Pentecostal Worship, Preaching, and Ministry — Unit 1: Theology of Pentecostal Worship

Key Verse

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:24, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Define Christian worship as a response to who God is and what He has done, and explain why it is more than singing.

2. Explain what it means to worship "in spirit and truth" and why Pentecostals hold the Spirit and the Word together.

3. Describe worship as Trinitarian: to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.

4. Explain why Pentecostals expect to meet God in worship, and name the three parts of Steven Land's description of Pentecostal spirituality.

5. State three objections to Pentecostal worship and give the Pentecostal answer to each.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the classical Pentecostal tradition, for students who belong to it. It is conservative and Trinitarian. When it says "we," it means the Pentecostal churches that confess the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as one God and receive the Bible as the inspired and authoritative Word of God.

Other Christians worship differently, and many of them love the Lord deeply. We state their concerns fairly and then give our answer. Courses 1 to 3 told our history, our theology and our teaching on the gifts. This course asks a practical question: what do these convictions look like when God's people meet on Sunday, when a pastor stands to preach, and when a church serves its members through the week? We begin with worship, because everything else in church life grows from it.

What Worship Is

Worship is the whole response of a person and a people to the living God. It answers who He is and what He has done. It includes praise, thanks, prayer, listening to the Word, confession, giving and obedience. Singing is one part of worship, but it is not the whole.

The Bible uses several words for this. In the Old Testament the common Hebrew word means to bow down. In the New Testament the common Greek word, proskuneo, carries the same picture of falling down before a king. Another Greek word, latreia, means service. Paul uses it in Romans 12:1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." Here worship is a life offered to God, not only an hour spent in a building.

This matters for pastors. If we say that worship is only music, then a church that sings well believes it has worshiped, even if no one has prayed, repented or obeyed. Pentecostals sometimes fall into this mistake because our music is so prominent. The Bible gives a larger picture. Hebrews 13:15 says: "Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name." Praise with the lips and a surrendered life belong together.

In Spirit and Truth

In John 4 Jesus speaks with a Samaritan woman who asks where people should worship, on the mountain or in Jerusalem. Jesus tells her that the question of place is no longer the main one. He says that "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24). Worship is not tied to one building, one city or one set of forms.

The phrase "in spirit and truth" has been understood in several ways. Some take "spirit" to mean the human spirit, the inner person, so that worship must come from the heart and not only from outward form. Others take it to mean the Holy Spirit, who enables true worship. John's Gospel, which speaks often of the Spirit, gives good reason to hear both. Our worship must come from the inner person, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes it possible. "Truth" points to the Son, who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), and to the Word of God. Jesus prayed to the Father, "Your word is truth" (John 17:17).

This is why Pentecostals say that Spirit and Word belong together. Worship in the Spirit alone, without the truth of Scripture, can become excitement without direction. Worship in truth alone, without the Spirit, can become correct but cold. The Lord asks for both. A Pentecostal service should be a place where Scripture is read, preached and believed, and where the Spirit is welcomed to move.

Worship Is Trinitarian

Our worship is Trinitarian, as Courses 2 and 3 have shown our theology to be. Christians worship the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Paul gives this pattern in Ephesians 2:18: "For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father."

To the Father. The Father is the one to whom Jesus taught us to pray. We come to Him as His children.

Through the Son. We have no access to God by our own merit. Jesus Christ is our Mediator and High Priest. Whenever we pray "in Jesus' name," we confess that we come through His finished work. We also worship the Son Himself, as the disciples did when they met the risen Lord (Matthew 28:9, 17).

In the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the One who makes Christ known, stirs our hearts, helps our weakness in prayer, and gives gifts for the building up of the church. The Spirit does not draw attention to Himself. Jesus said that the Spirit would glorify Him (John 16:14). Any worship that makes a person, a style or an experience the center has lost its direction. The Holy Spirit leads us to Christ, and Christ leads us to the Father.

This pattern also protects the church from error. We answer Oneness teaching, which Course 2 examined, in part by pointing to how Scripture itself speaks of prayer and worship: to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.

Why Pentecostals Expect to Meet God

If one idea stands behind Pentecostal worship, it is expectation. Pentecostals come to church expecting God to be present and to act. We expect Him to speak through Scripture and preaching, to touch people in prayer, to heal, to convict, to comfort and to empower. The word often used is "encounter." We believe that the God who met His people at Pentecost still meets His people.

This expectation rests on promises. Jesus said, "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). The Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, and Peter said that the promise was "to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off" (Acts 2:39). The early church in Antioch gives a picture of worship in which God speaks to a gathered people: "As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, 'Separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them'" (Acts 13:2). Worship there was not a performance. It was a meeting in which the Lord gave direction.

Land's three parts

The Pentecostal theologian Steven J. Land, in Pentecostal Spirituality (1993), argued that Pentecostalism is best understood as a unity of three things: right belief, right practice and right affections or passions. The terms usually given are orthodoxy, orthopraxy and orthopathy. Right belief means sound doctrine. Right practice means obedient living and service. Right affections means a heart that loves, longs for and rejoices in God.

This is a helpful way to see worship. Good worship teaches sound doctrine, sends people into obedient service, and moves the heart. If a church has only doctrine, its people may know much and love little. If it has only emotion, its people may feel much and know little. If it has only activity, its people may work hard and forget why. Pentecostal worship, at its best, holds all three. We cite Land here as a scholar to read and weigh, not as an authority equal to Scripture.

