As I attempt to make a slow return to regular blogging again, I wanted to start with this. Justin Taylor is on vacation and his guest blogger shared with us a wonderful prayer for those who will be entering into a place of worship tomorrow, Lord willing.

A Sabbath-Eve Gospel Prayer
from Between Two Worlds by Tullian Tchividjian

As all of us prepare our hearts and minds for worship tomorrow, my prayer is that we go expecting to encounter the glory of God, his powerful presence, first and foremost. I pray that, as we sleep, God would expand our want to sing of who he is and hear of what he’s done. I pray that we go ready and willing to feel the grief of our sin so that we can feel the glory of his salvation. I pray that we go, in other words, to see God on display, not preachers or musicians. A worship service is not the place to showcase human talent. It’s the place for God to showcase his Divine treasure. A worship service that contains the power to change us (even us preachers) is a worship service that leaves us with grand impressions of Divine personality, not grand impressions of human personality. Isaiah did not leave the temple in Isaiah 6 thinking, “What great music, what a great building, what a great preacher.” He left thinking, “What a great God.”

Perhaps John Stott’s words will be used to grow our love for the the great Gospel we will encounter tomorrow: “The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.” Amen!

Remember: we gather for worship not to escape the real world, but to be reminded that this world is not there is. For the Christian, the best is yet to come. So worship humbly and hard tomorrow. You need it!

Amen.

While perusing the blogs this morning, a few youth ministry related posts stood out to me:

• Student ministry workers: focus on the kids that ARE there, eh? How many times did I stand in front of the group of youth that God had given me and complain about all of the people that were missing. I wonder how I made those that were there feel? May I never treat the absence of many as a bigger deal than the presence of the few.
• Why (Greg Stier thinks that) Mormons Do Better Youth Ministry. In an article on the Dare 2 Share website, Stier suggests that the Mormon church does a better job of reaching today’s youth. I don’t know that I agree with the gist of this article. However, we could use some of their principles and ideas and apply them to our ministries and churches in a way that would glorify the Lord.
• Why church is often a student’s last priority. On the heels of the previous article, Tim Schmoyer offers up his take on why church seems to be the last priority in the life of today’s teenagers. He ties in the comparison of the church and the athletics organizations that many teenagers are involved in.