The church I've been attending has started including as part of their worship service responsive reading from the Heidelberg Confession, as well as the some of the creeds. Its been a blessing to me to read the Heidelberg Confession, its new to me.

I was browsing through the Heidelberg Confession last night and this morning and I was thinking its a shame resources such as this aren't used by more churches. Dumb question, but why don't more churches use them? I know from my experience that some churches say in effect, "We don't need them. We believe the Bible'. Sounds good at face value, but the faith is so well articulated in the confessions, seems a shame not to use them.

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B.Howes
Framingham, MA

I will go out on a limb here and say that I actually prefer that such resources are not used, at least in the formal worship service. Even if the confessions are a faithfully summary of the faith, why not rather have a responsive reading of the scriptures themselves? Why not read directly from the scripture proofs that the framers of the confessions relied on in writing the confessions?

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Mark
Independent baptist
Singapore

I can't say that I'd prefer reading confessions over reading scriptures, but I do like the idea of reading the confessions. What would make it even better would be to read the confession as a congregation, then have the pastor preach on it.

How about have the pastor preach from the texts contained in the Confessions; his job is to exegete Scripture and not the confessions after all.

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

That's a good idea.

I don't know if most consider it inappropriate to recite confessions during the worship service. It just seems a shame that such excellent resources aren't used at all in many (and in my experience, most) churches, nor are people encouraged to read them.

I've seen the confessions used as responsive reading in addition to, not instead of Scritpure. From time to time, our pastor will read from the confessions if it goes along with the sermon. In my last church, we often went through an entire section of the confessions over a period of weeks, but it was never instead of the weekly Scripture readings.

I don't like the idea of doing it routinely, but from time to time, it is a good for the congregation to be reminded of our connections with the past and what our church believes and has believed for a long time. This is especially helpful if the pastor is preaching on a doctrine that is difficult for some to grasp (like predestination). To me, it is no different than a pastor reading what a commentator has to say about a difficult passage of Scripture that we are studying.

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J Baldwin
Keowee Presbyterian Church, PCA
Pickens, SC
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27

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Agreed. I think it is fitting to read confessions during the worship service, since they are good summaries of the faith. If we are preaching, however, it should be direct from Scripture (which, would be easy to do and follow the confessions....since the confesssions contain proof-texts)