I want to write to you today to encourage you to join us on Wednesday nights if you are able. I know we all have a terribly busy schedule, and it seems as though we can’t add one more thing into it. But I truly believe if you were a part of the mid-week prayer time and Bible study (at Westlake or your home church) you would be blessed.
Let me start off by telling you how we do Wednesday nights here at Westlake. It is first and foremost a worship service, but not a Sunday morning-style worship service. When we come together it should be to proclaim that Jesus is worthy of our love and affection. We have a song or maybe two. They are generally songs that we are going to do on Sunday morning that people may or may not be too familiar with. After we have a time of worship through song, we have a time of prayer. The most important thing a Christian or a church can do is invest themselves in prayer. Prayer is getting ourselves onto God’s agenda. It is asking God, what do you want to do in me and through me? It is acknowledging that we can’t solve all of our problems, but God can. It is thanking Him for who He is, what He has done, and what He is doing in our life, in our church, in our community, and in the world. Our prayer time varies from Wednesday to Wednesday. Sometimes there is one person who is asked to pray. Other times we break up into groups of three or four and pray. Then there are times in which I open it up to anyone who desires to pray can. We pray for the salvation of those who don’t have a relationship with Christ. We pray for missionaries, church plants, and church planters. We pray for our military, first responders, and all of our elected officials. And yes we pray over physical concerns of those in our church and in our community. After we have poured our heart out to God, and hopefully also let God pour Himself into us we go into a time of Bible study. I know a lot of people find Sunday mornings to sometimes be difficult. You stand up and sit down a few times, and then you listen to a preacher preach for 30-45 minutes (some more, some less). Sermons on Sundays are generally passive in nature, and for those who have attention problems or are easily distracted, that can be tough. But this isn’t the case on Wednesday nights at Westlake. I come down off the platform, and trade the pulpit for a podium. Instead of a passive approach of preaching, I try to teach through a particular passage, verse by verse, and I ask questions. I want an active audience who is engaged with the text we are going through. Sometimes, I will ask a question at the beginning of the study and let people talk about it out loud before we get into the actual study. One example of that was last week when we were studying the 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27. I asked the question, what is the relationship between this passage and the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict? During Wednesday nights at Westlake, I encourage people to stop me during the teaching time and ask questions or for clarification of a point. Then we close the night in prayer thanking God for teaching us His Word. As much as I love Sunday mornings, I really love Wednesday nights as well, because it allows people to not just hear the Word, but to interact with it, to ask questions about it, and to really learn the Bible. So that is how we do it, but now I want to finish this article off by answering the question, why should you be a part of it?
I think the first reason you should be a part of Wednesday night services (or whatever Bible study your church has) is to have an additional regular time in the Bible. Let’s be honest, the vast majority of Christians only open their Bible on Sunday mornings. A service on Wednesday night gives us another scheduled time to learn. Secondly, I believe you need to be a part of a Wednesday night study for fellowship with other believers. Let’s face it, the world is a tough place especially if you are a Christian. After spending a few days getting beat up by the world, it is nice to come to a place where there are like-minded people who care about you and love you. Although there are other reasons, I will give one more, and that is to dig deeper into the Bible, to ask questions, and get answers. One reason I love Bible studies (whether it is Sunday school, small group studies, or Wednesday night studies) is because it takes us from being passive hearers, to active participants. I wouldn’t mind personally, but most of the time Sunday morning worship services are not the place where you raise your hand to ask the pastor a question. But Bible studies are a place where you can do that. I want to encourage you one more time, if you are not actively in a Wednesday night service (Sunday school or small group study) to try it out. I believe you will be glad that you did.
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him