Walk into any corporate worship service today and you will almost certainly observe that the congregational singing is accompanied by instruments. There is no doubt that the common worship style of today, filled with various instruments and too often supplemented by stage lights and smoke machines, differs significantly from the worship one would have observed in a seventeenth-century Reformed church. Continue reading →

When I first read Calvin’s Institutes, the clarity with which he described the absolute transcendence and holiness of God struck me, especially as I considered how often my younger, more charismatic self was willing and eager to dismiss concerns about my preferences in worship, even if the concerns came from Scripture itself. Continue reading →

During the summer before my freshman year of high school, I volunteered at my church’s Vacation Bible School program to lead games for the preschoolers. Something I noticed was that the students were more likely to listen to directions to do something than directions not to do something. I remember telling a girl to please refrain from putting her hands into the water bucket. And what do you think she did? She put her hands in the water bucket. Continue reading →