May 05, 2019 | Rev. Gina Anderson-Cloud
Presence
Have you ever considered whether God is pleased with how you worship? Many times, we think about worship being about us, and it is. Yet, we assemble together and turn our hearts toward God to worship our divine creator. Should we not always enter into that experience seeking God’s blessing and even pleasure?
Today’s new series challenges you to consider what the obstacles to holy encounter are for you as you enter times of both corporate and private for worship. List out those obstacles. What can you do to move around them? How might you miss seeing God because you allow an obstacle to distract you?
Consider this week where you meet God and how that meeting becomes (or can become) worshipful. In doing so, ask God, like Moses, “show me your ways.” (Ex. 33:13). Like in the time of Moses, God is present with us, seeking us. Examine how you can draw close to God’s presence and be transformed in doing so.
Series Information
Recently, a church researcher surveyed churchgoing Christians with this question: “Have you ever experienced God in a worship service?” In the findings, only one-third responded that they regularly experience God in church. William Hendrix in his work entitled Exit Interviews delves into why there seems to be a generation leaving church over the last few decades. Part of what he suggests is that worship is not meaningful to a lot of church-goers. He also suggests, as do others, that some of the problem is not in what our church staff, volunteers and/or pastors offer during worship, but that the problem of feeling like God experiences are rare is more about our individual way of approaching God through the ancient traditions of worship, as well as within the new iterations of worship we find in church today. The problem is not so much “the church,” but us. Is God pleased with how you approach worship?
Rick Ezell writes: “We desperately need a life-changing glimpse of the greatness, the awesomeness, the wonder, the power, the mercy, the goodness and loving kindness of God.” This new series for May hopes to ask questions of us and give resources that help us please God as we encounter the Holy in our worshipping life.
Our current series offers us an opportunity to look at what God might find pleasing in a worshipful life in and through the church. To do this, we will focus on 4 P’s – Presence, Preparation, Power and Protocol.