(my notes from Wednesday night, July 8, 2009).
1) Pray:
- We need men and women who are praying for our Sunday gatherings. Pray for our volunteers, our teachers, our visitors, our attitudes and actions, our singing, our music, our prayers, our giving, our listening to and response to God’s Word, and so on.
- Pray that every one present will adore & praise God, confess sin, give thanks for God’s grace, and talk to God about their needs.
- Pray for conviction of sin, repentance, and the joy of changed lives.
- Ask God to do a great work in the heart of our church, every time we gather together.
“Remember that men and women are not converted, finally, by [our] sagacity, oratory, theological brilliance or homilectical skill. God in his mercy may use all these and many more gifts. But only God is able to bring people to himself. That is ample incentive to prayer” (Carson, Gagging of God, 513).2) Participate:
- Sing when we sing, pray when we pray, read when we read, listen, fellowship, enjoy church.
- Key: respond to the message: search your heart and apply God’s Word.
- Talk to people, sit together, pray for one another.
- Find and spend time with our guests.
- Ed Stetzer describes this rule, each “member must talk to someone they don’t know for three minutes following the end of worship” (Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age, 100).
- Seat shepherds “sit in a specific area each week to connect guests with nearby members to make them feel welcome” (Ibid.).
- Make weekly participation at our church a priority. Be here as much as possible.
- Keep complaints and concerns and questions private.
- First, go to the leader of the particular ministry, then come to the pastor(s), and then if you still have a concern or complaint or question, bring it to the church.
0 comments:
Post a Comment