I
found the following article posted on Rich
Kirkpatrick's blog. It is long. Read it and absorb it and think through how
this impacts all of us who are striving to be fully-devoted followers and worshipers of God.
Following Jesus: How corporate worship and the local church really matter
I believe that there is a correlation to how we follow Jesus and the idea that the local church plays a huge role in that process. I believe that small groups indeed, as an ideal, certainly are seen as modeling the intimacy that Jesus had with his twelve. But, what about our weekend crowds? Jesus spent a lot of time with crowds, too. Our corporate worship in the church certainly is a crowd. The activity of the small group and of the crowd can be done uniquely in a local church like no other institution. I call the crowd our “corporate worship” for the sake of argument. In the crowd you have both the committed disciples of Jesus and the uninitiated. This looks a lot like many of our churches, especially the church I serve. Click here for the rest of the article...