Do You Experience God on Sunday?
THE GOD EXPERIENCE
For decades, local church was a picture of what it meant to be behind the times in terms of music, video, technology and the overall worship experience. Not anymore. Many churches today are the most high tech venues in their city. Churches have moving lights, billowing fog, movie-theater quality video and precisely tuned audio systems. I love the new technology we have in our churches and I think in many ways, it only helps to enhance a genuine worship experience. But, without the presence of God and an opportunity to experience a genuine relationship with Him, there will only be diminishing returns on the benefits of an enhanced environment.
Nothing is more important than bringing people closer to God. As we do this, I think its important to stop and consider the picture of God that we are offering the people in our churches. I remember several phases in my own walk with God and how the lessons learned in each of those phases has taught me more about who God is and what it means to genuinely experience Him.
How we present Christ in our services will either serve to draw people closer to God or to repel them from Him. You have probably had both experiences and so have I. Is He an angry God with retribution in His heart toward us? Or, is He a loving God offering us a secure relationship with Him through His son Jesus? To a world without Christ we should offer a “God Experience” on Sunday that is undeniably an authentic encounter with the Great I Am. It all starts with presenting Him as a forgiving, welcoming and accessible God.
When people attend your church service and are drawn closer to God, they will be back. For there is nothing greater than a genuine Divine encounter.
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Comments
David
Great word!!! You nailed it.
Love you B. Billy
Brad Makowski
Thanks Billy for the continual directional bumps! Nothing can compare to the Divine Presence!
Desmond Frey
Great question Billy.
One question that I have not taken for granted but like to ask it myself every week. We are in our forth year now of planting in a post-christian european city of Zurich, Switzerland.
It is so easy for me on sundays to make sure everything is working and people are doing what they are suppose to do, that I hat to ask others the big question after the service.
It was probably when listening to Craig Groeschel a couple of years ago on the “IT – FACTOR” when I remembered: If I don’t sense God – they won’t. If I worship – they will.
I can honestly answer with: “Oh, yes we do”. It’s awesome.
Billy
Thanks Desmond, David and Brad for your response. It is really all about encountering Him.
Chris Honeycutt
As a teenager I hated going to church, not because I hated the idea of church or God Himself, but because the church my family attended failed to present itself as “authentic”. I didn’t want to waste my time Sunday mornings being the next member at a country club masquerading as a church. It was far from “life-giving”…
However, God would soon lead me to find a church that may have lacked a fancy building, or well-to-do congregants, but rather it felt approachable, exciting, and real. The people there were friendly and honest about their faith in the Lord. This would be the place I found myself inspired to be a better believer and made dramatic steps in my relationship with Him.
This is what we need more of… churches getting down to the basics of why we bother every Sunday to gather for worship:
- When authenticity is valued over numbers (not pretending to be what we’re not)
- What happens inside the sanctuary is held higher than the appearance of the building outside of it (the worship experience should be the most important part)
- Making the Gospel truly relevant by personal application of the truth to one’s life (and it showing in the lives of both the pastoral staff and the members)
It’s when we get away from those things where we ask ourselves what we (as churches) could be doing better, when God only desires from us sincere worship.
Billy
Well said Chris. People really want to experience GOD, not religion. Living an authentic life that follows Jesus and not “church” is key to attract and keep sincere people who need God in their lives. Christianity is not a building and a service, but an experience that is shared over and over. Thanks for your response.
Steven
Billy,
Thanks for your insight on this. I think that we must return to simple is better. The true encounter with God can get lost in the destraction of light, camera, action of our worship experiences. These things are not bad of themselves but, the major question of, does these things help draw us closer to the encounter with God? I believe that God is sometimes really waiting for us to move out of the way so that he can do what he does best. He wants to save, he wants to heal, he wants to set people free and he wants to do all of this with us participating with him. For this to happen, it will require that we all step back and ask him the question, God what part do you want us to play in what you want to do today?
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