Posted in Life in the Church, Vision, Worship
If you're going to get a group of people to work together on something you have to be clear about what it is you're trying to do. To get two dozen skilled workers together to build a house, you need clear blueprints and a clear schedule to make sure that the right house gets built. Otherwise you might get a beautiful kitchen in the middle of an empty lot!
Building a church is no different. There are a lot of different "blueprints" a church could choose to be about. What are we about at SGC? This is our vision:
We are a community of believers in Jesus Christ that seeks to be gospel-centered, Bible-saturated, and Spirit-empowered as we worship God, love one another, grow as disciples, serve the needy, and evangelize the lost.
In this post we want to look at the next part of the statement: We are seeking to worship God.
Worship God
What does it mean to a worship God? A lot.
We are called to a life of worship. Worship is the great obligation for all creation, which exists to bring glory to its Creator (Ps. 33:1-9). Worship is therefore the central obligation for us all: "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). Worship is also the central call of the church itself, the "chosen race" and "royal priesthood" that exists to "proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9). We acknowledge his greatness in this way by a life of sacrifice (Phil. 4:18), obedience (Rom. 12:1), and praise (Heb. 13:15).
Such worship is to mark our whole lives, but the high point of this whole-life worship is our Sunday gathering. This is when we gather to sing his praises, to experience spiritual gifts, to share the Lord's Supper, to baptize believers, to hear the preaching of God's Word, to give our tithes and offerings, and to encourage one another as we have opportunity.
Worship is part of many of our church gatherings—home group, youth group, singles meetings, men's and women's meetings. This is not simply because we love to sing or believe this will increase our numbers at these events. It is because this is who we are. We are worshipers. We have been redeemed from a life of worshiping ourselves and the things of this world (Rom. 1:25). Now we give our lives to making God's name great.
All of this anticipates the new heaven and new earth where "at the name of Jesus every knee [will] bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue [will] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 1:10-11). What a day that will be!