Reformed Presbyterian Minutes of Synod 1995 - Rparchives.org

168 MINUTES OF THE SYNOD OF THE(The following replacement revision for the Directory for Worship, prepared byGordon Keddie, has been approved by the 1995 Synod as the document fromwhich to work on revising the Directory for Worship.)THE DIRECTORYFOR THE PUBLIC WORSHIP OF GODPrefaceThe Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America believes that it isthe teaching of the Word of God that "the acceptable way of worshipping thetrue God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will,that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices ofmen, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or anyother way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures." (WCF, 21.1) This is theregulative principle of Scripture as it applies to the worship of God(Testimony, 21. 1-2). This Directory accordingly seeks to express faithfullyour confessional commitment to the Bible as the sole and sufficient authorityfor the church's theology and practice of worship. It is designed to guideGod's people in giving glory to God as they gather together to praise God intheir congregations and families and so to be a help to them to lift theirhearts and lives to Christ, to grow in His grace, to serve Him in the Churchand before the world, and to encourage one another in the corporateexercise of devotion to God.The foundational Presbyterian directory for worship is The Directory forthe Publick Worship of God of the Westminster Assembly, completed in1645. That excellent document offers both sound doctrinal instruction andgodly spiritual advice, in that it sets out the various Scriptural elements ofworship and also provides models for their faithful exercise, by means ofsuggested forms for the call to worship, prayer before and after the sermon,the administering of the sacraments, and such ancillary matters as theconducting of weddings and public fasts. The Westminster divines werecareful to emphasize, however, that in their Directory,care hath been to hold forth such things as are of divine institution inevery ordinance; and other things we have endeavoured to set forthaccording to the rules of Christian prudence, agreeable to the generalrules of the word of God; our meaning therein being only, that thegeneral heads, the sense and scope of the prayers, and other parts ofpublick worship, being known to all, there may be a consent of allthe churches in those things that contain the substance of the serviceand worship of God; and the ministers may be hereby directed, intheir administrations, to keep like soundness in doctrine and prayer,and may, if need be, have some help and furniture, and yet so asthey become not hereby slothful and negligent in stirring up the giftsof Christ in them; but that each one, by meditation, by taking heed