Immanuel RPC has recently joined sermonaudio.com. Those who are interested can listen to our sermons at the new site. We're now also a part of reformedvoice.com, the sermonaudio mini-site where all RPCNA and RPCI sermons are collected.
This brings a couple things to mind. First is the great benefits technology can have for the church. Though we are a fairly "old-fashioned" (as in 2,000 years old-fashioned!) church, I'm glad for our churches to be thinking creatively about the use of technology. Not that I'm gunning for powerpoint sermons or anything, but in light of all the negative press technology receives - and often rightly so - it's good to seek out the good things and plunder the electronic Egyptians.
Second, the advent of recording technology should be a special encouragement to families with children. Since I have a better-than-front-row seat for worship every Sunday, I can testify that no matter how hard parents with young children work, they probably will not be able to listen to the whole sermon. I greatly appreciate parents working to train their children to worship alongside them, but I also worry about the spiritual health of parents who only get "sermon snippets" every week. If the weekly preaching of the Word is one of God's plans for our salvation (and I strongly believe it is), then any opportunity we have to catch the whole thing is a great gift. So if providence (or sleepiness - you know who you are!) kept you from hearing the whole sermon, use the technology providence has provided to keep yourself under the Word of God.
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5 comments:
Did you say Advent? Anyway, your comments on parental sermon-snippet-hearing cut to the quick.
"I greatly appreciate parents working to train their children to worship alongside them, but I also worry about the spiritual health of parents who only get "sermon snippets" every week."
No need to worry, Jared! If only 35 minutes of preaching is what we Christians truly only had each week, I think we'd really be in rough shape! :>)
However, we can thank God, as I'm sure the Bereans did (Acts 17), that He had the foresight to preserve His words in writing (Scripture), now complete for us since the end of the first century, so that nothing can keep His people from His love (Romans 8).
Hey, don't diss powerpoint sermons. Andrew Stewart (our pastor at Geelong RPC) uses them every week. I was skeptical at first but I really appreciate it now. Its nice to quickly find your place in the sermon if you're coming back from disciplining a child. We never have to do that of course, I'm just speaking for our friends :-)
Fishers, thanks for the corrective note - I will gladly admit powerpoint sermons are not verboten! Who am I to take Pastor Stewart to task? :)
Kurt, thanks for your point about God's Word being available to us throughout the week. My comment had questoin 89 of the Shorter Catechism specifically in mind: "The Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and convertin sinners, and of building them up in holiness..." That is, the preaching of the Word has promises of being a means of salvation in a way that personal reading of the Word doesn't *necessarily* have. Not that God doesn't use personal reading for salvation and sanctification, but the Scriptural promises reside most strongly with the preached Word.
As great as technology is, I agree with Jared that the Church is really "old fashioned" and can still benefit from methodologies of old. In fact, Scripture commands us to remember them!
Here's a short video clip Family Worship, Why? from CrossTV.com's 3 part Family Worship series explaining the importance of remembering the "old ways" that is quite sobering.
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