Body and Voice

Pentecostal worship uses the whole person. The Bible does not describe a silent, still congregation as the only pattern. It speaks of raised hands (1 Timothy 2:8 mentions "lifting up holy hands"), kneeling, shouting for joy, clapping, singing and dancing. Psalm 150:4 says, "Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!" The final verse of the Psalter says, "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!" (Psalm 150:6).

Pentecostals also pray aloud together, sing in tongues, speak words of prophecy, and respond to preaching with "Amen." Paul speaks of this when he writes, "I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding" (1 Corinthians 14:15). Notice that he does not choose between spirit and understanding. He wants both. Later units take up how the service is ordered (Unit 2) and how we sing (Unit 3).

In many cultures of Latin America and Africa, expressive worship fits local life. People sing, move and speak with feeling in everyday celebration. A Pentecostal church can worship in a way that is true to Scripture and also true to its own people. At the same time, a body movement is not holy because it is loud. The test is not volume but whether the worship honors Christ and builds up the people.

Objections to Pentecostal Worship and Our Answers

A pastor should be ready to hear honest criticism. Here are three common objections, stated as their holders would state them.

Objection 1: Pentecostal worship is emotionalism.

Critics, including some evangelicals and some scholars, say that Pentecostal services depend on emotion, music and group excitement, and that feelings are being mistaken for the work of God.

Our answer. The warning is fair. Feelings can be stirred by many things, and a skilled leader can create an atmosphere without any work of the Spirit. Jonathan Edwards, whose Distinguishing Marks (1741) is a source for the discernment unit of Course 3, said that the test of a work is whether it exalts Christ and leads to a holy life, not whether emotions are strong or weak. But Scripture does not teach a cold faith. Psalm after psalm calls for joy, tears, shouting and longing. After the ascension the disciples worshiped Jesus and returned to Jerusalem with great joy (Luke 24:52). Emotion is not the problem; emotion without truth, or emotion used to manipulate, is the problem. Our answer is not less feeling but tested feeling, joined to the Word.

Objection 2: We should do in worship only what Scripture commands.

Many Reformed churches follow what is called the regulative principle: because worship belongs to God, the church should include only the elements that Scripture commands, such as prayer, reading and preaching the Word, singing, and the sacraments. Critics say that Pentecostal spontaneity and expressive practices go beyond this.

Our answer. We honor the concern that worship must belong to God, not to our taste. We too begin with Scripture, and we ask that nothing in worship contradict it. But we find that the Bible itself describes a wide range of expression: the Psalms speak of dancing, clapping, instruments and lifted hands, and Paul describes a Corinthian meeting in which each one "has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation" (1 Corinthians 14:26). Paul does not forbid these. He asks that "all things be done for edification." Where the Bible commands or models something, we do it. Where it is silent, we ask whether it is consistent with Scripture and builds up the church.

Objection 3: Pentecostal worship puts experience above the Word.

Some say that Pentecostals trust what they feel more than what is written.

Our answer. Our founders and our best teachers have always said that experience must be judged by Scripture. Paul commands, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The Bereans were praised because they "searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). If an experience contradicts the Bible, we reject the experience. We add only this: the Bible itself records experience of God, such as Isaiah in the temple and the disciples at Pentecost, and does not treat it with suspicion. A church that fears all experience has not understood Acts. We seek the Spirit and the Word together.

The Pastor's Role

The pastor is the chief worship leader, even if someone else leads the singing. The pastor sets the spiritual direction. Four tasks belong to him or her.

First, the pastor teaches the church why it worships. People who understand the purpose of worship worship better.

Second, the pastor guards the center. Every element should lead to Christ and to the Word. Where a song, a testimony or a manifestation draws attention to a person, the pastor gently redirects.

Third, the pastor makes room for the Spirit. A pastor who plans everything and leaves no space for prayer or response has not trusted the promise of Jesus to be among His people.

Fourth, the pastor cares for the people. Some in the room are grieving, some are new, some are ill, and some have come from churches where worship was very different. A good leader welcomes all.

Pastoral Application

A pastor in a small town takes over a church known for lively worship. The singing is loud and the services are long, but he notices that the people rarely open their Bibles and that the prayers are the same few sentences each week. A deacon tells him, "The people love our worship. Do not change anything." Another member, new to the church, tells him quietly that she feels she is watching a concert.

The pastor does not scold the church or cancel the music. First, he prays and asks the Lord what He is saying. Second, he teaches a short series on John 4:24 and Romans 12:1, so that the people learn that worship includes Scripture, prayer and obedience as well as song. Third, he asks the worship team to begin each service with a short reading from the Psalms, and he leaves time for quiet prayer and for people to respond. Fourth, he speaks with the deacon privately, thanking him for the church's zeal and explaining that he wants to keep the fire and add the Word, not remove one for the other. Over months the church learns that Spirit and truth go together.

Summary

Worship is the whole response of a person and a people to God, expressed in praise, prayer, listening to the Word, giving and obedience. Jesus taught that true worshipers worship "in spirit and truth," so Pentecostals hold the Spirit and the Word together. Our worship is Trinitarian, offered to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals come expecting to meet God, and Steven Land describes Pentecostal spirituality as a unity of right belief, right practice and right affections. We worship with the whole person, but we test every practice by Scripture. We answer three objections: emotionalism, the regulative principle, and experience above the Word. The pastor leads by teaching, guarding the center on Christ, making room for the Spirit, and caring for people.

Further Reading

• Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality (1993).

• Wolfgang Vondey, Pentecostal Theology (2017).

• Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (2nd ed., 2014).

• Frank D. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit (2006).

• Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741), a primary source.

• The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles, 1906-1908), a primary source.

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