In his design of the Christian experience, God has created very simple ways for experiencing his grace. Particularly in the gathered church, we have prayer, Bible reading, preaching, singing, the Lord’s table, baptism and fellowship. These ordinary activities don’t lend themselves to off-the-chart experiences but rather they are steady, compounding and shaping. Over time, one can look back with some surprise and say, “God has been so gracious, he has changed my life.”
As a result of both the ordinariness and God’s faithfulness, we may slouch into a posture of passivity and presumption. Neither are helpful. Let me explain.
Passivity
On the one hand, you may be tempted to want more than what God has provided in these ordinary means of grace. They may not register on the meter for you. You may want more of a high personal experience. As a result, you may not anticipate and even prepare for your Sunday gathering. You come, but do so passively. You don’t prepare your heart in prayer, confessing sin and asking God to speak to you. You just come and go without active engagement. This passivity is a passive repudiation of God’s prescribed means for your growth and conformity to Christ. What could be more personal and powerfully profound than to realize that God has been so persistently faithful to you over a period of time to unfasten your grip upon idols and to clasp your hands upon the garments of Christ? There is some immense personal joy here that quite frankly dwarfs these personal spikes of experiences. God’s faithfulness through the ordinary is absolutely extraordinary.
Presumption
On the other hand, there is presumption. Pastors and church leaders are particularly susceptible to this. Many pastors give good time to their sermons but little consideration to the rest of the service. It may be someone else’s job in your organizational structure, but we should remember that, biblically speaking, the worship leader is the pastor. He may have other people involved and even responsible for aspects of the service; however, he is still responsible as the shepherd who gives account for the ministry of the word (2 Tim. 4:1-2ff; 1 Pet.5:1-4; Heb.13:17). The pastors have been gifted for the purpose of leading the church. How do we lead them? We lead them in worship of Christ. Instead of letting the service just happen, pastors would be well-served to thoughtfully, prayerfully and actively engage in the planning of the service. Think through what will be said, read, sung, prayed and preached. Since God uses these ordinary means, and since pastors are the ones who are responsible for these things, then it would make sense that they would find themselves very much a part of that process.
God’s means are ordinary but not sub-par. His grace is promised but should never be presumed upon. All Christians should heartily embrace God’s prescribed means of grace and heartily plan for their sanctification through them.
