Worship renewed - January editorial

In his article, Matthew Roberts draws our attention to some glaring deficiencies that have crept into some of our evangelical churches.

He writes: “We offer no connection to God. We accuse liberals of removing God from the gospel – often with considerable justification – and yet in our worship we have peculiarly fallen into the same trap.” We have lost, he says, “what should be a towering vertical encounter with God”.

Roberts is correct. Too many of us will have sat through “evangelical” services where the almighty, transcendent, holy God who we claim to worship barely seems to get a look in. There are notices, there is singing, there is an (often short) Bible reading, a talk and a prayer – but scarcely any conscious and deliberate recognition of the presence of our great and glorious God Himself!