Militant Mosquitos and Corporate Worship

If you’re like me, around this point in the summer, you are probably getting very tired of humid mornings, sweaty afternoons, and militant mosquito evenings. Let’s face it….we are all looking forward to the fall. Now, when I say fall, I’m talking about that time when kids go back to school, summer vacations become memories, and routines are once again established. Routines are great and help us to create healthy habits in our lives, but routines can also become our enemy. If we are not careful, habits take over our spiritual lives also. We establish a healthy habit of attending worship but quickly allow it to become a stale and empty routine.

I want to share with you several reasons why we should participate in authentic corporate worship:

There is something amazing about corporate worship. I can worship Christ on my back porch, in the car, at my desk, or walking around the mall. But, when I get with other believers and authentically worship Christ, it is almost indescribable. When is the last time you authentically worshipped Christ with others in a corporate setting?

Attending worship forces you to interact with others. This interacting includes speaking. Do you know that your speech has the ability to encourage and aggravate? It can build others up or hurt them to the very core. Scripture says, There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18). Are you an encourager or an enemy? Do you build up or tear down? When we attend our churches to worship, do we use rash speech, condemn, and find fault, or do we look for good, encourage, and act like Christ?

If you drive by my house on Sunday mornings you will find it empty because my family is worshiping together. Now, just because it is empty, don’t go by there and try to steal anything. We have a ferocious chihuahua who will lick you to death, and I’m not kidding! A byproduct of corporate worship is the impact has on your family and others who know you. You see, people observe what you do and it makes a difference. People in your neighborhood see what you do on Sundays and it helps them to understand that you, at a minimum, think that your faith and worship is important. Is your faith and worship that important?

What is important to you? Are you ready to establish healthy routines for the fall that will teach your children that Christ and His church are actually a priority in your life? Remember, you shouldn’t come to church because you have to come. You should come because it is a privilege to serve the Creator of the universe! And by the way, He created my chihuahua!