Instead of the usual rundown of Sunday mornings, I thought I'd give a couple of the reasons why we do these "Preparing for Sunday" posts. I hope this is helpful in encouraging you to read these when we're able to get them up on the blog, and that they encourage and help you to prepare your heart to come into a Sunday morning gathering.
Some of you may remember, but a few years ago I started a blog called "By Means of Grace," as a resource for our worship team. I'd post links to new songs we were learning, and explanations of songs and orders of service, for everyone on the worship team to read, because only a select group would be at each rehearsal where we would talk about this stuff. It gave me a chance to put all of this out to the whole group, and those not at rehearsal could be learning a new song for when they WOULD be there. I posted quotes and links to other good articles and resources on worship and music. The blog was a really effective tool for the team. (Writing all this out makes me think I should bring this back... Hmm..)
After about a year, I started writing the "Preparing for Sunday" posts more regularly, still mostly for the worship team. But I also started posting them to Facebook and Twitter, for a wider reach in our church, for those who cared to read. Quite a few of you started reading, and enjoyed these posts, and communicated some of the helpfulness of them (thanks for that by the way!).
In the Fall of 2013, we moved the blog over to the new, revamped church website, and Donna Najera actually transferred most of the old posts there as an archive, if anyone cares to read them. There IS some good stuff there, I think!
So that's where we got this series of posts on our current website. The blog has streamlined into this series, as a way for us to have some things to think ahead about before we get to church on Sunday morning. I usually post the preaching passage, the list of songs we'll sing, often with a few thoughts about why those songs were chosen, and some thoughts on anything else going on in church that particular morning (like communion, for instance).
Eric Durso preached a few weeks ago on "Biblical Listening in a World of Words." He talked about how much we're bombarded with words and information, and that it takes work to show up on Sunday to worship and, particularly, to listen to the Word of God preached. He said,
"Church gatherings where the word is preached are like goldrushes to the Christian who is listening biblically. It's a treasure hunt. God's Word is being preached--the Word that effectively created stars and galaxies--and we sit to hear it. There will be gold in the listening. Search for it like hidden treasure. And the better you listen, the more treasure you'll find."
And the goal of this blog, and these posts, is to help us think ahead to Sunday, prepare our hearts with prayer, studying the preaching passage, practicing our singing, learning new songs, so that we're ready to meet and hear from God in His Word. We want to know God together, and it's hard to do this in our busy lives, in such a distracting culture.
SO, to be brief, we'll be in Proverbs again tomorrow. Eric is preaching, more on the topic of hearing God's Word, and practically preparing to hear on Sunday.
And songs we'll sing include:
See you there!
