When I was young, I worked as a counselor at a Bible Camp which meant attending evening services. Many, many evening services! I noticed a pattern there that remains in churches today. Evening services began with engaging singing, moved to an impassioned message, and wrapped up with an invitation to come to the front of the church (the altar) for prayer. In each of these moments, campers were enabled to experience the presence of God.

Josh P. S. Samuel calls this experience the immediacy of the Spirit. This, more than any other factor, is what defines our pentecostal identity. Yes, we have doctrines that can be studied theologically (in four- or five-fold versions if you’re counting). And yes, we have formed organizations that can be studied sociologically. But if you want to know what enlivens the Pentecostal experience it’s those moments when we ‘draw near’ to God.

In The Holy Spirit in Worship Music, Preaching, and the Altar, Josh P. S. Samuel explores and evaluates how pentecostals experience the immediacy of the Spirit in corporate worship: singing, sermon, and time at the altar. This is a multidisciplinary study. Samuel begins with a historical section on the Azusa Street revival before offering a constructive theology of Pentecostal worship.

Part 1: Azusa Street

Although people argue whether or not Azusa Street is the birthplace of pentecostalism, there is no denying its influence on Classical Pentecostalism. In order to set the stage for the main study, Samuel provides a historical sketch of what corporate worship looked like at Azusa Street. As you might expect, the Spirit took centre stage.

People at Azusa Street understood spontaneity as a sign of Spirit-inspiration. For this reason, song services were not prepared in advance. Instead, people would begin to sing from their memory as the Spirit moved them. Singing in tongues, also known as “the heavenly choir,” was a key part of worship in song. This was how they allowed the Spirit to take control of the music.

Just as a message in tongues required an interpretation, so to with singing in tongues. In the first issue of Azusa’s magazine, Apostolic Faith, one such spontaneous interpretation (in meter and rhyme!) was published:

With one accord, all heaven rings
With praises to our God and King;
Let earth join in our song of praise,
And ring it out through all the days. (In Samuel 35–6)

Preaching at Azusa Street was understood as an act of prophecy. Since all who were baptized in the Spirit could by definition prophesy, many lay preachers would speak when they felt the ‘unction’ come on them. Again, the immediacy of the Spirit is critical in the sermon. Notes and manuscripts were shunned as human meddling in the divine event. The Spirit inspired speech out of the overflow of personal Bible study.

These Spirit-led sermons led to a response: the altar. People would come to the altar whenever the Spirit led, even during the middle of a sermon. (Thus one of the key features of the preacher’s role was knowing when to quit!) At the altar, the Spirit baptized believers, an event accompanied by physical signs such as shaking and speaking in tongues. The people of Azusa experienced their very own twentieth-century version of the upper room.

Part 2: Worship Music

Between the Azusa Street revival and today, attitudes toward music have shifted dramatically. Azusa Street worship music was austere and often instrument-free. Reporter and evangelist James Bartleman attacked those who would bring “jazzy” music into divine service! Today, contemporary worship music is a major industry.

In order to evaluate the impact of contemporary worship music on pentecostals, Samuel examined three influential worship leaders: Brian Doerksen (Canadian), Darlene Zschech (Australian), and Matt Redman (British). The songs these three have written are sung widely in pentecostal churches. (”Come, Now is the Time to Worship,” ”Shout to the Lord,” or “10,000 Reasons,” anyone?)

All three leaders have elements in their teaching that positively and negatively impact pentecostal worship. Samuel criticizes the tendency to elevate worship music over other expressions of worship. Drawing on the Azusa experience and scripture, Samuel underscores Redman’s insight that the Spirit is the worship leader.

The three leaders have much to add to a pentecostal theology of worship in song. Doerksen emphasizes the relationship of the worshiper to the Father—the person of the Trinity most often overlooked in Pentecostalism. Furthermore, Doerksen emphasizes the need to write and sing songs that cover the full range of human experience such as laments. Zschech’s emphasis on singing in the Spirit (in tongues), although muted in her later books, returns pentecostals to their Azusa Street roots. All three leaders emphasize the importance of prophetic songs, whether spontaneous and planned, in the song service.

Samuel’s treatment of contemporary worship music uses both scripture and experience in his evaluation—a method rooted in a Pentecostal Hermeneutic. Now that a few years have passed since the study was conducted, it would be interesting to see this work extended to cover Bethel Music and Jesus Culture. Their music, coming out of the Bethel Redding mega-church, is deeply influencing classical pentecostal churches today.

Part 3: Preaching and Responding

After the singing wraps up, it’s time for the sermon, followed often by the altar call. Samuel surveys the methods of two Classical Pentecostals (Ray H. Hughes and Charles T. Crabtree) and one Baptist preacher (Haddon W. Robinson). Robinson might seem like an odd choice for a book on Pentecostal Corporate Worship, but Samuel shows how Robinson’s book, Biblical Preaching, has had a massive influence on pentecostal preachers through its regular inclusion in Bible College curriculum. As you might expect, the immediacy of the Spirit is highlighted strongly in Hughes and Crabtree.

