Preaching vs. Worship

Jeff Purswell does a great job of explaining why preaching is essential to worship:

Throughout salvation history, all the way into the new covenant, God’s Word is at the center of worship. The early church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and every church was nourished on God’s Word, all the way down to the last chapter of the last book that Paul wrote, where he tells Timothy to preach the Word “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2).

Why? Why so much preaching? Why all this talking? Because the primary way we encounter God in worship is through the preaching of the Word of God.

Think about it this way. Normally, in what we call “worship,” we spend significant time—perhaps the whole time—addressing God, singing to him, praising him, extolling him, praying to him. Wonderful! But in preaching we are no longer addressing God; he is addressing us. Nothing is more important than this moment. And this is why the most important worship leader in your church is your pastor.

That really gets to the heart of preaching. The Bible is not simply a book that we talk about. When God’s Word is faithfully preached, God is addressing us. God is speaking. We hear not merely a man’s voice. We hear the voice of God.

Read the entire post here.

HT: Pure Church

Orphan Sunday this week at Roosevelt!

November 8th is Orphan Sunday and I am VERY excited about some things that will be happening at Roosevelt this weekend!

1) We will be having a ministry spotlight talking about foster parenting/adoption with resources available for families who would like to further consider/pray about becoming foster or adoptive parents.

2) Vocab & Nicole will be teaching a RU class called, "A Biblical View on Adoption" after service (lunch will be provided). You don't want to miss it!

3) We will be launching a new Roosevelt book study. We have 6 copies of "Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches" by Russel Moore. I will be commenting/ opening up for discussing a chapter each week on my blog. I hope to have at least 6 people join me on Sunday in reading/discussing this book. (If you don't attend Roosevelt and would like to join the study, order the book now--we will be starting next week.)

**even if you think you will never foster or adopt, this book is well worth reading. 1) to support our families in the church who do and 2) to have a deeper appreciation of God's adoption of you!