What's all this "preparing your heart" stuff?

I’ve always enjoyed museums. When I was growing up, I visited the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth often, but it wasn’t until I took an Architecture class in college that I discovered that I’d been doing the Kimbell wrong all along. 

Called by some “the most architecturally perfect building in Texas, if not the world,” there was a specific way that architect Louis Kahn had intended for people to enter the museum to help prepare them for the experience of viewing art in the galleries. 

You’re supposed to walk on the grass, enter a small grove of trees, where you’re now walking on gravel and between two waterfalls. Go up the low wide stairs to the covered porch, through the glass doors, and into the museum. Inside, the floors and walls are all concrete, and the galleries are lit with a lot of natural light that shifts and changes as the sun passes over. I had always come in the back door from the parking lot. 

When I went back to the museum, and entered the way the designer intended, it was a completely different experience. I felt the sun overhead as I crossed the field, noticed the shade and the “crunching” of the gravel as I passed under the trees, the sound of the water, the coolness of the porch, and even the environment change when going through the front doors. It really did help to come in the right way. 

It’s much the same when we gather on Sunday mornings. We are gathering as Christ’s Body for a specific purpose - to exalt our glorious and awesome Savior for who He is and what He has done for us. When we come in rightly prepared for our time together, we not only have a more focused encounter with the Living God, but we also experience greater unity as His People. 

Just like visiting the Kimbell, there’s the “easy-don’t-think-about-it” way of pulling in to the parking lot and just going in the closest door. But if you’re intentional to enter as the creator intended, it’s a whole different experience.

Our Sunday morning worship gathering is the main thing we do each week and there are two things you can do each week to prepare yourself to “enter” that time intentionally. 

First - be reading the passage that will be preached on. The weekly bulletin and prayer guide both have next week’s sermon passage listed. 

Second - be praying for our church throughout the week. 

Pray through Ephesians 3:14-19, and/or the daily prayers in the Prayer guide. 

Also: if you check out this blog, you’ll find an outline of our service each week, including the songs we’ll be singing. Listen to the songs (especially if there’s a new one, or one you’re not familiar with), look at the general flow (which is leading us toward the sermon passage), and come prepared to worship the Lord with your brothers and sisters. 

John 4:23-24 says, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 

Let’s commit ourselves to preparing our hearts to worship Him in Spirit and Truth together each week!

Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor Rob 

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