Let me emphasize that my blogs are very personal thoughts of mine. My opinions and beliefs are only mine and I don’t want to be sounding dogmatic about the way they are presented. However after years in the pulpit and in different traditional settings, I have accumulated convictions that I feel free to express. I mainly write for myself, but hopefully someone out there in space can be encouraged or challenged. So, here I go, again!

 Pew sitters ought to come to church with a mood of expectation and a sense of learning something new about God and His Word. When church become mundane and lack the personal anticipation something has gone amiss. Who wants sit in a church when it church becomes humdrum? I am sure that an unexciting atmosphere in many churches is the reason why many mainline churches are losing its people and influence in our culture.

If church services becomes too predictable and people know, in detail, what will happen during worship, I believe people are not anticipate God to speak. Those who have grown up in such a church atmosphere might benefit, but to a new-comer to such a church culture, it can create a wrong attitude toward what the Christian life is all about. When people are tempted to fall into too much rituals and rules individual participation can be lacking. A spirit of spontaneity and a personal touch between listeners and the pulpit is a healthy spiritual practice in any church.

The church should be a place where the Bible is read and taught. Personally, encourage members to come to church with Bibles in hands. The pulpit should be a place where listeners are encouraged and educated in the promises of God. Pastors do well in using the Bible as their textbook and the teaching style should be expository, which means that the listener understands how the ancient teaching of the Old and New Testament can be referred to today’s life. I love to hear people leaving church with an excitement because of learning something new from the Bible. Bible teaching together with a spirit of life-giving worship is a beautiful concept that brings glory to God and matures Christian.

We know there are many church traditions and different worship practices. I appreciate that, since we all come from different backgrounds. But if a church service is an hour of continual readings of already printed traditional prayers and responsive readings without a personal touch, the temptation of people believing that the Christian faith is mainly an organized institution and not a relationship issue between God and mankind. Don’t we know that the Bible is God’s love letter to the world? When people get the impression that the Christian faith is merely another human made religion, rather than a Body of Christ, it stifles God’s Spirit to move and the result will be that church equals another human organization.

 The main enemy against Christian faith is when church becomes only an  institutional and a religious entity without the life-giving message of God’s Grace and Love. Remember that the Christian faith is from the beginning to end a intimate relationship between you, me and God!