After All, Worship is Primarily a Preaching Event

We’re starting a new sermon series at our church this Sunday.  The series is titled, “Church: Why Bother?”  That title comes from a book by Philip Yancey by that same title.  We’re going to be looking at why the church is important, why people should “bother” with church.  Do you consider the church to be significant?  Is there a place in your life for the church?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

Sometimes people like Jesus but don’t like the church.  Sometimes people have had some kind of bad experience associated with church.  I understand.  There are plenty of reasons not to bother with church.  But are there also lots of reasons to get over it and participate in the life of a local church?

I think so, and I think a place to start is with worship.  Many times when people give church a try they start with attending a worship service.  Many times when people leave the church it’s because of something associated with the worship service.  As such, worship is often the front door and the back door of the church.  And many people consider the worship service to be primarily a preaching event.  A lot is riding on whether people get anything out of the sermon.  It’s very possible that many people, when asking why they should bother with the church, are actually asking why they should go out of their way to go listen to somebody preach a sermon. 

So I think a helpful place to start thinking about why one should bother with church is to remember worship is supposed to be exactly that; worship.  It’s intended to be a gathering of people acknowledging God is Creator and is beyond us and yet with us and is perfectly moral (holy) and is, for those and so many other reasons, worthy of reverence, respect, and response.  Worship is to be a preview of heaven in that those gathered are all focused on God, and because of the object that shared focus and orientation is a beautiful, uniting power.

If we think about ourselves personally, genuinely, from the heart, worshiping God in ways that are authentic to us we are closer to what the Bible really says about worship.  The Bible doesn’t say worship is primarily a preaching event.  The Bible says worship is primarily about God and our connection to God.  If that’s where we start our thinking about church we’ll discover it truly is worth the bother.  When it all comes down, it’s His church, and He is worth the bother.

You Came From Dirt, So Go Ahead and Treat Each Other Like Dirt

In the news last week:

      Heckling Fiona Apple in concert
      A “fan” throwing a full beer can at Azealia Banks while she was in concert
      Heckling at a performance of a play, “The Laramie Project” at Ole Miss
      Bullying in schools
      Bikers attacking a family in an SUV in NYC
      Congress… well, you know (the economy was going too well, something had to be [not] done)

Yes, there was some nice, heart-warming stuff in the news too, but why is this trend toward a lack of civility happening?  Yes, the person who threw the full can of beer onstage may have emptied a few beer cans into him- or herself prior to that, but why is this trend happening, even among the sober?

It wasn’t just last week.  It seems like every week there are reports of parents at their elementary-age kids’ sporting events physically attacking, punching coaches and referees.  On the internet every week the comments at the bottom of an article become a combative, profanity-filled exchange in nothing flat.  And it’s not just the internet or other sources of news and information.  The profanity, the violent language is more pervasive than ever.

I don’t know if they realize it, but these people are setting an example.  “This is how we act, this is how we interact.”  That example will shape other interactions, between spouses, parents and children, people at PTA meetings, citizens at town hall meetings.  It becomes accepted, even normative.  “This is the way we treat one another.  This is the way we talk to, er… yell at, er… scream in the face of one another.”  Anger, impatience, disrespect, and a disregard for life are being passed along and passed down.  This view of everybody else as “stupid people who keep getting in my way” is going mainstream.

All of that brings me to say, my greatest concern isn’t that more and more people are deviating from the standard of civil human behavior.   My greatest concern is that more and more people don’t know the standard from which they’re deviating.  As a theater department official at Ole Miss said of the apology given later by the students who were heckling, “I don’t think they knew what they were apologizing for.”

So, where’s the hope?  Perhaps there’ll be a pendulum swing and things like concern for the community and mutual respect will get the popular nod again.  But I’m afraid that fix would only be a temporary one because that pendulum does tend to keep swinging.  The greater, more substantial and lasting hope is the Kingdom of God.  You know, that Divine intervention we pray for in the Lord’s prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.”  As you know, the title of this piece, “You came from dirt, so go ahead and treat each other like dirt,” isn’t in the Bible.  What is in the Bible is this Kingdom way of life, where we don’t have to earn one another’s respect.  We respect one another simply because we are, simply because we have life, and ultimately because the life in every one of us came from God.  As such, every life is sacred.