Why attend the service when you can be SERVICE
What a weekend. Seems like the ole Midwest just gets one storm after the other. I love them! I feel bad for those who suffer but I loved the six inches or so of snow by Sunday morning.
What did I do?
Well the first thing I did was get my snow blower fired up, which took a while since I forgot to change the spark plug this year. That's another lecture from my father-in-law. Then I started removing the heavy snow. Yep, you are right, I just made my rounds for about 3 hours until all was clear. No applause, I didn't do it for me, I did it for Jesus! He gets the applause.
I didn't go to church! As stated in earlier blogs the best time to have an impact is when you have an opportunity or an open door of God's leading. I have no ulterior motives other than than letting my neighbors see that the Jesus I serve has legs, hands and feet as He works through me.
Last night my neighbor brought over 2 big pieces of cake baked by his wife (still warm) as a thank you for clearing his snow away. My friend said, "My kids broke my snow shovel in the last storm and we went out this morning to get a new shovel and they were all sold out, then we come home and the job is done. Thank you!"
Every day we (I) miss opportunities and everyday I pray for God not to let me miss them.
What was more important? Going to church yesterday morning or plowing the driveways of my neighbors. What would Jesus do? And, what would your pastor say or think?
posted by Bob Carder @ 9:16 AM
25 comments
25 Comments:
I think it's great how you spent the time serving others in the name of Jesus. I'd applaude those in my church who did the same. But if you did that every week I'd wonder where worship fit into your life. Of course, service is an act of worship, but is there also a place for the act of corporate worship? I wouldn't want the pendulum to swing too far the other direction. Overcorrection doesn't correct anything.
Rick-- If service is an act of worship, then could "corporate" service to others not be considered "corporate worship"?
I did both, attend a service and moved snow for 2 of my neighbors...it is not either/or it is both/and
This is gettin good!
I'll be back after more add their two cents.
Actualy if I had waited until after church in this instance, it would have been too late. They needed help when they needed help. The oxe had already fallen into the ditch!
O.k. let's look at it this way. If push comes to shove would you be able to skip church and serve in the world if the world needed you?
I know my pastor would understand and be fine with it. He is fine with it because we don't go to church we actually are the church. If you asked one our members if they go to church they will say no! If you ask them if they gather as the Church for communion, worship, sharing and a meal together they will say yes.
I added this blog to make a point. I know that in America if a Christ follower doesn't go to church because they are serving in the world they are labeled. I just want you to know while I worshipped on Sunday I also worshipped with our gathering on Saturday.
We meet twice a month on Saturday for the corporate gathering with all of us together and each week we meet in groups across our area in different places for accountability and equipping etc.
I love not going to church and I love being able to be the Church in action. I know my pastor would encourage me to serve in the world and gather for worship. If I had to miss like I have to in a few weeks so that I can be of Service he encourages me to be so.
We stated last Saturday in our gathering that we are not trying to draw a crowd, we are releasing the crowd to serve in the world which as Jessica implied the highest form of worship.
I added this clarification so as to not be misunderstood or misleading. I just know in the church we value going to church more than being the Church is that really true?
Jessica - Yes, that would be a type of corporate worship. I'm just suggesting that balanced spirituality includes not only serving others in terms of practical acts of kindness and love (which is also serving and loving God), but worshipping God through corporate prayer and verbal worship. Both are necessary.
I suspect that while many local churches do not adequately equip their people to go out and *be* the Church, neither do they equip them to gather to truly *worship* as the Church. 'Attractional' churches don't do either one. Missional churches will do both. As John Piper says, missions exist because worship doesn't.
Bob - I assumed that worshipping with others somehow fit into your life somewhere. :-) But you asked how a pastor would respond, and if someone was not gathering with other believers for worship, prayer, and spiritual edification - if all they were doing was shoveling snow, taking out trash, and mowing lawns - then I would be concerned that a part of their spirituality was missing.
Bob - Your comment about not doing this stuff simply to draw a crowd is good. Last year we did a number of teachings from the gospel of Mark, and I was amazed at how many times Jesus tried to avoid crowds or said things that would offend crowds. I remember asking our church why we try to do so much to attract crowds when that didn't seem to be a very big concern of Jesus?
On the other hand (I like playing devil's advocate), crowds are not wrong in and of themselves. We see lots of worshiping crowds in the Old Testament, crowds gathered to hear Jesus speak, crowds on the day of Pentecost, and uncountable crowds gathered before the throne of God in Revelation.
The difference is that in a healthy 'crowd', they have not gathered for a show, but in response to a heart that is calling them to worship and obey.
