Over eighty years ago, B.B. Warfield dubbed John Calvin "the theologian of the Holy Spirit." Since we've been preaching on the Holy Spirit, and since we're reading through Calvin's Institutes with the Advanced Year Porterbrook Omaha students, I thought it would be instructive to post some quotes from Calvin on the Holy Spirit.

Reason #4: Liturgy is Missional...The word liturgy comes from a Greek term that means “a public service.” Liturgy is designed to make Christian worship public – that is, accessible to outsiders! When it is properly explained and warmly engaged, liturgy creates an accessible “flow” that beckons outsiders in. Like a table of contents or a map, it makes unfamiliar territory familiar.

Reason #3: Liturgy is Formative...Our cultural institutions – education, media, corporations, government – have a liturgical motive. They want to shape us. They want to inculcate into us a certain “vision of the good life.” They want to make us into a certain kind of people – people who buy their products or are loyal to their cause or embrace their ideals. The liturgy of Christian worship is a subversive counter-measure against the shaping influence of culture. By using liturgy in worship, we are seeking to re-form or re-shape people according to the gospel. Rather than being defined by the world, we want them to take on the values of the kingdom of God.

Reason #2: Liturgy is Historical...Evangelicalism has produced a generation of Christians who have a vague sense that corporate worship is important, but have no idea why, or what (if any) form it should take, or whether there is even a biblical pattern for how the church should approach its Lord. They also lack a sense of history. They have little regard for the continuity of “the faith once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 1:3) throughout generations and centuries.

Visitors to Coram Deo’s worship gathering will immediately recognize the use of liturgy in our worship. We follow a definite pattern every week. We employ scripted confessions, creeds, prayers, and professions of faith to structure to our worship. The question is: why? This series of posts seeks to answer that question for those new to this type of worship and also for those called to lead it.Reason #1: Liturgy is Biblical

We've all said it: "The music at this church is really worshipful." Or, on the contrary, "I just can't worship to that music." Harold Best wants to point out the folly of such statements...We make and offer art because we worship; we should not make it to lead us into worship. It is erroneous to assume that the arts, and especially music, are to be depended on to lead to worship or that they are aids to worship or tools for worship. This thinking lies behind comments of this kind: "Your music really helped me worship." And to the contrary: "I could not worship because of the music." These comments, however innocently spoken, are dangerous, even pagan...

Coram Deo pastor Dusty White adapted the following diagram from Mike Wilkerson and Paul Tripp to describe the dynamics of how gospel counseling works.