Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Elders Basic Training

Royce Snyman

Elders Basic Training - Part 1

Elders Basic Training - Part 2

Would you bow your heads with me, please?

Father in heaven, thank you for this opportunity, this nice morning here at camp meeting, beautiful sunshine outside, and coolness of the weather keeps us awake, and we're just grateful for all that you do for us.

We pray that you will bless our training time today, that your Holy Spirit will guide our instruction, that you will help me in the words that I share and us as we listen and learn together today.

May your Holy Spirit be in charge of all that is done here.

We pray and thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, well, today we want to get into the second part of this Elder's Basic Training class, and I want to be able to spend some time focusing in on that today and having some opportunity to discuss that a little bit more so I want to begin though, we're going to deal with several areas today.

The 1 I want to have the most time for, at least not to feel rushed with, is the visitation section.

But I want to spend, because this is basic training, there are a couple other areas that I want to spend a little time with as well.

And 1 of those is the elder and the worship service.

And be able to concentrate a little bit on that area because this is the area that elders are most likely to recognize they are responsible for it and to to be invested in it to some extent.

So I want to talk to us a little bit about that.

I remember as a pastor some young people kind of not really getting the idea of what worship is all about.

For some people the idea of worship is coming into church and I sure hope the pastor's going to have a good sermon today.

I hope that there's going to be a nice orchestra playing and a nice choir singing because I want to be entertained.

Now, people won't tell you that, but they exhibit that thinking by the way they respond to what happens in the church service.

They see the worship service the way Hollywood produces whatever.

It's for entertainment, it's to get our attention and to keep us engaged.

And if it's not doing that, then it really hasn't been what we expected it to be, so maybe we're not gonna come anymore because it's not meeting my needs.

Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be providing a quality church service.

That doesn't mean that people that are doing special music shouldn't practice.

That doesn't mean that people are doing the scripture shouldn't know how to read it and what they're saying.

I don't know, but she's short on chairs and she wondered where they went to.

Okay, well we understood they only had 15 people in there, so we took some of the chairs because my next class has a lot.

The door won't open, so you can't get through that.

You take what you need, but I need them back afterwards, okay?

It's all right, it's all right, it's all right.

So we're talking about worship is encountering God.

That really is what worship is all about.

We want people to be able to understand the purpose of worship.

But if we don't understand what worship is, we can't help people to understand what worship is.

And so that's why I'm taking the time to be able to explain this.

When the children of Israel got together to worship together, they were coming not to be entertained.

I wonder if there's gonna be a lightning bolt today so we can get excited.

I wonder, you know, that isn't what worship was about.

The people were coming for an encounter with God.

They were coming there to meet God, to spend time with God.

They were coming there and when they came and God was there, they were on their knees, they were prostrate, they were coming before God with humility.

This was an encounter with a God who created them, the God who led them out of Egypt, the God who was the God of creation, and they realized what this was all about.

And so that was part of that whole experience.

And Ellen White puts it this way, she says, the whispering and laughing and talking which might be without sin in a common business place should find no sanction.

Don't take, You won't want to take those.

Take the white ones and we'll get the white ones back, okay?

Sorry, I just knew that she wasn't going to want those chairs, unless she wants to clean them for me.

So what this is helping us to understand is this worship is coming before God and that is the experience that God wants you and me to have and that's what you and I are leading out with in our experience in worship.

That's why we want the best quality we can provide, because this is exhibiting God.

The problems that we deal with in relationship to worship services that many of our churches are small, very small.

Ellen and Ray, you have a small congregation in Reed City.

Dan, you're in Ann Arbor, that's a larger congregation.

You have more people resources to work with.

Victor, you're in, can I call you Victor?

You're in Cherry Hill and you're kind of in between, probably more the size of Reed City, and your resources are somewhat limited.

The people that you have to choose from, but that doesn't mean that the people that are there, they're not performing, but the people that they're leading out can't be prepared and doing the very best that they can because they're doing this for God.

We want visitors who come to the church to not see Hollywood, we want them to see sincere people prepared to serve God and to represent God in the church.

And the statement here is just reminding us of the fact that this sanctuary is the place where we meet God.

Now we wanna talk about some of the aspects of worship right now.

First of all, worship includes adoration.

That is, we're coming to worship God, to adore Him, to recognize who He is, and this is done through expressing our adoration through singing and prayer.

Some of our smaller churches have a hard time because they don't have anybody to play the piano.

You can have it, it happens from time to time.

And if they happen to go on vacation, what are you going to do?

And you don't have anybody to be able to provide that, and those are some real challenges along the way.

I'm a pianist, but no 1 can sing with me.

Victor, I don't know if you're still kind of watching that thing for me.

I don't know what it's actually doing right now, but yeah, you got the routine down, so that's really great.

So at any rate, we want again to be doing the best that we can in singing and prayer.

We are there to affirm God's goodness, recognizing His worthiness, and it also reverences His presence.

That's why the sanctuary needs to be a place that is reverent, because God is holy and to be lifted up.

And if we are acting though it's a commonplace, then we are taking away from the worship of God.

Worship is a time for the proclamation of God's word.

Notice that there are several different aspects to our worship.

Proclamation of the Word comes in the preaching.

We are going to talk a little bit about sermon preparation a little later in our presentation today.

It should result in someone having an experience with Christ, with God, and renewing their relationship with Him.

We need to renew our relationship with God every single day, correct?

So when we come to a worship service, we should not be surprised that this is a place to meet God and to renew our relationship with Him.

Series

Elders Basic Training

Elders Basic Training - Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Elder's Basic Training and Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training

Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training - Part 2

1h 4m

Emmanuel Institute - Ignite Your Church

Ignite Your Church - Part 13: Disturbing our Monotony

1h 15m

Elders Basic Training

Elders Basic Training - Part 2

1h 9m

The Doctrine of Personal Ministries

Part 5 - Mining the Manual

1h 16m

Elder, Deacon, Deaconess Basic Training

Elders Basic Training - Part 2

1h 17m

Emmanuel Training Sessions

1. Orientation

50m

Decision - Discipleship - Destiny

04 Destiny and Deployment

53m

Elders Basic Training

Elders Basic Training - Part 1

58m

Elder, Deacon, Deaconess Basic Training

Elders Basic Training- Part 1

1h 10m

Ignite Your Local Church for Mission

Mission of Attendance and Involvement

1h 4m

Back to Christ’s Original Design

56m

Sound Doctrine