Get back to the Heart of Worship: As I said in my Heart of Worship video, the bare bones purposes of worship are devotion, gratitude, and righteousness. Yet that is seldom what the conflict about worship centers around. Instead, we are fixated on surface issues like music and style. When you get down to it, for an omniscient God who can look right into our hearts, it's ultimately about our sincerity. (Isaiah 29:13) Granted it may be easier to be sincere when church services revolve around our preferences. Then again, it's also easier to make it more about self as well. I'm sure God is more pleased with a pop song sung with sincere devotion or gratitude, than a traditional hymn sung for mere comfort or sentimental reasons. Worship is not about us, and we need to stop making it so.
Take a less linear approach to holiness: Much like the ancient Pharisees, many current teachers make religion just about righteousness. So all they do is define a moral standard, then hoist these burdensome loads upon the backs of the people. Never helping them address the issues that will prevent progress. (Matthew 23) As I said in my Wholeness of Heart video, righteousness is and always has been a goal of the faith. Not the goal, but a goal. Yet, the wholeness of heart was, and always will be the means of fulfilling said goal. Neglect of this simple truth of wholeness has sabotaged our outreach efforts more than anything else these days.
Adopt a healthier attitude towards emotions: Cults tend to go to extremes on this issue. Making it about following feelings blindly, or denying them entirely. Indicating to me that it is just human nature to go to these extremes. But, if our own nature had any merit, we wouldn't need religion. Considering that the Bible never uses the word emotion at all, we definitely shouldn't be going to either extreme of human nature ourselves. If feelings were absolute truth, or inherently false scripture would say so. But it doesn't, and we should stop pretending that it does.
As Christians, we often feel guilty for having negative emotions and feel compelled to suppress them. Yet, king David set just the opposite example in his Psalms. Think about it, we can't let go or move past the things we suppress. That is not the way to wholeness, so that can't be the way to righteousness either. Yet, scripture does address specific emotions, and with negative emotions like anger and sadness we are invited to ponder and consider them; not deny them. (See my videos on Anger and Sadness for more on this.) We need to start treating emotions for what they are, mere reactions. We can just as easily react to false or misleading information as facts. So it's important to look closer at what we are reacting to before we act. Doing the opposite is likely the source of many of your regrets. As well as lead the church down a very shallow whitewashed path.
With That being said, let me formally announce that I will be scaling back my online presence come 2023. The internet, especially social media, has become a source of mass manipulation. So I see little value in it right now. For how long is hard to say. All I know for certain is that I need to be more available on a local level. If a revival happens that is where it will be found.
