Ascending Mt. Zion
For the upcoming Lord’s Day May 4th, 2025
Bonhoeffer’s Vision of Life Together
Solomon’s Porch’s worship ethos is something we call “Sacred Family.” What does SPCC mean when we say we want our worship to have a “Sacred Family” feel? I am a Dietrich Bonhoeffer fan. Despite his shortcomings, common to Europeans of the mid-twentieth century, he made significant contributions to the life of the Church. One of my favorite devotional books is Life Together. Bonhoeffer wrote it while teaching in a mobile seminary. They were mobile to hide from the Nazis. In the face of the German State Lutheran Church’s obeisance to Hitler, faithful German Christians were left with the need to build something new. That is at least part of what makes Life Together valuable. Its context. He was an authentic Christian—part of a remnant in a broken Evangelical Church–dreaming of ways to build back better.
The Modern Challenge: Consumerism vs. Christianity
I believe American Christians face a similar context, minus the war. The hard truth is that major portions of Evangelicalism have already defected from traditional Christianity. They did so without a gun to their head. Consumer culture was a slower leaven than Adolf Hitler, but a more complete one. Hitler leavened the church with the threat of violence and was swept away by the sword. The German Church bowed the knee to the Third Reich because they feared man more than God. Modern Christians, however, bowed the knee through the slow process of consumerism appealing to our passions.
The Worship Shift: From Entertaining Man to Glorifying God
Consumer economies appeal to our base desires. They break down our sales resistance and corrode our impulse control. Appealing to felt needs became such an accepted practice in America that the Church began patterning worship services after concerts and popular talk shows. The mission was to spread the word. We needed crowds to do that. Those cultural forms drew crowds. You can draw your own map from there. The end justified the means. In the hands of Christian utilitarians, the worship of God turned from Man entertaining God into Man using God to entertain men.
Historical Christianity Was Always Liturgical
One day I asked, “What did the church look like in 100 AD, 400 AD, 700 AD, 1000 AD, 1300 AD, 1700 AD?” I chose snapshots every few hundred years to get an overall flavor. The one constant I discovered was that the church was always liturgical. It was never a ruleless kumbaya around a campfire or some laid-back rap sesh about how much Jesus loves us. They didn’t scratch consumer itches because God was the consumer of their worship. He was their audience. Therefore, they filled their time together with Scripture readings, songs of praise, times of confession, prayers, hymns, Scripture lessons, sacrament, thanksgiving, etc. Whether we find the content of worship boring or not is beside the point. The question is, “Does God find it boring?”
Solomon’s Porch: A Conscious Return to Liturgical Worship
When I began Solomon’s Porch way back in 2012 as an interior ministry within another church, I began it as a conscious return to a liturgical form of worship. I designed our liturgy around the Four T’s of Acts 2:42: Truth (Apostles’ Doctrine), Together (Fellowship), Table (Lord’s Table), and Throne (Prayers). However, returning to liturgy was only one part of the equation. I also had a desire to defragment public worship.
The Biblical Basis for a Multi-Generational Worship
What I mean is simply that I wanted to include children in the public worship of God and keep the church together as a body for discipleship purposes as much as possible. The idea comes from places like Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 29:9-13, and Psalm 145:3-5…
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might…” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
“Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.“You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God: the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, 11 your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, 12 so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is making with you today, 13 that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob (Deuteronomy 29:9-13).
“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,and his greatness is unsearchable. 4 One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. 5 On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate(Psalm 145:3-5).”
There in Psalm 145:3-5, you see a picture of my idea in print. Our children, the next generation, should be surrounded by our praise of God for His unsearchable greatness and our meditation on His majesty and wondrous works.
Sacred Family: A Vision for the Church
I coined the phrase Sacred Family spontaneously in 2016 during a book study of Life Together. I said to a group of guys that what I thought Bonhoeffer was trying to do was to make the Church into a “Sacred Family.” He was imagining reforms in practice and attitude for a newly formed German Church after the war.
Sacred Family is the phrase I’ve used to describe the ethos of Solomon’s Porch ever since. We want the worship of God to be sacred. We desire a holy attitude and to inspire holiness in life through word and worship. But we also want children to be able to cry and for toddlers to behave like toddlers—because they are. We want our children to learn the songs of Zion by hearing our voices ringing in their ears.
Every week two little girls come up to help lead worship with their father. Sometimes, the younger of the two will go back to her mom mid-song. For us, that is not a distraction; it is holy. It is emblematic of Sacred Family.
The Common Meal: Declaring the Gospel Through Fellowship
The common meal we share between the sermon and the Lord’s Table also builds this ethos. In the ancient world, families of different ethnicities did not eat together. For instance, the Egyptians viewed eating with Hebrews as an abomination (Genesis 43:32). The early church’s common meal declared the Gospel’s power to make one people out of many. Peter’s refusal to eat with Gentiles destroyed that Gospel witness, which Paul confronted (Galatians 2:11-14). To refuse the common meal was to deny the oneness all believers have in Christ.
Worshiping As A Sacred Family
We see then that our common meal is part of our liturgy, not an afterthought. It promotes the establishment of a Household of God, where God provides for all of life (common meal) and all of faith (sacred meal). He is the God of our “already” and our “not yet.” And, while we live in the already awaiting the not yet we want our children and grandchildren tumbling around with us as we worship and learn of Him “Who dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16).
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Thanks For Stopping By
If you are not a member at SPCC, thanks for reading “From Consumers to Living Sacrifices” What comes after this section may not mean much to you. However, I always write a little piece at the front of this missive on Wednesdays so don’t be shy, go ahead and SUBSCRIBE. Every little encouragement helps and I write several pieces a week.
Sermon
This week Pastor Jeremy will be in Acts 22:23-30
Memory & Meditation
Memory & Meditation Verses for this Prayer Book are 1 Corinthians 15:35-49.
SPCC Prayer Book: Celebrating the Resurrection
M & M Verses for the Lord’s Day April 27th, 2025
But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. (1 Corinthians 15:38-39).”
Current M & M Essay Series: Putting On Immortality based on 1 Corinthians 15:35-37.
Previous M & M Essay Series
Forsaken For Us All Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 based on Psalm 22:1-15
Christ, His Church, & Marriage Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 based on Ephesians 5:22-33.
Catechism Questions
Westminster Shorter Catechism: Questions 16-20
Remember that you can present Questions 11-15, our WSC Catechism Questions from last month, to any member of the Consistory during lunch starting this week.
Lord’s Day Meal
Yes,!
Psalms & Hymns of Worship
Psalm 62:5-8 Tune: St. Ann & Hymn – And Can It Be
Psalm 61:1-14 Tune: Ortonville Hymn- Arise My Soul Arise
No Midweek Worship
Our next Midweek Worship will be May 7th, 2025
Join Us for Worship
Finally, come and worship with us on the Lord’s Day. We also meet on three Wednesday evenings a month for Catechism Lesson & Prayer. Another Visit our Homepage or What We Believe for more information. Find us on Google Maps or watch our sermons on Youtube.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!
Pastor Jeremy
“The Creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite, and at the same time, the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells of God.” – John Calvin
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