COURTNEY WRITES: What do you guys do to get ready to hear the Word of God on Sunday? How does your church encourage, strengthen, and hold each other accountable week to week? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, so I’d love to know what y’all do to prepare for church. Thanks!
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For a while on Saturday nights I would avoid social media and focus my time on reading and praying for the following day. I thought I was preparing my heart, and I was, in a way…although, the problem with that was I had limited God. I set a specific time for him, which was a mistake. He opened my eyes to keep an open conversation 24/7 with him and I. I also attend prayer at 9:30am before church starts. We pray for the atmosphere, our pastor, and more. Its very helpful and reassuring that the service is going to be awesome!
Try setting aside a time on Saturday evenings to prepare your heart for the message. You can read the passage that the pastor will be preaching on, meditate on it, or just pray. Or all of the above lol. =)
Praying is by far the best thing to do beforehand 🙂
So question…is it bad to set a specific time/times to grow close to God? Because if so then church itself would be detrimental, lol =)
I tend to have issues getting ready for church… i have insomnia and have a hard time waking up on sunday once i finally fall asleep. I am in general also a nightowl and have been since I was 13. I’m 18 now. Any ideas on how to wake myself up better and quicker so I can be ready for church in time?
I admit, I don’t really do any spiritual preparation for church. My preparation is more physical, as in getting up early to get ready to go to church by 8:45. Sigh six people in my family, it takes forever to get ready and be on time! One thing for me that is good to do is like… not watching tv or doing stuff that would distract me before church.
I think that Natalie’s point may be that while it can be helpful to spend extra time studying the bible and praying, we shouldn’t spend only those certain times with God, but instead we should be ready to ask for help from God, tell him your problems, and ask for help, or praise and thank him, throughout the day 24/7
Last time I did that I prayed that someone would come to know Christ.. for like 3 days… and somebody did. I really need to start doing that again. 😮
Unfortunately, I typically don’t go to church. But when I do, I try to set aside a time to pray that my heart would be open to the message. Not so much spiritually, but I try to avoid caffeine before church too, or I can’t listen.
Hmmm, I know how you feel kinda. But I’ve never had insomnia, nor am I a night owl. What I do generally is either a) set a bunch of alarms or b) go to bed sooner lol. Neither of which may work for you. =/ Sorry, not quite sure how to help you =)
Thanks, I kinda figured that, but I wanted to see what she had to say =)
AMEN!!!! I’m the second of 5 (plus parents) and getting out the door to church on time is virtually impossible. There was one week that we were so late and were going to be going somewhere afterwards t hat we just gave up and didn’t go. It was awful. It’s so much better now that we have all our bathrooms done, for about a year there we were just going on one bathroom for all of us.
I have six kids in my family, and the early morning is all about getting the kids out the door
All these ideas are great; I’ll try it out on Friday night since I go to church on Saturday. 🙂
Haha so I’m not the only one! Sometimes our youth pastor will be like, “now if you’re one of those people that comes in late all the time, you’ll have to try extra hard…” And I know that my two brothers and I are some of the main culprits he is talking about 🙁
One of my brothers is so bad about making a mess of the upstairs bathroom that the other five of us get ready in the downstairs. Two people getting showers, two people washing hair, and a little sister fighting over having her hair brushed….. Things can get a bit crazy!
I do that on Saturday nights as well, I’ll read, study and pray asking God to help me take the passage to heart. Taking notes on Sunday during church really helps me to remember it and to stay concentrated, not sure if this helps at all just sayin.
To be honest I’ve never really thought about preparing myself spirituality for Church, But sometimes when I’m getting ready physically I will pray that the service will run smoothly and that the people taking part will honour God and preach his word as he wants them to.
Kewlio! =)
Yes. In general, I love large families and fully intend to have one myself some day, but it is at times like getting out the door for church that I’m raising my eyes to the ceiling and asking, “Why?”
Haha yup, I know the feeling. I’ve got five (awesome) siblings 😉
Hi! I suggest you attend the afternoon services in your church. In our church, we have two morning services and one afternoon so there’s no excuse for people not to attend. If your church only has one service, then you gotta deal with your insomnia first or you’ll rush yourself every Sunday which, I think, is exhausting. God bless you!
