PASSIONATE WORSHIP

"How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, indeed faints for the courts of the Lord." (Psalm 84:1-2)

Vibrant, fruitful, growing churches offer Passionate Worship that connects people to God and to one another. People gather consciously as the Body of Christ with eagerness and expectancy; encounter Christ through singing, prayer, Scripture, preaching, and Holy Communion; and respond by allowing God's Spirit to shape their lives. Lives shaped by God's Spirit become the nucleus for congregations with extraordinary warmth, graciousness, and belonging. People are searching for worship that is authentic, alive, creative, and comprehensible, where they experience the life-changing presence of God in the presence of others. 

-- Robert Schnase in “Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations” 

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AN INWARD PRESENCE AND POWER

Jesus said to the Apostles, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere -- in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  (Acts 1:8 NLT)

It was something more than a glorified Jesus Christ in the heavens in which [the Apostles] believed.  In the beginning, John the Baptist had taught his disciples to expect from Christ the baptism -- not of water only, as in his baptism -- but of the Spirit.  Before His death, Jesus had sought to fill His disciples' minds with the expectation of this gift...  And that Spirit had come in sensible power upon them some ten days after Jesus disappeared for the last time from their eyes...  And this Spirit was the Spirit of God, but also, and therefore, the Spirit of Jesus.  Jesus was not then merely a past example, or a remote Lord, but an inward presence and power.  A mere example in past history becomes in experience a feebler and feebler power...  But the example of Jesus was something much more than a memory.  For He who had taught them in the past how to live was alive in the heavenly places and was working within them by His Spirit. 

-- Charles Gore (1853-1932)

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