As I prepare for worship each week, I first of all spend time time in prayer and ask for direction and guidance from the Spirit as I plan every element of the service. I also make sure that the songs we sing and the elements of worship are not chosen at random but follow an intentional rhythm or structure. I do this because I believe the way that a worship service is structured ultimately shapes our views and understanding of God. Why Gospel Shaped Worship? -Corporate worship is a Christian’s expression of authentic devotion towards God (Psalm 148:13) -Corporate worship is a divine dialogue between God and His people (Isaiah 6) -Corporate worship is profoundly formative (1 Cor. 14:40) Structure of Gospel Shaped Worship
GOD IS HOLY- CREATION Call to Worship -Worship always begins with God speaking to us. He speaks, and we respond -Practical: -Reading a passage of Scripture (Psalm 100:1-4) -Repeating phrases such as “worship begins with God”, “God speaks, we respond” Adoration and Praise -Adoration and declaration of War -Goal- Put the glory of God on display -Adoration provides the language and images of God’s glory for God’s people -Practical: -Ask what songs in your library are about what God has done, not what we do. -Take an inventory of songs and compare them to a list of attributes about God. WE ARE SINNERS- THE FALL Confession (and/or) Lament -Involves recognizing (1) the world is not the way it was meant to be (2) we as a church are not the way we were meant to be (3) I am not the way I was meant to be -Practical: -Can be sung or prayed: “Give Us Clean Hands” // Praying through Psalm 51 -Pray for both corporate and individual sin JESUS SAVES US- REDEMPTION Words of Assurance -After recognizing our sin and the fallenness of the world, we hear an answer from the Lord that assures us, “It is finished” -Practical: -Songs about the cross and forgiveness of sins -Doesn’t always have to be long, but simply a reminder that God has heard us, and in Christ, He’s forgiven us The Peace -Paul begins almost all of his letters with a greeting of peace. It’s a peace that flows directly from God. It is a natural result of the gospel. -Practical: -Make the greeting time more meaningful by connecting it with the gospel -Occasionally give more time to the greeting -Scripture Reading : John 13:34 Giving/Offering -Giving also flows directly from the gospel (2 Corinthians 8-9) -The primary motivator for giving us the transforming power of the gospel -Practical: -Seize the opportunity to point out ways the giving is a call to worship -Allow the Scriptures to make the hard call to give -Be thankful Pastoral Prayers Instruction: The Sermon JESUS SENDS US- CONSUMMATION Communion -A beautiful, tangible, concrete gift where we can physically remember the gospel story. -In a single act it remembers the past, embraces the present, and hopes for the future. -Practical: -Thoroughly discuss your church’s theology and ecclesiology pertaining to this issue -Understand that communion can by celebrated a variety of ways Commitment/Preparation for Sending -Our attention is brought to the future. -Practical: -Repeat or reaffirm what was taught in the message -Historic confession of faith -Songs: “O Church Arise” Benediction -Sending or blessing -“Worship like creation, ends as it began: with God’s blessing”- James K.A Smith -Practical: -The Call to Worship and Benedictions are like book ends to the service. Consider connecting the two in some way -Make clear that the benediction is offered by God Additional Resources on Gospel Shaped Worship: -Christ-Centered Worship- Brian Chapell -Rhythms of Grace- Mike Cosper -Story Shaped Worship- Robbie F. Castleman -Imagining the Kingdom- James K.A. Smith -You Are What You Love- James K.A Smith -Gospel Shaped Worship- Jared Anderson -The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology- Nicholas Wolterstroff
Today we’ve sort of
designated as Judgment House Sunday and by that we mean we are beginning in
earnest now to get ready for October.
Two sets of dates, two weekends in October, if you want to jot this down:
October 20th - 22nd and then October 27th - 29th. We will be doing a
production called Judgment House. This entire campus will be transformed into
an eight scene walk through drama that really vividly depicts a story of life,
death, and eternity.
