Tag: Worship Attendance

CALLED TO WORSHIP & FELLOWSHIP

As believers and followers of Jesus Christ, our Christian faith is not meant to be lived in isolation. The Bible clearly emphasizes the importance of believers gathering in regular communal worship and actively participating in a local church fellowship. And as Lutherans, we confess that God has called us to live out our faith in community, gathering regularly for grace-filled worship and fellowship. Rooted in the Holy Scriptures and guided by the Lutheran Confessions, this call reflects God’s gracious design for his people to receive his good gifts, grow in faith, serve one another, and witness to Christ within our fallen and sinful world, united as the Body of Christ.

The Scriptures make clear that gathering together for worship is a divine command for believers. In Hebrews 10:24-25, we receive firm exhortation for this purpose, where it states the following: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day [of the Lord’s return] drawing near.” This passage emphasizes the necessity of regular assembly, where believers receive God’s Word and Sacrament, and where they give one another mutual encouragement in faith, especially in view of Christ’s imminent Second Advent to come.

The Lutheran Confessions affirm this biblical mandate. The Augsburg Confession (Article VII) defines the Church as “the congregation of saints in which the gospel is purely taught and the sacraments are rightly administered.” Regular communal worship is the context where these powerful means of God’s grace (i.e., Christ’s Word and Sacrament) are faithfully delivered, sustaining and strengthening us in true faith and hope. In addition, we as Lutherans believe that the Lord himself is at work in our assemblies of worship forgiving sins, creating faith, and renewing his people through his gifts. And as we gather together in praise and prayer, we participate in a foretaste of the heavenly worship described in Revelation 5:9-14.

No Christian is meant to function alone. Our faith is not solitary but lived out in the context of a local church fellowship. We are baptized into the community of Jesus Christ where we depend on one another and serve with our God-given gifts. The Small Catechism teaches that the Holy Spirit “calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth.” And this calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying happens concretely in the local congregation, where believers hear the biblical Word of God proclaimed (both law and gospel). Moreover, the local church is also the place of mutual care and accountability. For Galatians 6:1-2 calls us to “bear one another’s burdens,” which requires active involvement in a fellowship where relationships foster love and support.

Faithful participation in a local church yields profound spiritual benefits. First, it anchors us in God’s grace. Second, it strengthens us to live out our various vocations of family, work, citizenship, and so on. Third, the local church is God’s primary instrument for mission. Jesus’ Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) is a corporate call, fulfilled as believers work together to evangelize, support missions, and amplifying our impact for God’s Kingdom. By being faithful members of our own congregation, Mount Olive Lutheran Church, we contribute to this work of the Kingdom.

Despite the clear biblical mandate, too many Christians at this present time neglect communal worship, citing their busyness or personal preferences, or their disillusionment with imperfect human organizations. Yet, Scripture warns against this in Hebrews 10:25, as isolation seriously weakens our faith and hinders our growth in Christ. While no congregation or organization of the Church of Jesus Christ is perfect, God nevertheless calls us to commit to a local congregational assembly and “to bear with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).

In our digital age, some may argue that online services or private devotions are sufficient. But while these digital and private alternatives can help supplement our faith, they cannot replace the embodied, relational nature of the Living Church of Christ gathered in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The biblical vision of divine worship involves physical presence, shared sacraments, and personal ministry — elements that virtual platforms cannot duplicate.

God commands his people to gather regularly for worship and to be faithful members of a congregational fellowship, because it is his design for our spiritual flourishing. As Lutherans we rejoice in this command and calling to prioritize corporate worship, engage actively in our congregation (including participation in one of our two small group Bible studies), and use our gifts to serve one another. So let us heed the call of Scripture: Do not neglect meeting together. And in this, we honor God, encourage one another, and prepare for the great “Day” when we will worship him forever in perfect fellowship and eternal joy.

Happy Summertime! Pastor Tim

THE POWER OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST

As winter approaches, there’s deep concern about a looming energy crisis in Europe, caused in no small part by the war in Ukraine. And our country is also experiencing its own problems regarding energy. Debates rage about how to transition to non-fossil fuel sources as energy prices go up and our power grids in some places are strained almost to the brink of collapse. And very moderate estimates say that we would need to double the size of our power grid just to begin to meet the energy requirements for a future in which the electric vehicle (or EV) is the dominant form of automotive transportation.

As brownouts roll across high population centers, people are increasingly asking: Where are we going to get the power? Is it going to come from low-carbon natural gas? From solar, wind, geothermal, or nuclear? Or is it simply a robust combination of all of these sources?

