Put Service Back into the Church Service: Making Your Church Service Look More Like Jesus
Are Our Modern Day Worship Services Pleasing to God?
When you come to meet with me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations — I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!
Church service - Wikipedia
Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. He is more interested in the state of our hearts. He wants our heart devotion and obedience to His Word more than He wants our elaborate noisy worship services. He even grows weary of our prayers in worship if our hearts are not where they should be.
David puts the whole matter like this in Psalm The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. He could care less about our fancy worship services and costly sanctuaries and elaborate equipment. He wants our brokenness before Him. He wants our humble heart devotion. We are pretty good at devising elaborate worship services that attract people to our churches but are we pleasing God with them? Where are our hearts when we come to worship God? The second part of Isaiah Their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men.
They worshipped the God of Israel, not according to his appointment, but their own inventions, the directions of their false prophets or their idolatrous kings, or the usages of the nations that were round about them. The preaching of the Word of God should be foremost in our worship services. The preacher either has no lectern at all or only a small one that takes up little room. The days of the large pulpits with the big pulpit bibles are just about gone in modern evangelical churches. What does this tell us about the importance of the preaching the Word today?
In his first epistle to the Corinthian Church, Paul has in view the sharp contrast between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. The church is the common mother of all the godly, which bears, nourishes, and brings up children to God, kings and peasants alike; and this is done by the ministry of the word. Those who neglect or despise this order choose to be wiser than Christ.
Woe to the pride of such men! It is, no doubt, a thing in itself possible that divine influence alone should make us perfect without human assistance. But the present inquiry is not what the power of God can accomplish, but what is the will of God and the appointment of Christ. If the preaching of the Word of God is portrayed in scripture as of supreme importance, why then have modern evangelical churches relegated the preaching of the Word to an inferior position?
In short, it is because God-centered, careful, exegetical, authoritative preaching is not appealing to the culture. In order for the church to get big, church growth experts surmise, biblical preaching must go or be changed into a superficial, therapeutic, anecdote-filled message. True worship should then have the proclamation of the Word of God at its center and everything else should take their place behind it. When the preaching of the Word of God returns in power to our pulpits, we will know then that revival has returned to this nation.
Church service
Reveille , the morning hour of wakening in the army, is announced by a bugle. When times of awakening occur in the church the preaching of the Word serves that same function, as was once said of John Knox: All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version unless indicated otherwise. Revell Company, United States of America. Alex Dodson serves as president of Watchmen Radio Ministries International and as a staff evangelist. He has been in the gospel ministry for over thirty years. He was ordained in and has served as both a pastor and evangelist. He and his wife Susan live in Portland, Oregon in the beautiful Northwest.
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Box Portland, OR Some churches are equipped with state-of-the-art multi-media equipment to add to the worship experience. The congregation may sing along in hymnals or words to hymns and worship songs may be displayed on a screen. More liturgical denominations may have the words to specific prayers written in a missalette or prayer book , which the congregation follows.
Many churches will take up a collection during the service. The rationale for this is taken from 1 Corinthians But some churches eschew this practice in favor of voluntary anonymous donations for which a box or plate may be set up by the entrance, or return-address envelopes may be provided that worshippers may take with them. Some churches offer Sunday school classes. These will often be for younger children, and may take place during the whole of the service while the adults are in church , or the children may be present for the beginning of the service and at a prearranged point leave the service to go to Sunday school.
Some churches have adult Sunday school either before or after the main worship service. Following the service, there will often be an opportunity for fellowship in the church hall or other convenient place. This provides the members of the congregation a chance to socialize with each other and to greet visitors or new members.
Coffee or other refreshments may be served. Church services take many forms, and set liturgies may have different names. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It has been suggested that this article be merged into Christian liturgy. Discuss Proposed since November This article includes a list of references , related reading or external links , but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. November Learn how and when to remove this template message.
Retrieved from " https: Christian worship and liturgy Christian behaviour and experience Christian terminology. Articles to be merged from November All articles to be merged Articles lacking in-text citations from November All articles lacking in-text citations Commons category link is locally defined. Views Read Edit View history.
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