I have an issue at my church.
We typically sing happy birthday to members of the congregation during the worship service.
It is after we sing some hymns and before the preaching.
I have expressed concern over it when my wife had her birthday and I was told my concerns are petty.

Not just to clarify, this IS considered part of our worship.

I was told that we are worshiping by thanking God for the person and the milestone in their life.

To make matters worse, the pastor is my father but I am married and have my own family to look after.

I do not want to cause problems but feel it would be idolotrous to allow people to sing to me or my family in a time of worship.

I have two questions:

Am I just being petty?
And do you have any advice?

__________________
Dale Cosby
Kirklin, Indiana
Member of Faith and Family Baptist Church
Independent and Reforming Baptist.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever

One reaction suffices:



My church deals with birthdays by having everyone for that month who has a birthday coming to the front during the offertory where the pastor specifically prays for them.

I'd be profoundly disturbed if my church sang "Happy Birthday" to me or anyone else during worship.

__________________
Scott - Dallas, Texas - PCA

"It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do." - Edmund Burke

Mr. Cosby, is there any way you and your family could stay out of the congregation whilst it does the aforementioned?

__________________
Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC, Attending CCRPC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

You are not being petty. It is not appropriate to sing happy birthday in church. The way to approach the situation is to approach the leadership, which it sounds like you have done. If they disagree with your position, then ok and I think you have to accept the situation as it is and with its flaws. I don't think this is something serious enough to do something drastic over (leave the church or whatever). It is important to be able to put up with problems and error while we pray and do other things to work for change.

As long as your wife does not want happy birthday sung to her, I would suggest that you just ask the leadership to not sing, saying she would not like it.

Those are my two cents, anyway.

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Scott Roberts
Ruling Elder, Lakeside Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Southlake, Texas

No I don't think it is petty. It is the Lord's Day; that should suffice as an answer.

However you could ask them if it in any way fits with Hebrews 12:28-29.

Ask them if birthdays have anything to do with the Christian faith. Not that I believe that celebrating birthdays is wrong but they are really are a cultural practice and not dogma.

Besides if you have asked them to not do it they should, at the very least, respect your wishes as a brother in the Lord.

__________________
Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
Church Blog

"there is no creature, either in heaven or on earth, who loves us more than Jesus Christ"
Belgic Confession, Article 26

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This is what we have done so far

__________________
Dale Cosby
Kirklin, Indiana
Member of Faith and Family Baptist Church
Independent and Reforming Baptist.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever

The problem is made worse by the fact that is it my dad who is hte pastor and we do not have plural elders.
There is no other recourse.

__________________
Dale Cosby
Kirklin, Indiana
Member of Faith and Family Baptist Church
Independent and Reforming Baptist.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever

This is how I would approach the situation, not withstanding what I mentioned above in question form:

1. Approach the elders with utmost respect and humility, and give them your thoughts on the matter.

-It's not biblical, etc.
-It's a binding of others' consciences with things that are not approved/commanded in Scripture

2. As a silent protest, but still with respect and humility, I would stay out of the congregation during this portion of singing.

3. Pray for your church, leadership, concerning this. They're a reforming Baptist Church, so it's just another excess that is yet to be cut away.

__________________
Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC, Attending CCRPC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

This is what I would continue to do, personally.

__________________
Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC, Attending CCRPC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

I might add that another complication is that I am the music leader.
It is easy for my wife and daughter to leave for the nursery.
It is quite another as I am on the platform.

__________________
Dale Cosby
Kirklin, Indiana
Member of Faith and Family Baptist Church
Independent and Reforming Baptist.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever

We are going to try.
It will be harder in July when it is my turn.

__________________
Dale Cosby
Kirklin, Indiana
Member of Faith and Family Baptist Church
Independent and Reforming Baptist.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever

Not that it will help necessarily, but our congregation puts the names of members who are celebrating their birthdays that week in the bulletin. That way people can still be congratulated without it having to interfere with our worship of God.

__________________
Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
Church Blog

"there is no creature, either in heaven or on earth, who loves us more than Jesus Christ"
Belgic Confession, Article 26

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

The fact that they don't honor the binding of your conscience is mind boggling. The justification they use for doing it is gut-wrenching. Worship is about God, not us and our meager lives and God. God alone.