Bob Carder, I can't for the life of me understand your thinking these days. I've known you for quite awhile and you are not the same Bob Carder. How can you think it's okay to just go snow blow for three hours on Sunday morning as your Sunday worship experience? All I can say, is, it's a good thing this week just happened to be your Saturday "worship"
I don't feel God would be pleased with you Bob!
Saddened...
Dear Anonymous: If you have concern for Bob, how much better to either approach him privately with your concern or to sign your name to your entry. Otherwise your concern appears like gossip (or worse) and there is no basis for him to accept (or not) your suggestion.
Join the community! We encourage open discussion here and have been known to lovingly rebuke each other from time to time -- all with names attached.
There is no need to be afraid here.
Anonymous, very interesting. I need to re-read your comments.
Rick, I love your heart and your balance. Some only corporately worship, some may only serve. Both are needed and are important in the faith community. I believe both are needed everyday. We should gather together as the body as well.
I just see that worship has become for many something we do out of obligation or ritual or guilt and even selfishly for ourselves.
How many times when we gather are we gathering for Jesus. Here's a good test: After we leave our worship do we complain about the message or the pastor or the songs or the whatever "WE" didn't like? If that is the case, we are worshipping for us and not Him.
Rick, you have such a good balance and we need you in the United States to help us steer this ship away from the rocks.
Anonymous said, "How can you think it's okay to just go snow blow for three hours on Sunday morning as your Sunday worship experience?"
The Planter - Note there is a difference between corporate and private worship. I'm glad we got that cleared up.
Anonymous, tell me about your worship experience this past week. What did you like most about it?
First of all to Mike...My comment was not one of gossip (sorry you read it that way). It was a reply from the blogger himself...Bob.
To Bob...I'm not saying you should not have snow blowed for 3 hours on Sunday morning. What I am saying is, you should have been up snow blowing early enough so you could have serviced your neighbors and attended a corporate worship service as well. You have fallen away from corporate worship, I feel because you have been done wrong one too many times, so your justifing your worship experience by staying away from going to a church "building" on Sunday mornings. It saddens me to hear you try to persuade people out of going to a church building on Sunday morning's. What's been right for your 23+ years of ministry just isn't wrong now just because you say so. My worship experience this past Sunday was very uplifting to say the least. A lot of people--great uplifting music--a great sermon--great fellowship--great prayer time--a lot of visitors--(even though the weather was very bad).
We must never justify our Sunday worship for our sake, nor for the sake of others around us.
Anonymous - I am sad for you. You conceal your identity and yet make claims that "I've known you for quite awhile and you are not the same Bob Carder"
I can only guess at the Bob Carder you knew but I thank God for the Bob Carder He has given me.
I am sad for you because your post indicates to me a type of bondage. You say - "it's a good thing this week just happened to be your Saturday "worship". What does this mean? Would God have smote him if it were not? Where do you get your basis for a mandatory weekly Sunday Worship? It does not come from Scripture I assure you.
You said - 'I don't feel God would be pleased with you Bob!
Saddened... "
I am not sure that you are a good indicator of how God feels about Bob and to make this statement is a troubling.
I am saddened by your statement - "You have fallen away from corporate worship" This is not true. I happen to be Bob's pastor and I worship with him regularly. How many people does it take to make a "corporate" for the purpose of worship?
You also said - "It saddens me to hear you try to persuade people out of going to a church building on Sunday morning's." Why would this make you sad when he clearly tells you he is using his time to spread the Gospel and show Christ's love to a dying world. Even to those who don't want to go to your church building to find it?
Here is what saddens me. You claimed a great worship experience but never mention God.
My hope is that the transformation you see in Bob will not be dismissed as "I feel because you have been done wrong one too many times, so your justifing your worship experience by staying away from going to a church "building" on Sunday mornings"
You have expressed many feeling here but have not shown Bob to be in error according to Scripture. Having seen such a great transformation maybe you should investigate his teachings and do as the Bereans and test them according to Scripture.
You may just find that God is working in and through Bob to do great things for Christ. This is the Bob I know and I hope you will take the time to search his teachings and compare them to the Scriptures.
WOW! What a blog fest!!!! How interesting the flow of this conversation is.
