Why Should I Be Part of a Worshiping Community?
In his book Real faith For Real Life author Michael Foss writes, “Without worship, we confuse the temporary satisfaction of pleasure for the eternal joy of God’s gift of purpose for our lives.” As a result, “Our souls begin to shrink.” (p.43). Too often Christians think that going to weekly worship is optional. Something to do on the occasion when we aren’t too tired and have the time. Foss eloquently explains just how detrimental to our soul it is when we don’t meet weekly with others in our faith community to worship God. The influence of the world begins to overwhelm us, and we cease to be the people God created us to be. Our soul in a sense, shrinks. But just showing up is not enough. It is easy to be in attendance, but not participate in worship. Weekly Worship can be a spiritual compass for our lives. If attending is all that you are doing, then you are missing out on receiving the guidance that the Holy Spirit has to offer. Here are some steps to help you
Before worship starts:
- Ask God to prepare your hearts. To help focus not on the cares of the world but on God and to put distractions away.
- Pray for someone else nearby. Pick someone, anyone. This focuses our minds on caring and serving others.
- Ask God to speak and help you to listen and hear what he has to say.
Towards the end of worship:
- Think about how you can respond to what God has said
- Commit yourself to responding to what you have learned.
When we worship, we meet God. Our focus is to be on God, not on ourselves. However, it is ok to expect that our lives will be touched, impacted, or changed by this meeting. It is the very nature of God to transform. Any encounter of God will result in transformation of some sort. We need our weekly worship to have this deep level impact from God on our lives. Without it, we often fall victim to the degrading effects of the world around us.
Join us this summer as we dive deeper into the stories of how God is the real hero of both the Bible and our lives. Come and see how that can make all the difference in our faith.