Good Morning!
This past Lord’s Day we had the immense blessing of bringing into full communicant membership nine young covenant children. Whenever we get to see the flowering of the promises of God made in baptism it is an immense privilege and joy. There is just something fantastic about the opportunity I personally have as a pastor to meet with folks who profess faith in Jesus Christ, to help them to understand what that means, and to assist them as they begin to grow in grace and love for Jesus Christ. It’s an honor that I take very seriously and I want to humbly give thanks to the Lord and especially to the parents of these young ones for granting me that occasion. This probably goes without saying, but we all know that receiving the right hand of fellowship from the elders and the certificate from me in the worship service is just the beginning of the life of service and mutual comfort brothers and sisters are to give to one another as we grow together in God’s love.
In the worship and prayer help today I want to talk a little bit about a couple of those duties of church membership that each of us have. Some of this will be captain obvious stuff, some of it may be a refresher, and some of it may be new territory to consider. The reason why we take up the question in a devotional that usually involves thinking deeply about the nature of faith and meditating on a passage of Scripture is primarily because the way most of us interact with other folks in the Church is during morning service on Sunday, which grants us a good place to start as we think through the question before us. We’ll use our Church’s order to give a place to talk about it.
So how do we help each other as fellow members of the Bethany Church at 11:00am?
Well, part of how we do that is being there before 11:00am. Fellowship is so vital to growing relationships in the body. It’s hard to know how to be praying for other people in the house of God if we are not speaking with them, and if we don’t see or talk to them during the week than at what other time will we get to do that? Yet there is something else about getting there ten to fifteen minutes before the prelude starts. It grants time to prepare for the worship that is getting ready to happen. If we can show up to work on time than we ought to be able to show the same punctuality for the God who made Heaven and Earth. I know a lot of y’all related to each other, but the connections we have as believers are different than the ones we have in blood.
When we do begin the service we have a moment of silent prayer after the announcements and before the Call to Worship. Part of the reason for that is so that we can communicate that my reading off dates and times of activities is not a portion of our worship time. 11:00am may be the time I start talking, but it really isn’t until I literally call us to praise through the Word of God does our service really begin. The more time we can give to make ready the more we’ll be ready to gain from worship. Other things like singing and the sermon itself are likewise central to our growing in grace with one another.
Though when we talk about being there before the start of the corporate part of the day there are other things of course that come to mind. Sabbath School provides for us a chance for more directed teaching on Scripture as well as granting us a chance to ask questions about whatever it is I am talking about that week. It’s not lecture time. It’s a mutual time of exploration, which should lead to exultation. And even before the 10:00am Sabbath School there is on the second Sunday of the month a breakfast we call “Mugs and Muffins” which provides even more fellowship time. Each of these in their own way are central to how we build up the body together in mutual love.
I know I said last Thursday that I was done talking about the Sabbath, but like most preachers when I say that “I am done” it means give me five more minutes. We are blessed at Bethany to not only have a morning service for the purpose of worship and praise we also have a second service in the evening at 5:30pm that is also provided by our elders for the good improvement of our spiritual health. An aspect of this evening worship time that is different from the morning, and that also lends itself to fellowship and mutual edification, is a season of prayer where I lead us in personal petitions to the Lord and in a second, more intimate pastoral prayer to Christ Jesus for the needs of the people of God. In addition to that prayer time we have two song selections where anyone can call out a number, and as long as we can find the tune, we together have a grand time singing the Lord’s thanksgiving out of the Psalter or the hymnal. So much can be learned about our brothers and sisters in Christ during these less “buttoned up” moments in the life of the Church.
I could at this point of course move on to our Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.
Just as the season of prayer provides opportunity to share life with one another for the mutual benefit of the Body. Whereas the teaching time on Sunday night is “topical” and the morning sermon is verse-by-verse exposition through a book our leading on Wednesday is more geared towards devotional exercises as we learn more of God’s grace and mercy. Plenty of time in that hour for everyone to join in.
While I have barely scratched the surface there are lot’s of other things like WOC that are right there for the blessing. We just need to take advantage of what we already have. The thing is about all this stuff is that it is done together. It couldn’t be done any other way. You can’t have corporate fellowship by yourself. That’s an oxymoron. It’s also a similar version of that word to think we don’t need to take advantage of the moments the Church opens up the house of the Lord to encourage our spiritual growth as one. There are a lot of things going on in the world today and I know that our hearts and souls are heavy with all of it. Who better to lean on in these days than one another. We fool ourselves (but not God) by acting like we have all our stuff in shape. Thing is we all have hard stuff going on in our lives. By ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t “exist” so that we can “save face” or put on a fake show for the neighbors we actually are really hurting ourselves.
We at Bethany can’t spiritually grow unless we want to.
We can’t want to if we don’t meet together when we can.
I want to invite you to put aside all the reasons you can’t…and just come.
For yourself and for us.
Here’s a little bit to look at in regards to the benefits of an evening service:
https://www.christurc.org/blog/2010/12/08/why-an-evening-worship-service
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church