Chapter 27. Getting the Most out of Church Services. God is more glorified when we unite with our brethren and join our praise offerings to theirs. Francis of Assisi. If we want Jesus to go with us to the meeting, we must invite Him home with us after the meeting. Samuel Logan Brengle. Those living the Kingdom life aren't satisfied to just show up each Sunday and warm a church pew. They look forward to the weekly church meetings as high points of their Christian walk.
However, what we get out of our church services depends to a large degree on what we put into them. Preparation. First of all, we should prepare for each meeting to the extent we're able. If the service will include a Sunday school lesson or a Bible study, we should study the material ahead of time. This will enable us to meaningfully participate in the discussion or to follow it with understanding. If the church will be asking for prayer requests, we should come with prayer requests in mind.
If our church provides a time for members to share testimonies about their week, we should come prepared to share a meaningful testimony when possible. Also, we should pray throughout the week for those who will be teaching and preaching during the coming church meetings. Adequate sleep. A second but equally important way to prepare for the Sunday morning meeting is to get sufficient rest during the week.
Through the prophet Malachi, God denounced the unfaithful Israelites who offered up blind, lame, and blemished animals for sacrifice, saying, "When you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil?" (Malachi 1:8). Of course, it's evil. Yet that is exactly what so many Christians do today. True, we don't bring animal sacrifices to the house of God, but we are supposed to offer up our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. (Romans 12:1). What kind of body do we offer up to God on Sunday morning?
Many Christians push themselves so hard during the week that they neglect their sleep. Then on Sunday, they drag themselves to church and offer to God whatever they have left over, which often isn't much. As a result, they either sleep or fight sleep for most of the service, struggling to be mentally engaged in the teaching and worship. God offered the following challenge to the unfaithful Israelites about their blemished sacrifices: "Offer it then to your governor. Would he be pleased with you?" (Malachi 1:8).
We can ask the same question today. Would we drag a tired, sleepy body to work and offer it to our employer on Monday morning? Would we dare to sleep on our job or at our business? If our employers or customers wouldn't accept such an offering, why do we imagine that God does? If we see that we are worn out and sleepy Sunday after Sunday, then we need to make some serious adjustments in our work or recreation schedules.
We should offer to God our very best on Sunday mornings, not what's left over after we've given our best for Mammon. Go to church with a prayerful spirit. Pray before leaving your house to attend a church meeting. Ask God to bless the meeting and to be with the pastor and with all those who will speak and teach. Also ask God to accompany you to church and help you to be alert and attentive throughout the service. Pray that God will speak to you personally through the sermon, devotionals, comments, and lessons.
Just as we maintain continual communion with God throughout the week, we should do so throughout the service. Father, help this speaker to present his ideas clearly. Father, help me to see how this lesson applies in my life. Father, help me to put this into practice. Father, help all of us to be attentive during this sermon. With practice, we can make the entire service a continuous chain of short prayers. Be an encourager.
When the service is over, look for opportunities to be a source of encouragement to your brothers and sisters. Seek out the ones who spoke or taught during that service and let them know you appreciated what they shared. Before you approach them, try to have one or more specific points in mind that blessed you. When conversing with others, ask how their week went. Commiserate with those who have had struggles or sickness. Gather prayer requests as you talk, but don't entrust these requests to your memory.
Rather, always have a small notebook with you so that you can write down such requests on the spot. This will let your brother know you're serious about praying for him. Also, this will ensure you won't forget to intercede for them during the coming week. Likewise, share your prayer needs with others. Finally, make it your aim that all of your conversations after church will be upbuilding to others. Returning home from church. Finally, bring Jesus home with you.
That is, don't let church end when you get into your vehicle to go home. As you return home, maintain the same prayerful spirit you had before and during the service. Imagine that Jesus is a passenger in your car, because He is. Nothing destroys the benefits of a church service faster than to let a carnal, complaining spirit take over as you begin to drive home. Let's listen in on the conversation of Bill and Patsy Complainer as they return from church. Bill and Patsy Complainer.
"Oh, was that sermon ever boring?" Bill grumbled as he drove out of the church parking lot. "I thought it would never end." "Yeah," Patsy chimed in. "Not only that, but Brother Isaac didn't seem very well prepared for his Sunday school lesson, did he? I didn't get a thing out of it." "Me neither," Bill concurred. "Did you notice how bratty little Sammy Miller was? Are his parents blind to how he behaves in church?
That boy needs some discipline." "It's unbelievable how some parents are so oblivious to their children's behavior," Patsy added. "By the way, did you notice who came in late as usual?" "Does that sound typical?" "Hopefully not. However, in too many vehicles, that's the type of conversation going on as a family drives home from church.
In a few minutes, they've totally erased any spiritual benefit they obtained from the service." If you find that you've fallen into such a rut of complaining, try imitating the conversation of Bob and Meg Grateful as they drive home from church. Bob and Meg Grateful. "Did you catch that point about reaching out to our neighbors in Brother Mel's sermon?" Bob asked. "Yes, I thought he made some excellent suggestions there," Meg replied. "Let's try to put some of them into practice this week." "I agree.
I've certainly been weak in that area. And what did you think about Sunday school? Wasn't that interesting about who the Philistines were?" "That was a new one for me," Meg answered. "I appreciate the research Brother Conrad put into his lesson. I never realized that the name Palestine came from the Philistines." "Oh, by the way," Bob interjected, "we need to be praying for John Rockford. He mentioned to me after church that there's a possibility he might get laid off from his job." "Definitely," Meg agreed.
"And Rosemary Martin had a medical checkup this week that she's pretty concerned about." Bringing Jesus home with us. Yes, we can either bring the prayerful spirit of church home with us, or we can immediately drown it out with complaining and other negative talk. This isn't to say that we can never say anything unfavorable about church. There may be actual defects that need to be remedied. Such matters should be brought up tactfully to the church leadership.
However, we don't have to let such issues turn us into habitual complainers. Nineteenth-century pastor Samuel Logan Brengle made this observation: "Jesus will not come to the meeting and return with us to our door if when we get home we find it in our hearts to bid him good day and close the door in his face. And then we go in and scold the wife and children and talk about our neighbors and forget what manner of spirit we are of. Our walk with him must be constant, not on again, off again.
Otherwise, we will seek for him someday and not find him." Another look at obedience. Earlier in the book, we talked about the important role obedience plays in the Kingdom life, and we looked at a few sample commandments. We also discussed the fact that some of Christ's commands are weightier than others. In the next section of our book, we're going to take a closer look at some of these weightier commandments. By "weightier," I don't mean that these commandments are a heavy burden.
Rather, these are some of the most important commandments. Happily, one of the secrets of the Kingdom life is that when we come to love these commandments and bear fruit accordingly, we find that Christ's burden becomes even lighter.