeps covenant.

G. Mark Sumpter

Against Pulpit Boredom

Preacher, read fiction

“Sometimes preachers bore because they don’t understand the nature of Scripture. The Bible, after all, captures not only the intellect, but also the affections, the conscience, the imagination. That’s why the canon includes stories and parables, poetry and proverbs, letters and visions. Dull preaching often translates the imagination-gripping variety of Scripture into the boring tedium of an academic discourse or the boring banality of a ‘how-to’ manual.

So, if you find yourself translating a Psalm into the structure of a Pauline epistle before you preach it, you’re not letting the Scripture do its work in gripping the hearts of your people. And you don’t understand the meaning of the text—a meaning that’s about more than simply collected ideas.

Not even the most straightforward, rigorously doctrinal passages of Scripture are singularly intellectual. The apostles are visual preachers. Paul speaks of gouging out eyes (Gal. 4:15) and of giving his body over to be burned (1 Cor. 13:3), and he compares himself to a nursing mother (1 Thess. 2:7). James writes of a tongue aflame (James 3:6) and of fattened hearts in the day of slaughter (James 5:5).

The biblical revelation is far from boring. It’s the most exciting, engaging story imaginable, which is why it is aped all over the place in epic, drama, poetry, and song.

Preachers who would rage against boredom can start by learning to listen to the literary power of the text. This means, for one thing, learning to form a moral imagination that can be fired up by the Scriptures. For the sake of your congregation, limit your television and stop surfing the internet for hours on end. Read some good fiction and some poetry, and listen to stories being told—and thereby shape an imagination that recognizes literary structure, beauty and coherence.”

From Russell D. Moore’s article: Preaching Like the Devil, Touchstone Magazine, May/June 2010

G. Mark Sumpter

Grabbing the Reader from Page One, Word One

A Screenplay's First Ten Minutes

Screenplay writers have no longer than 2 hours and 8 minutes, or 128 pages to tell their story.

Within the first 10 minutes of your visual storytelling, the first unit of dramatic action is the set-up, and you must convey three things: who the main character is, what the story is about, and what the dramatic tension is—the circumstances surrounding the action.

G. Mark Sumpter

Biblical Love for Such a Time As This

Tevye: Golde, I have decided to give Perchik permission to become engaged to our daughter, Hodel.

Golde: What??? He's poor! He has nothing, absolutely nothing!

Tevye: He's a good man, Golde. I like him. And what's more important, Hodel likes him. Hodel loves him. So what can we do? It's a new world... A new world. Love. Golde... Do you love me?

Golde: Do I what?

Tevye: Do you love me?

Golde: Do I love you? With our daughters getting married. And this trouble in the town. You're upset, you're worn out. Go inside, go lie down! Maybe it's indigestion.

Tevye: Golde I'm asking you a question... Do you love me?

Golde: You're a fool.

Tevye: I know... But do you love me?

Golde: Do I love you? For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes. Cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow. After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?.......

Edith Schaeffer writes about the LOVE in her home back in the 1960s-70s in L’Abri, Switzerland…with her husband, children and especially with ministry to others:

“Life wasn’t easy by any means. There seemed to be constant stacks of dishes to wash, a tremendous succession of meals to prepare, endless sheets to hang out, countless letters to write, hours on end of conversation which took precedence over all other work—because these were people sent to us for a purpose…

Sometimes when difficult times are being lived through it seems as though the difficulties are simply too mundane to be the least bit worthwhile. Martyrs being tortured or persecuted for their faith at least sounds dramatic. Having to cook, serve meals to two sittings at times without ever sitting down to eat in between yourself, having constantly to clean up spilled and broken things, to empty mounds of garbage, and to scrub a stove that things have boiled over on, or an oven in which things have spilled over and baked to a black crust is neither dramatic or glamorous!..

…The Lord was sending people and amazing things were ‘springing forth,’ but the prayer answers brought with them the need to be willing to accept all that the answers meant, in the way of work, as well as excitement.”

pp. 148, 155-156, in the book: L’Abri, by Edith Schaeffer, Tyndale House.

G. Mark Sumpter

Beyond Youth Ministry in a Box

Is the church training young people to do hard things?

“Our point here is that youth, popular culture, and the electronic media, largely under adult supervision, have interacted in such a way that young people have been reduced to passive consumers of culture. Most youth do not significantly shape culture around because they are too busy consuming the prefabricated electronic visions from Vancouver or Hollywood. In this situation we cannot reasonably expect youth to contribute much to wider society—they neither know how nor are inspired by personal experience. Imagine, by contrast, a home or school or church that genuinely encourages young people to interact with adults to determine what media products they will listen to and watch. To put the matter more directly, consider how young people might mature if they acted in and on the world rather than simply consumed it. Some adults might think this is a rather chilling suggestion. Potentially at least, it threatens the alleged sanctity of adult society. However, once we concede the fallenness and limitations of adults, what is at stake becomes still clearer. And so does an important lesson: youth must have freedom as well as resources and support in order to contribute meaningfully and lastingly to North American culture.”

From Dancing in the Dark, Quentin Schultze and other writers, p. 11 [Eerdmans, 1991.]

I still come back to Sunday worship; I want to keep beating Paul’s order about this for our instruction and training. First, worship (Romans 12:1-2); then, next (Romans 12:3-13:8): giftedness, service, ministry, contribution to society, peacemaking, honor and duty in civics, and genuine love for others.

Where will our young people be trained to do hard things? In and through a faithful public worship service.

