It’s been a while since I last recapped one of our services. Sorry about that. I’ve had stuff going on, and haven’t given much attention to the blog. We’ve continued to work through our summer series, Blockbuster Messages.
This past week we focused on the end of the world. Movies like 2012 paint a picture of destruction, fear and hopelessness. Yet, while the Bible also paints some vivid pictures of the end of the world, it even more so draws our attention to remember that the end of the world is coming, that we don’t know when, and that if we are in Christ Jesus, there is no reason to fear. If we live with a biblical worldview, then we will be ready and not caught off guard.
The messages we are receiving though the media are constant and often in contrast with biblical truth. We must be aware and constantly evaluating according to the Bible.Welcome/Announcements: We began as usual with welcome, announcements, and greeting time.
Call to Worship: We took a moment with the call to worship to remind ourselves of why we sing when we gather. Obviously, I could teach a long time on this, but I summarized it by pointing out three main reasons we sing as Christ-followers and as a congregation. (1) To praise the Lord, (2) to declare His greatness together, and (3) to remind one another of God’s truth. I then read Psalm 96:1-3 to point back to Scripture and call the congregation to worship.
1st Music Set: We did two music worship sets in this service. The opening one included Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King (Robinson/Miller), a time of prayer and confession with Scriptures from Matthew 25:13, Luke 21:34-36, and 1 Thessalonians 5:8-10, and then Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) (Newton/Rees/Excell/Tomlin/Giglio). We transitioned out of this time with Scripture from 1 Timothy 6:15-16.
Offering: We moved into our offering time during which we showed the series intro video from Week 1 again. Each week we’ve shown a video piece to set up the message, and felt it was a good idea to use the original piece to help people remember why we are doing this series. Check this post if you’d like to see it again.
Message: Our message was focused on being ready for the end of the world and what that means from a biblical worldview vs. a non-biblical worldview. This morning’s message was brought by a young man (Alex) who has served the past two years as an intern in our youth department and for many years on the worship team. He’s getting ready to get married and go to Bible college. He did a great job handling this potentially difficult topic and pointing the congregation to Christ. We ended the message with a video from the folks over at The Work of the People featuring many Scriptures about the return of Christ.
2nd Music Set: Our second set was focused on Christ and His return. We sang I Will Rise (Giglio/Tomlin/Maher/Reeves), Revelation Song (Riddle), and Sing to the King (Foote). We went right into I Will Rise from the video with no introduction. This was the first time we had done this one as a congregation, although it had been used in a youth event. It was very cool because people caught on quickly and by about halfway through the song, everyone was standing as we worshiped together. We kind of rewrote the order of Revelation Song in the middle of it, but the congregation kept singing and the team hung together. It was great.
Prayer Focus: We then had a time of prayer for our students and leaders headed to our denomination’s big youth conference, LIFE 2010 in Kentucky.
Dismissal: We concluded the service by again reminding ourselves of 1 Timothy 6:11-16 and played Sing to the King as people left.
It was a great morning together as we celebrated Christ and His return. It was cool, too, because right from the beginning people were singing strong and confidently. Alex did an awesome job.
If you were there, it would be great to hear your feedback.
You can check out what other churches did this past weekend at The Worship Community.
Thanks!
