Corporate Worship: The Bottom Line

I am going to ask you to do 3 things each week as you anticipate and engage in corporate worship: Pray, Prepare and Participate.

PRAY for a huge display of the glory, character and attributes of God among us. Pray that we don’t focus on what we do and miss God in the process. Pray that we focus on God Himself and learn to worship and build one another up in the process. Pray for each other and for the worship leaders and me as we plan what we do each week. That we would be filled with the Holy Spirit, worship would be "from the heart," we would be God-focused and Christ-centered, that it would be based on the deep truths of God's greatness and goodness.

PREPARE wholeheartedly for corporate worship. Ask God to strip you of all pride and pretense. As Don Carson says we cannot ascribe to the Lord all the glory due His name if we are consumed by self-love or intoxicated by pitiful visions of our own greatness or independence. What will make our worship gatherings great is a renewed focus on who God is and what He does. May we seek the Lord and go deeper with him in our understanding and experience of corporate worship each week. That starts Sunday after the service; and continues to Saturday night and Sunday morning. Prepare your household for what they will experience. Be ready for God to do something.

PARTICIPATE wholeheartedly in it when you are here. Heb. 13:15-16: Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise — the fruit of lips that confess His name. And do not forget to do good and share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.