Maybe the author can be paraphrased a little, “to put the matter more directly, consider how young people might mature if they acted in and on public worship rather than simply consumed it…youth must have freedom as well as resources and support in order to contribute meaningfully and lastingly to North American public worship.”

G. Mark Sumpter

A Bedside Bible Bee

He Quieted Down and Seemed to Concentrate When He Heard the Bible
Walking into the patient's room, I wasn't sure what to expect. I could hear him before I saw him.

He was an aged man masked up, full-cover, with a breathing apparatus, and he was moaning and groaning. My initial 10-15 second assessment of the situation concluded: I've never had to try and communicate with someone like this. With his mouth covered, no way can he talk with me.

I said, Hello. I paused.

The moans kept coming.

Then I started to boot up the Bible memory on my 52-year old hard drive. I tried the best I could. I wanted the eye contact with him; therefore, I didn't want to be looking down into my Psalms and New Testament to read.

I quoted Psalm 23, John 3:17, John 11:25-27; and 1 John 4:10, 19. I quoted slowly. He immediately quieted down. He definitely was making eye contact with me.

The visit was all of 8-10 minutes, and I prayed for him. Was I comfortable at that moment? No way. But I sensed the words of Scripture had helped him.

I left the room, and then a short time later, I heard him back at his moaning, and that was gut-wrenching.

Hospital care-givers and the nursing staff likely get used to such patients and their needs. It's something not at all easy to handle.

G. Mark Sumpter

Learning about Calling and the Ministry

John Nevin, 1803-1886, an old Pennsylvanian Minister—His Words on Calling

“All are bound to serve one another in the church but a peculiar order has been set apart for the regular and public work of the ministry. We must not, however, look upon it, as holding an abstract position to the church, but as flowing out of the church. Notwithstanding, it is of divine appointment, and no one, not of this order, has a right to direct and teach the church, in a public way. No one is at liberty to take the office for himself. God only can call.”

From Lecture Two: Call to the Ministry in The Reformed Pastor (lectures on pastoral theology by John Williamson Nevin).

Since 1977-78 I have been relying on the church for her discipleship in my life, and it’s been the discipleship of opening up to me the peculiar order to be set apart for the regular and public work of the ministry. It’s just as Nevin refers to it above. This is something that has been flowing out of the church.

Learning about the peculiar order of the call and office of the ministry has been a long road for me. I am not a divine moment-guy who can look back on a specific moment with internal fireworks, with an internal divine summons that led to pacing the floor at 3 a.m. with a blend of hand-wringing and awe about the call into the ministry. Not at all.

Service, generally, was the aim my parents instilled in me. I was baptized in my eighth year; of the tribe of the sumpterians [Sumpter: pack horse, any animal for carrying baggage], concerning law, dutiful to duties; concerning zeal, first-hand experience with the approval of sweet sweat.

In what way did my folks train me? Honor authority, give cheerful duty to others. Take out the trash, shovel snow, weed the flower beds, rake leaves, split wood, clean out the garage, and feed the animals, “boy…help your momma…and no backtalk.” Be sure and do it again, and this time with a broom and dust pan. Sounds harsh, but the aim was to teach responsibility.

As a pack horse, I have carried that mentality into the local church: I wanted to serve generally, in more of the abstract way [Nevin]. OK. So far, pretty good.

But Nevin talks about a peculiar order of the call into service. That has been the discipleship imparted to me. Back in 1987, I didn’t want to pursue the office of ruling elder. Then two-three years later, I didn’t want to pursue the office of minister. The reason? General service in the church was thought to be the beginning and ending of the call. I was content with the meaning and application of Nevin’s words: All are bound to serve one another. That clicked for me. Nevin requires something more—this peculiar order.

What is it that has given attention to the peculiar order of a ministerial calling? Patient pastors who have sprinkled my pathway. They have worked with me, guiding and modeling the way of the peculiar order of the set-apart call into office of the eldership.

In what way have they been patient? They have spoken up about the church and her doctrine in presbytery meetings. I have been there to watch and listen. They have spoken up about the improper administration of the sacraments—again, I am there watching and listening. They have showed a consistent concern about a learned, faithful ministry. They have worked with me on matters of order, structure and procedure. Maybe in short I would say God has been providing a 25+ year-apprenticeship for me. They have been showing me the church’s work; maybe it’s like the school of the prophets, an order of tradesmen, something like that. Men have showed me a view of the church with her vision for office, order, ministry, discipline and attention to the Word and her sacraments. Nevin says this too: Our view of this call will depend in some measure upon our view of the church. If we restrict the church, we will of course, limit the call. The call is regular when it proceeds from the proper authorities in the church.

Calling has come to be cemented for me over time, through the church and her work. I’ve learned that God bears me along via the teaching, modeling and discipleship of ordained men. They’ve shown me the trade of the pastorate. That has created more and more hunger to serve in this public, ordained office.

Maybe it’s being in a denomination like the OPC that has presbytery meetings and the like that provide learning and confirmation about calling. Calling into the regular and public office of ministry is rooted in the work of the church.

G. Mark Sumpter

Can I Get a Witness from Over 17,000?

We're thinking that 25,000+ children and students, along with their households, will be memorizing Scripture this summer!

This article says a ton about in-graining the brain and getting the body all buff with truth.

Here in Grants Pass, we're up to 25 students in the local contest of the National Bible Bee. It's to be held on August 28th at the building of one our own local churches of the Rogue Valley--Parkway Christian Center.

May God paint our churches with the demonstrative flair, eye-riveting sparkle of black and white as a result of churches knee-deep in 5 gallon cans of His truth!

What memory work in God's Word are you enjoying right now?

G. Mark Sumpter