Haha absolutely not. I think its awesome so set times to really really focus and give all attention to him! So mainly what Olivia said✔
I prepare my heart and mind the night before in prayer. In the morning I sing or play hymns of praise to our Lord continuing to pray and claim my family for Him. I do not allow the enemy to steal our joy on the Lord’s day. We still may be running late at times, but we have peace. He is our peace.
I don’t really prepare spiritually for church. . .like at all. It’s usually just a rush to get out the door.
Honestly, I don’t really do much to prepare myself spiritually. One thing our family does though, is we have a ‘prayer road’ on the way to church. It’s just a stretch of road we’ve picked where we drop everything we’re doing/talking about, and pray together for the service, and for our hearts to be open to what God wants to say to us and others at church. 🙂
Well, our church is a 25 minute drive so in the car we like to listen to worship music and also sometimes we read a Psalm of Ascents. The Jewish people would sing these on thier way to the temple on the Sabbath and so in your Bible in Psalms there are psalms that say Psalm of Ascent on the top.
I don’t think so. If you are not close to God, than setting apart specific time is really the only way to ever grow close to Him. You can’t grow close to God if you don’t set apart time for Him.
But I think your question was more of “is it right to reserve time opposed to all time to God”. If that’s the case, I don’t think so at all. You must allow yourself time to do necessities, such as eat, sleep, go to work, do school, and so on. There is a time for everything, Ecclesiastes 3 says. If God wanted all of our time to be spent on Him, than there wouldn’t be a time for everything. However, He is supposed to be before us all the time, and His Word our guidelines. Does that make sense/help? I know you don’t know me, so sorry if this is weird for me to intrude…
Yeah, I get what you’re saying! It’s not weird at all. =) I’m guessing your name is Ryan? I’m Josh *virtual handshake* =)
Alright, that’s great. Yeah, it is; I’ve never seen Saving Private Ryan but I figured it was an acceptable username…plus my dad really likes the movie. 🙂 I’ve heard quite a bit about you, mainly from Lauren S. and Taylor B. 🙂 *virtual handshake* as well. Nice to meet you.
Haha yeah! Oh, you know Lauren and Taylor? That’s cool! Nice to meet you as well. =)
Yeah, I went to church with Taylor for four years, and Lauren’s my sister. 🙂 So, the Lyme Disease video challenge is what started the whole guitar with arms thing, right?
Oh wow, okay! Well if you don’t mind, here’s the story on my blog, lol. =)
http://guitarwitharmsblog.weebly.com/about.html
Okay…that makes more sense. I didn’t know the part about your ‘selfie’ with Vulcan. By the way, lol used to mean “laugh out loud”, right? ‘Cause now it seems like *everybody* uses it – it might mean “Legally Obligated Language”. 😀
Haha yeah. Well I laugh A LOT when talking to people irl, so I use it a lot on the internet as well. =P
‘irl’? Sorry, I’m not caught up on text lingo. Or Disqus lingo…
In Real Life lol =)
Oh…I never saw that coming. 🙂 Okay…
A good sleep the night before the worship service is a good way to prepare yourself,
but there is no better preparation that spending time with God everyday.
Hey Cassie. I’m Jaquelle. I’m the editor-in-chief of TheReb and I’ve written a fair amount for it before. I think we may have interacted in the past, but I’d love to ask you a question. Right now I’m writing a book called “This Changes Everything: How the Gospel Transforms the Teen Years” that Crossway is going to publish next April. Your comment here is phenomenal feedback to the DQ, and I wondered if you would allow me to use you as an example in my book. I would use you in the chapter on the church and in the context of preparing for church. This is exactly what I would say: “We also should pray for the service. Cassie’s family has a “prayer road” on the way to their church, which is a street on their route where, when they reach it, they stop talking and spend a few minutes praying for their service.” Let me know if you’re okay with that! 🙂
Hey Jaquelle!! Wow, that book sounds so cool!! I’d be honoured for you to use my comment!!
Thank you so much, Cassie. That’s fantastic. 🙂