Welcoming to Worship, Part 5

#1 Worship always involves revelation and response (our faithful response to God’s gracious revelation)

#2 Worship is something we do individually & in community

#3 Habitual life of worship is more important than our acts of worship in a religious setting ()

#4 Habitual life of worship & intentional congregational worship informs and strengthens one another (maturity of faith, individually and collectively is an ongoing life giving activity)

#5 Worship Requires Participation

#6 Worship involves participation of our entire being

#7 The substance of our worship is always more important than our style or form of worship

#8 WHEN WE WORSHIP AS A COMMUNITY, WE ARE PARTICIPATING IN SOMETHING LARGER THAN OURSELVES

Read

Principle #9 – When we come together as community in worship our concern for individual freedom and self-expression must be balanced with the need to “prefer one another in love” and “consider others more important than yourself.” 

Love one another—it’s about the team.

I am quoting here, of course, , “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Think not only of your own needs or interests, but also of the interests of others.” Then verse 5, “Let this mind or attitude be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,” which is a beautiful Scripture about life and community. Principle #9 is a reminder that this principle needs to be played out in our corporate worship gatherings.

Putting others before yourself, being conscious of all groups and their needs

When we gather together, do not think only about what you like, what you prefer, what you need, what your convictions are about the way worship should be, what is most meaningful to you, what is most fulfilling for you. Do not think only about those things; discern the body, submit to the body, think of the needs of others of the body.

Of the 39% students who had unimodal learning styles, 26% preferred the kinaesthetic mode, 7% preferred the visual mode, 4% preferred the auditory mode and only 2% preferred the read-write mode. Therefore, the kinaesthetic mode was the most preferred mode and the read—write the least preferred mode of the information presentation.

The most preferred teaching-learning method among all the students was practicals/dissections (39%), followed by lectures (32%), self study (18%) and tutorials (11%). 

A passive learning strategy format such as lectures mainly caters to the auditory learners.

The kinaesthetic learners prefer the hands on approach to learning and therefore, the students with this learning style prefer to perceive information best through practical sessions. 

How different from Paul’s command, in Ephesians chapter 4, that we “make every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” How different than Paul’s language here, that we think not only of our own needs but also the needs of others and consider other people more important than ourselves. 

How can our worship gatherings, reflect our uniqueness and emphasize the unity of those gathered? The young, the old, the middle aged, the guests, regular attendees, the extrovert, the introvert, the contemplative, the charismatic, those somewhere in b/w?

Something to consider: Private worship time vs. corporate

We need to be thoughtful of this, and then we also need to be thinking about the fact that my own personal self-expression needs might be better served in my prayer closet, back at home in my private times of worship, than in corporate gatherings of the community for worship. 

Paul suggests this in when he said to those who have the gift of tongues, “If there is no interpretation, then when you pray, just keep it to yourself; keep it quiet. Don’t bring that into the midst of the community. The community won’t be served by that. You might be built up by that, speaking out loud in your tongue, but keep it to yourself. That is between you and God; it is not for the sake of the community.”

That is the kind of mindset that what Paul was speaking of in :

We must discern the body and we must balance our desire for individual freedom and self-expression with the need to submit to the body, to consider others more important than ourselves.

Which leads us to our final principle

Principle #10: Worship is first and foremost for God and about God.

Its benefits in forming believers and in reaching unbelievers are secondary.

Balance of worship, nurture, and outreach

In the life of the church, we acknowledge and recognize that the church in every age and in every culture must be engaged in certain tasks, and these tasks are great and amazing and critical tasks. One way to think about these is to think of the three great tasks that the church attends to.

-They are the task of worship,

-the task of Christian nurture or Christian formation or Christian teaching,

-the task of outreach, evangelism, justice in the world. 

So, a God-ward commitment that we identify principally as the worship;

body commitment, Christian formation, Christian teaching; and a commitment to unbelievers in outreach and evangelism and love and mercy.

Obviously, these overlap; they are not three separate spheres. All of them have implications for the others. 

But when we come together for worship, what we need to say is that worship is not primarily a Christian formation hour. And when we come together for worship, worship is not primarily an outreach hour. It does form people and it does have implications for unbelievers, but worship is first and foremost for God and about God. It does not have a lot of other necessary pieces that are on the agenda as priority. The priority is to be in God’s presence, give Him honor, hear His revelation fresh, and respond faithfully.

Royal “Waste” of Time

“worshiping in a way that God desires and that will please God and serve God.”

Marva Dawn: “We are not accomplishing anything. Our agenda is not to really accomplish anything but to worship God.”

That is our focus. Give God His due, receive from Him His goodness, give Him His glory. As we do that, the other things happen, but that is not what we seek first.

Again, this is not to say there is not overlap. Paul makes it clear that there is overlap. Regarding .

’When you come together.’—gathering of the church; sharing in the Lord’s Supper; singing, praising and prophesying together.

We have come together for worship, but in that gathering I must be also mindful of the fact that believers are formed here and believers are taught and instructed here. This is a secondary, and I think a very appropriate secondary, outworking of the worship experience. First is simply to worship God and give Him glory and a secondary benefit of that experience is that believers are formed.

As we worship God, foremost, the hope and desire is that the evidence of “God among us” will be revealed to all who gather, seekers, followers, believers, and unbelievers.

Therefore, putting the tasks of worship together, the first “goal” of worship is to enter into that space—Worship (coming back to the heart of worship)

Then, flowing out of worship, are implications for Christian formation and implications for outreach and evangelism. But the point of principle 10 is, our focus, first and foremost, is for worship. We do not worship and establish a worship experience primarily to teach believers. We do not establish and design a worship experience primarily to reach unbelievers. We will say more about that in a little bit.

