Discerning the Body

In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul attempts to point out and correct many of their failures to live in ways that honor Christ. In chapter 11, he deals with some specific behavior as they met together. He goes so far as to say that the way they were ignoring one another as they came together to observe the Lord’s Supper was possibly causing more harm than good – a very sobering possibility that I am sure neither they, nor we, rarely consider.

In light of Paul’s criticism of their behavior regarding failure to include each other, we must conclude that above all else the Lord’s Supper is an event that should include the entire assembled body of Christians. Therefore, the recognition or discernment of the body of the Lord not only refers to the sacrificed physical body of Jesus, but the proper recognition that those of us who are Christians compose His spiritual body. We have in common that we are all covered by His blood, regardless of differences. And we will remember, not only that He shed His blood, but what that blood bought – our salvation. Since we have all sinned, it is only His sacrifice, His blood that covers us and separates us from those yet uncovered.

Regarding the use of a cappella music during the communion service, the elders have found no scriptural directive other than Paul’s urging that we “discern/recognize” the body of Christ as we participate together in the Lord’s Supper. After several weeks of implementation and inviting your input through a brief survey, the elders have decided to periodically use a cappella music, with or without lyrics, during the Lord’s Supper. This means music will not be used every time we commune. We thank all of you who expressed your wishes. As we consider other members of the body of Christ meeting together to worship God and remember our Lord Jesus who died for each of us, may we not discern/see our differences but only the precious blood that covers us all.

Ike Sawyer

For the Elders

4-Part Worship: An Introduction

No, that’s not your mind playing tricks. It says 4-Part Worship, not Harmony. 

The elders and ministers studied the subject of worship over several months in 2019. Through study and prayer in many meetings, we shared our views on worship with each other. We will describe the outcome of those discussions in five articles in the weeks to come.

Ned Hermann, a physicist for GE, discovered many decades ago that the brain functions in four quadrants. Ned’s work resulted in his developing the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument, HBDI. When considering a topic, the brain asks four questions – what, how, who and why. Each of these questions is associated with a specific quadrant of the brain – upper left, lower left, lower right and upper right. 

As a different way of looking at things, four different elders will write four different articles over the next several weeks to describe our opinions about worship by answering the questions what, how, who and why – 4-Part Worship.

We hope this set of articles produces a picture of worship as we think about it. Taken together, the four articles, plus this introduction and a conclusion, will describe our view of worship overall. Hermann refers to this as the Whole Brain answer. I will see you in the last article of the six to offer a conclusion.

These articles will be available in the bulletin and on our website under a new link, From the Elders, as we publish them.

Mike Blevins

For the Elders