Pray for Your Church: Ministries (1)
He shall call to the heavens from above,
And to the earth, that He may judge His people:
“Gather My saints together to Me,
Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.” Psalm 50.4, 5
The ministries of the local church
Every church sponsors or conducts a variety of ministries, that is, services rendered to help people know, love, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Those ministries take a variety of shapes and forms, yet all churches have been given the same mandates for ministry, and thus every church must pursue those mandates regardless of the shape or form their ministries take. We can outline the mandates for ministry that we find in Scripture as follows:
- Worship
- Shepherding
- Equipping
- Mercy
- Outreach
- Stewardship
- Community-building
Each of these ministries is part of how the local church expresses the reality of the Body of Christ in its community. When the ministries of a church are healthy, the church will grow in unity and maturity; it will become a true sign and outpost of the Kingdom; and it will seek participation with other churches to express the oneness of the Body of Christ in the community.
Therefore, each of these ministries is important and should receive daily attention in our prayers. In this installment of our series, “Pray for Your Church”, we will consider each of these ministries in turn by examining the teaching of Scripture. This will allow us to pray more intelligently and more fruitfully for those who lead and work in these various ministries, as well as those who are served by them.
We begin by looking at the ministry of corporate worship.
Orientation
The centrality of worship in the life of faith and the community of the faithful appears throughout the Scriptures. We cannot go into detail here; a rough overview must suffice.
A Biblical approach to worship can be seen in Psalm 50. Worship entails a proper orientation, and that orientation has three facets: God, the soul, and the life of the worshiper. Every service of worship must address each facet of this orientation, beginning with God.
God calls His people to worship (v. 5)—to assemble for the purpose of acknowledging and celebrating His “worthship”, His greatness, majesty, power, beauty, holiness, love, goodness, wisdom, beauty, and truth. The focus of worship is God. All our efforts and activities in worship must be directed toward Him. The Lord inhabits the praises of His people (Ps. 22.3); therefore, as we worship Him, He draws us into the orbit of His Presence and pleasure, and we find our great joy in emptying ourselves in admiration and devotion to Him, especially as we see Him in Jesus. Another way of thinking about this orientation is to ask ourselves, at the end of the service, not “What did I get out of that?” but “What did I contribute to acknowledging and celebrating the worthiness of our God?”
The second orientation is the soul of the worshiper—all the souls of all the worshipers. Worship is not, in the first instance, about outward things—music, preaching, prayers, offerings, and the like. These are important, but, as Psalm 50 makes clear, as we focus on God in worship, God is focusing on our soul, on what’s going on in us, not what we’re doing on the outside (cf. vv. 7-15). We are to worship God in Spirit and in Truth, from a pure and grateful soul (Jn. 4.24). What we do externally in worship can help to cleanse, refresh, and renew us in our soul, but only if the proper forms and elements of worship are used with a continuous focus on God, and only if we participate in worship from the soul and with a view to the renewal of our soul.
The final orientation of worship is the life of the worshiper (Ps. 50.16-23). God is seeking the kind of worship that leads people to obey Him in their daily lives. We should be seeking the same, listening in prayer throughout the service of worship for how the Lord wants to direct or redirect our lives. God has no patience with those who leave their worship of Him at the door of the church to go on and live their lives as they please (vv. 16-21). Forgetting God in all the details of our everyday lives is a path to serious problems with Him (v. 22). True worship transforms us because it brings us more fully into the Presence of our Lord Jesus, so that we see, know, and love Him more, and go forth renewed to serve Him faithfully in all our ways.
Pray for worship
The psalmist sums-up the nature and purpose of worship in verse 23, where the LORD declares:
“Whoever offers praise glorifies Me;
And to him who orders his conduct aright
I will show the salvation of God.”Praise to God from the soul through the elements of worship unto a life rightly ordered for Him. This is the worship we must seek.
And in seeking it, here’s a prayer we might use:
Lord, fill us with Your Spirit
and ground us in Your truth,
that we might worship You
and not ourselves;
that we might empty ourselves for Your glory
rather than fill ourselves with our selfish concerns.
Help us to focus on You
so that You transform us,
soul and life,
that the world might know
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to Your glory, heavenly Father.
For reflection
1. How would you explain “worship” to a non-Christian friend? What is it? Why do we do it?
2. How can you know when your worship is becoming more about you than about God? What should you do then?
3. What does it mean to have your soul refreshed? Refreshed for what?
Next steps—Transformation: As you come to worship God, review the state of your three-fold orientation—God, your soul, your life.
T. M. Moore
Give thanks
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
For a more complete study of worship, order a copy of our book, The Highest Thing. There you will be able to study, from throughout the Scriptures, the details of corporate worship and how to realize the promise of it.
You can order the workbook by clicking here, or the free PDF download of the workbook by clicking here.
Other columns of interest this week: We continue reading excerpts from the book, Revived! in our Read Moore column. Why not listen in? Last week’s Crosfigell letter called us to make sure we have the right priorities.
Thank you.
Many of you are faithful and generous in praying for and supporting Crosfigell and The Fellowship of Ailbe. Thank you. I encourage all our readers to seek the Lord about becoming a supporter of The Fellowship of Ailbe. It’s easy to give to The Fellowship of Ailbe, and all gifts are, of course, tax-deductible. You can click here to donate online through credit card or PayPal or Anedot, or send your gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, P. O. Box 8213, Essex, VT 05451.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
