Either extreme is error. It's both
and, not either or.
Reading the word of God, most emphasis is on the individual's response to the grace and goodness of the creator of all the universe. There are references to group meetings. 1 Corinthians 14 and Hebrews 10:25. But they are fewer then you might imagine.
The gathering together to sing 3 songs, hear a message from one person and take up an offering after which we have coffee and a doughnut is not present at any scriptural level. In fact most references to groups gathering were evangelistic or ministerial (healing and deliverance). Not what we have today.
So, if you want authentic Christian expression today, know this, FIRST YOU get right with GOD... heart soul spirit. Then out of that combine your spiritual energies with others and reach Heaven together. It's glorious when it happens.. but it happens far too few times.
The collective must be subordinate to the individual's spiritual life. When it gets upside down people depend on good works and belonging to a church to mask the evidence of the vacuum they have inside spiritually. When the saints are in full on worship mode, the rest will follow. 90% of what will happen in churches around the nation today will be an attempt to use a collective to accomplish what should be accomplished one soul at a time. We have this all upside down in the western church.
The first 20 minutes of any real church service must have at it's heart repentance, worship in prayer, spiritual expression and intercession for what is about to come. It should be passionate. It should be led my the MEN of the church (it's not sexist, it's order), it should be spirit filled, a great deal of praying in tongues and when the passion comes to the apex it must.... then church can start. That's how it's done in some of the Churches I know... but not near me.
Let us come back to the heart of worship... or we will die.
Reading the word of God, most emphasis is on the individual's response to the grace and goodness of the creator of all the universe. There are references to group meetings. 1 Corinthians 14 and Hebrews 10:25. But they are fewer then you might imagine.
The gathering together to sing 3 songs, hear a message from one person and take up an offering after which we have coffee and a doughnut is not present at any scriptural level. In fact most references to groups gathering were evangelistic or ministerial (healing and deliverance). Not what we have today.
So, if you want authentic Christian expression today, know this, FIRST YOU get right with GOD... heart soul spirit. Then out of that combine your spiritual energies with others and reach Heaven together. It's glorious when it happens.. but it happens far too few times.
The collective must be subordinate to the individual's spiritual life. When it gets upside down people depend on good works and belonging to a church to mask the evidence of the vacuum they have inside spiritually. When the saints are in full on worship mode, the rest will follow. 90% of what will happen in churches around the nation today will be an attempt to use a collective to accomplish what should be accomplished one soul at a time. We have this all upside down in the western church.
The first 20 minutes of any real church service must have at it's heart repentance, worship in prayer, spiritual expression and intercession for what is about to come. It should be passionate. It should be led my the MEN of the church (it's not sexist, it's order), it should be spirit filled, a great deal of praying in tongues and when the passion comes to the apex it must.... then church can start. That's how it's done in some of the Churches I know... but not near me.
Let us come back to the heart of worship... or we will die.
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