This next installment of “What our Gathered Worship Should Look Like” has been helped by the internet storm caused by Victoria Osteen (wife of Joel Osteen of “Your Best Life Now” and prosperity gospel fame) because of comments she made in a recent service at Lakewood Church in Houston, TX. In exhorting the audience to participate, she laid out a case for why they ought to be motivated to do so. In sum, she said, affirmatively: “You’re not doing it for God, you are doing it for yourself, really.” Here is…Victoria Osteen, the glory of God and Reformed Worship
This next installment of “What our Gathered Worship Should Look Like” has been helped by the internet storm caused by Victoria Osteen (wife of Joel Osteen of “Your Best Life Now” and prosperity gospel fame) because of comments she made in a recent service at Lakewood Church in Houston, TX. In exhorting the audience to participate, she laid out a case for why they ought to be motivated to do so. In sum, she said, affirmatively: “You’re not doing it for God, you are doing it for yourself, really.” Here is…
I want to make a case for you (especially pastors) to approach your planning of public worship, with a view to being “historic.” Let me explain. Using a word like historic in connection with worship can immediately raise defenses and lead to misunderstandings. When some folks hear “historic” they think: “Oh no, you want a boring formal service with no new songs” or “you are trying to impose extra-biblical standards on our public worship.” Indeed, a word like “historic” may have (and…
Christian congregational worship is Spirit-gathered, Spirit-dependent, Spirit-engendered, and Spirit-empowered, because left to ourselves we will not worship the right object, according to the right standard, for the right motivation(s), through the right means and to the right end. It is the Holy Spirit who creates, enables and energizes our desire and capacity to worship. By his ministry we are ushered into God’s presence and commune with him. The is one of the lessons of Jesus’ words in John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who…