The Nature of a Typical Sunday Service

In 1 Corinthians there's a very interesting comment the Apostle Paul says, and if we hurry pass it, we may miss it. Paul is looking at the total chaos in the church.  He has been addressing the church’s abuse of spiritual gifts.  So he is about to make his point.

Beginning in verse 23 of Chapter 14, Paul writes: If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? ²⁴ But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, ²⁵ the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

Paul is saying, “Hey, if you’re having church and an unbeliever walks in and hears you all speaking in tongues and there is no interpretation, what is he going to think? He is going to think “you are out of your minds!”

Now my point is not about tongues, but what Paul implies about the nature and purpose of a typical church service. A church service is designed for believers, not unbelievers.

A church service is to be primarily for believers – to worship, for edification and for equipping. However, if for some reason an unbeliever shows up – coming in on his own or invited (and this is good, nothing wrong with that), what should you do?

Well today, churches make pretty much the whole service geared toward the unbeliever.   They create a comfort zone of some sort; they try not to do anything that would offend; they get the newest and latest entertainers that were once worldly and unsaved, but have given their lives over to Christ to come and perform in the church; they serve coffee and donuts and all sorts of other eye popping and tantalizing means to make themselves attractive for unbelievers.

They make the church “seeker-sensitive.”  Some churches are all about making unbelievers feel totally comfortable, so they carefully choose the titles of sermons, then carefully and craftily have a seeker-sensitive delivery, and more often than not, will use topics that are positive in nature and have a less chance of being offensive, which means you’ll hear less of sin and more on love, dreaming, positive thinking, unleashing your future, etc.

In the mean time, the saints are starving! The church service is for believers, not unbelievers.

But there also must be a sensitive balance.  You see, Paul is referring in 1 Corinthians 14:23 to a worship that has gone over board for believers. It is a church service where everyone is rattling off in tongues, so an unbeliever steps in and is immediately confused! 

While we must be careful to create a church service for believers, we must also be carefully not to create a church service that excludes unbelievers from getting anything from it.

We need to keep in mind that unbelievers may show up – and we should plan on it.   We ought to create a church service for believers, but never so believer oriented that unbelievers will feel totally unwelcome and leave thinking you are crazy, unwelcoming and uncaring.

What should a church service shoot for?  Conviction!  The whole service must be made understandable so as to allow the Holy Spirit to use the Word to lay bear a person’s heart and bring conviction of sins and will lead to repentance and belief in Jesus as Lord.

I read about how a young homosexual man came to a church service one Sunday evening and shared his testimony of how he got converted. He said he slipped into church and sat in the back roll. He was dying of AIDS.

He then said that the first thing he noticed was when the pastor stood up and read one of the Psalms that he had never heard before, but it spoke to his heart.  The psalm was about the chains being broken and the prisoners being set free and those who are on the edge of death being given new life. And he said the tears began to race down his face and he sat through that service and watched the people worshiped God, and then he heard that God was a delivering, healing, restoring, freeing God. At the end of that service, he said he gave his life to Jesus Christ.

He also added that three weeks prior, "I not only have not had a homosexual encounter” (he stated sometimes as many as five a day), "but I have no desire for that and never had since the moment I gave my life to Christ."

What is interesting was that the church did not create a service for homosexuals to feel loved and welcome. Instead, a practicing homosexual dropped in and actually eavesdropped on the hearing of the Word of God and the preaching of the Word mingled with the corporate worship of God’s people, that young homosexual man came under conviction and gave his life to Christ.

We don’t need to take what belongs to the saints and give it to the ain’ts.  Create instead a church service that equips and edifies believers, and watch how God uses it to do more than what you originally had in mind.

Remember, we gather for worship and scatter to evangelize. We do not gather to evangelize the lost and then scatter to some other private place like a home Bible study to worship.