1. Worship has never changed since Christ resurrected (if you are talking about how the gatherings should or could look then you may have a point)

2. I am saying we have liberty Joe. In other words today we make what we do on Sunday LAW! Not liberty, so how we meet and what we do becomes the way it “should be done”. I am saying if we are to be dogmatic the ONLY way it should be done is like the early church (whatever that looks like). We can’t go and say “the way we do it is right” and then go write books about it. When the way we do it is different from the way they did it. But if we say “this is the way we like to do it” then there is liberty in that.

3. I don’t know to your last statement. If plurality of elders, or senior pastors, or “qualified” worship leaders, or sunday school, or membership classes, are things we are dogmatic on, then they best be able to be 100% supported from scriptures (which the only one would be plurality of the things I listed). If singing (what we call worship) needs to be from the psalms, or can’t be “seeker sensitive” or we shouldn’t have a “secular band” are dogmatics then we best be able to support what we are doing from scripture again. By the way yes things change but we have to ask what can we “change” that God has instituted and what can’t we? Remember times changed in Israel but they couldn’t worship God anyway they pleased just because time changed. Under the New Covenant I think there is more flexibility but we best be searching the scriptures to see what God is flexible on and what He isn’t.

My greatest problem is that we are so dogmatic and are even willing to call people wrong on some stuff but what we do isnt’ even in scripture. We don’t want to be guilty like the Pharisees and make man’s traditions the LAW of God. If we want to do that we best come with much prayer and bible study.

Finally what I am addressing here is the things directly commanded to do in scripture (spur along, admonish, exhort, encourage) to one another which has been relegated to the elite few. God told us “not to forsake” and to do these things, we have pushed these things into small groups and not the gathering. I think this is wrong though. So Sunday becomes more like a concert and the other days we do these things commanded.

Again, just throwing this out to get some else’s take on it—-Ok, there are things that we do in church now that they didn’t do in the early church. However, should the worship service stay just the same? I mean, we live in a different century, different culture, etc. As society has changed, aren’t there some things that should change with it?

1 Corinthian 14 has to be the standard. Paul says this under the context of when we come together as a body to edify one another and corporately exalt Christ. Is the “pastor” (which is not an office) the only one who is to edify? No. Is there one sole worship leader? No. Yet through hundreds of fellowships this past Sunday, we neglect God’s biblical pattern for worship and gathering today.

What does it mean to “go to church?” Well church is not a building in the physical brick and mortar sense. It it the assembly of believers who are in the Body of Christ. I ask people how can you go to a place that you are already at? So why do we meet? That answer once again is in 1 Corinthians 14. That all may learn and be encouraged.

Why are we not doing these things as outlined in 1 Cor 14? Well we value the traditions of men over the Words of God. We have to be honest with ourselves and see that what occurs Sunday after Sunday is not orthopraxy. Are we then in sin? Well Paul states towards the end of 1 Cor 14 what he has said is a command of the Lord. We must humbly acknowledge our error and turn from it.

If people want to hear from God; pray and read the Scriptures. He has spoken to us by His Son.

I praise God you are provoking these questions. I pray that many of us would take these questions to those elders who shepherd and hold these fellow brothers accountable to the Word of God with much grace and humility.

Phillip

Some believe that 1 Corinthians 14 is the standard

I agree that our worship services can easily become very much like performances. I see nothing wrong with planning and organizing to some degree (i.e. a person being prepared to teach on a scheduled Sunday) but I don’t think that all teaching should come through one senior pastor or necessarily even a group of pastors. Having said that, I’m not sure I have any suggestions on what to do in the way of changing it. What do y’all (that what we say in my neck of the woods) think?