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Romans 12:1 “… I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”
Please join us for a special Night of Worship in the Worship Center on Sunday, August 30, at 6:00 P.M.
For this evening, we will worship “in the round,” with the worship team and pastor in the center of the room and the congregation surrounding us. I have found these times of worship to be especially meaningful because they remove the sense that people on the platform are performing while the congregation watches as an audience. Instead, the room becomes a place where we are all participating together in proclaiming our faith, worshiping our great God, and learning from His Word.
That idea will serve as the theme for our evening: we are not spectators; we are participants.
It is easy to come to worship on Sundays with our expectations focused on what we will receive from the service. But the reality is that we gather to offer our worship to the Lord. Worship is not a product we consume, and we are not an audience watching a show. We are the offering.
Part of offering ourselves to God is using our voices in worship. You may not feel like you have a great singing voice, but that should never keep you from participating. The voice you have is the voice God gave you when He created you in His image, and He wants you to use it to offer your worship to Him. When we sing together, our goal is not to impress the people around us. Our goal is to lift our voices together as an expression of our love, gratitude, faith, and devotion to God.
God calls us to be active participants, people who offer our whole hearts and lives to Him. Worship is not simply something we attend; it is something we give.
My hope is that this Night of Worship will help us experience that truth in a fresh way. As we gather together, may we come with hearts prepared not simply to receive, but to participate, to lift our voices, engage with God’s Word, encourage one another, and offer ourselves fully to the Lord. This is “true and proper worship” that is “holy and pleasing to God.”
Please join us in the Worship Center at 6:00 PM on Sunday, August 30, and come ready to worship with your church family as we offer our whole selves to our great God.
Tom Edwards,
Director of Worship Arts