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Christ-centered Worship

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richard n koustas

New Member
I used to attend a church where the focus of the ‘worship service’ was around the ‘death, burial and resurrection’. Nothing but....each and every Sunday morning. I now attend a church that claims (from the pulpit as well as in print) to have “Christ-centered worship”, but the worship service seems to be anything but.

What exactly is ‘Christ-centered worship’? – I always thought I knew...

Does your church do it?

What is (or should be) the focus of the worship service?
 
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exscentric

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
I haven't been in a Christ centered service in a long time. Most lately are concentrated on the performers, greeting time and a fuzzy feel good "sermon" - Christ is usually mentioned but not with any real emphasis :)

I'm not sure a steady diet of death burial resurr. would be my choice either, there is a ton of other aspects to God. At this point the steady diet sounds rather good though :)

I've always felt the music should focus our minds on the Lord as well as everything else in the service. I like announcements at the beginning or the end and nothing to distract from God in between.
 
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Rachel

New Member
Originally posted by exscentric:
I haven't been in a Christ centered service in a long time. Most lately are concentrated on the performers, greeting time and a fuzzy feel good "sermon" - Christ is usually mentioned but not with any real emphasis :)

I'm not sure a steady diet of death burial resurr. would be my choice either, there is a ton of other aspects to God. At this point the steady diet sounds rather good though :)


I've always felt the music should focus our minds on the Lord as well as everything else in the service. I like announcements at the beginning or the end and nothing to distract from God in between.
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Yeah, that last paragraph sounds right to me too.
saint.gif
 
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exscentric

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Our pastor a year or so ago had a couple neat hymns and he commented that it was nice to focus on the Lord, and that so many things in services focused on man and things, and then said, "Okay, lets greet one another." If that isn't man centered and a "thing" I don't know what is. :confused:
 
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richard n koustas

New Member
I'm not sure a steady diet of death burial resurr. would be my choice either
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there were 2 services each sunday morning, one focused on Jesus, the other on whatever. it was more like a weekly rememberance than a 'steady diet'.
 
Marcia

Marcia

Active Member
We don't do announcements in church and I'm glad. I think they are terribly time consuming and boring, except for those they apply to or those who might be interested. Nothing takes away from a worshipful atmosphere more than announcements, imo. Announcements are in the bulletin.

Once in awhile, it it's something really special, it will be announced (like an out of town choir or special speaker coming), but that is not the norm.
 
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richard n koustas

New Member
Can a service actually be "worship" without being Christ/God centered?
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my original questions were about 'Christ-centered worship'.

I am surprised (and appalled) at what passes as 'worship'. I sometimes feel like i'm sitting through a sales pitch during the 'sermon'.

If 'Christ-centered worship' is not focused on the 'death burial and resurrection', then is it truly 'Christ-centered'?
 
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richard n koustas

New Member
Is worship the purpose of a church service?
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...it is called a 'worship' service....the worship is labeled 'Chirst-centered'...so, i would answer YES!

if worship is not the purpose of the worship service, change the name...
 
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exscentric

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
If you study the word worship in the Bible there seems to be a lot of references that relate to personal time with God. In fact a number of them relate to being prostrate :)

We call them worship services, so they should be, but agree if you ain't gunna worship, call it something else.
 
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NateT

Member
Christ centered worship, to answer the OP, is worship that has its entire focus on Christ.

That being said, there is more to Christ than Death, Burial and Resurrection. How about time on the incarnation or his ministry.

A class mate recently told me he was at a church where they had a guest preacher that was "fishing for Amens" so he'd say things like "Jesus was completely God." "Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world." etc. etc. He then said "Jesus was completely human." Only about 2 or 3 people said Amen because that part of Christ had not been focused on.

I think our worship service is Christ centered. Once we get past the 4 or 5 minutes of announcements at the beginning (I'm w/ Marcia on this one) we usually sing 2 or 3 songs that work on building a message (usually some kind of theme) We'll then have a time of prayer. Sometimes we'll read over part of a confession of faith, or have "1 sentence prayer time" where the congregation can give thanks to God for various things. Then we'll sing a couple more songs, then offering then an expositional message.

It is quite different than what I'm used to. I'm used to 1 hymn, greet, 2 hymns, offering, sermon 1 hymn and we're done (where the hymns were seemingly chosen at random)

I just read over this and realized that it sounds as if Christ centered is a "Program" that you must follow -- that's not what I'm saying. I think Christ centered worship is deliberately choosing the 'activities' of the service so as to focus the congregation's attention on Christ.
 
