Reflections of a Worship Dinosaur
Feature: By Wes Ross
My dad was Lorne Ross (Larry) and I am the oldest of his four sons. Dad was adopted, never knew his birth parents and left his home after the eighth grade to help support his struggling adopted family by working in the logging camps of northern Maine. These were the difficult years prior to World War II. He accepted the Lord at a Youth for Christ service in Houlton, Maine in 1939 and became known locally as a boy-evangelist at the tender age of 15. I still have the Bible he used then, along with a few of his borrowed early sermons. He did not attend a day of high school, but later received a BA in Theology from Berkshire Christian College (known as New England School of Theology when he attended from 1944–48).
Revivals, rallies and crusades
He became perhaps the most well-known of the Advent Christian campmeeting/10-day revival church meeting evangelists of the 20th Century in our denomination. Those were the days when most AC churches hosted an extended series of revival services every fall or spring — sometimes both. Some of you who are reading this either made a first-time commitment to Christ or decided to go into the ministry or missions under dad’s preaching. When he died at Good Samaritan Center, Dowling Park in 2009, we discovered in a corner of a closet in his modest home a box of daily personal diaries (one for each year) that cataloged not only the weather and his golf scores, but every sermon preached with the response of the number of visible commitments from 1958–2003. What a treasure! To take the year of 1957 for example, that year he preached 284 sermons and documented over 388 decisions. That included 21 “crusades” from Nova Scotia to western New York with most lasting for 10 days (over two weekends.) To these crusades should be added 20 additional messages (part of the 284) that were preached at Youth for Christ rallies, campmeetings, regional convention, etc. A fuller story begs to be told and the challenge is on my to-do list.
Church ministry, radio and music
His first church was Eliot, Maine in 1945 and 1946. He and my mom, Arla, served there and he commuted by bus to NEST in Boston, Mass. Mom stayed in the parsonage next door to the church and I was born across the river in Portsmouth, N.H. near the end of the stretch in 1946. From there, dad accepted the pastorate of the Auburn, ME AC Church where he began a weekly Sunday evening radio broadcast and also was active in the Youth for Christ work of the twin cities of Auburn/Lewiston serving as president for a while. YFC was known for Saturday night youth rallies led by nationally recognized speakers like Bob Jones, Sr. and Jack Wyrtzen. My brother, Dave was born 1950 during those Auburn years, served as pastor of the State Road AC Church, was Executive Director of the AC Denomination from 1991–2003, and is presently pastor at the Bethlehem AC Church in Taylorsville, N.C. where he has been for over 16 years.
Next, the move was to the First AC Church of Charleston, W.Va. for four more years that included another Sunday night radio broadcast, a hosting of General Conference sessions in 1952, and the birth of Brent in the spring of 1954. Brent is now pastor of Hope Community Church in Loganville, GA where he has served for over 35 years. Prior to that, he was pastor at our Ridgeland (SC) AC Church for five years. From Charleston, dad was invited to become the first full-time traveling evangelist for the Eastern Region starting in the fall of 1958. He was responsible to cover the entire region that at that time stretched from western New York state through all of New England and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. A few years later, the title of Eastern Region Superintendent would be added to his job description. While traveling from church to church, he would counsel pastors and church boards with various concerns and also assist in pastoral placements. While dad traveled an average of three weeks out of four, his devoted wife, Arla, kept the home fires burning and handled the day-to-day chores of raising four boys — spending time every day in her devotions on her knees praying for us all. Much of any success that dad and her sons have had in ministry should be directly credited to her daily prayer life.
The family was moved to Waterville, ME in order to place us in the pastoral care of the Blessed Hope AC Church that had the strong pastoral leadership of Rev. Benjamin Tibbetts (later Rev. Clinton Taber — a very important mentor), a very fine youth program (one of the first to add a full-time youth pastor to the staff — Gary Pierce,) and an unusually vibrant music program that included piano and pipe organ (both often played by Mrs. Dorothy Tibbetts — a wonderfully gifted keyboardist who could both sight-read and play by ear, often modulating to any key desired), and a 15-20-piece orchestra of adults and high school students. There was also a live early-Sunday-morning radio broadcast on the local AM station, WTVL that was well-known throughout the entire central Maine area.
