By
© Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, Ph.D.
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
www.drpipim.org
Questions are being raised today about the legitimacy of applause (clapping), uplifted hands, drumming, and dancing in Seventh-day Adventist worship services. These phenomena have been fueled by several factors. Among them are:
(1) the increasing worldliness in our churches, resulting in the adoption of Hollywood-style entertainment in our church services;
(2) the adoption of the worship and evangelistic styles of popular mega-churches and Charismatic/Pentecostal churches of our day;
(3) the attempt in developing countries to “indiginize” the church by incorporating elements from traditional, local, or non-Christian forms of worship;
(4) a lack of...
The Official Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Guidelines on the Music Debate
(Reproduced from Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, ed., Here We Stand [2005])
[If our worship is intended to be the worship of God, then a discussion of worship styles would be incomplete unless we offer some practical guidelines on the kind of music that is consistent with the message and mission of the Seventh-day Adventist church. During the past three or so decades the Adventist church has produced two major guidelines on music. The first one was voted at the Annual Council meeting of church leaders in Mexico City, Mexico, October 14-19, 1972. The most recent one was approved on October 12, 2004 at the Annual Council meeting in Silver Springs, Maryland, USA. These two documents provide parameters or directions for those who seek to know the mind of the world church as to what God expects from His people in our choice and use of music.---Samuel Koranteng-Pipim]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, Ph.D
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
Author, Must We Be Silent? and Receiving the Word
Much discussion is taking place over what forms of worship are appropriate. Some alternative styles being tested are a combination of incompatible elements from other faiths. As long ago as December 17, 1990, a feature article in Newsweek magazine spoke of the 1990's as “an age of mix'em, match'em salad-bar spirituality--Quakerpalians, charismatic Catholics, New Age Jews--where brand loyalty is a doctrine of the past and the customer is king.” [1]
In contrast to the present trend toward cafeteria-style worship, the Bible recognizes only two kinds of worship, true worship and false worship. An attempt to marry true and false worship is known technically as syncretism, and biblically as "Babylon."
Because God's faithful followers...
New Ways of Preaching the Gospel:
Gospel Clowns, Café/Disco Churches, Gospel Magicians, etc
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, Ph.D
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
[Excerpted from Author’s Must We Be Silent?]
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. . . . Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Shihor? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the River?” (Jer 2:13, 18, NIV).
Throughout Bible times, and ever since, the clear and persuasive proclamation of God’s Word has been the most effective medium to communicate God’s truth. The apostle Paul refers to the method as the foolishness of preaching (1 Cor 1:21).
Today, however, we seem to be moving away from simple Bible based preaching to some rather ridiculous and sometimes bizarre gimmicks from the secular world. We...