Final Essay - Preparation

One of the greatest lessons I have learned from this class, as it relates to corporate worship, is that of the importance of our preparation for worship.

On page 68 of Gospel Worship, Burroughs states this unfortunate and troublesome fact of life, “Most men let out their hearts so much to other things, as their consciences cannot but tell them, that if God called the to prayer at such a time in the day, they would be altogether unfit for it.” This is an issue we deal with every day of the week, both in our personal worship and in our corporate worship. We much too easily give our minds to this thing over here or that thing over there, and we allow our attention to be captivated by pursuits of pleasure or of work. It is a shame our attentions and interests are given to so many things and things that are unworthy of its attention. But that is a rabbit trail I will refrain from going down for the sake of the purpose of this essay. Alas, when we come to worship our God, He is the last thing on our minds because our minds have been much busied with other things. To combat such a thing there must be preparation for the service. Time to reign in our wondering minds must be taken before we come to the service. Burroughs puts it this way, “[We must be] very serious in the examination of [our] hearts, to endeavor to work [our] hearts into mourning for [our] sin, and to labor to possess [our] souls with the presence of God.” (p. 69) Burroughs suggests we must understand the great weightiness of the glory of the Person we are about to commune with. We are going to come into the presence of God, the Sovereign Creator of the World. For this we must reel in our wandering minds and hearts.

The duty of worship is a great thing, a great task (p. 53). It is not something that we can take lightly or that we can participate in while sleeping (though some attempt to do so). And if we realize how great the business is of drawing nigh to God, it will cause us to realize the need for preparation.

Burroughs mentions five things we must to do in preparation on pages 58-62. I will not get into them in this essay, but summarized they are as follows: realizing Who God is, removing ourselves from the cares of the world, and keeping ourselves holy, set apart, so that we may be ready to engage ourselves in worship to our great God when the time comes (specifically corporate worship, as this essay is about). May we not come into the Sunday service half asleep and completely unprepared to commune with the God of the universe, but may we prepare ourselves ahead of time (let us keep Saturday evening and Sunday morning a holy time) so that we can come into the service prepared to give glory to God.