What is the Purpose of the Local Church

Okay, you said: worship is a matter of the individual heart's submission to God. Therefore, because it cannot be programmed, worship is not meant to be a corporate event.

Have I understood you?

My response to that: I do not understand the logical leap you are making. Why should something that is to be a spiritual, heart activity be prevented from also being a corporate experience? The fact that it is more difficult to achieve shouldn't prevent us.

And 2ndly, I asked for a biblical justification of your view here.. Or is this just a gut feeling you have?

[Soundbear]

Programmed?? I'm probably not quite understanding you on that.

I do believe the individual's expression of worship in the corporate setting should be described as praise, not worship.

The spiritual, heart activity of worship is not prevented from being a corporate experience, it is impossible for it to be a corporate experience. Our worship of the Almighty is the very same experience/action that we performed when we submitted to Him personally. We cannot submit to God together, one for another, we can only submit individually.

My biblical justification. The bible clearly states that it is faith alone that justifies us and that every righteous thing we do is like a filthy rag. Therefore, there is not one single good thing I can do that is of eternal value to God except the submission of my soul to His will. This is not to say that I should not be doing good things. And the most important of them is doing my best to get others to submit to Him too.

Which is why I said before that the most important things we can do are get to heaven and take as many as we can with us.

Okay, let me break this down with an analogy.

Scenario 1: I am by myself, on the beach at Havilland, about 8:45 p.m. and the sun is going down.

"Awesome!" I say to myself, and to God. "What a great God we have!"

That's worship, in it's simplest form.

Scenario 2: Next night I am there, same place, same time. Only my wife is with me, adn we watch the sun go down together.

Awesome! We say TO EACH OTHER.. and exclaim how good and how creative God is, and we think back to the many sunsets we have experienced together, and we marvel at the goodness and the grace of God.

The experience is MAGNIFIED, because we enjoyed it, together.

That's the corporate experience.

Can we agree that, if authentically experienced, a joint experience is greater than an individual experience?

[Soundbear]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Okay, let me break this down with an analogy.

Scenario 1: I am by myself, on the beach at Havilland, about 8:45 p.m. and the sun is going down.

"Awesome!" I say to myself, and to God. "What a great God we have!"

That's worship, in it's simplest form.

Scenario 2: Next night I am there, same place, same time. Only my wife is with me, adn we watch the sun go down together.

Awesome! We say TO EACH OTHER.. and exclaim how good and how creative God is, and we think back to the many sunsets we have experienced together, and we marvel at the goodness and the grace of God.

The experience is MAGNIFIED, because we enjoyed it, together.

That's the corporate experience.

Can we agree that, if authentically experienced, a joint experience is greater than an individual experience?
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""Awesome!" I say to myself, and to God. "What a great God we have!"

To my mind, that is praise, EXPRESSING your worship.

"Can we agree that, if authentically experienced, a joint experience is greater than an individual experience?"

Absolutely!!!

Okay, I'm going to push you a bit. Hope you don't mind. If I am wrong, please push back.

Is there a distinction between praise and worship? DO a word study to see if those words are used synonymously.

Here is my understand of the distinctions between praise and worship.

First, I think that all praise is worship.
In other words, praise is a subset of worship.

Technically, not all worship is praise.

Examples:
I am worshipping God in my confession of sins.
I am worshipping God in the receiving of his Word.

Those are not actions of praise, although they are acts of worship.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Jesus was part of a shrinking church.

He preached a message in JOhn 6, and his group "grew" from thousands down to about 12..

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53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth , unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

AMEN

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body">As judged by... </div></div>

God. </div></div>

Right.

So Barry trying to discern "good worship" is nothing more than a fool's game.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> What Speedy thinks about what I believe, based on the bible, is of no concern to me.</div></div>

Yet you feel free to tell everyone how my religion is not "biblical".

You, sir, are an amazing contradiction; and a very, very confused and angry person.

Speedy, take a hike. We were having a good discussion.
You just come along and throw stones.

[GenX]

Get over yourself, Gumball! [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

The poor souls that listen to you every Sunday may give a sh** about what you say...but not me.

[Soundbear]

Is all praise worship? Gotta think about that. I will state right now that all honest praise is the EXPRESSION of worship.

I will do the word study.

"I am worshipping God in my confession of sins.
I am worshipping God in the receiving of his Word."

Since those are both actions of submission, they are indeed acts of worship.

Speedy, enough of your childish tantrums. You are on ignore. You can come out of your room when I say so.
And I think you'd better go to confession this week.

[GenX]

I'm sure I'll be on 'ignore' with you about as long as I was with Barry, which was about one day.

See ya' soon! [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

[Soundbear]

It's pretty funny, ignoring the parrot.

He just can't resist those little jabs that make him feel so good, like a winner in his own little mind.

How long could YOU ignore ME, Speedy, is the real question.

Let's get back on topic. Learn to ignore those annoying bumps on the road.

[Soundbear]

Yup!! Where were we?? [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

[starterwiz]

I still believe He was speaking of the ergot in the bread.

Barry, you were questioning the value of corporate worship.
Why?

[Soundbear]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Barry, you were questioning the value of corporate worship.
Why? </div></div>

Oh no I wasn't!!! At least not what we do Sunday AM, if it's done right. I am questioning the definition of that service. I believe that all we do there is praise, which (hopefully) leads to worship.

BTW, anyone who wants to continue to call it a worship service will get no flack from me.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Let's get back on topic. Learn to ignore those annoying bumps on the road.

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Protestant definition of a "bump in the road: "Anything that leads him to actually read Church history"