A Vision for Corporate Worship Services
Most of you have likely walked through a body scanner at the airport that reveals what people are carrying underneath the layers!
Imagine for a moment that there was a “spiritual scanner” at the front door of the church that showed what people were carrying underneath as they came in! That would be a little confronting, wouldn’t it!? And probably no one would want to come back next week!! But if we could see underneath, we would likely see some carrying some heavy stuff, some feeling rushed and hurried and hopefully some who are excited to be there too!
With these things in mind, what should our corporate worship services be about? Sometimes church services can be filled up with announcements giving people more stuff to be at and do, sometimes church services try to entertain people, sometimes they’re filled with lifeless rituals done out of habit alone. But these types of services don’t really give us what our hearts crave.
Throughout Church history, church leaders have committed themselves to leading people to encounter God through “Word-rich” services. That’s because the Bible describes itself as “food” – as Milk (1 Pet 2:2), Meat (1 Cor 3:2), Bread (Deut 8:3) and sweeter than honey (Ps 119:1-3). It’s through the Word of God that our souls are truly fed.
That’s why our corporate worship gatherings ought to be designed to focus on God through 5 things:
Preaching the Word,
Reading the Word,
Praying the Word,
Singing the Word and
Seeing the Word (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper).
It’s through these things done in the power of the Spirit, that God speaks and feeds the sheep.
This is why you might have noticed recently; that we have been doing church announcements at the very beginning of the service. This allows the rest of the service to flow with a focus on God through his Word and hopefully enables you to really connect with the Lord and one another.
Our lives are so busy, and sometimes church services can only add to that feeling of busyness, so it’s helpful to allow times of silence, reflection, prayer and scripture reading as means of re-setting your heart and focus on God. Sometimes praying in small groups with the people around you reminds us all that “we are the church”, the family of God who have come to seek him together. We’re not merely consumers or waiting to be fed a sermon, but we are active participants in the church edifying one another in the Lord.
So as you think about your current habits around the Sunday gathering, is there anything that needs to change to make the most of this important time for God’s glory? Is there a new perspective, practice or attitude needed in you to turn it into a priority and the high point of the week?
Our prayer is that as we all walk back out the front door on a Sunday, our hearts look very different from when we walked in because we have encountered the glory of our God and enjoyed fellowship with his people so that we’re ready to scatter and live for God’s glory in the world.
Lord, may our Sunday gatherings truly bring glory to your name. Amen.
ANDY GREEN
Lead Pastor & Elder