The Highest of All Endeavors
The Worship of God is the highest of all human endeavors. It is the end for which we were created, our duty and privilege. It is also that which has fallen upon confused times. This is, in part, because the worship of God has been hijacked to other ends. There are several ways in which this has impacted the modern church.
The goal in worship is to meet with God on His terms and through the means which He has ordained.
The most prevalent model of worship practiced today has its roots in the revivalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The goal of the revivalistic movement was to save souls from hell, and many creative ways were employed to that end. In many modern churches, this evangelistic thrust has turned the worship service into an evangelistic meeting. The goal is to get people motivated to make a decision to accept Christ and be baptized. Now there is nothing wrong with evangelism, and the church should be evangelistic. However, evangelism should not replace the worship of God
Another current model of worship is the therapeutic approach. Here the main goal is to help folks overcome their pathologies. Borrowing from psychology and often employing its practices, the service is focused on helping people attain the skills and get the information from various sources (including but not exclusively the Bible) to help themselves to become better people. Again, the church should be concerned with the emotional and spiritual health of its people, but this should not eclipse the worship of God.
Other models for ministry are focused upon social justice, promotion of a political agenda, or some other man-centered theme. And that is what they all have in common – they are focused upon human needs, human objectives or human interests. Therefore they tend to miss the whole point of what ought to take priority on Sunday mornings – the worship of God.
At Christ the King, Seminole, we are seeking to recapture the historic, reformed emphasis in our worship services. As a result, our services are intentionally and almost exclusively God-centered. We believe corporate worship is the time that God has given us to approach Him by faith and focus on who He is and what He has done. We employ a rich liturgy of confessions, prayers, hymns, sacraments, expository biblical preaching and classical church music to that end.
The goal in worship is to meet with God on His terms and through the means which He has ordained. As the Westminster Confession of Faith rightly teaches:
The acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.
– Chapter 21, section 1
We see worship as that time God has given us to prepare us for what will be our eternal delight in heaven. Rather than creating a service that borrows from our times and fads, we seek to offer a service that is timeless and relevant to every age. It is our desire to teach the world what heaven might be like. This involves exposing people to the culture of heaven – with its holy values, spiritual language and magnificent music, all to the glory of our Heavenly Father, Redeemer and Friend.
We have found that when our focus in worship is the Triune God, the aforementioned things wrongly emphasized by modern churches are actually accomplished. As people fall under the faithful teaching of Scripture they come under conviction of sin and turn to Christ (evangelism). They exchange the lie they have been told about themselves for the truth, and repent of sin and find spiritual healing (therapy). They gain a Biblical world view and become better citizens (justice) and so forth.
It is our prayer that you might come and worship with us. If not, then we hope that you will find a church with the right emphases in worship.