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Category Archives: Patrick Abendroth

Prayer priorities

This morning Pastor Pat delivered a wonderful message from the Lord about the priorities of praying. He started by asking a couple of thought provoking questions.

When you are praying for another believer what do you pray for the most?

If you wanted someone to pray for you what would be at the top of your list?

What is the most important thing in your life? Is it your job, family, or your health, etc?

He had us turn to Colossians 1:9-14 in the bible and there we found that we should be making a priority of praying for spiritual growth or maturity in our prayer life.

Like every good expositional preacher he proceeded to outline at least two components in this prayer priority from the Colossians passage.

1. Believers should be increasing in the knowledge of God’s will.

2. Believers should be increasing in their spiritual action or fruit bearing.

We were given other sub-points under each of these but I won’t go into those here. You can listen to it for yourself online. I will provide the link at the end of the post and add it to the sermon page. The gist of this prayer priority is that if we are to be praying for the increased knowledge of God’s will. Then we will also begin to understand more about God and increase in wisdom. Not just the appearance of wisdom as mentioned in Colossians 2:23. But basically becoming better theologians. Knowing and understanding God will also cause our actions to be right actions. Our walk will be worthy of the Lord and bear much fruit.

The bottom line is this:

If we are praying for spiritual growth for one another our actions will be God honoring actions, bear fruit and strengthen us to be steadfast in any circumstance God would allow in our life. So when we pray for each other, the number one thing should be that we pray for is spiritual growth. If anyone asks how they can be praying for you say; that I may grow or mature in the knowledge of God’s will. Pray with this new priority in mind. I will for you.

Prayer Priorities

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Posted by barrydean on August 6, 2007 in Patrick Abendroth, Prayer, priorities, spiritual growth

Anti-worship

21 Jul

On Sunday morning my pastor, Patrick Abendroth, has been doing a series on worship. The first three parts centered on what worship is. The fourth and fifth installments focus on the often controversial topic of music in worship. Last week Pat pointed out six of the twelve misconceptions of musical worship. The misconception point I particularly liked was number 5, “Loud Music is Unbiblical.” He pointed to passages such as Psalm 95, and Psalm 98:4, and 2 Chronicles 30:21 which states:

The sons of Israel present in Jerusalem celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread {for} seven days with great joy, and the Levites and the priests praised the LORD day after day with loud instruments to the LORD.

I liked this because I usually like my music loud, with drums and electric guitars. The misconception is that worship music should be somber and suppressed. I know as Reformers and Calvinists we are known for theology and doctrine but not emotion. What’s wrong with a little emotion? What’s wrong WITH A LOT OF EMOTION! Pastor Pat did ask a humbling question. Do we worship God like we do in the stadiums on Saturday’s in the fall of the year? You know…college football. (There were many Nebraska Husker fans including myself in attendance) Yes, we do get loud for that. I would like to turn that a bit. I would like to state that what might actually be going on in front of the televisions, or in the stands, is anti-worship. Anti-worship at least where God is concerned. What is anti-worship? I would contend it is idolatry. Idolatry is the worship of something other than almighty God. When we put other things before God it is idolatry. We should be concerned with the worship of God alone. Because worship does matter. It matters to God.

The audio for the Worship Matters series can be found on this audio page.

I found a brief video from Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church that refers to what I am talking about as anti-worship or idolatry. It’s only a couple of minutes long. Check it out.

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Posted by barrydean on July 21, 2007 in idolatry, Mark Driscoll, Patrick Abendroth, worship

The pendulum swings

06 Jul

My senior pastor has been doing a series this summer on worship, so this subject has Foucault pendulum been on my mind for the last couple of weeks. For this reason I was researching worship and stumbled onto an interesting article.

I know that most of us know what the term “seeker sensitive” means when referring to the local church. For most of us with a “high view” of scripture, meaning we believe it to be the final authority in faith and life, have seen the seeker movement as a watering down of the scripture or gospel to make it more “understandable” for the unbeliever. Yet scripture teaches that “the Word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing”. (1 Cor. 1:18) Which means that the seeker sensitive churches are watering down something that the unbeliever is not going to naturally understand anyway.

Today I read an article in Christianity Today Magazine online that throws the pendulum in the other direction. The article quotes a medieval mystic, yes you heard right, Meister Eckhart who states, “to know him (I think he means God) is to know him as unknowable…God’s worth and God’s perfection cannot be put into words…”. I wonder why the Holy Spirit of God spent all that time inspiring the writers of the bible to write about God? The author of the article goes on to say “In other words, God is anything but “meaningful,” “understandable,” or intelligible.” And worship, if it is authentic worship of the biblical God, will, at some level, remain incomprehensible.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by barrydean on July 6, 2007 in mysticism, Patrick Abendroth, Seeker Sensitive, seeker-unfriendly, worship