The immediacy of the Spirit is involved in the message in at least four ways.

1. The Preparation of the Preacher. Hughes and Crabtree emphasize the need for preachers to be continually filled (or to have a ‘fresh anointing’ in charismatic jargon). Robinson acknowledges that some people are gifted of God to preach and notes that character development is important. He speaks of the immediacy of the Spirit in very limited ways.
2. The Preparation of the Sermon. Hughes emphasizes the immediacy of the Spirit in the selection of the sermon subject. Preachers who are in tune with the Spirit will be able to receive their message idea from the Spirit. From there, the preacher develops that message. Crabtree provides wise balance: “Pentecostal preachers must not be lazy, presuming to rely on the anointing” (163). Robinson understands God to reveal himself primarily in Scripture. Thus, he stresses the expository message.
3. The Preaching Event. Hughes and Crabtree both emphasize the role of the Spirit during the delivery of the message. The preacher should always be listening to the leading of the Spirit. Hughes underscores the importance of personal Bible study since the Spirit can use what the preacher has already internalized to “strengthen prophetic preaching, even during moments of spontaneity” (169). Robinson notes that the preacher must rely on the Spirit to apply the message to the congregation during the sermon, but does not explain how this happens.
4. The Altar. For Hughes and Crabtree, the altar call is when people respond to the sermon. For Robinson, the response happens during the week through a transformed life. The pentecostal authors stress that the altar is the place where the supernatural is experienced—where God breaks into this world. This “a key context to experience the immediacy of God” (179).

Samuel offers a thorough response to these three authors, highlighting both the strengths and deficiencies of each approach. One of his key critiques concerns Hughes’ requirement that supernatural results always follow the preaching event. Samuel rightly notes that “[t]heir assumption fails to address the variety of gifts among preachers and congregations that can contribute to preaching in a variety of ways—not just limited to healing and miracles. Further, the emphasis on results like healing and miracles fails to account for various other needs among the congregation” (215).

I would go one step further. Hughes and Crabtree understand the work of God in interventionist terms. The basic idea is this: God set up the world to run in orderly fashion by ordaining the laws of nature. After preaching, God reaches into the world and break his laws by doing something supernatural. Following James K. A. Smith’s chapter “Shattering Paradigms, Opening the World” in Thinking in Tongues, I would argue that this interventionist paradigm gives us a false picture of the world. The Incarnation and subsequent outpouring of the Spirit remind us that God is already active everywhere within the world. He does not have to wait to break in. Miracles are an acceleration of the eschatological work that God is already doing. God’s work following the sermon may look natural or supernatural from the outside. Either way, God is at work.

Samuel notes that the eschatological nature of God’s work is overlooked by all three authors. He reminds the reader that one of the Spirit’s roles is to bring to mind the words of Jesus. The Spirit’s work is clearly future-looking. This emphasis on the future work of the Spirit culminates in the renewal of all creation.

One final critique is the one-sidedness of each author regarding Spirit and scripture. Consider how much space each author devotes to the proper study of scripture:

• Hughes: 8 of 168 pages (5%)
• Crabtree: 9 of 203 pages (4%)
• Robinson: 113 of 245 pages (46%)

These statistics reflect the background of the authors. Samuel calls for “[a] more balanced Pentecostal approach to preaching . . . incorporating the Spirit’s past (Scripture) and present work for preaching” (201). Here is an area where current pentecostal scholarship on hermeneutics can help. Kenneth J. Archer in A Pentecostal Hermeneutic argues that a truly biblical (and pentecostal) hermeneutic should be a triadic negotiation of meaning between the Spirit, scripture, and community. Craig S. Keener in Spirit Hermeneutics, while not endorsing the triadic paradigm, still calls for a renewed emphasis on the role of the Spirit in interpretation.

Conclusion

The Holy Spirit in Worship Music, Preaching, and the Altar is a valuable contribution to a pentecostal theology of corporate worship. From my perspective as a pentecostal worship leader and preacher, there was something in every chapter to chew on.

In the last chapter of the book, Samuel lists the limitations of his study and offers suggestions for future study. I would suggest a couple of my own. First, it would be interesting to study the connection between worship music and preaching/altar. These two areas of study are distinct in Samuel’s work. It strikes me that the need for a Trinitarian understanding in both areas would be one important area of congruity.

Second, given the speed at which both worship music and scholarship on hermeneutics are developing, it’s already time for someone to take Samuel’s insights and carry them forward. The immediacy of the Spirit in pentecostal worship is too fundamental to take for granted.

Samuel, Josh P. S. The Holy Spirit in Worship Music, Preaching, and the Altar: Renewing Pentecostal Corporate Worship. Cleveland: CPT Press, 2018.