Some Thoughts About Church Services

By Pastor Bruce K. Oyen

Email: bk_oyen@hotmail.com

For many Christians, church services are an important part of life.

    This is understandable for a few reasons, a primary one being the fact that the first Christians, who lived 2.000 years ago, participated in them, and the tradition has been carried on since then. Later, we will consider why this tradition has continued since the first century A. D. It has to do with the Biblical purposes of church services.

For Christians, our most important writings are what we call "the New Testament."

    We consider them to be on the same level as the Old Testament writings. That is, we consider them to be the written Word of God. To us, both Testaments go together. To us, the New Testament is, so to speak, the child of the Old Testament. To us, the Old Testament led to the New Testament. To us, they are complimentary to one another, and we need them both. Therefore, the Christian Bible has them together under one cover.

    Much more could be said about this subject. But for now, consider this important fact: though we Christians believe the whole Bible to be the Word of God, we believe that much of its divine guidance for daily life is found in the New Testament portion of it. And we believe that its divine guidance  for church life is exclusively found there.

    We do acknowledge that the Old Testament contains much moral guidance that applies to us now. The Book of Proverbs is a good example of such guidance. But the Old Testament does not contain guidance for local churches. For example, it does not tell us about baptism and the Lord's supper. It does not tell us about church discipline. It does not tell us about a local church's leaders. It does not tell us about the divine origin of the church, and when it started. And it does not tell us about  the purposes of the local church. So, we turn to the New Testament for what we need to know about these subjects. Let's consider just one of these subjects.

What were the purposes of the church services in the days of the apostles?

    One of the most important questions we can ask about the church services of the  first Christians is this one: What were the purposes of their church services? Most of our information about this is found, not in the four Gospels of the New Testament, but in the New Testament's Book of Acts, and in the letters (sometimes called "epistles") that come after the Book of Acts. If we carefully look at the New Testament  for our answer to this question, we will discover what the purposes of OUR OWN church services should be.

The heart of this posting 

    This is really the heart of this posting: we need to learn from the New Testament what should be the purposes of OUR OWN church services. And then we need to make those purposes our own purposes.

    Let me suggest to you some of the reasons Christians in the days of the apostles had church services. They had these purposes:

• To participate in the worship of God.
• To be taught the Word of God, and transformed by it.
• To have the Lord's supper. (Baptisms often took place in rivers and elsewhere.)
• To have fellowship with other Christians who attended the services.
• To give testimony to the saving power of Jesus Christ to non-Christians in attendance.

A lesson from a dart board

     Most of us have seen a dart board. For teaching purposes, let me suggest to you that God is represented by the bull's eye. In our church services, God, not us, is to be the center of attention. Moving out from the center, we come next to the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. Then we come to the Lord's supper. Then we come to Christian fellowship. Then, we come to evangelism, which is giving testimony to the saving power of Jesus Christ.

     If you have read carefully through the New Testament, that is what you have found. It might be good to re-read, for example, Acts 2:41 - 47; and Acts 17, 18, 19, and 20 to see the emphasis on these things. It might be good to re-read, for example, First and Second Thessalonians, and the pastoral letters (First and Second Timothy, and Titus) to see the same emphasis.

A common mistake in many of today's Bible-believing churches

    It is a common mistake in many Bible-believing churches these days to displace God from the center of the church services, and put human beings in his place. In our eagerness to win others to the Lord Jesus Christ, or to keep the Christians coming, we put them at the center, and then shape our services around them. This is a serious mistake. It is a reason so little solid Bible teaching is found in these churches. It is a reason sins are not spoken against like they should be. It is a reason so little warning about about common false doctrines is heard in these churches. It is a reason so many who claim to be Christians don't think and act much differently from those who don't claim to be Christians. It is a reason why worshipful music has been replaced with entertaining music.

What needs to be done in many churches

    Many churches need to be honest and admit what has happened, and then takes steps to put things back into their proper order.