Sunday, October 12, 2008

The Real Litmus Test for Your Worship Service

This was inevitable in the consumer-driven church, I guess. (HT: Justin Taylor)

If you're going to church today, I'm not going to tell you that impressive facilities and five-star service aren't important to your "experience," but the number one think you should look for at your church's worship service is who the attention is really on.

If it's not you, I'm sorry. But was it at least Jesus?
Because if the music doesn't center on the awesomeness of God and the wonder of Christ's work, it doesn't matter how polished or energetic or slick the worship time was. And if the message doesn't focus on Jesus and the centrality of the gospel, it doesn't matter how great a speaker the pastor is or how cool or funny or dynamic he is.

Following Jesus means denying yourself. This means when you go to church, it shouldn't be about you, and you shouldn't mind if it's not.
And it means you shouldn't "test" your worship service on how well it caters to you.

Is your church focusing on Jesus this morning? (A mention isn't an automatic yes to the question.)
If not: What are you going to do about it?

There's nothing wrong with clean facilities and friendly greeters and all that, and indeed, we should all hope for those things. But, man, are they beside the point.

1 comment:

josh said...

I agree 100%. Thanks for posting and may the Lord bless your ministry!