Six Great Ends of the Church: 3. The Maintenance of Divine Worship

Lessons: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Psalm 122: In this third in a series on the Six Great Ends of the Church from the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA), we look at the maintenance of divine worship.  The goal of worship is a transforming encounter with God.  "Public worship matters because it is the one time in the week when God’s people gather to acknowledge God’s presence in the world in our lives, to remember our faith, to act out its meaning, to celebrate the good news in Christ, to respond to God’s claim on our lives, and to receive the blessing of God.”[i]  Without community worship, we tend to forget who we are: God’s people, created in God’s image, part of God’s beloved creation.  [i]  Howard L. Rice, Jr., Maintenance of Divine Worship (Louisville, KY: Witherspoon Press, 2006), 5.