Implications:

1) God becomes the subject and object of our worship.

As the initiator and invitee of Worship, we gracious receive what He gives and desires to unfold within

As the initiator who (reveals, has reveals, will reveal), He is the one who has called us into His presence, calls us into relationship, and calls us to faithful response.

2) As the object of our worship, how is he inviting us to respond? With Love? Praise? Confession? Supplication? Service? Obedience?

Object: It is to Him that we respond with love, praise, service, and obedience.

This reminds me of Paul’s doxology, beautiful doxology at the end of

Another way I have stated this implication: Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the End, and the Lord of everything in between.

Gathering to worship God, first and foremost, with an eye on receiving and responding, how might this impact the ways and means by which we gather to worship?

Elements of our gathering:

1) Call to Worship (Call and Response)—

2) Interaction with Scripture reading and continued proclamation that challenges us to depth and maturity of faith

(not just in sunday morning worship hour, but in Sunday school, and in small groups)

3) Ensuring Songs of Substance (theologically, biblically, doctrinally) It also helps revelation when we have songs of substance. Again, to me, the issue is not traditional hymns or contemporary hymns or praise songs; the issue is really substance. Do the songs we sing, whether they are old or new, traditional or contemporary, whatever those terms may mean, really help reveal the truth about God to us? Is there substance in there that clarifies what God has revealed about Himself — God’s person, God’s work, God’s will? Are they songs that are substantial in portraying God’s attributes and acts and desires for us? I think that is important. We can do a lot better than we have done here. The style of songs are not as important as the substance. I do think it is important to have a balance of traditional and contemporary worship songs, allows us to ebb and flow into deep glimpses of truth and the simple contemplation of truth.

4) Communal Prayer & Testimony and other spiritual gifts

5) Regular celebration of means of grace(communion, baptism, and community gatherings, serving others)

I am a believer, also, that the sacraments are very helpful in the area of revelation. Even in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, as the action is taking place and joined to word of explanation, the sacrament becomes for us a retelling of the mighty acts of God in Christ by redeeming us. Baptism also speaks to us of death and resurrection that God has accomplished in our lives. We don’t speak about community gatherings and serving others as a sacrament, but those activities are a means of grace, thus fit within the realm of sacramental activity. We can’t understate the importance of gathering as a community of faith, outside of Sunday mornings, and giving of ourselves to one another and those the Lord brings us into contact.

6) Response

Statements of Faith (Apostle’s Creed)

Doxology

Praise/Thanksgiving

Outreach opportunity

Celebrating partnerships and ministry

7) Christlogical & Trinitarian Ephasis

First, because Jesus Christ is the final, perfect revelation of God. So, if we say worship is about revelation and response, we affirm that God has revealed Himself most profoundly, most clearly, most perfectly in the person of His Son Jesus. 

We know that from a number of passages. , “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.” Then verse 14, “The Word became fresh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Second, Jesus is also the perfect example of faithful response to God. When we consider the human life that Jesus lived, the true humanity of Jesus during his earthly sojourn, we find the One who is the absolute epitome of faithful response to God. Doing justice, that is Jesus; loving mercy, that is Jesus; walking humbly with the Father, that is Jesus. Consider how Jesus said, “I can do nothing apart from my Father; I do only what my Father shows me or tells me; apart from the Father I am nothing, can do nothing.” He is the model of humility, the model of justice, the model of love of God and love of neighbor. 

These elements are fulfilled and illumined in the person of JC. Furthermore, a Trinitarian emphasis maintains the communal and eternality of our gathering. It also helps us to remember the essence of the activity of Holy Spirit. In the words of Thomas Torrance: “worship is our participation through the Holy Spirit in the Son’s communion with the Father.”

Last but not least

10) Worship should counteract the tendency to focus on self and instead emphasize the community.

We will always be balancing the tendency of our sinful flesh toward an inappropriately self-centered worship by emphasizing that the community worship experiences are indeed community worship experiences, not simply the gatherings of assorted individuals.

We join with one another and with the church catholic, that is, with believers from all ages and from all nations, tribes, and tongues and we should strive, therefore, for more global and historic perspectives in our worship. 

This could include the use of songs and hymns from different ages and different cultures, the welcoming of people from different cultures and traditions into our pulpits, and the use of more songs that express ourselves as we/thou than as I/thou, and of the whole forming and shaping of our worship experiences with a view to sensitivity toward all of the body of Christ. So, we come together and think: “Are we discerning the body and what members are getting less attention than they ought to have in our midst?” 

We must take opportunities to stretch our understanding about what true worship is and involves.

As we end this series and discussion on worship, I hope things have been stirred up; that you have considered possibilities of expanding and understanding why we gather to worship; how are entire lives are intended to be an act of responding to the grace and peace of God

This won’t be the last time we discuss this specific topic, rather you will begin to see how it is implemented into our gatherings and the unfolding community of Skyline FF.

Speaking of worship, as you leave this morning, think of how God is pursuing you? How is God desiring to invade our presence? How is He at work in us and through us?

Thank you to those who helped out with Bear Paw this weekend? Thank you to those who help out with Sunday mornings—cafe, usher, music, children’s ministry.

Thank you to those who serve in the prison, hospitality and compassion, thank you to those who are give to the church, thank you to those who help out with the facility, and give rides, and bring meals, and visit people in the hospital, or prayer for the needs of the church and the community.

Perhaps you have a friend at work or in the neighborhood that is looking to connect with a group of people? I encourage you to come and join us this Wednesday evening for Dinner, games, and a work project.

Finally, I ask you pray for this coming week and the service we will have next week. We are going to hear from our youth ministry team, our young people who attended camp, and learn the ways God has been at work in the lives of our young people.

Let’s Pray.