ten ways to reform your sunday service
Are you bored for the Lord? Does your Sunday Service seem irrelevant? Not Bible-based? Too predictable and passive for the poor pew-warmer?
Here are ten tips to get your church back to its New Testament roots.
1. Hide the offering baskets and stop paying the pastor. This will determine if he/she was truly called to lead you (or if they merely chose this as a vocation.) If they genuinely love the people they will stay.
2. If you have a Seeker-Friendly Service, go up to the microphone at testimony time. Confess your most embarrassing sins. (James 5:16) Then preach a ‘no compromise’ message on holiness... (and hold an altar call for the convicted who wish to repent.) Remember, God comforts the disturbed, but He disturbs the comfortable.
3. If you’re in a Pursuit of Excellence church, where the service is programmed to perfection, introduce a little spontaneity - but don’t plan this. (See below for disruptive ideas.) If you’re on the music team, arrange a little feedback. Better still, if you're tone deaf, volunteer to man the sound desk. (Power to the people!)
4. If you can’t locate the electrical fusebox, or ‘accidentally’ trip over the plug: Hide the drum sticks and guitar picks. When the song leader realises he/she cannot follow the rehearsed routine, lead out from the back, in a strong voice, acapella. A range of well-loved favourites from the 1970s and 80s will suffice. Nobody needs the words to I Love You Lord or I Worship You Almighty God.
5. Completely change the ordered song list on the sound desk computer. Replace the modern me-centred choruses with holiness hymns such as ‘Have Thine Own Way, Lord’ or ‘I Surrender All’ … or Matt Redman’s perennial hit, ‘When The Music Fades…’
6. If there’s a visiting speaker, make sure they ‘know’ that at your church, sermons are often interrupted, and doctrines openly discussed. And messages are to last between 10-15 minutes, or else your congregation gets bored. And the speaker must prove they’re sent from God, by healing the sick and delivering the afflicted. (Mark 16:17,18)
7. Early on Sunday morning, change the locks on the doors to the sanctuary or meeting hall. Like Martin Luther, nail your ‘thesis’ to the front door for the confused congregation to contemplate. (This wee reformation could turn out to be a nice time of fellowship. After all, the first Christians met out-of-doors. (See Acts 5:12.)
8. Email your church missionaries. Say the church made a mistake. The missionaries were supposed to be named ‘Apostles’ or ‘sent ones’, and should be planting local churches.
9. If there are books and DVDs for sale in the church foyer, turn the tables over and scatter the money – Jesus did. (John 2:15)
10. When you get asked to leave, rejoice! For this is how the Lord and his prophets were treated. (Matthew 5:11,12) You could chain yourself to a wooden cross hanging inside the sanctuary, for effect.
These ten tips are obviously tongue-in-cheek. If you really want a truly New Testament experience, join a bunch of imperfect people in an independent house church. Or start your own. (All believers are priests – see Revelation 1:6.)
For a list of New Zealand house churches, point your mouse to: www.edgenet.org.nz
Cartoon by Mick Mooney | searchingforgrace.com
