What is YOUR Sunday service about?

I have had the fortune of finding some outstanding biblical teachers and preachers who have shaped my theology and understanding of scripture, no more so than R.C. Sproul. You can find his ministry here with all of its wonderful resources made available via download or purchase. I stumbled upon his best of conferences for pastors (found here) and wanted to share a little of what I've heard, as it applies to all church bodies.

The title of the session was "The Eclipse of God", and spoke about how society as a whole and churches alike have lost focus of what is most important. R.C. asks the vital question, "Do ALL parts of Sunday worship make manifest God biblically and is useful?" He uses example after example of church bodies that do all sorts of different things during Sunday worship, of which very little has anything to do with manifesting God and His glory. All too often today, worship and the message are not designed for the glorification of God and the edification of the body, but to appeal to the 'seekers'. As R.C. rightly points out, if our focus is on the lost, the sheep will starve. The Sunday message is not the place to evangelize, it is the place to edify and glorify. If we do that, we will be more prepared to 'go and share the good news'. If we appeal to the lost, our churches become places of culture, instead of being counter-cultural. Our appeal will be to entertaining the goats instead of glorifying God. If you've ever walked out of church feeling as though you were bored or that the church and message were irrelevant, chances are high that you did NOT encounter God and His Spirit, for nowhere in the Bible has man come into the presence of our God and not been overwhelmed by His presence.

R.C. asks the poignant question at the end, "WHY are we worshiping, preaching and decorating the way we do?" If you were to look through your Sunday worship service with this focus, could you say without hesitation that ALL parts of the worship were for the glorification of God and the edification of the sheep?