We'll have thousands of people,
ultimately, walking this campus and going through this dramatic depiction of
those things. They'll end in a counseling room where we're able to clarify and
re-clarify the gospel and thus far in the years that we've done this production
we've had over a thousand people make professions of faith in Christ! It's a powerful, powerful thing.
I think the twin benefit
is it not only leads people to Christ, a lot of churches all year long will
befriended people with the intent of “I'm going to share Jesus with them and if
I can't win them to Christ just yet, I'm going to invite them to judgement house.”
A lot of our neighbors come to this production and they know that we put this
on. The other benefit is, frankly, it
brings our church together like crazy when we have a need for so many people,
hundreds of people, to be able to pull this off so everybody can have a role in
this whether it's security..
Well Ron's going to get
to that here in just a minute so I'm going to steal his thunder completely. We're
going to show you just a little promotional video for Judgment House and then
Ron Adams, who's done a marvelous job with us through the years, as well as a
brand new leader in this, Keith Fletcher, are going to come and say a few words
to you so watch this [promo video starts at 2:07]:
[Associate Pastor Ron Adams]
All right, does it make
you want to get ready to do it now? And
just seeing those videos and watching them this week and seeing which ones to
pick out it just makes me ready to do it again.
I’m looking forward to it. Like
we said, we're going to be starting on here pretty soon. For those that are in
the cast, we will be starting up in July.
It's going to be a long process but we always have a good time doing it.
Before Keith comes up here I'm going to give you some statistics from years
past and then I'm going to introduce the coordinators for each part of Judgment
House.
The last time we did judgment
house, in 2015, we had 2,870 people come through our church with 518 salvations. The national average for Judgement House is 7%. That is 18% of the people that came through
last Judgment House received Christ as Savior.
In six years, the
cumulative totals (and this is really exciting) six years of Judgment House we've
had 16,142 people come through Judgment House with 2,034 receiving Christ. Yeah again the national average is 7% and we're
at 13% for the six years! Wo what we have done here in Grand Prairie at Calvary
Baptist Church we have made a name for, not only our church, and for the city
of Grand Prairie, but for our Lord and Savior!
We've got churches that are calling now,
wanting to know when it starts, and when we're going to be doing it. The word
is out there they know we're doing it and they can't wait to come.
The prayer request that
I'm going to ask of our church is start praying for those souls that are going
to be coming. Start now. Start praying for those churches, and for the
people that are coming, that their hearts will be prepared when they come
through judgement house this year.
Keith will come here in
just a second, he's going to describe the script and all the different opportunities
that can take place during judgment house, but I'm going to give you the
coordinators. When you get your sign-up
sheet and you see what area you want to do, you'll know which coordinator you
need to go to see about an opening or if you can volunteer to help with
them.
Registration - Karen Snead
Security - Mike Snead
Construction - Terry and David Green
Counseling - Pastor Brian Loveless
Prayer Team - Marsha Adams
Tour Guides - Ashley Contreras
Concessions - Dan Bickle
Cast Refreshments - Teresa Dixon
Cast - Jamalyn Bowen
So those are the
different areas, those are the different coordinators that you want to speak
with if you're interested in taking part in judgement house this year. Now I
want to introduce this gentleman right here because I got to thinking last year,
you know Keith has worked for Fox Sports Southwest and he's been a director and
a producer behind the scenes of all of the programs that happens on that TV
station. I was thinking “man, what
talents that we could use for judgement house.”
So he's going to co-direct Judgment House with me going forward and so
if you need to speak with someone you can speak with either me or Keith and
hopefully we can give you the information that you need. He going to come and
describe the script and some of the other volunteer opportunities that we have.
[CO-PRODUCER KEITH
FLETCHER]
Thank you. Y'all ready for a little Christmas in October? The scene one is going to open up with a
Christmas Eve service has just let out and a church reception hall (for lack of
a better term and to be sure it'll still be the Williams building) but the
church service has just let out and we meet our three central characters:
Alice, an older teenager
who lost her father a few years back kind of went all in on religion and God in
prayer and after her father's death is kind of “meh”, she's done with that.
