First Mennonite Church
May 4, 2025
The Church and Its Mission III
Text: Colossians 3:12-17
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Last Sunday, we concluded that the church has a three-pronged mission: to worship God, to live in community, and to reach out to others with the gospel message in both words and deeds.
These three areas of ministry are essential to a healthy and balanced church. If we over-emphasize one at the expense of the other two, we become unbalanced. If we emphasize community life at the expense of outreach and worship of God, we are likely to become like a social club. If we emphasized worship at the expense of community life and outreach, we would become spiritualistic but oblivious about the need for deeper internal connection with one another and the world. If we over-emphasize outreach at the expense of the other two ministries, we would become a growing shapeless hollow blob without substance nor purpose. The church will end up with immature Christians who emphasize growth in numbers but lack true spiritual growth in their own lives.
Therefore, we need to pursue these three areas of life in the church. Worship, community life (some call this discipleship), and outreach are the roots that make a church healthy, mature, and pleasing to God. A.W. Tozer, the American missionary and author who wrote the book, The Pursuit of God, said, “A church that is soundly rooted cannot be destroyed, but nothing can save a church whose root is dried up. No stimulation, no advertising campaigns, no gifts of money, and no beautiful edifice can bring back life to the rootless tree.”[1]
If you have participated in other church services, you must have noticed that there might be some differences in how each congregation conducts its worship service. Some churches are very formal, while others are more spontaneous. Some follow a script—an order of service according to the liturgical calendar. There is a three-year cycle, which means, for example, that the order of service used this Sunday would be the same four years from today.
There are some other churches where singing takes center stage and in some other cases, bible teaching.
The passage in Colossians gives some glimpses of what happened when Christians gathered during Paul’s time. In these few verses, Paul gives instructions on what should be the most important features of the worship service when the Colossian church met. First, Paul calls for quality interpersonal relationships among the believers. These qualities reveal the spirit of Christ among the gathered community. Then Paul gives only the basic guidance of what should take place when the believers are gathered. He does not give details on how to carry out these activities, except regarding scriptural instruction. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. The message of Jesus Christ is given priority. It should shape the life of the community. It should be the guiding rule for admonishment. And, it should be central in everything they say and do. Gratitude and praise should be given to God through Christ. Praise is the appropriate response to God’s redeeming work through Christ.
Oftentimes, contemporary worship services are tailored to satisfy the needs of the worshippers. We sometimes hear from people shopping for a church. They go around from church to church in search of the kind of worship service that suits their taste or that caters to their emotional or social needs. While there might be some legitimate reasons for that—let’s say, a family who has a special-needs member might want a church where there is not much loud music. However, in this instruction Paul gives to the Colossians, emphasis is given to Christ-like relationships and Christ and God are the central focus of everything that should be done and said in the worship service.
Then Paul moves to the singing part of the gathering. There should be hymns and spiritual songs and all of this addressed to God with gratitude and joy.
Besides these two main features about what should happen during the gathering, details are not given on what else should happen.
I want to ask for your participation. But before we do anything, let us come to God in prayer. Let us give thanks to the Lord for giving us the opportunity to serve Him at FMC and at this time in history. Let us ask Him to reveal to us his will on how we can worship Him in a way that truly glorifies and honors his name when we gather.
Let us pray:
For Discussion
If part of the mission of the church is to give God communal worship, which takes place when we gather in this house between 11:A.M. and 12:00 every Sunday, what part of what we do here have you found meaningful and spiritually uplifting? Which activity do you feel gives your heart a sense that you have indeed worshipped God?
What elements, such as:
Testimony time—a time when we can share about recent experiences of God’s presence, healing, peace, or teaching in their lives. Or a time during the service when members can share a verse or biblical passage that gave them comfort, affirmation, guidance, or strength as they search for God’s guidance.
What visuals do you think will enhance esthetically this space and yet be conducive to our worship of the Lord?
What rituals, as part of our expressions of joy and gratitude or even consecration to God, would you like to see as we celebrate some particular times in the year: Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Day, etc.
What do you believe it is that we need that would make your time more spiritually enriching and at the same time be for honoring God? If you were to decide what we should have in the program for the worship service, what would you include, expand, or eliminate?
What role would you like to have or play in the worship service? What gift would you like to offer the Lord during the worship service?
[1] A. W. Tozer. The Root of the Righteous, 1955