But let's not forget the main thing. Ultimately, we all want to make disciples. I have seen this with my own eyes over the past weeks at True Vine and its outreach. But I do have to add that disciples ARE being made in the local small C church (which by the way, still is home to many capital C members). I just spent a few hours over lunch and conversation with a very dear friend of over 20 years. She is extremely involved in a drama ministry at a local church and she "orchestrates" HUGE productions. REALLY BIG ones. She sat and talked about how many hours she puts in (about 100 hrs during the week leading up the the big production). She talked about how much she loved it and how God used her creative talents. But I must tell you that the tears fell from her eyes when she recounted a story of a 12 year old boy accepting Christ as his Savior during the musical number of Silent Night. Who am I to tell her that what she is doing is wrong. Just because it is different than what God has called me to do does not make it wrong.
An old addage of a friend "thou doth protesteth too much" rings in my soul. I'm not going to say again that the local church is wrong. I'm not at the same place she is. She's not where I am. When did we reach a place that we decide what God will use and what He won't? I am committed to what God has called me to today. That will bear itself out in the ministries of True Vine Missionary Church under some very godly leaders. But I'm not so quick to discount the ministry of the local church, either.
Judy - you did not finish the story. What happened to the 12 year old boy? Who is discipling him?
Terry, I didn't say the local church was perfect. If I thought so I would still be there. I don't know who is discipling this young man...maybe the grandmother who took him to the musical. (Think about it)
All I'm saying is this: we must be a people that are known by our love, not our ranting about what is wrong with the church. There are some things that are good about the church. I'm trying to tell you that, unfortunately, i agree with the (I think it was) the anonymous blogger who said that Bob (I love you, Bob) sounded like a man who had been hurt one too many times. Sometimes he does sound like that and sometimes you sound like that. I love you, you know I do, but I'm sure you, nor Bob, want people to think your ministry stems from that. You can defend it with words all you want, but, I say again....thou doth protesteth too much. Just do what God has called you in your heart to do for His people and then the local church (both the C and the c) will know what you are about. They will know what God is about.
I believe with all my heart that God's word has come alive to all of us about a discipliship driven purpose. But we are no more going to argue, or let's say convince, others by badgering them with the verses over and over again. They will be won over by seeing the results of changed lives. When they come and ask "What are you guys doing?' then we will be able to give a full account of God's revealations of change.
I guess you can tell that I'm VERY frustrated by this. I tend to bypass blogs I think are focused on what the author thnks the church is missing...others will too. I focus on the blogs that sing the news of changed lives...or blogs that ask questions about our faith. That's what it is all about. We should all live for that.
Whew. Now I've got to go pay some bills....anyone want to talk about that one? Judy M
To all who have high blood pressure, low blood pressure or no pressure.
This post was an intentional one. I'm very pleased with your comments, observations, assumptions and all the rest of the stuff.
The point is NOT, do we need this church or we do we not need this one. The point isn't that one is better than the other, although some are better than the other.
The author never said anything about going to church being a bad thing. The subtle point doesn't address this church over another it does direct the "going and doing church" over "Being the Church". Being the Church is the priority over going or doing church. Both the Being and the Gathering are healthy when we get the first part right. The first part is "Being" the Church as supreme over doing/going.
The point here is that Being the Church is what is important here. Attending church or gathering as a church, flows out of Being an incarnational Christ follower in the world.
Going to a church has predominantly become the main thing instead of being the Church missionally/incarnationally.
As for hurt, well here's what I think. And I knows what I knows so I'll tell you what I knows.
You got pain, I got pain, all God's children got pain.
You write with pain, I write with pain, all God's children write with pain.
Your pain comes through in your words, my pain comes through in my words, all God's children's pain comes through in our words.
If ya don't believe me, re read your own comments and feel the pain!
So as the family of God, let's just keep being ourselves and sharing together for a better day and better way. You don't have to be nice here because what we are discussing is an issue of eternal consequence for the multitudes. My calling stretches across America to see a Disciple driven movement where disciples make disciples who make disciples.
Oh Bob, now you've gone all profound on us. But you're right. You are right, right, right -- and admitting that didn't hurt at all!
Mike, I just picked myself off the flooe as my chair spilled me out. Or as my so, as a little boy replied upon fallin gto the ground, "oops, I dropped myself." I'm glad I nor he didn't get hurt.
I'll fasten my seat belt the next time you comment.
For some reason I feel smart today.
Being vs. Going or Doing...AMEN
Most of the time, pain takes us where we need to be...
Disciples making disciples who make disciples? Count me in!!!!! Judy M
Is anyone doing service by making disciples who are making disciples something you do in addition to the service you attend?
I didn't think so...
I'm jealous. I never get more than 3 comments on my blog.
Would you all boost my self-esteem by coming over to www.epicaugusta.typepad.com and posting a comment?
:-)
Bill, as you can see not all comments are pleasant. But I sure love them the meaner the better.
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