Introduction
In this column I hope to explore each week a facet of corporate Christian worship—that is, what do Christians do together when they congregate on Sunday morning before God’s face? I also want to examine why Christians do these things. Why have followers of Jesus, week after week, and for generations and centuries around the whole world, kept up some fairly regular and similar practices? They do them, I’ll suggest, for three reasons:
- To recall their identity—to remind themselves who they are and to whom they belong
- To reaffirm what they believe
- To reset their direction—to reorient themselves, and to re-pledge to their aims for living
I want these weekly articles to teach. Worshiping God worthily demands careful thinking about what we’re doing, and why. I also hope that they encourage. Accordingly, as I write each one, I shall offer a prayer that what I write and you read equips us to live more faithfully and as God intends.
I hope that how I write creates a “kitchen-table conversation” atmosphere between us. Let’s pretend that we’re having coffee or a Pepsi together, and that each of us is warmly open to listen to and explore the thoughts each of us has about some things that really matter to both of us—namely, how best to worship our God together.
So, I’ll present a few thoughts, and invite you to respond with some of your own. Let’s pray that, along the way, Christ’s Spirit prompts you and me to commit as much as we know about ourselves to as much as we know about God, with the confident hope that we’ll each be led to discover more about both him and ourselves.
With warm good wishes, and in our Lord Jesus,
Dale
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7 Responses to “Introduction”
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Dale,
Best wishes and rich blessings for this great project. May the Lord direct every step of it, and may He receive the glory due His great name.
Chip Stam
Dear Chip,
Thanks for your warm encouragement. Please know that I am in Christian solidarity with you, and thank God for your life-affirming, winsome witness to our Lord Jesus’ presence and power amid your circumstances.
We both belong to and serve our Lord together,
Dale
I’ll make it a habit to check in at least once a week. Thanks for doing this, and a fine beginning.
You’re bookmarked! I’ll check in often. Thanks for doing this Coop!
Hi Dale, your column was forwarded to me by a member of our congregation and I enjoyed it much, I am looking forward to reading your comments about Worshipping together. Two questions I would like to ask, firstly, can I get this send to me automatically? (you can see my first class knowledge of all things internet here). I am an organist, I am always perturbed by the chatter that goes on before the service (after it as well) to the point that there is really no sense in playing at all. Yet there are people who enter the sanctuary who wish to sit quietly to prepare for the service, they must be as frustrated as I am about this. At times during the offertory, I have some info about the music put on the screen explaining something about what and why something is being played, which is appreciated. Yup, “this is how we have done things always” comes up a lot when you point out that the time before is a prep/reflection period, people have not seen each other for a week or more and wish to catch up on the latest news. Secondly: perhaps you can write something about this time of reflection that would be meaningful to present to the Worship Committee and Council to try and implement a change in our pre service habits?. Thirdly: any comments from your readers are more than welcome. Greetings, John.
[...] a regular practice on Sundays to congregate , and why they do what they do when they get together. At the beginning of the series, I suggested three reasons why Christians [...]