Comments on: What is Worship — redux

By: dale708

dale708 — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:11:14 +0000

Tom, I think your answer to Danny’s question to “pray without ceasing ” is exactly right. I have mentioned my Grandaddy Bourland before in a comment, but another belief that I heard him share about was to support your church even though you may have some issues…..

So, that means to pray for your church, your ministers, the body of believers. So, back to Tom’s “pray without ceasing”…….

Dale

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:47:43 +0000

Well, it depends on why you’re attending a particular worship service. Is it to hear the preacher or to listen to God?
Seriously, I’ve attended churches that call their own preachers and churches where the hiearchical stucture is even more imposing than in the Methodist Church. I’ve enjoyed truly wonderful preaching and endured some of the worst. But my reasons for attending — probably like Danny’s — involve a whole host of reasons that have to do with fellowship, where I am on my “faith journey”, doctrinal details, and a whole lot of other factors.
The focus, as I’ve slowly learned, must be on God. If some aspect of the service gets in the way — I try to pray through it.
I can’t think of a time that I left a denomination or a church because there was something I didn’t like about any particular thing. Instead, I’ve moved because of something in another Worship service that helped me to connect with and worship God.
One of the devotionals that I came across in this four week study was “This Day: A Wesleyan Way of Prayer”. One of the things that is included are a whole raft of suggestions for “Personal Prayer Surrounding the Congregational Service.” This is consistent with the scriptural admonition to “pray without ceasing”.
If, as Danny says, there’s an occasional “dud” in the pulpit, then pray: pray for insight to “see” the speaker’s point of view; pray for an understanding of what that person’s life journey has been and how it might affect their words; pray that you’ll hear the message beneath those human words.
Pray that God will improve the preaching!

By: dannymac61

dannymac61 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:54:12 +0000

I’ve been thinking about Tom’s question and Gary’s comments — especially the one about “worship being for us but not about us.”

What I have is a question, an honest question that I need help with: How do we remain in a “worshipful” spirit in a church that we generally enjoy being members of when something in the weekly worship service bothers us … say the type of music, style of preaching, whatever?

For instance, a month or so ago during one of our services things were going along pretty well with the liturgy, music, etc., and then one of our non-regular preachers preached a sermon that pretty much destroyed the whole Sunday morning experience for me. How do I deal with that while remembering “worship is not about us”? That was a one-time thing, so is the answer to just take it to the house and pray about it, and come back next week hoping for the best?

But what about us Methodists whose system dictates a periodic change of preachers? What if we love our particular Methodist church and we get what we consider to be a dud in the pulpit — not necessarily one with whom we disagree, but one who just isn’t a good preacher and who’s preaching really does detract from the worship experience? Are we to just bear it or do we pack it in and head to another Methodist church and again hope for the best? Or do we become Seventh Day Horizontalists?

I need some help here. Well, yeah, I need some help in other areas, too, but for now we’ll stick to the worship thing.

– Danny

By: camaroman

camaroman — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:47:07 +0000

The American Heritage Dictionary defines worship as “the reverent love and allegiance accorded a deity, idol, or sacred object.” The Greek words for worship combine the ideas of “falling down before,” “paying homage to,” and “serving.” From these definitions it is obvious that worship involves recognition of worth in God, and the offering of our honor, praise, and adoration to the One who is altogether worthy.

This definition leads us to consider the purpose of worship. This is important because it strikes at the very purpose of the church. The health of our personal and congregational worship reflects our personal and congregational relationship to God.

To worship genuinely is to know God. To know God genuinely is to be in a king/subject relation ship with Him. In worship we acknowledge God’s kingship in our lives and His right to rule over us. Worship is for God’s benefit. He has the center stage. During worship we yield ourselves to God’s rule and dominion. 1 Chronicles 29:10-13 gives us a biblical description and correct focus of worship:

Praise be to you, 0 Lord, God of our father Israel, from everlasting to ever lasting. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for every thing in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.

Many Christians misunderstand the purpose of congregational worship. Many times our congregational worship has become an experience in which man is the focus. Worship has deteriorated into an “I didn’t get anything out of that sermon” experience. Man has become the object of his own worship. He is there to be entertained and spiritually massaged. It hardly occurs to some that worship is primarily a matter of God receiving something from us our praise, adoration, and confession of dependence on Him as our Sovereign.

We must remember that worship is for us but not about us.

Gary