“Our church service begins at 10:30 a.m. At 10:20, we turn the lights down and begin the prelude.”
That’s good. Helps the people get ready for nap time...
Ok, I’m gonna get tarred and feathered for this, but here goes. And I have nothing against brother Sproul. Good Reformed theology, amen.
I think it’s interesting that He uses the Old Covenant and Moses to try to tell us how New Covenant worship should be. Hmmmm.
Sorry, but we have a better Covenant and better promises. As John Piper says, “He is more glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”
I *LOVE* worship. I love Him. I love my brothers and sisters. I don’t go to church feeling somber.
Turning down the lights for nap-time... forget it.
I used to be part of a Sunday morning singles group that met in a bakery (the church had part of a strip mall, but didn’t own all of it at the time).
The group of believers that met was exactly what God had planned because we all had actual COMMUNITY, quite spontaneously and without manipulation.
Something weird started going on at that church (Brownsville “revival” was influencing the pastor) and of course this beautiful thing God was doing in a bakery had to be disturbed. HAD TO, because it wasn’t big enough. The visions of the ministry “team” were HUGE and befitting a MIRACLE-WORKING GOD!!!
Problem: GOD does not part Red Seas but ONCE. After that, “tell your children what the LORD your GOD did for you”. Same thing with Penetecost and ACTS. GOD establishes something and then withdraws signs so FAITH can settle and dominate (IMO,of course...I am not going to argue about the sign gifts so let that go...)
Anyway, the bakery fellowship was destroyed, fizzling out as men tried to make bigger something God was doing smaller on purpose. A similar destruction occurred when a Baptist church I went to decided their choir was no longer cool. Good business for the band, I guess, but do you think for one minute God didn’t see the tearing apart of the choir FELLOWSHIP that occurred so the leadership could upgrade their church to the latest phoney baloney?
I’d love to be a part of a bakery fellowship again. You cannot MAKE something like that happen.
Certainly there are many important aspects to worship - and this article doesn’t seem to cover many of them, unfortunately. But the one in Heb., remember, is in the New Testament and echoes the call to respect and reverence. Sometimes I do feel we have lost that aspect in our churches. I’m a member of our praise team at my church and play the “electric guitar” complete with effects pedals but sometimes I feel we forget that awe and get too chummy with God as our “pal” and “buddy” and not as our Lord who died for us. For all eternity we will remember the price our unholiness cost the Son of God. There is freedom of expression with the Lord. As Chuck Gerard (this will date me) use to sing, “...sometimes hallelujah, sometime praise the Lord, sometime softly singing our hearts in one accord.” So style of music is not as important as what’s inside us. Our lives should reflect what’s happening in our hearts by way of the sanctification process - becoming more and more like God’s Son. Thankfully, I John 1:9 is still in there for all of us, too.
Eph. 5:19
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
John 4:23-24
23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
Heb. 12:28 & 29
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”
Rom. 12:1
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your