Next we meet Clyde. Clyde is, well he's been around awhile and
has a past and he's not proud of, he's kind of past those days, but church and
church people it's not a place for him.
Heaven’s not a place for him and he's at a point where it's like he's
okay with it. You know, “I made my bed I
got to sleep in it, its fine. That's the
way the cookie crumbles.” and we'll see how things go for him.
Next is Betty, a member
of the church and she's one of those who knows everyone and talks about them
and is one of those little church hens who just has done you know “yadda yadda”. The Judgment House veterans don't see a very
good path for Betty in it. You know? We'll see how things go!
I want to make a plea to
those who haven't exactly got involved in a ministry effort. The Guatemala trip
is like a bucket list thing, maybe someday, its not your budget this year,
probably next year, you're in good company. If going door-to-door and handing
out Bibles isn't your thing, not that this church does this or has, not there's
anything wrong with that... I realize there's a baby step process in ministering
to other people - this is your golden ticket!
There is no role to
small. Preacher said its all hands on deck. A lot of us get involved as many of
you.... we need you! Don't think that we got it covered. There are a lot of
bases that needed to be covered. For some of you, I know that this can seem
like an awfully small church sometimes. It can seem very connected and you're
kind of on the outside. Can I tell you
that I've been there? I married into this church in 2005 to a third generation
member. My Mother in law, my brother in
law, know everyone. It took
so long, five or six
years after starting here, to kind of feel connected to anyone until six years
ago, three judgment houses ago, preacher asked me to be a tour guide. Reluctantly
I said “if you need help yeah that’s fine.
If I’m taking someone’s spot and they went back in that's fine too.” I did it and I got to meet everyone. I finally
made put names to faces, remembered names.
What it did was, it changed
how I came to church and how I interacted at church. It changed why I came to
church, really. To be honest it affected
my excuses for not coming to church. Slowly
it brought me closer to God! It changed my life. I realized, (are you sitting
down?) all that time before, what I was getting out of the church was exactly
what I was putting in to church. (Facepalm) Moses smell the roses! It's like this,
you know, Wow! So I'm just telling you
if you're looking for the opportunity to get involved, this is your golden
ticket to get to know everyone here. You're going to spend a lot of hours with
them. You're not going to do anything you don't want to do. Ushers, I I guess that's my cue to send
people down, and we're going to have these little sign-up sheets. Put your interests
and what you what you would like to do, and there's some options. You won't do
anything you don't want to do. We need you to get involved. The numbers don't
lie. Actually they do because that's just the numbers of people who commit to
Christ here. that doesn't account for those who go back to their churches, into
their hometowns, and do that the next week, or the next, or maybe six months
down the line. You got to get involved. It's going to be rewarding in many, many, many
ways. It's going to be fun. Christmas in October! Thanks guys!
There will be something for everyone from deal seekers to avid collectors as well as a bake sale and concessions. All proceeds will help send Middle & High School Students to Camp!
BRING YOUR DONATIONS:
Almost any donation will be accepted including children's items, clothes, electronics, collectibles, etc. Items such as paint, weaponry, and perishables cannot be accepted. So far we have full collections of items (baseball cards, precious moments, etc.), sports equipment, furniture, clothing and so much more! Here's a sneak peek at some of the items for sale:
We need your plastic shopping bags too! A box will be available in the welcome center to collect bags. Linda Keetch will be available after services to to collect donations or you can arrange to drop them at the office during the week.
CALLING ALL VOLUNTEERS:
Here are ways you can get involved. Student Ministry Members should contact James Robinson to sign up for your time slot.
Rummage Sale: Contact Linda Keetch
Help price items before the sale
Work with customers, taking money, making change, etc.
Full set up for sale, including moving all items on May 12th
Bake Sale: Contact Joyce Felton
Donate baked goods
Help run the Bake Sale in Family Life Center
Concession Stand: Contact Dan Bickle
Volunteers to work concessions for 2-3 hour shifts
If you have additional questions or need more information, please contact the Church Office at (972) 262-5656 during business hours.
