Casey
Puritan Board Junior
This topic is being brought up because of what my wife and I have been doing in family worship. I have realized that the regularity of our family worship is rather useful for memorizing things--such as the Decalogue and the Shorter Catechism. I have applied this to certain "psalm-songs" in family worship, too (so we begin memorizing what we sing). This seems to happen in congregational worship in terms of the Doxology after collecting offerings, or singing Amen at the close of the service.
My question isn't so much one of principle (or trying to be pragmatic), but given the anti-intellectual climate Christ's church lives in and the lack of brainpower applied to memorizing our catechisms and Scripture, could congregational worship also seek to manifest "intelligent" worshippers through repetition? One simple example would be reading the Ten Commandments every week--this might help entire congregations learn the Law of God.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts--especially of pastors/elders who may already be doing this. (I suppose regular evening catechism preaching is a similar idea, but probably doesn't help too much with memorizing the actual text of the catechism!)
My question isn't so much one of principle (or trying to be pragmatic), but given the anti-intellectual climate Christ's church lives in and the lack of brainpower applied to memorizing our catechisms and Scripture, could congregational worship also seek to manifest "intelligent" worshippers through repetition? One simple example would be reading the Ten Commandments every week--this might help entire congregations learn the Law of God.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts--especially of pastors/elders who may already be doing this. (I suppose regular evening catechism preaching is a similar idea, but probably doesn't help too much with memorizing the actual text of the catechism!)
