Seedsower Music:: Saturday Night Ritual

No question, Saturday evening is traditionally a "night-on-the-town" opportunity. But if we are to be sitting in church just 12 hours later for worship, just what steps can be taken to make that time as significant as possible?

Recent Entries

God? Who Needs Him?
May 31, 2013
Self-sufficient humanism. Paul saw it coming – “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

Imago Dei
September 12, 2012
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Why Can't I Pray?
August 18, 2012
The bible gives us several reasons, but according to Jeremy Taylor, a deceitful heart is at the root of prayerlessness.

It's Not Rocket Science
July 23, 2012
To keep in step with the Spirit should be our daily quest. And if we are successful at that, all of life falls into place.

Theological Steak
April 10, 2012
These words by P. T. Forsythe on the magnificence of Christ's work are to theology what Ruth's Chris is to a good steak.

Describing the Indescribable
February 11, 2012
What we have in Christ will take all eternity to describe. But for one segment of one sermon, a great preacher made a mighty attempt.

Making Sense Of It All
January 30, 2012
Where are things headed? Is there rhyme and reason to the endless cycle of summer, fall, winter and spring? Is there a plan in place, or is randomness the explanation?

Saturday Night Ritual

June 22, 2009

The sports fan knows about ritual. Leading up to game day, the fervor is primed by combing the internet and local sports pages, gleaning all the pre-game hype possible, drinking in the hoopla. The time is cleared on the schedule, food is purchased, banners bought. You know the drill.

So what about preparing for Sunday morning worship? Might a ritual help to maximize that time, and make it most fruitful? George Swinnock (1627-1673) thinks so....

Prepare to meet your God, O Christian!

Betake yourself to your chamber on Saturday night.

Confess and bewail your unfaithfulness under the ordinances of God; and as you are appropriately ashamed and rightly condemn yourself for your sins, entreat God to prepare your heart for, and assist it in, your religious performances.

Spend some time in consideration of the infinite majesty, holiness, jealously, and goodness, of that God, with whom you are to have to do in sacred duties.

Ponder the weight and importance of his holy ordinances.

Meditate on the shortness of the time you have to enjoy Sabbaths in; and continue musing...till the fire burns.

There is no way to fully measure how pleasant and profitable a Lord's day would be to you after such a preparation.

The oven of your heart thus baked in, as it were overnight, would be easily heated the next morning; the fire so well raked up when you went to bed, would be the sooner kindled when you rise. If you would thus leave your heart with God on the Saturday night, you will surely find it with him in the Lord's Day morning.