Call To Salvation

Robbie Castleman sits on a stool at the front of a class of young men and women at John Brown University in Siloam Springs.

“So what are you reading?” she asks, getting a variety of answers from her students about their personal daily devotionals.

The book of Isaiah, the gospel of John and the parables of James, various students respond.

Castleman is a professor of biblical studies and theology.

Her class includes students who hope to one day be in positions of leadership in churches.

But Castleman’s might seem a strange position for a child without a faith.

“I had wonderful, loving, supporting parents,” Castlemansaid. “They just weren’t Christian.”

Castleman said she remembers lying in bed, hearing her mother rattling pots and pans in the kitchen and her father playing on an organ.

“I just wanted to be grateful,” she said. “I remember weeping from joy I didn’t understand. I didn’t know how to pray. No one ever taught me.”

Castleman became a Christian during her college years, and her parents followed her a few years later. But Castleman continued to search.

“I had no model for faith,” she said. “I had no church history or doctrine or theology. I knew the Lord shepherded me through the day, but I didn’t understand what worship was. I thought it was about me, about what I needed.”

Castleman found the model where Christians search for answers - in Scripture. She shares her findings in a book, “Story-Shaped Worship: Following Patterns Fromthe Bible and History” (Intervarsity Press, 2013; $20).

STYLE DOESN’T MATTER

“Story-shaped liturgy is outlined in Scripture, enacted in Israel, refocused in the New Testament community of the early church, regulated and guarded by the apostolic fathers, recovered in the Reformation and still shapes the liturgy of many congregations today,” reads her introduction to the book.

The story is God’s salvation as told in the Bible. The shape is “God’s design for worship that is focused on God’s pleasure,” also outlined in the Bible, Castleman writes.

“If worship doesn’t carry the shape of Salvation, it’s not pleasing to God,” Castleman said.

The model Castleman reintroduced to her studentsWednesday included these steps: the call (to worship), praise, confession, the Gospel, the Word, response and blessing.

The order seems familiar to many who worship in reform traditions - Protestant denominations and congregations that follow the theology and practice of Reformation-era theologians - who have the liturgical history.

“But we have no idea why we do what we do,” Castleman said. “Why does the choir wear robes? Why do wehave communion? Because ‘It’s just the way we do it.’”

Many leading and worshiping in the newer evangelical churches, however, do nothave that history, Castleman continued. “They are well-intentioned and talented and energetic. People leave saying, ‘Worship was great! We really had fun!’

“But traditional versus contemporary, that’s style,” she said. “And liturgy has nothing to do with style. Style doesn’t matter.”

Castleman often works as a worship consultant for churches across the nation. She said she usually finds dissension between those who like the two different styles of worship.

“But as they continue to bring in newcomers, the fi rstthing to go is confession of sin,” she discovered. “They don’t want to talk about the bad stuff. They don’t want the new people to be off ended.

“But the Gospel offends,” she insisted. “The good news is the bad news.”

Castleman then works with congregations to find a way to include confession in a contemporary worship service and help traditionalists understand the story and shape.

“Worship is a gift to God, a congregation’s thanks offering,” Castleman said. “But just because we like it, doesn’t mean God likes it.God doesn’t accept what we want.”

Castleman likened it to a children’s birthday party when a little girl gives “Biblical Barbie” to a little boy who’s into soccer.

“You’re not giving a gift suitable to that person,” she said.

God gives the model for what not to do in worship in Scripture, exemplifi ed by the rejection of offerings from Cain (Gen. 4), Uzziah (2 Chronciles 26) and Isaiah (Isaiah 1), Castleman said.

“God has said, in Genesis through Revelation, ‘Thisshows that I’m honored.’”

“This pattern is the shape of Salvation,” Castleman continued. “You cannot drop out if you don’t like it.

“We have the good news of Salvation because we had the bad news of Jesus’ persecution. After that, how can we give a gift worthy of the Lord?”

Castleman feels her students - many of whom already lead worship in their churches - are up to the challenge.

“Hopefully, the Lord will be well-honored by the shape of their worship,” she said.