Tag Archives: God-focused

Assemblies that build us up, please God, and attract outsiders

5 Replies

Church AuditoriumI’ve been proposing several things about our church assemblies:

  • The main focus of our assemblies shouldn’t be worship. In the same way, God shouldn’t be the exclusive focus of our worship assembly. If we are people whose very lives are worship, then worship will naturally occur when we come together. If we are people who put loving God at the center of our lives, then we will seek to please God when we gather. But if we make focusing on God our exclusive goal, then we will fail at making the assemblies what they were meant to be.
  • Church services are primarily for the edification of the body. By doing so, we will please God. And as a body of worshipers, we will naturally worship when we are together. But what is done during the times we are together is done primarily for believers.
  • Our assemblies should be intelligible to outsiders. We don’t tailor the service for them. Instead, we invite them to come and see who we are and what we do. The assembly is not primarily about evangelism. It’s not about selling the church, either. As outsiders see us love and edify one another, they should want to know about the God that makes all that possible. Our hope is that what outsiders see in our assemblies will make them open to hearing the gospel message.

So, in short, we seek to build one another up in a way that is pleasing to God and makes sense to outsiders. We don’t expect non-believers to perfectly understand everything that goes on; we do hope that what they see will convey a message of love and mutual edification.

Church assemblies should be about us

2 Replies

encourageDoesn’t it sound strange to say that we should be focused on people when we come together? That’s not the way most of us learned Christianity.

Why did we put on our Sunday best? To present ourselves before God. It wasn’t about people.

Why did we speak in hushed tones before the assembly? We were supposed to show reverence to God.

Why did so many of us close our eyes or look down when taking the Lord’s Supper? Because it was a personal time with God.

None of these, of course, is in the Bible. The New Testament says to avoid showy clothes when coming together; we tend to misread the concept of modest dress in the Bible. It’s about avoiding ostentation.

The hushed tones? Not in there. I dare say that there’s more about shouting to God than whispering to God.

And the Lord’s Supper? Oh, that’s an old pet peeve of mine. Much of this comes to a real misunderstanding of 1 Corinthians 11. Suffice it to say that the Corinthians’ problem was that they weren’t aware of one another when taking the Supper; the same problem exists in a lot of churches today.

I think Hebrews 10 is helpful as we consider all of this, especially verses 19-25:

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:19–25)

We draw near to God together, considering one another, looking how to spur one another on to love and good deeds, seeking to encourage one another through our meeting together.

We honor God in our assemblies, but we must never neglect the body of Christ. We come together, joining lives of worship together, in a build-one-another-up moment.

God-Focused Church Services?

3 Replies

some_assembly_requiredI got a couple of responses to this weeks’ post that reflected the same idea: worship should be neither member-focused nor seeker-focused; worship should be God focused.

In a sense, I agree. All of life should be God focused. God should be at the center of everything we do. As Paul said, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)

For some, this is especially true about our assemblies. I’ve been calling them worship services, largely out of habit. Using Scripture alone, it’s hard to say that the main purpose of our assemblies is worship. Our should I say the unique purpose. We sing songs of praise, but one of the main purposes of our singing is to speak to one another and build one another up. Sermons should glorify God, but they are obviously directed at people. God doesn’t need to be preached to. Oppositely, prayers are directed to God, yet these are corporate, public prayers. At times we even speak to one another in our prayers. (as did Jesus in John 11:41-42).

We have made the Lord’s Supper about “me and God,” but the New Testament portrays it as a corporate time. We break bread together. We wait for one another. We do it with an awareness of the gathered body, or we do it wrong.

I think the answer lies in seeing worship as being focused not on one element, but three. To borrow David Mike Breen’s terminology (from Building A Discipling Culture), it’s Upward, Inward, and Outward. We need all three facets. Complete, holistic worship reaches up to God, in to the church, and out to the nonbeliever. Like the three-legged stool, our assembly collapses if we completely remove any of the three.

Up to God. In to the Church. Out to the believer.