What I Learned At Pastors Camp
by Steve Walker

"I do." When I spoke those words seventeen years ago, I covenanted to love, protect, and lead my bride. Unfortunately, my early conceptions of loving, protecting, and leading were partially defined by my culture and self-centeredness. Love was often distorted by competition, pride, and my own perceived needs. Protection from evil was loosely defined as making sure the doors and windows were locked at night (together with my trusty baseball bat under the bed), rather than guarding against the myriad influences that threatened to invade our home through the telephone, television, books, magazines, and computer. Leadership? Suffice it to say that this area needed substantial improvement.

This year, Highland Study Center's Pastor Conference focused upon the analogy of the Church as the Bride of Christ. In ten purposeful seminars, conference leaders R.C. Sproul Jr., Laurence Windham, and Mark Dewey appealed to our role as representatives of the Groom, Jesus Christ. While the conference was intended to present the philosophy behind Saint Peter Church's ecclesiastical paradigm, from the beginning it was stressed that more important than model, technique, or strategy is a right perspective of the Bride of Christ. I found this emphasis refreshing. I remember my own wedding; my bride having prepared herself all morning, gowned and glorious in white, beloved and adored as she walked to the altar. If we are to seek a model, this is where we must seek it — in the wedding ceremony. Our husband Christ prepares a feast for us, and the Bride must be ready, pure, and beautiful.

"So why is the pastoral ministry so often like shepherding junior high girls?" asked R.C. Sproul Jr. in the midst of painting the bridal metaphor. The contrast between what we are and what we will become causes turmoil for a leadership that desires to present a Bride washed in the Word of God, but often finds itself resolving petty conflicts between church members that resemble junior high girls at the mall (I saw Suzie and I know she saw me, but she did not say "Hello." She is so stuck up!). Somehow, we must assist in shepherding an immature and occasionally wayward young woman to full maturity.

One way to do this is by transforming worship into a covenant renewal ceremony. If every time we gather for worship we remember that we are the Bride of Christ, eventually we'll get it. When people are wed, there is narrative, sound, and singing. Hearts are filled with rejoicing, and the senses overwhelmed with sights of splendor, taste, and smells; we don't leave a wedding unaffected. Should this not also be true of our worship? Are our own marriages filled with only dry talk of theology or are they balanced with intimacy? As I listened to the seminars, I wondered if the answers to these questions might not effect a radical change in the way we "do" church.

Worship is God's story. Ezekiel 16 relates how He found a destitute, defenseless woman and covered, anointed, and protected her, claiming her as His own prized love. Too many Reformed churches tend to reduce the story to analysis of literary elements: "This is chiastic poetry;" "This was good personification;" etc. But, as Laurence Windham stressed, we don't explain the human body to a child just by describing the periodic table. God's story is not just literary elements; it is relationship. The beginning of the Scripture story is a marriage, the end of the story is a marriage, everything in between is a marriage.

If worship is a story, then the climax of that story is Communion. God has led us to a Table, and at that Table He bids us to sit and eat; to taste and see that He is good; to feast and enjoy a foretaste of the marvelous marriage supper of the Lamb. The Lamb died in order that He might restore table fellowship between God and man. R.C. asked, "How would we feel as husbands if we intended to die to provide an ongoing meal for our wives and they only planned to partake of it once a quarter?" Should not our attitude as the Bride be that we get to have communion every week?

If we can shift our perspective from a church that observes to a church that participates, even feasts, we will start looking less like the junior high girl and more like the Bride. After all, the bride and groom ought to be the two most active participants at the wedding festivities. Who ever attended a wedding where the bride just sat and watched the events unfold? The Bride can't feast if she is simply watching.

Sadly, one of the most dangerous trends in the modern church is that of individualism, where people come, like attendees at a movie, to sit alone in a theater filled with people. They are watchers, not participants. The Baby Boomer generation that grew up in youth ministries and left the church for a time has come back to redefine the church as they remember it - in the model of a high school youth service replete with ice breakers, skits, contemporary music, and topical messages. The only thing missing is the cartoons that helped illustrate the message points — but these have been cleverly replaced with powerpoint slides and video bytes. Programs, as Mark Dewey pointed out, can become the "Anti-Christ," segregating the one into many. The intent of covenant renewal worship, in contrast, is to bring the many into one at the Table. It is at the Table that collectively we are the Bride; there is no room for individualism.

The Bride of Christ, arrayed in splendor, ready to walk for an eternity of fellowship with Her Groom. Can there be any better image? Highlands Study Center succeeded in reminding me of our great calling. This marriage is not just future; it is now. Christ is the Second Adam and the Church is the Second Eve, married for eternity. While we await that blessed time when we will feast at the Table in Heaven, God has given us the opportunity to feast now. And every time we go to the Table during our worship, we are lifted up to the Heavenly Jerusalem, to God's throne room. The miracle is not in the bread and wine, but that we are in Heaven, standing in grace, receiving God's blessing, being renewed in strength, united with Christ. We should reluctantly leave worship each week after our temporary rest at the Table, where as the Bride we feasted at our reception and celebrated our marriage to the Groom. We return to the world and become witnesses of Christ. But, oh, how quickly we desire to come back and again sample the goodness of heaven!