Another very important motive for the move to Waterville was dad and mom’s dear friends, Baden and Helen Frewin, who had become almost surrogate parents to them by that time. “Uncle Baden,” as he was known to us boys, would become dad’s beloved song leader. Together they moved from church to church in various revivals across the region. Dad’s practice was to be on the road for three weeks and then home for one. My brother, Steve, the last of the Ross boys, would be born in the Waterville years. Steve has been in social work at the Albany (NY) Medical Center for nearly 38 years and has traveled widely in our AC churches presenting solo sacred concerts. In addition, Steve teaches a course at BICS, often co-hosts the annual BICS Israel Travel Seminar, serves on the board of the Advent Christian Village at Dowling Park, and also is an elder at Hope (AC) Church, Lenox.
Lessons in practical worship
Dad’s years as Evangelist and Superintendent of the Eastern Region corresponded with my junior and senior high school years, later attendance at Berkshire Christian College and UMass for grad school, and my first two years on the faculty of BCC. But it was in the Blessed Hope church that my earliest worship experiences were really developed. I learned more about practical worship leading from observing Uncle Baden (who, incidentally, couldn’t read a note of music) in action, than from any other person or academic course that I would later take. As I look back now, his powerful influence would be pivotal in so many ways in shaping the direction of my thinking about worship. Watching his life and the way he interacted both in the actual service and before and after was a veritable graduate course in practical training.
True worship is not primarily the 20 minutes of worship choruses that take place in the typical evangelical worship service. True worship is so much more than that — it is a total lifestyle — an attitude of living.
As I begin to focus a bit more on the worship experience, it needs to be stated right up front that true worship is not primarily the 20 minutes of worship choruses that take place in the typical evangelical worship service. True worship is so much more than that — it is a total lifestyle — an attitude of living. For the believer — in addition to the more formal worship experiences that we have with our church family on Sundays — worship takes place on Tuesday afternoons at the workplace as we interact with colleagues on the job, on Wednesday mornings in our daily time of personal devotions, on Fridays as we travel to the other various appointments we have during our day, and especially as we interact with our families. It is a life that we live — the “living sacrifice” of Romans 12:1–2.
Corporate worship - a world apart
However, with that caveat about personal worship, let’s look more closely at the corporate worship of the church family as it gathers. I didn’t realize it then, but upon reflection, the Sunday morning service of my youth in Waterville was quite highly structured. Organ prelude, offertory and responses, robed choir, hymns, invocation, doxology, Gloria Patri, the Lord’s prayer, responsive readings, solos, sermon, benediction — all were included in the weekly order of worship (and carefully detailed in the mimeographed bulletin.)
The service began promptly at 11 a.m. and almost always concluded at precisely 12 p.m. The evening service was much less formal and often included the use of choruses, more spirited hymns and gospel songs, impromptu testimonies, etc. The Blessed Hope Church had an orchestra of 20–25 comprised of an equal mix of adults and youth playing trumpets, trombones, clarinets, flutes, violin, baritone and even a tuba. We were accompanied by our unbelievably gifted pastor’s wife, Mrs. Dorothy Tibbetts. She could play both the organ and piano and could transpose any song into any key. I didn’t realize at the time how unique all of that was.
When compared to the contemporary worship of today, it was a world apart. As decades pass, life changes, styles change, and that is not always a bad thing. This is certainly not an appeal to return to the worship forms of the 1960s when we were fighting the battles of introducing drums and electric guitars to a church that viewed these instruments as heavily associated with the music of the world. We had our problems back then, too. But I do confess that there are issues that make adapting to the current, more casual approach to worship a challenge for many in my generation. One simple one is dress.
