Preparation question
- What first comes to mind when you think about meeting together on a Sunday?
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-CodP-JFzo (3m 15s)
Pray
Introduction
The church is more than a building you visit and more than an event you attend. However, this doesn’t mean that gathering together for corporate worship is unimportant. What we do in our corporate gatherings is central for our growth in godliness, in building one another up, and it’s an important way in which we commend the gospel to unbelievers as we worship God together.
Questions
- Gathering regularly takes effort, though. What are the biggest obstacles for you in this season of life?
Bible study
Read Hebrews 12 v 18-29
- The author of Hebrews is comparing the moment when the Israelites gathered at Mount Sinai (v 18-21) to the state of affairs now (v 22-24). What’s different and why? How does this serve as a motivation to gather as a church?
- The description of verses 22-24 is in one sense looking to the future gathering of all God’s people in heaven. But it’s also describing something of what happens in our gatherings now. Who are we gathering with? How should that impact the way we think about our Sunday meetings?
- Why is it so urgent to listen to God’s voice and to worship him together (v 25-29)?
Reflection
- On a Sunday, do you think of yourself as being there to contribute to and build up others in your congregation? How could you do this more?
- What aspects of church gatherings do you personally find most precious? Why is it so valuable to gather to hear God’s word, share the Lord’s Supper, sing, and pray together?
- What could you do to prepare well for Sunday? What habits could you build, and how could that make a difference to your experience of corporate worship?
- Are there other obstacles or distractions you need to overcome to ‘make Sundays sweet’?
Action Points
- Meditate on how you need your church and your church needs you.
- Sanctify Saturday nights (p71-72 of Love Your Church explains how you might do this)
- Prepare for drama at home on Sunday morning!
- Have some special traditions on the day of corporate worship.
Prayer
Father,
There is nothing in the world like the gathering of your church together.
Thank you for the gift of your church. Thank you that you designed it to edify us and draw us near to Jesus and to exalt His name.
Please may it lead to our good, our neighbour’s good and ultimately to Your glory.
Please help us experience your great design for the gathering of your people, especially as we’re tempted in so many ways to diminish or even disregard meeting together.
Please work in us by Your Spirit that we might be able to confidently declare that in the joyful worship of Jesus, our church gatherings, unspectacular though they may look in the eyes of the world, “There is nothing greater”.
Help us see gathering together as a privilege, priority, and a delight.
Amen.
Further resources
- Book: Love Your Church (Ch 3) by Tony Merida
- Book: Gather by Tony Merida
- Song: O Church Arise by Keith & Kristyn Getty
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