Spring '07 Youth Retreat

*Note: This is somewhat long, so don't worry about it if you don't make it all the way through.

Early Saturday morning, my siblings and I, with all our luggage, piled into Andrew’s little Neon for the trip to Sterling. In the backseat, Eric and I slept most of the trip. We finally arrived in Sterling around 10:30—just in time for the opening game.

The game involved a couple packages of Starbursts, and each player received two different colors of Starbursts. If he got an orange one, he had to tell an embarrassing story, though the rules did not say the story had to be about himself. The second color of Starburst was pink: if someone got this, he had to name a special talent of his. Yellow was the third Starburst, and someone who got it had to name a place he would like to visit and why. Finally, the red Starburst represented a pet peeve.

Stan Copeland held the group captive for the next couple of hours as he discussed Exclusive Psalmody and why it is important. He stressed that psalm singing is a method of evangelism and that all the psalms point to Christ.

Exclusive Psalmody is also a method of worship, especially worship that God has commanded. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary describes the word worship as coming from the Middle English worshipe, which means “worthiness, respect, reverence paid to a divine being.” Stan said this is played out in the way we treat those around us.

The reason we sing only psalms in worship is that it’s the only way God has commanded us. Stan said, “If God had wanted something, He would have said, ‘That’s what I want.’” In other words, what is not expressly commanded in the Bible is forbidden. Some people may ask about non-Psalm but biblical texts. Stan gave three arguments for not singing them in corporate worship. First, we are not commanded to use them; therefore, we should not. We would be reading into the text to find what we wanted if we were looking for a reason to sing them. Secondly, these “songs” were spoken and not sung. Nowhere do we find any indication that these words of praise were set to music. Finally, no psalms were written in the New Testament. Instead, they were all quotations taken from the Book of Psalms. For example, 1 Peter 3:10-12 is a quotation of Psalm 32: 14-16. Stan concluded that since God hasn’t explicitly told us to use anything besides the psalms to worship Him corporately, we should not disobey Him by lifting un-inspired, man-made worship to Him.

Stan spoke in the second session shortly after lunch. Here he spoke more along the historical lines of psalm-singing. As a side note, he pointed out that when people try to use Psalm 150 as an argument for singing music other than the 150 psalms, they are taking those verses out of context. Psalm 150 speaks of praising God with “tymbral and dancing.” However, unless we are willing to use all of the instruments—and only them—as well as dancing, we shouldn’t try to use them in worship. Also, these instruments are associated with sacrifice, the sacrifice that the priests offered up for the people. Fortunately for us that refers to Old Testament worship, for Christ offered up the ultimate sacrifice, thereby giving us a new method of praising Him.

Next, Stan pointed out that psalm singing is historically a mainstream position. For many, many years only the psalms were sung in church. Several times people tried to introduce other songs, but councils always opposed these suggestions. In fact, it wasn’t until the Second Great Awakening in the nineteenth century that hymns and gospel songs became popular. Men such as Charles Wesley wrote out songs that were easier for these relatively illiterate people to sing so as to learn more about God.

Throughout both sessions we sang various psalms that pointed out Christ. Psalm 51B spoke of the “God of [our] salvation and how He frees us from guilt. This obviously points to our Savior. Psalm 51D, stanzas six and seven speak of our mental health tell us that the Lord will sustain our minds. These words are applicable today and give us, from God, the words we need to praise Him.

Most of the afternoon after Pastor Copeland’s talk consisted of playing at the park. There everyone could play Ultimate Frisbee or volleyball or just walk around. I almost immediately joined the game of Ultimate Frisbee, and we supposedly used a floating Frisbee. Well, it did float, but it floated away from the edge of the lake...four times! Anyway, my team (Mr. Yost, Alex, Nathan, Logan and I) pulled ahead of the other team (Andrew, Garrett, JD, Josh, and Jessie) 7-2 before they pulled a 6-1 run. Fortunately, though, we found the strength to beat them 10-8 before they made any more goals. After the game was over, a game of soccer was started, and I just sat on the sidelines and watched.

Back at the church we ate the most amazing pizza ever! Maybe I was just really hungry, but I thought it was really good. As we waited for more pizza to arrive, we listened to Keith Mann give us a “word from the sponsor.” He talked about the wise use of Internet and cautioned us to be careful in the use of it. So many people assume different personalities when they log on, and he warned us not to lose the morals we keep in real life. Also, he encouraged us not to get too caught up in new technology. The constantly newer and better technology that enables communication around the world so often disconnects us from the community. Keith told us to spend more time with real people than with people over the Internet.

After supper everyone walked down the street to the Sterling College gym. There we played Capture the Flag, dodge ball, and kickball. During Capture the Flag I spent most of my time running around on the opposite side of the “field” or in jail, but it was a lot of fun. Then we played dodge ball, and though I tried to run away from the ball, it usually caught up with me pretty quickly. Finally, we played kickball, where I played left field (a place where fewer balls were kicked). I also made it all the way to second base, the only time I made it past that “kicking box.” I also played a couple games of Knock Out before we left the gym and walked back to the church.

At 10:00 all the girls were shuttled away from the church, and I went to Ginger Reed’s house with my sister and Molly and Emily Pilling.

The next morning in Sabbath School Andrew pointed out three applications that we could learn from singing the psalms. First, worship is special. God gave it to us so that we could bring honor and glory to Him. For example, God gave the Israelites many details how to build the tabernacle in the latter part of Exodus because He wanted His children to know how to worship Him. Secondly, we must worship in both spirit and in truth. In Revelation 2: 4-5a, the members of the church in Ephesus are warned, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” If we fail to worship in one aspect, then we fail to worship in the other. Finally, Andrew pointed out that all our worship must go through Christ as our Mediator. Hebrews 8 speaks of Christ as the new High Priest who offers intercession for our sins. Without Him our worship would be too full of sin for God to accept. However, because of the sacrifice He made on the cross, we are able to worship in spirit and in truth.

Then we had church, and Reverend Derek Miller’s message was taken from John 11: 7-10. Jesus went back to Judea even though there were men out to kill Him. He went to show people the light.

After church we had an amazing dinner prepared by the congregation in Sterling. Eventually, everyone parted and traveled their separate ways, where many will remain until the next retreat in June.