The casual approach
It seems that many today feel that suits and ties — especially in the pulpit — represent an attempt at pretense … a kind of phony attitude that is somehow using dress to create an impression of something that the person is not. Let me offer a defense of another perspective from my generation. In our culture, as in any culture, what we wear makes a statement. The two occasions when most men find it appropriate to wear a suit and tie are weddings and funerals. Why is that? I believe that it is because in our culture, a way to demonstrate respect for those two profound moments in life is to dress that way. However, if it is accepted that more formal dress is appropriate for weddings and funerals because it expresses a certain respect, and I have seen enough contemporary weddings and even funerals to know that it is a big “if,” why wouldn’t we want to express that same respect when we are given the awesome responsibility of leading in worship of a holy God on the typical Sunday morning. Parenthetically, it has always amazed me to read God’s provision for priestly garments in Exodus 28. Apparently, God’s desire for the corporate worship experience of Israel in terms of priestly attire was quite particular. (Please don’t accuse me of advocating the use of the urim and thummim, Ex. 28:29).
This is not intended to be a criticism of those who have decided to dress informally for worship leading as a way to communicate that God is not impressed by our dress. They no doubt have a carefully reasoned purpose for their practice. As a matter of fact, for some, casual dress in worship leading is also a way to help folks in the congregation who cannot afford a suit and tie to feel more comfortable. I get it. But please realize that for many in my generation, casual dress can also imply a casual approach to worship.
And now we have arrived at a much more important concern than dress. I am troubled by what I perceive as a more casual approach to worship in many contemporary evangelical churches. It is typified by a jettisoning of what is seen as the more traditional forms of worship format – the creeds, hymns, etc. In an attempt to communicate to today’s more informal generation, an experience has been crafted that, in some cases, has lost one of the most primary aspects of true worship — that of reverence for a holy God (Ps. 96:9). In its place is often a focus on meeting the needs of those in attendance. Let us remember that true worship is not primarily focused upon our needs, but instead upon the Lord — giving him the praise and adoration that he is due (Ps.145:3). Worship is remembering what God has done (I Sam.12:24). Worship is not about us; it is about him.
Worship is remembering what God has done (I Sam.12:24). Worship is not about us; it is about him.
Restoring reverence to worship
The Hebrew word most often translated as “worship” in the Old Testament is “shachah” (phonetic) and it means “to prostrate (in homage to royalty or God): bow down, crouch, fall down (flat), make obeisance, stoop.” As in Genesis 24:26, “And the man bowed down his head, and worshiped God.” Or Genesis 27:29, “May nations serve you, and peoples bow down to you.” In the New Testament, the Greek word “proskeneo” is a prominent word translated as “worship.” It means “to kiss toward, crouch to, do reverence to, adore.” As in Matthew 2:2 “Magi from the East came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.’”
These key words for worship in the Old and New Testaments both imply a submission to someone who is higher or above. A severe humbling of oneself is apparent. The English word “worship” comes from the old English word worthship and means “to ascribe worth to something.” God is frequently described in Scripture as being holy. The Hebrew word for holy means “cut from a different cloth.” As such, God is totally other — perhaps primarily in the sense that he is totally without sin. He is God and we are not. I have often told my students at BCC and BICS that if the Lord Jesus should walk down the center aisle of Hope Church in bodily form, my posture at that moment would not be one of leaping and rejoicing. No, you would find me as low on the floor as I could get because I am a great sinner and he is holy, holy, holy! Now I know that I should have great joy that he has forgiven every one of my many sins — and that he doesn’t even remember them against me at all, but at that moment, my reaction to being in the presence of a holy God would be shachah.
So this is an appeal from an old worship dinosaur, let us attempt to restore an attitude of reverence to our worship (Heb.12:28) — whether the style is contemporary or traditional. Let there be more time for prayer and for the public reading of Scripture. Let us enthusiastically rejoice together when it is appropriate, and let us lament together as well. Let there be other times when we wait quietly upon the Lord. Let the congregational “Amen” return. May the Holy Spirit give our worship life and may he help us to focus upon Jesus and not upon ourselves. (Acts 9:31) There is so much more to think about and to talk about, but this is enough for now. May the Lord bless each of you as you endeavor to please him in all that you do — in your corporate and in your personal worship. Amen.
Wes Ross, “Reflections of a Worship Dinosaur,” The Witness, Fall 2019