Friday, December 21, 2007

Twice A Year

A Christmas service is usually one of two Sundays a year (the other being Easter) that non-Christians and "fringe" Christians will make the trek to church. They somehow feel obligated to "check-in" during these two holiest of holidays. Why do they feel this? Is it ingrained in them because of our culture? Is it because they just like the Christmas festivities that the Church has during this season? Or is there, buried somewhere deep within them, a tiny hint of conviction? Do they think that gracing the threshold of the church twice a year keeps them in some sort of "good standing" with God?

There are probably many different reasons, or combinations of reasons, that they would pop in at Christmas and Easter, but regardless of what those reasons are, they're still showing up. In a culture that is ever increasingly becoming secularized, we still see church attendance spike on these two days, and we need to be about God's work on those days.

We build our services on the principles that God gave us in his Word, and we believe that when the Church (in general, hence the capital "C") is faithful to the principles of God's Word, that true biblical worship will take place, and that the Scriptures will be taught faithfully and intensely. We believe that when we as God's people participate in these things with freedom and joy, that unbelievers in our midst will be convicted by the Spirit.

If I can again reference the book "Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives On Worship And The Arts," author Harold Best talks about witnessing within the corporate gathering (church).
What happens in the corporate gathering as to witness should be no different from what happens as to worship. That is, if worship and witness are seamlessly knit, then the corporate gathering should proceed in its fullest prophetic condition, irrespective of the ratio between saints and sinners...The secret is not in talking baby talk to the unredeemed and adult talk to the converted, nor in seeking a happy medium between the two so as to conform to eased-up protocols of certain kinds of seeker sensitivity. The secret lies in the authority, the conviction, the unswerving bluntness of all truth preached, sung and written......
while the redeemed teach and edify each other, the unredeemed (in that same moment and under the authority of the same content) will fall down Godward in redeemed outpouring, newly washed.
The apostle Paul also talked about how the church should appear to unbelievers who come through the doors:
If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. -1 Corinthians 14:23-25

The Corinthian church had been misusing the spiritual gift of tongues as a way to make themselves seem superior to others within their church, and the apostle has to scold them back onto the right track. The word "prophesy" means proclaiming or speaking forth (not always predicting the future, like we think of when we think of the OT prophets), and Paul is basically saying that the Corinthians are creating chaos in the way they're trying to be "spiritual." If they were to proclaim the truth, and preach the gospel instead, an unbeliever visiting the church would encounter the power of the living Word of God, which cuts to the dividing of soul and spirit, and not some cultic chaos created by Christians all trying to outdo each other with their "gifts."

So as we think about the influx of unbelievers/fringers that we may encounter this Sunday, remember that they will not be changed by any programs or methods that we can make up, and that it is not our job to tailor our corporate worship of almighty God around them! It is our job to be faithful worshipers; to sing authentically and earnestly; to give joyfully and abundantly; to pray unceasingly and confidently; to seek God through his Word fervently and passionately; and to love and edify each other sacrificially and faithfully. It is these things that will be the most powerful evidence of the presence of the Spirit of God among his people!

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