Help me find a rogue OPC around Boston

BobVigneault · #1 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 09:32 AM

I was listening to the Whitehorse Inn from two weeks ago and Acts and Evangelism. It was a great show. At around 31 minutes a "Chuck" from Boston called in with some great comments. However, he said that his church is now discussing a 'seeker sensitive' approach. They want to invite people to "experience Jesus" in a contemporary service getting rid of hymnals and bibles and making use of their BIG screen.

Yes, it's a familiar story but as the incredulous Mike Horton, his crew and myself are saying. "THIS IS AN OPC CHURCH????!!!!"

Does anyone know which church he could be speaking about? I want to smoke these 'reprobates' out if, in fact, they really exist. Can anyone pick up the scent?

BobVigneault · #2 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 10:27 AM

I'm really not conducting a witch hunt but I am very interested in how OPC evangelism ought to look.

This is a photo from the worship service of New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Boston. Is this unique? Is this a trend? Is this in accordance with the Book of Church Order?

One of the links at their site is to 'A Puritan's Mind'. Do we have a PBer who attends NCPC and can help explain to me what appears to be a very exotic type of OPC 'experience'?

SRoper · #3 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 12:36 PM

Yawn. They still use an overhead projector--wake me up when they get Powerpoint.

wsw201 · #4 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 01:06 PM

This should not be happening in a OPC church. The DPW is apart of the OPC BCO and unlike the PCA, is constitutional. This type of "seeker sensitive" worship service goes against the DPW.

BobVigneault · #5 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 01:46 PM

BCO = Book of Church Order
DPW = Directory of Public Worship
OPC = Only Pharisaical Ch........ ooops, scratch that, Orthodox Presbyterian Church

This will help.
http://opc.org/order.html

wsw201 · #6 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trevorjohnson

Huh? Sorry, I don't speak OPC-ese..... can you give me the 411 about the DPW?

Your forgiven! Its rather lenghty so HERE is the link to it from the OPC website. In a nutshell, it follows the regulative principal.

BobVigneault · #7 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 01:53 PM

You're still the craziest Trevor! There was no salacious mention of any body part or it's augmentation in any portion of my post. Let's try to conduct ourselves as mature adults, OK poopypants?

wsw201 · #8 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 01:54 PM

Trevor,

If you're starting a poll I vote for the second one but the first is ok too.

victorbravo · #9 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobVigneault

I'm really not conducting a witch hunt but I am very interested in how OPC evangelism ought to look.

This is a photo from the worship service of New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Boston. Is this unique? Is this a trend? Is this in accordance with the Book of Church Order?

One of the links at their site is to 'A Puritan's Mind'. Do we have a PBer who attends NCPC and can help explain to me what appears to be a very exotic type of OPC 'experience'?

Yes, I agree. The cloth draped on the cross and those kneel pads at the front look very exotic to me too

.

By the way, Bob, I know you are not conducting a witch hunt, but what's that pitchfork doing behind your back?

OK, I'll be serious. If that picture is indeed a worship service, I'd say that particular OPC has strayed far from its charge. I hope it is something else. Maybe they were celebrating a spaghetti dinner downstairs. Even then. . . .

BobVigneault · #10 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 02:03 PM

Well Vic, if you follow that link you will see that this was their first worship service at that location back in 2003. They had just re-located at a Lutheran church so that would explain the kneel pad. I can't figure an explanation for the praise band.

I don't know if this is the same church that initiated my post, the fellow on the Whitehorse Inn said they have a big screen now.

Trevor: I'll get back to you as soon as I look up the word 'salacious'. I'm not sure what I said, it just sounded 'pointed'.

BobVigneault · #11 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 02:12 PM

Shucks, I thought it was a 'delicious salad', you know, sala(d)-(a)cious.

bookslover · #12 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 02:16 PM

You're going to condemn an entire congregation based on one photograph? How do you know that, despite the overhead projector, the congregation isn't still using the hymnals? Besides which, how does projecting the words on the wall violate the RPW? If anything, it helps people sing up instead of singing down into their hymnals. It seems to me that things like this are circumstances of worship.

