subject: Worship Must Be Sensitive [print this page] There are also some unique things that are different for the believer and the nonbeliever but there are many things that bleed together.
I want to ask you a question here folks. How many of you like to cook? Do you enjoy cooking? Come on, guys, gals, OK. Now those of you who like to cook, I am sure, if you are like our family, you have had people into your home as guests.
Right? When you cook food for your guests, usually you are more thoughtful and creative in the way you serve the food. Maybe you use a table decoration and place mats. In our home the burping level is kept at a minimum, food throwing discouraged. We change. The conversation is altered. Are we being hypocritical? No. We are being sensitive to the needs of our guests.
When we plan these services every single weekend we are serving the food, the truth which is the Word of God, yet we are serving it in a more creative and thoughtful way. We are being sensitive to the needs of our guests, the seeker, the nonbeliever, as well as the saint. Worship must be sensitive.
Also, we believe, worship should be only an hour long. Our services last about fifty-five minutes due to a number of reasons. But the main reason is that we want to communicate in a most concise and compact way.
Most of us do not have a very long attention span. So we want to plan a service that communicates the message in an insightful and creative and relevant way within about an hour. One of my favorite texts is Acts 20:7-9. One day I am going to do a series on lessor known personalities in the Bible. This Acts passage mentions Eutychus. Eutychus had an encounter with Paul. "On the first day of the week...Paul spoke to the people and...kept on talking until midnight...a young man named Eutychus was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on..." This is the first record we have of someone sleeping in church.
If you have been on a plane and fallen to sleep, then all of a sudden you jerk awake, you will identify with this. Ed Young assures that Eutychus did that because if you read on the Bible says that he fell out of the window and died from the fall. Paul runs down the steps and brings him back to life. I kind of identify with Paul there. I feel I have to bring some of you back to life every week. So we keep worship to an hour.
