Leading a Church out of Casual Culture

Encouraging Reverence and Awe in Worship

The podcast explores the importance of cultivating reverence and awe in congregational worship and suggests that the issue with casual worship is not merely about sipping coffee but rather a lack of internal heartfelt reverence. The speaker argues against creating external rules to solve the problem and instead emphasizes the need to awaken internal reverence. To lead the church towards a more reverent worship experience, the podcast suggests five appeals to pastors with regard to preaching: rivet the people's attention on the Bible, make the glory of God the dominant reality, highlight the ugliness of sin and God's wrath, exalt Christ's majesty and suffering, and teach people the miracle of their own conversion. Through these appeals, the goal is to create a congregation that is self-consciously under the authority of the Bible and deeply satisfied by encountering God in worship.