And, as for the band, well, so what? Based on the types of musical instruments that appear in Scripture, there's more justification for the use of guitars and tambourines than for pianos and organs (not that I want to get rid of pianos and organs).

Unless there are weird things going on doctrinally, or unless the band and the overhead projector are symptomatic of other things we don't know about yet, I think you guys are making a mountain out of a molehill.

And, Bob, I don't see anything in the OPC's DPW about it being OK for guys to have hippie-hair, especially gray hippie-hair! (heh, heh)

victorbravo · #13 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bookslover

You're going to condemn an entire congregation based on one photograph? How do you know that, despite the overhead projector, the congregation isn't still using the hymnals? Besides which, how does projecting the words on the wall violate the RPW? If anything, it helps people sing up instead of singing down into their hymnals. It seems to me that things like this are circumstances of worship.

And, as for the band, well, so what? Based on the types of musical instruments that appear in Scripture, there's more justification for the use of guitars and tambourines than for pianos and organs (not that I want to get rid of pianos and organs).

Unless there are weird things going on doctrinally, or unless the band and the overhead projector are symptomatic of other things we don't know about yet, I think you guys are making a mountain out of a molehill.

And, Bob, I don't see anything in the OPC's DPW about it being OK for guys to have hippie-hair, especially gray hippie-hair! (heh, heh)

Richard, I don't have a dog in this fight, being a primitive (small "p") Baptist and all. I did look at the DPW and I didn't see anything about instruments, etc., so I think you may be right from a strict reading.

But still, if you look at the other pictures, they are using red hymnals. Surely you'd draw the line somewhere!

BobVigneault · #14 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 02:33 PM

Richard, I'm not going to condemn anyone. I'm trying to learn the boundaries of what we ought and ought not do in the OPC. I am on the Evangelism Committee but not growing up in an OPC church or even a reformed church I'm seeking to understand how we should go about evangelizing.

Hearing of a church in Boston that seems outside the rules has me very curious.

BobVigneault · #15 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 02:36 PM

Richard, I am NOT a hippie. I shower twice a week and get de-loused on a regular basis. The only shrooms I've ever tried are Portabellas.

KMK · #16 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 03:16 PM

At least the guy playing guitar is wearing a tie! Phew... (If he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, you know they're in trouble.)

LadyCalvinist · #17 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 04:38 PM

Bob, I have attended several OPC churches (before I joined the RPC), and there was one in New Jersey that was like that. For the summer they did hymns, but after labor day they got out their praise and worship music and forgot the hymns.
However, I also know of an OPC in MD that in addition to the hymnbook, also had the RPCNA psalter and sang 1 psalm at each service.
In my experience your more likely to find a band with a PCA church.

bookslover · #18 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobVigneault

Hearing of a church in Boston that seems outside the rules has me very curious.

Since the OPC is not a no-instruments denomination, there are no "rules" about instruments. Seeing more than just the standard piano and/or organ may be unusual, but it's certainly not unbiblical.

By the way: how long does it take you every morning to add all that gray to your hair? Seems like it would be a pain...

Kaalvenist · #19 (**permalink**) 08-08-2007, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bookslover

Since the OPC is not a no-instruments denomination, there are no "rules" about instruments. Seeing more than just the standard piano and/or organ may be unusual, but it's certainly not unbiblical.

By the way: how long does it take you every morning to add all that gray to your hair? Seems like it would be a pain...

Unless, of course, the use of any musical instruments in public worship is unbiblical... like Calvin said... and Knox... and Dabney...

JohnOwen007 · #20 (**permalink**) 08-08-2007, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaalvenist

Unless, of course, the use of any musical instruments in public worship is unbiblical... like Calvin said... and Knox... and Dabney...

So as an EPer you're happy to sing:

"Psal 150:3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD,"

but it must be without instruments?