[0:00]
i've recently sent an article into the southern cross magazine of the sydney diocese and the article is called something like are we shooting ourselves in the foot and it's got to do with the way we conduct our sunday services or our gatherings or our meetings and i wrote this because suddenly i'm free having retired to visit a number of churches where things in many places are being done well and in some places and not being done well

[0:32]
and so i thought i would write an article to say how important it is that things be done well and i'm basically responding to some questions that have been sent to me now the first one is what prompted me to write the article again i want to say i've seen some good things and i've seen some pretty bad things and what particularly concerns me is that the people that gather um perhaps being presented with a very low view of god

[1:04]
everything is sort of so casual and almost careless that there is no great sense of a great god and this of course is going to have an effect on the christians who gather who will be tempted to think of god in small and unworthy ways it will not help them to bring their friends as if anything is going to be impressive or persuasive a lot of the parts of the service that i've noticed have not really been prepared well it's as if people get up to the front

[1:35]
and begin to think off the cuff which they don't do very well some of the things that are said are not particularly wise and have not been thought through i don't think it's a good model to those who've gathered in fact it's a bad model and so these are some of the reasons i know that the new testament says that we're weak and we are weak and we're never going to be super impressive to the world i know that we need lots of encouragement at the present because

[2:05]
things are difficult not only in the western world but also with this covert 19 but i still think that we can do a much better job in some places than we're doing so that's what prompted me to write now the second question is am i just being grumpy i'm certainly capable of being grumpy and perhaps if i'd reflected on the article for a week or two i might have sent it a little more sweetly but i do think that i'm governed in my mind as most believers

[2:38]
are by the early phrases in the lord's prayer that is that we want the lord to be honoured and glorified we talk quite a lot about his glory and we should want him to be greatly honoured we should want people to see something of his greatness in his glory our father in heaven may your name be honored may your kingdom come may your will be done these are vital impressive things that should govern the

[3:09]
way we gather and i'm not sure that people are going to be helped if we miss the greatness of these things my aim in the times of leading a service are to be serious and joyful if you're too serious of course it can be gloomy if you're just joyful it can get silly but to have a certain amount of gravitas which is not very common and to certain have a certain amount of gladness which is very needful is the

[3:40]
best combination in leading so we want the leaders to be clear-headed about what they're doing and we want them to be zealous so that people who come pick up something of their zeal for christ the third question i've asked been asked is how serious is this issue you know what are the stakes and again what are we doing when we talk about god's glory uh first of all he deserves to be glorified he's more wonderful than we think he is

[4:11]
uh we owe more to him than we think we do and when we glorify him of course we are at our most healthy that's where our hearts find their harbour we give to him the praise that is his jew but we also find that we are being caught up exactly as we should we're representing a very great god when we stand up to speak not a small god not a silly god and so we shouldn't be giving the impression that god is small or silly when we lead i am asking myself when i sit in some of

[4:43]
these services what has prompted such poor preparation it's not as though there hasn't been a week to get ready and so if people are leading and give the impression that they've been lazy through the week that's a serious thing um we also don't want to give the impression that we're proud and we're capable of just standing up and chatting off the cuff and getting everything right so i think the stakes are that uh the lord should be greatly

[5:13]
honored christians should be lifted and uh built up in their appreciation for the lord jesus and that when the unbeliever comes there should also be the arresting factor where the unbeliever sits and says well this has been done very well this has been very clear this has been thought through this has had a certain degree of weight and greatness and gravitas

[5:45]
as well as some happiness and some praising and some joyfulness so the stakes couldn't be bigger than the honor of god the building of the believers and the challenging of the unbelievers so what am i really hoping the leaders will do well to be honest i hope that many people will repent of things being done badly casually breezily foolishly and unhelpfully i hope that

[6:15]
people will seek his help with private previous prayer whether that's being done personally or whether that's being done as a group but i think we ought to get a group together before we gather to sit or kneel and beg god to help us given the circumstances are so difficult i remember being in a conference once and i watched a man who we regard in sydney as being one of the great great preachers

[6:46]
a man from overseas uh not from australia not from england and he was preaching in a conference and he was preaching his heart out and i felt for him and the longer he preached the more i saw people just sleeping and slumping into their chairs and the more he watched everybody slump into their chairs the louder he got and the more he got loud the more people slumped into their chairs and it was a great picture to me of how helpless we are we

[7:17]
are completely helpless and we need to beg god to change the unbelief and the sleepiness and the carelessness and the sinfulness and the half-heartedness and all the things that creep in and to provide the clarity and the enthusiasm and the reverence and the gladness and the joy and the commitment and the zeal and the trust and the obedience and all the things that are needful for christian people

[7:49]
and so i hope people who are leading services will prepare very carefully i remember going to services many many years ago in one particular church in sydney and it was kind of like a privilege to be there the person who got up said something really helpful sensible the singers stepped up and played well the person who was going to lead the prayers did so in a way that was edifying

[8:20]
the person who was reading the scriptures got to the front exactly at the right moment he'd found his place he began with an introductory sentence everybody was on board everything about the service was excellent it didn't distract it actually caused us to be more grateful and more appreciative of the lord that we belong to so that's my hope my hope is that there will be services gatherings meetings where things are

[8:52]
done so well the believers are glad the unbelievers are impacted and christ himself is on it may he help us