This question, in a spiritual sense, is also a question that Christianity is asking these days within our American society. Of course, I’m not talking about how we’re going to power the lights and air conditioning. What I’m saying is, spiritually speaking, where are we going to get the energy for these times of colossal societal shifts that are so much bigger than us? Where are we going to get the power?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we face a different kind of energy crisis as Christians within our secularizing American culture. Our declining denominations of every branch of the Church, dwindling Christian institutions, and struggling congregations, are causing us to wonder (and even worry) where we’re going to get the power to move into the future. Yes, COVID took its toll on the Church, no doubt about it. However, this spiritual energy crisis for the Church in the United States was already in place, and growing, long before any of us ever heard about the coronavirus. The pandemic was merely a kind of accelerant which exacerbated trends within American Christianity that were already well established.

Seminary enrollments have seen a marked drop in recent decades. Worship attendance has been trending downward for years in every single county of the United States. The fastest growing religious affiliation in our country is “none” — no affiliation whatsoever. Volunteerism is way down across the board in our American society, which has a huge impact on service clubs, fraternal organizations, youth organizations, and, of course, on congregational life. And Church bodies and institutions have been made to reorganize, then reorganize again, and then reorganize yet again, in response to dwindling resources. So, essentially, we have an energy crisis in the Church throughout our nation, even within the mega-church congregations now.

Nonetheless, at the risk of sounding overly simplistic, I would like to suggest that we have a power source which can fuel the future of the Christian Church in America (whatever form that future might take), and this power source is right under our noses. It’s a renewable resource of inexhaustible supply, and this power is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the message we have been given to proclaim to the world that [1] there really is such a thing as sin, [2] our sin separates us from God and one another, and [3] we sinners are reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s the message that we are forgiven and freed by the sacrificial blood of the cross of Christ our Lord, so that we might live a new life with God which begins now and continues forever.

In fact, the New Testament refers to the gospel as “the power of God” for our salvation in the Book of Romans. And the actual Greek word translated into English as the word “power” is the word dynamis. So if this word sounds to you like the word “dynamite” then you are correct. That is, according to the New Testament, the full gospel concerning the reality of sin, the spiritual consequences of sin, and then the forgiveness of sin granted to us by the infinite atonement of the sacrificial offering of Christ on our behalf, is an explosively saving and redeeming message. It’s a message that detonates within the receptive ear and open heart, igniting the living fire of faith and salvation. The gospel is the very power that drives faith and fuels the Church.

I believe a major factor in the energy crisis of the Church in America is that we’ve lost our focus on the power of the gospel. Far too many think it’s insufficient as an energy source — that it must be combined with something else, such as the latest fashions in entertainment and media. Or, too many people these days seek to dilute the significance of the cross of Christ, making Jesus into merely a grand religious example, a great spiritual ethicist, or the ideal leader of a liberation army. Therefore, as long as the cross is treated as an afterthought — or worse, as an embarrassment — you can expect the energy crisis in the American Church to continue.

But I’m optimistic. As other power sources we run after prove to be insufficient, the Church will continue to grow dim for a time, BUT within the growing darkness of our culture we will more and more come to see the True Light who was hanged on a central cross between two criminals. For as we see in Luke chapter 23, amid sarcasm and scoffing from those who mockingly call Jesus messiah and king, our Lord Jesus Christ reveals that he, as the Universal Messiah and Everlasting King, gives his life in love for the sake of the world. Enthroned on his sacrificial cross, Jesus uses his divine authority to welcome a penitent sinner into God’s heavenly paradise. And Jesus does the same thing for us! Thanks be to God!

In other words, if we were to die tonight, and we were to enter God’s paradise, what would we say about our entry into glory? Would we say, It’s because I…? It’s because I made a covenant with God, or it’s because I am faithful, or it’s because I am this or that… No! Rather, it is because HE (Jesus). It’s because HE died for me. It’s because HE made a baptismal covenant with me. It’s because HE is faithful and true. Like the thief on a cross next to Jesus, it is entirely because HE granted us access to God’s paradise. The thief in paradise can only and ever say, It’s because the man on the middle cross said I could come. Likewise, when we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, it can only and ever be said by us that it’s entirely because the man who was hanged on the middle cross said that you and I could come to be there.

The gospel of the cross of Christ is the saving dynamite that, when harnessed through his Word and Sacraments, fuels the Church. So as we try in vain to plug into other energy sources, we will come to see once again that the good news of the forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ provides us with all the power we will ever need.

Good Advent & Merry Christmas!!! Pastor Tim