Coop's Column - Introduction

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In this column I hope to explore each week a facet of corporate Christian worship—that is, what do Christians do together when they congregate on Sunday morning before God's face? I also want to examine why Christians do these things. Why have followers of Jesus, week after week, and for generations and centuries around the whole world, kept up some fairly regular and similar practices? They do them, I'll suggest, for three reasons:

• To recall their identity—to remind themselves who they are and to whom they belong
• To reaffirm what they believe
• To reset their direction—to reorient themselves, and to re-pledge to their aims for living

I want these weekly articles to teach. Worshiping God worthily demands careful thinking about what we're doing, and why. I also hope that they encourage. Accordingly, as I write each one, I shall offer a prayer that what I write and you read equips us to live more faithfully and as God intends.

I hope that how I write creates a "kitchen-table conversation" atmosphere between us. Let's pretend that we're having coffee or a Pepsi together, and that each of us is warmly open to listen to and explore the thoughts each of us has about some things that really matter to both of us—namely, how best to worship our God together.

So, I'll present a few thoughts, and invite you to respond with some of your own. Let's pray that, along the way, Christ's Spirit prompts you and me to commit as much as we know about ourselves to as much as we know about God, with the confident hope that we'll each be led to discover more about both him and ourselves.

With warm good wishes, and in our Lord Jesus,

Dale Cooper

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