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patrick

New Member
Christ centered worship is not a service......Service to Christ is worship.....Christ must be in the center of our lives....The service is not the main thing but the heart is
 
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Jarthur001

Active Member
Sad to say, but often times you will not hear the complete God of the Bible in these so called “Christ Centered Worship Centers”. Now this statements comes from the churches I have gone to and that call themselves a “Christ Centered Worship Centers”. This may not be the case in your church. I pray it is not.

What do I mean?

There are 3 things that a person must understand about God before salvation can happen.

1) The fact of God.
What I mean by this is, you must believe that there is a God before you can be saved. You do not have to understand all of Gods great wonders and attributes that we find in His Word. But we must have a good sense of who God is. His greatness. A picture of Him being over all. With great power. And most of all…Holy. Holy in that God is way above and set apart from mankind and being holy He hates sin.

2) God the judge.
God not only hates sin, but God will judge sin. And going with the 1st point..The Fact of God…God hates sin…and knows all have sinned. This places the sinner in a need of salvation.

3) God the Redeemer
Last but in no way least we have God the Redeemer. This is God’s love. God has a plan to save mankind from damnation. God in His love sent His son to die in place of us for our sins.

All 3 of these must be preached in Church. This is not all of God. There is much more. But you MUST have these 3 points for salvation. With anything less you do not preach the God of the Bible.

Some churches all you hear is there is a God…and he will judge you for your sins. A Hell-fire type of preaching if you will. This is not right, for it never address the love of God in His son. Other churches preach there is a God…and he is a God of love. They skip the part that God hates sin and that he will judge your sin. This is just as bad. The churches that I have seen that call themselves Christ Centered Worship Centers, skip the sin part. They say nothing about God judging sins and only preach on His love.

The church I went to for 25 years was a great Bible preaching church for 50 years, but changed to a “Christ Centered Worship Center” 3 years ago. I hang in there as long as I could but had to leave this year. We held hands and sang more songs but had less preaching. We changed the music to sound more like the world. The singing was really bad. I’m not talking taste here. The new songs were very weak in truth and in music quality. The choir that was hands down the best in the state now had songbooks with no parts. The books were called “easy song pieces for Church choir” or something like that. I had 3 girls in the choir for years. They said the leaders wanted to change so as not to sound so “churchy”

We heard a lot about Gods love preached.
God loves you.
Lets sing “I love you Lord” . We sang this 2 times a month or more.
We started to hold hands while we pray.

Where as this is true, about God loving us, there is more to God than this.

The preacher would not use the word sin. He would always change it to..Mistake….or he blow it. Is not sin in the Bible?

This is not only in my old church but every church I have seen that went this way. Weak preaching and fuzzy feelings…with downgrading the music. The phrase Christ Centered Worship sounds good, but does not really do this very thing.

In Christ…James
 
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TexasSky

Guest
Christ centered worship leaves me with a sense of having been in the presence of God.
 
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Jarthur001

Active Member
Originally posted by TexasSky:
Christ centered worship leaves me with a sense of having been in the presence of God.
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When you say this...are you saying that you sense an awe of the Holy and a fear of honor and respect that you place on no other but God? Can you sence His Holiness and Power of Turth and Justice and you then think of your sin and ways you have fallen short? Does this presence of God make you feel worthless and unworthy of His love, ....knowing..this... but yet not understanding why He still loves you? As you sense this, do you better understand why the Palmist crys out to God..."What is man?...that thou are mindful of him?" or...Why God did you even bother to love man in his sins?

This is how the Bible tells of being in front of the HOLY. Read the 1st book of the Bible..and read the last book of the Bible. Both books give a good picture of God in all of His holiness. This is in no way fuzzy feelings.

Can we not have good feelings about what God has done for us? Yes. But do not let this drive your walk with God. Sometimes i get out of bed from a bad night and I FEEL dead! But God is still the same on my bad days as on my good days.

At some point we (we the church) needs to stop looking for what we can GET from God, and start asking "What can we do for You my God?".

In Christ...James
 
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shannonL

New Member
I think whatever we do for the Lord ought to be done first class. However; in most churches it has went from being first class to entertainment.

My mom and dad go to a 5000 member SB church it is a good church yet man they do so much singing. In one service alone you go from jazz music to jamacian to maybe a hymn then praise and worship. Its all planned out almost scripted.
By the time the preacher gets up to preach he has less time and frankly, I'm wore out.

Maybe its the missionary in me but I wonder how much more could be done for missions if we didnt have to spend millions on lighting equip. techno. equip etc.... all that just so people will come.

In Africa where my wife's dad was a missionary for 35 years people would walk 5mi. just to hear the preacher in a little grass hut. I know it is a different culture but still something is wrong with all we think we have to have just to sit under the preaching of the Word.

Just my preference but give me some good hymns sang with vigor and maybe a chorus or two. Then a nice special that sets the tone for the preaching. Thats all I need.
 
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