In the Order of Worship/Service, what is essential?
Submitted by Tony Germain on Mon, 2009-03-09 00:20.
I thought I'd throw this thought out into the light of day. In our various church backgrounds, what do you consider as essential in your Order of Worship and what parts are secondary (indifferent) or to say, may help and not harm a Worship Service?
What is the main reason you attend church?
Grace!
tonygermain@msn.com
Micah 6:8
The reason I attend church
I attend church because it is socially conditioned into me as I was reared in a Christian home. I go there to be entertained by the music and intellectually stimulated by a "nice" sermon. I go to be interact with people who have known my family for a long time and pay my social dues by nodding, smiling and being polite.
I do not say these things to boast, but to be honest. Each week I must fight these temptations. My understanding of church has been expanded by Simeon Chan's book "Liturgical Theology" and I have come to realize that my free church liturgy runs the risk of being congregation focused and not God focused. They try and I realize that for the most part I am the one to blame for my lack of participation, but there is something that is just not conducive to a God centered worship.
I don't want to go to church to get a warm fuzzy feeling--I want to go to church to worship and serve God. To be in communion with Him and His people. To be convicted of Sin. To be re-focused and re-energized to live like Christ during the rest of the week. I want to partake in communion every Sunday, not just once a month.
Sometimes I don't know why I am still a Baptist, but God has placed me in a family and a tradition that needs ministering to, and I hope and pray that God can use me to do that.
That, more or less, is why I go to church.
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"It is right, therefore, that we not just be called Christians, but that we actually be Christians."
-St. Ignatius of Antioch