"You play to win the game!" is now a legendary soundbite in the sports world. Then NY Jets coach, Herman Edwards, went on a tirade about playing and winning football games. These words echoed in my mind as I traveled home on Sunday after church.Our male youth leader, Michael Coffin, preached on Sunday and did an excellent job of preparing people for our prayer ministry part of our service. All of our prayer teams were busy praying for people. We had people who haven't come up in a long time. We even had a few people who were 1st timers that got prayer. The song the band sang coupled with the message made our ministry an encounter with God.
Here's the tie in! We don't do Sunday service just to do Sunday service. We used to do that but not anymore. Our Sunday service has a purpose. We want people to encounter God every Sunday through music, the arts, multimedia, and a biblical message. All the elements in our service are designed to lead people into the ministry time. The ministry time is the high point of our service because this is everyone's opportunity to respond to their encounter with God. We 'win' when there are people responding by coming up to receive prayer. The 'win' tells us when we're successful. Everyone wants to be on a winning team!
Sunday was a win for the CRV corporate worship service. We play to win the game!
If you're a pastor or church leader, what's the purpose of your corporate gathering? How do you know when you're successful? If you're in the business world, how do you know when you're successful in meetings? Do your meetings have a purpose? Do you spend a lot of time wondering why your in a meeting?
I, too, measure a lot of our "success" in Sunday services (as well as home groups) on how it seems that the prayer ministry time went. It's my barometer, so to speak, of the Holy Spirit's activity. It's not the only thing, clearly; many times the Spirit is active and yet manifests differently. And we would be foolish to only look at one aspect of our church. But still, I always go away cheering God on when significant things happen in prayer much more than I do if the worship was great or I felt that I (or someone else) preached a good message, or whatever.
ReplyDeleteI've said this a LOT over the past couple of years, and I guess I'm not really alone. Gosh, I love the Vineyard!
I don't want to do things just for the sake of doing them. During the creation account God evaluated his work. Upon his evaluation he said that it was good. I liken that to it being a success or a win. The only time it wasn't good is when he looked at man and saw that he was alone.
ReplyDeleteIf we don't have some kind of evaluation and measuring stick then we can end up spinning our wheels for a long time. We can easily waste tons of energy, time, and money! That's not being a good steward of all that God has given us.
Thanks for responding Rodger.