Our response to God should rightly involve our whole being: our mind, conscience, feeling and convictions. We should respond to our Saviour with not only rational assent or practical obedience, but the right ordering and stirring of our affections, too. But it is possible for us to ironically cast a narrow vision of holistic Christian experience. We can speak about the whole person worshipping the Lord, but largely in the arenas of personal Bible reading and prayer, and singing in church. In this article I want to mention a few additional ways to stir the religious affections.
The Whole of Creation Is the Theatre of God’s Glory
On the Saturday night the 11th May, we Tasmanians were witnesses to an astonishing display of the Aurora Australis: rippling curtains of green and blue and pink visible to the naked eye (and more vivid still with even a phone camera); beams shooting up to midheaven, pulsing light as if some portal was about to open, like in a Marvel movie. What a spectacle! Psalm 19 immediately came to mind:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world. (verses 1–3)
An emphasis on holism and integration is strengthened by placing the whole of ourselves in the context of the whole of creation. Our whole-hearted, whole-self response to God and his word is a subset of our whole-hearted, whole-self existence as his creatures: it is who we are. And as God’s creatures we walk through his whole world of sound and sight and smell and taste and touch. All of our experience is a gift of God for which we should give thanks, all of it is a reflection of God’s glory for which he should be worshipped and adored.
There is a distinct value of God’s special revelation in Christ and in Scripture. God’s general revelation does not save; it does not teach us how to worship God and live lives that please God; it does not bring us into personal relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But foster a spirituality of thanksgiving and worship in response to aurorae and cheeseburgers and pets and ocean swims and rock music and grandchildren playing and dahlias and you are fostering a four-dimensional Christian spirituality that flows over into church life, ministry and mission, too. We minister, mature, evangelise and encourage as creatures in our Father’s creation.
Preaching to the Affections
You might get the impression that Reformed evangelicals think that to give attention to the aesthetic qualities of our church meetings is to be an unspiritual pragmatist, to consider the emotional impact of church music is to be on the precipice of Pentecostal theology. It is important to make a case for a faithful diligence in the matter of leading church gatherings and godly discipleship of the whole person, including their emotions. And when it comes to congregational life, there is more to stirring the religious affections than singing. The whole church meeting can play a part in this—as can the informal time together before and afterwards.
One very significant aspect of church services that addresses the whole person is preaching. In many contexts, Reformed evangelicals in Australia can be as suspicious of striving for excellent preaching as we are of striving for excellent music. As a result, our preaching can be as vanilla as our corporate singing. Yet preaching undoubtedly has great power to not only instruct the mind but also appeal to the conscience, imagination, will and affections. Reformed evangelical Christianity has a long history of such preaching.
I long for Australian preachers to show care in their exegesis, their systematics and their homiletics. I want preachers who are eager to cut through—to arrest the attention of their congregations, including the distracted, apathetic, doubting and unbelieving; to genuinely apply a soothing balm to the hearts of those who are in turmoil; to rally and inspire God’s people for generous good deeds and zealous ministry and mission. Such preaching is made possible by asking for it in Jesus’ name; by exegesis that uncovers the intent of Scripture not merely its propositional content; by the integrity of the godly life. Such preaching is also made possible by a holy desire for preaching to achieve its purpose and for a faithful attention to the craft of communication.
