It is good to see another book on the worship of the church. When we consider the importance the scriptures place on worship, it is an area in which we ought to examine ourselves continually. Over time we can pick up attitudes toward worship or certain elements of worship that we are not even aware of. We use the light of the word to uncover our biases in our worship of God continually.
In “Aiming to Please,” Rev. Bredenhof argues that we ought to take into account both the elements that God calls us to observe in his word, and the order God demonstrates in his word with regard to those elements. Arguably, in our history, the conversation about worship has narrowly focussed on the elements at the expense of thinking about order. Rev. Bredenhof rightly emphasizes both. After all, as reformed, we confess that worship is dialogical, and even the most basic dialogue has a recognizable order to it.
Another critical point for Dr. Bredenhof is the Regulative Principle of Worship; basically, we ought to worship according to the Word of God. He spends a fair bit of time defending it and arguing that it is foundational for Reformed worship. I’m not exactly sure why he puts such emphasis on this principle. Those whom he singles out for not emphasizing the Regulative Principle of Worship, would have few problems with the remaining content, of the book. In fact, they end up arguing for services, which are very close to his proposal. Regardless, he views a conscientious confession of the Regulative Principle of Worship as foundational to his work.
There is a lot to appreciate in his work. I especially note his work on the confession and absolution in the worship service, his work on the psalms, and his attention to detail.
Unfortunately, the confession and absolution was largely lost in the Dutch tradition, so I am happy to see Rev. Bredenhof bring back a heavy emphasis on it. While the denomination I grew up in, the United Reformed Churches, have largely regained the practice, the Canadian Reformed churches still have many churches that do not make this a regular part of their worship. If we are going to grow in our understanding of God’s holiness and the real challenge of our remaining sinfulness, we need a regular confession and absolution. The practice also helps anchor our identity in Christ, as we weekly deny ourselves, crucify the old man, and find full righteousness in our true identity.
Rev. Bredenhof’s work on the Psalms is fantastic. He didn’t fall into the trap of exclusive psalm-singing, which in my opinion is grounded in a juvenile hermeneutic of scripture. At the same time, he fully lays out the case for why the psalms are so essential to the Christian life. He calls for ministers to set up a system for singing the psalms so that they can be regularly sung through every year. It is too bad he is somewhat dismissive of the church calendar later on, for the Anglican and Lutheran liturgical years have resources that would give us a good place to start for such a project.
Finally, I appreciated his attention to detail. The scriptures give us a bounty of worship details and teaching for worship. Therefore it is good to ponder the details of worship. This does make me wonder why he fails to urge a greater frequency in communion. For we certainly have far more precedent for communion, at least weekly, than for many of the smaller details that he commends with high certainty. Nevertheless, the detail is appreciated and is often thought-provoking.
That brings me to a couple of negative criticisms. I did find the book overly reliant on abstractions, especially in its fundamentals. The simplest definition of the RPW is “the Bible forms our worship.” Or if you like, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image… you shall not bow down to them or serve them.” In this sense, every church will claim that they are following the RPW.
In fact, I would argue that historical Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican worship are all faithful to the RPW to varying degrees. A case could be made that worship service in a Conservative Lutheran Church is more faithful to the RPW than our own services. I am particularly thinking here of the structure of their service as found in the “Lutheran Service Book” of the LCMS. Ultimately the RPW is an abstraction and doesn’t really prove anything until you actually examine concrete “orders of the service” through the lens of scripture.
Another example of this is how he uses the rubric of “guilt, grace, and gratitude.” He argues that this order is foundational to the order of the service. Again this is another abstraction. It is helpful because it helps us see a common pattern. But it doesn’t really find a concrete reality until it finds a form in a sacrifice or the Lord’s Supper. On its own the pattern does nothing because it could merely be applied to a sermon structure. The entire liturgy could be the minister talking. That is actually where Rev. Bredenhof goes for that rubric, the “sermon” of Romans.
Another negative comment is regarding the lack of scripture. I was hoping for a robust Bible Study that allowed me to see how scripture forms our worship. I was somewhat disappointed. Like my comment about abstractions, this judgment is more of a comment on emphasis than a statement about the entire book. While Rev. Bredenhof does a good job of pointing to scripture, it ends up feeling somewhat piecemeal. He gives little insight into how our whole liturgical practice is an organic outgrowing from the whole of scripture.
That being said, I found value in the book. We live in a time, where, with regard to worship, every man does what is right in his own eyes. The commands of scripture and the witness of the church stand such an approach. The scriptures ought to form our worship. “Aiming to Please” is a good reminder of the importance and necessity of true biblical worship. A reminder, in a time when that is often questioned.