Formality

I appreciated how Gordon challenged our thinking in the area of communicating the seriousness of meeting with God. I think he did a good job of contrasting formality and informality. Coming from a church that is in downtown Scranton and pretty casual, I'm wondering what the solution is to this tension...

How can we solve the issue of people perceiving that meeting with God is a casual thing based on people's external appearance?

Appropriateness

In the book "Give Praise to God" on page 276 Terry Johnson addresses the issue on singing psalms with appropriate tunes. He explains that the Scriptures ask us to use judgment on what is proper not just in tunes, but also in regards to the length of our hair, how we talk, and what we wear. My question is how do we know what is appropriate? Not only for tunes for the psalms, but our decisions in life. I know it is applying wisdom that helps us to make these decisions,but if you were to ask different people what they thought was appropriate tunes to put along with the psalms or even where they should draw the lines to what they consider modesty there would be a huge difference to what they thought was appropriate.

Sanctifying God's name

In reading Gospel Worship, Jeremiah Burroughs speaks of the potential consequences of the one who fails to sanctify the name of God. Can a "true believer"consistently fail to sanctify God's name (in the hearing of the word)? If so, what sets him/her apart from the unbeliever?

Just as I am

T. David Gordon points out that people that dress up for weddings and funerals often don't dress up for church.  In recent American history at least, the idea has been that we dress up for church because we take it seriously, just like we take weddings or commencement seriously.  Many churches discourage dressing up, however, because they feel it can hinder newcomers from feeling comfortable.  I don't think I can find a biblical mandate to dress up for church, but perhaps there is a very good reason outside of Scripture.

So here is my question: should church be more formal, or more comfortable?

God "accepts" our gifts.

Jeremiah Burroughs is "dead on" on how we are to worship God. On pg 143 he states that God, according to His holiness, will make it appear that he has accepts our gifts. I'm not sure I understand what he means by that.  

Materialism/Commercialism

Gordon does a good job of laying out that we often are drawn to rapid change and think in terms of "It's the wave of the future" and "You can't resist progress" (Pg. 104). This started me thinking...

It seems as though we often go over the top with our sound systems, colored lighting, fog machines, etc. (All for the sake of being "state of the art"). Many churches seem to be very materialistic in the amount of money that the sink into have the latest and greatest equipment. In doing that, it also seems as though many churches get sucked into the commercialism of putting on a good performance.

I don't think have "state of the art" equipment is necessarily wrong, but it seems like there needs to be a lot of wisdom applied to each situation...

How do we guard against getting caught up in materialism and commercialism in our pursuit of excellence in worship in our local churches?

True Salvation.

On pgs. 127-128, Jeremiah addresses a very common situation with adolescent Christianity. Growing up in the church is considered the "prime" situation in coming to know Christ. I personally have found that growing up in the church, as Burroughs stated, can be very dangerous. Can one accept truly accept Christ at a young age? Can't a young person become a believer and be swayed during teen/adulthood stages? I have heard people say they professed Christ at a young age but "fell away". How much of an understanding of God's glory do you need to have in order to accept Him as savior?