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

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?

Suffering Saints
January 25, 2012
We get nervous thinking about it - suffering for the sake of Christ. How necessary is it, and what does it produce in us?

George Herbert on Prayer Meetings
January 21, 2012
Prayer Meetings are a thing of the past. Or so it seems. What has been lost? Maybe more than we realize.

When Fear Is Good
January 7, 2012
NO FEAR, we are told. And the point is well taken. But fear can be healthy, at least when it comes to eternal matters.

Happy, Happy, Happy
January 4, 2012
The declaration of independence holds up the pursuit of happiness as a right. Did you ever consider the reading the bible might be the one source that will never let you down?

The Twelve Signs Of Grace
December 22, 2011
Self-examination is not easy to do. The tendency is to let ourselves off easy. But examine we must, for eternity is at stake.

"Ouch!!"
July 22, 2011
Spiritual pride is hard to detect. Jonathan Edwards gives some tips. The process can be painful, but necessary.

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.