During “lockdown” my wife and I attended a variety of church services around the globe via the internet. For example, we valiantly slogged through 1&2 Samuel with Alistair Begg. Since then, we have regularly visited churches to explore how the family of God is worshipping Him. It is encouraging to see people continuing to encounter and praise God, and give thanks for His son 2000 years after his death and resurrection. There is much to be thankful for.

However, there are a few reflections I wish to make:

It surprises me that many worship services do not have an obvious “Call to Worship” – the idea that it is God who calls his children to gather. A Call to Worship reminds His children that they are responding faithfully to their God and that He is the centre and focus of worship. We are giving Him the “Worth” (from the old English worth-ship) he is due. He commences a dialogue to which we respond with hymns of praise and confession, and prayer. However, too often I see services that commence with “I” songs – songs about our experience and feelings.  These are appropriate in the right place, but they don’t clearly focus our attention upon God. Even the corporate “we” is often missing – the songs indicate a lot of individuals in one place, rather than the family of God.

Another observation is that most services have difficulty incorporating children. Family worship is, if we are truthful, adult worship with a few poorly timed nods at the children, at best. Often, the children are disregarded altogether. All age family worship which includes the sermon, is a hill too high to climb for the vast majority of churches. Children are often hived off to “age appropriate” worship. That children should be taught is not the issue. If worship is the gathering of God’s family before God, then children should be included and involved too. Age and maturity appropriate teaching can occur at other times for every age in the congregation in whatever way you want to dice and slice the congregation.

My third observation is there is often an emphasis on personal salvation but not the Kingdom of God. There is little emphasis on proclaiming, revealing, living in and expecting the Kingdom. The “already” (revealed in Christ)  and “not yet” (not fully realised until his return)  Kingdom seems sadly irrelevant to most preachers. The reason this bothers me is that a lack of Kingdom preaching empowers a continued dualism in Christians. Life is divided between the religious and the secular and we are subtly encouraged to live this schizophrenic life.

If you have encountered churches where these issues have been addressed, I would love to hear about them and “visit” them.