__________________
Andrew DeShazo, Deacon, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
"All of us stumble in many ways, but if anyone is never at fault in what he says, then he is mature, able to control his whole body."(James 3:2)

I might add that I am not sure what would happen if we stayed in the service during that time.
When I first apprached with my concerns, I was just told that I was petty and that was it.
Being unsure of what would happen, I just have not given the opportunity.

__________________
Dale Cosby
Kirklin, Indiana
Member of Faith and Family Baptist Church
Independent and Reforming Baptist.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever

Sorry, Brother.

A thought from Jeremiah Burroughs (paraphrased) that may be applicable with this come July:
That, of course, is much easier typed than done in my own life.

__________________
Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC, Attending CCRPC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Sorry to hear this, brother. It seems like the pulpit these days is up for just about any public use - it is no longer the exclusive property of communicating the gospel (which, IMHO, is what it should remain exclusively). Is there perhaps an elder congregant who would be better suited to talking to your father about it - someone that he would be more likely to listen to? (I know I'd find it difficult to hear this sort of thing from my son... I may listen with more patience to a peer or someone older.)

__________________
Kevin
Far East
Deacon, Int'l Church

I'm not sure it is definitely against the RPW to sing happy birthday.

Would it be against the RPW to thank God for certain members of the congregation? To thank him that they have been preserved for the past year, and ask for His blessing on them for the coming year?

Assuming the church was not EP, if it is permissible to say or pray these things, is it not also permissible to sing them?

Personally I find the whole idea incredibly naff. I have been in churches which did sing Happy Birthday, and I always found it cringe worthy, and distracting from the main purpose of the service, but I am not so sure that it is always wrong that I would walk out for the duration, though I might be tempted to.

Is it wrong to read out birthdays during a service? Is it wrong to announce other major life events - births, deaths, engagements and marriages?

__________________
T W Hopper
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church
Currently between churches since PRC closed here - attending Crossroads Christian Church.
Canberra, Australia.

Does your church have a fellowship time before or after the worship service? Perhaps you could suggest that they honor the birthdays during that time.

Our church doesn't do anything at the moment. At my last church, they were listed in the bulletin, and the pastor sent the person a card on their birthday.

__________________
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

Check Out My Blog: http://reflectjoy.blogspot.com/

It is wrong? Yes - can it be reformed? - time will tell - approach the subject with gentleness and persistence.

__________________
-JD
1Thess5:21
Ordained Deacon, PCA
Serving in the SBC
MS

My links: ChristianSkepticism.org | personal | facebook | Prescriptive Psalmody

Can they not sing happy birthday after the service if they really must.

__________________
Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

I'm not sure I can understand what part of worship such singing has. It's not worship song - God isn't being praised, but nice wishes are being wished upon someone in the congregation. There are PLENTY of opportunities for that - and it has no place in worship whatsoever.

Certainly valid, and good examples of edifying prayer.

Because, again, who is the focus of the whole congregation's attention at that moment? Someone other than the only proper focus, God almighty.

This is why churches which worship according to principles consistent with (even if not fully) the RPW never announce such things within the bounds of worship. There is a clear call to worship, and a clear benediction, that bookend worship time. Depending on the taste of the particular church's leadership, these announcements may take place before the call to worship, or after the benediction (actually I believe that to do so BEFORE the call to worship is problematic - after the benediction is far better, for you thus allow the congregation sufficient space to prepare their hearts before approaching Almighty God before worship begins). To put announcements of this kind of thing into the worship service itself is to assert that it is properly part of worship, which it is not.

__________________
Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://semperubi.rtrc.net

"Many men, after a long conversion, see more of the workings of sin in their hearts than ever they did before or at their first conversion. Now, such men have not an increase of sin, but an increase of illumination and light" (Christopher Love)


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Dale, man , I LOVE attention on my Birthdays, I mean I am SHAMELESS! That said, I would be mortified if my local PCA congregation sang to me in a Worship service! I agree with some of the others here, I would quietly and respectfully exit the sanctuary during the Happy B-Day and "sit it out."

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~etexas~

I don't like the idea of singing happy birthday in church