How would you like to change the world? Does that sound exciting? I’m sure like most people, you don’t like the way things are. You don’t like the darkness and the ignorance and the poverty and the sin and the death. Great, let’s get started. What are we going to do?
When we ask that question, we start to formulate a plan. The first thing we need to do is raise some money, and figure out how we going to raise it. We need a good media strategy, some publicity. We need billboards and a website. We ought to get busy producing some videos. We need to think about getting the guys we want in office elected, or think about how we influence the guys who are already elected. So that’s a start, money, media and political influence, that’s how we change the world.
Those things are all okay in their place, but ultimately those things don’t change the world, because those are the tactics and the strategies of the world. The world is really good at those things already. It is good at defending against those weapons and really good at undermining your efforts. That’s their game, and one that they are way better at than you or I am.
No, the world is changed for the better, the world is given life, and revival and reformation by the one thing that no one in Washington pays attention to. Nobody cares about it on Wall Street or Hollywood or in the network television boardrooms. You won’t see it or hear about it in 100 hours of shows on Netflix, or in a week’s worth of your favorite celebrities’ Twitter and Facebook posts.
The world is transformed and preserved and renewed week by week by the worship of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord’s day by Lord’s day, people united to Jesus enter the presence of the creator of the universe. He listens to their prayers and petitions, He speaks to them, He communes with them and He sends them back out with their marching orders. And the world is changed by worship.
In the coming posts we’ll explore precisely how this happens.