Pure Church

A couple weeks back, my deacon of finance commented over lunch: "How different do you think things would be if Christians treated Sunday as the first day of the week rather than the last?"

it was a great question. The question puts its finger on our entire approach to the Lord's Day. Far too often we approach Sunday as the day we rest from the week gone by rather than the day of first fruits, of beginning with the Lord and shaping our hearts and souls for the week ahead. When that happens, God gets the leftovers and the world gets the best part of us.

On Sunday nights, most of us will begin routines designed to help us get off to a good start for the week. We'll select the children's clothes for school. We'll perhaps pack lunches. Spouses will coordinate schedules, being sure important meetings and outings are highlighted. Thoughts will turn to work: tasks to get done, meetings to attend, and so on. In short, we prepare for the week now that Sunday is over.

How would it affect our souls and our weeks to simply back the preparation up one day so that Sunday is the first day of the week and the Saturday the night of our preparation for all that's ahead? What if we invested considerable energy planning to get off to a good start with the Lord and His people, and planning to give the leftovers to lesser lords? How would we benefit if we lived for the Lord's Day rather than living for the weekend? I think the effect would be noticeable and almost immediate.

Jeff Purswell with a brief biblical theology of preaching as the central event in the gathered worship of God's people:

Throughout salvation history, all the way into the new covenant, God’s Word is at the center of worship. The early church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and every church was nourished on God’s Word, all the way down to the last chapter of the last book that Paul wrote, where he tells Timothy to preach the Word “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2).

Why? Why so much preaching? Why all this talking? Because the primary way we encounter God in worship is through the preaching of the Word of God.

Think about it this way. Normally, in what we call “worship,” we spend significant time—perhaps the whole time—addressing God, singing to him, praising him, extolling him, praying to him. Wonderful! But in preaching we are no longer addressing God; he is addressing us. Nothing is more important than this moment. And this is why the most important worship leader in your church is your pastor.

That really gets to the heart of preaching. The Bible is not simply a book that we talk about. When God’s Word is faithfully preached, God is addressing us. God is speaking. We hear not merely a man’s voice. We hear the voice of God.

Read the entire post here.

Here.

Bob Kauflin reflects on passing worship to the next generation. He borrows a metaphor from track and field, the relay race, to offer four points:

The race is about the baton, not the runners.
The relay brings out the best in every runner.
Practice until the handover becomes instinctual.
The baton exchange should occur at very close to maximum speed.

Hear his sermon from Worship God '09 here.

At the Miami Pastors' Conference, one of the best things to experience is the genuine Christian fellowship and laughter. I laugh there and in Chicago at the New Life conference more than any place on earth. That's 'cause the bruthas are silly.

This past conference, Ken Jones, Michael Leach, and Anthony Carter grilled a young man about why he feels compelled to whoop. Now whoopin' is a staple of traditional African-American preaching. If you can't 'hoop, you can't preach. And don't let Leach fool ya; he's a 'hooper :-). Anyway, if you've never seen a preacher 'hoop, it's better to illustrate than describe. Here's a video for the uninitiated.

Now what's new to me in this video is the lady in the corner doing sign language for the hearing impaired. Ever seen a 'hoop signed??? She's smooth with it. Check her out as the preacher gets rolling!

The Lord has granted me the honor and privilege of speaking at Worship God '08. I'm greatly looking forward to the fellowship with the saints there, thinking about and applying the Psalms to our lives as worshippers of the Sovereign Lord.

I have the honor of speaking on the Psalms and our emotion in worship. A friend sent me this video. I wonder if this is what Bob has in mind?



For the unitiated, the first few songs were very popular R&B love songs. Should we sing those to God in worship???

Last night I leafed through John H. Armstrong (ed), Reforming Pastoral Ministry, noting things that caught my attention a few years ago when I first read the book. The book looks like it was highlighted with a rainbow! At any rate, one thing that struck me afresh was a short section in Jerry Marcellino's contribution, "Leading the Church in God-Centered Worship: The Pastoral Role" (pp. 129-146). It's helpful reminder of what we work and long for in our gathered assemblies.

Therefore, leading our flocks in the offering of true worship to the living God, in both spirit and truth (John 4:24), with Christ's gathered church, is surely to be the aim of every authentic minister of the new covenant (2 Cor. 3:6). Such a minister is continuously marked by setting before his heart the salvation of lost sinners and the maturation of Christ's sheep, especially on each Lord's Day, for the purpose of building a God-centered climate and culture. Recently I had the privilege of reading a Third-World missionary church planter's prayer letter that echoed similar aims: "...longing for a God-centered, Christ-exalting, vibrant Biblical church... may we go on to become not merely a legally recognized church, but one recognized in heaven for consistently worshipping God in spirit and truth!"

As a result, leading your church toward a more God-centered worship service is easier said than done. Great patience with God's people and much prayer, coupled with sound and pertinent exposition, must be your overall general guiding rules for such reformation. There are numerous reasons for this approach, and the purpose of this chapter is to discuss them and then point the way ahead. (p. 131)

Later Marcellino summarized:

May God help us to lead our congregations to such God-centered worship that not only our visitors but all who regularly attend our services in an unconverted state may fall down and worship God! (p. 140)

That's a great prayer to offer for every Lord's Day.