Worshiping, Leaving, and Remembering [Outgoing Links — 12/2/09]

Outgoing Links is a series in which we share interesting articles about the church. Please follow the links in the title to see the original site. Be sure to leave comments below with your thoughts.

This week: a three-link special—a veritable smorgasbord of awesome linkage!

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How to Prepare for Corporate Worship
Nathan Finn blogs at Between the Times, a blog sponsored by Southeastern Theological Seminary, where he is an adjunct professor. It's a short post, but a good one. In one sentence:

Every Thursday our assistant pastor, Eric Campbell, posts a brief worship guide titled “Preparing for Worship” at our church’s website.

Take a look at the really neat example he posted. It's always refreshing to see pastors reaching out to cooperate with their congregation, recognizing their own insufficiency and the gifting of the body of Christ.

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Will We Have to Leave?"
Often controversial, often insightful and always thoughtful, Michael Spencer ("the internet monk") is an (outside-the-box) Southern Baptist who has helped define the term "post-evangelical" in his blog writing over the last few years. We don't agree with everything he writes, but when he gets it right, he tends to hit home runs. Last week, he shared a true story about a cohabiting couple who wanted to attend church. He offers one of the more thoughtful answers I've heard to difficult questions posed for church leaders by this sort of circumstance.

I know there is a good lecture out there on social stigma and the value of marriage in a community. I’m old school. Co-habitation makes me a little less nervous than your grandmother, but not significantly.

I know the pastoral problems co-habitation brings to a church and an extended family. I hear you when you say “What do we tell the kids?”

But I also hear that line: “Will we have to leave?” There’s a story there and I think you can probably get most of it without a lot of help.

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This is hard stuff. Christians believe some things very deeply, but they don’t always see things clearly or express them with Gospel wisdom. When they forget the Gospel, they forget who they are and start finding ways to be justified in comparison to “real sinners.” There’s nothing about the Kingdom of God in a snarky morality club, but too many people don’t know the difference. They usher people out as if they are the angels gathering the elect at the last day, not signs pointing every person, no matter what their sin of the day, to the savior and the wedding feast at the end of the world.

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Five Things I Need to Remember Today as a Pastor
Thabiti Anyabwile is a former Muslim who now pastors First Baptist Church in Grand Cayman. He writes for 9 Marks at their blog, Church Matters, as well as for his own blog when he's not busy doing the work of a pastor. (He has great taste in web design, too: he uses the same basic template that I do on my personal blog!) In this post, he covers five points that all believers need to remember, though he applies them particularly to his own position as a pastor.

1. I need to remember the resurrection of our Lord.
2. I need to remember that Jesus is the great shepherd of the sheep at FBC.
3. I need to remember that God equips me with everything I need to do His will.
4. I need to remember that I not only want to please God but He is the one working in me so that I will please Him through Christ.
5. I need to remember God gets all the glory.