Thoughts on worship, continued

You're still here?
I didn't scare you off?
(Grin)
Good! I'm glad. Let's talk some more . . .
In the gospel of Matthew, our Savior said "I will build my church."
Paul described Jesus this way:

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25b-27)

Do we see any echoes of this in the "purpose driven" churches of today? That's our question for this week.

Many of the modern churches assume that the primary purpose of Sunday morning worship services is to attract unbelievers and reach out to them. While this IS an exemplary goal, let's see if it matches up with the New Testament church......

40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:40-47)

Let's look at some other verses, too:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.  (I Peter 4:10)

From these verses, we can infer that the purpose of the church's gatherings is to worship God, and to equip each other for service, whether by exhortation, by teaching, by encouraging, or by any other gift that the Spirit gives to us. Paul mentions that the efforts should result in our being full of faith and knowledge, and keeping a spirit of unity and love.
Evangelism has a place in the worship service - please don't misunderstand me here - but Paul and Peter both seem to stress a priority on equipping Christians. Perhaps our best clue to evangelism is that we are told to do that each and every day of our lives:

And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. (Acts 5:42)

Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, (Philippians 1:27a)

Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

It can be truly difficult to plan and carry out worship services that are welcoming to guests, evangelistic of those who are not yet believers, but still working to equip Christians for the work of the kingdom of God.
Let's look at things that we can do . . .

First, we can invite non-believers to visit! That's important; if they aren't there, they can't hear the gospel, right? So invite them to come!

Next, make the worship understandable.  How would a first-time guest feel, visiting the service? Would they understand what was going on? Probably THE most important - would they feel welcomed?  It's not a bad idea to prompt as you go, or offer a few words of explanation for things as the service progresses. At one time, our family had an opportunity to attend a service of another faith, and it would have been great to have a "translator" beside us! We need to make sure that our visitors understand, and feel welcome, not awkward.

Thirdly, we should make it easy for people, when their hearts are stirred, to come to faith. As Paul said, we need to be ready to give answer when people ask about our faith. They should see a difference in the people within the church service, and they will want to know "why?" We can wait and speak to folks we know are visitors -  not hightail it out the door as fast as we can. The buffet at the local meat-n-three will still be hot and fresh if we take time to talk to (and perhaps pray with) people who are visiting.  Some visitors may not wish to talk, but would like to follow up with their questions privately -- cards to fill out can be helpful, as can an online presence on the church's web site. Some churches have regular meetings for non-believers; they offer classes to answer questions and facilitate that journey to faith in Jesus.

All of these are wonderful strategies, and fit in well with the example of the New Testament believers in the verses above.
I hope that some of this is helpful as we think about our worship this week.