The Most Important Part!

So I just had a friend ask this question "At church after worship was over and it was time for the sermon, an old lady went up to the pulpit and said, "Now it's time for the most important part of the service: the sermon." Do you agree that the sermon is more important the the worship during a church service?"


Here is my response, and I thought maybe we all should think about this: 


I don't really know that any part of a church service is more important than another... I have heard that the sermon is the most important part; I think because God's word is supposed to be communicated during the sermon... But, I am an artsy person so I am usually touched by lyrics in a song very quickly and deeply; plus I believe songs communicate God's word, at least the ones we sing in church (after all, the majority of them are at least based on scripture if not paraphrased scripture.) The alter service is when we get to talk to God through prayer (or at least when the a lot people start talking to him during church service) so I would say that's a relatively important part...
 
I think it's like anything else, different people pick up different parts of a situation to be deemed important...  We did an experiment in college where you take 5 people out of a classroom and into another place where they can no longer hear what is being said; the professor then reads a story to the remaining students.  Once the story is finished the professor brings one person at a time back in the class and and different students retell the story just read to them... Every one of the students picked out different details of the story to be important and left out what they didn't think was significant; no two were the same and you could pretty much tell how they processed the story whether they were visual, factual or artsy etc...  We all process information differently according to how we are intellectually wired.


Sometimes I talk to my mum about "important topics" after work, sometimes before work and every once in a while I'll call her from work...  Sometimes I send a facebook message, leave a voice mail, talk on the phone or in person..  I can't say that I only talk about the "important things" on the phone or in person or that I only bring them up after work as opposed to before...  I talk about important things whenever and however I think the other person is going to hear what I am saying, process and interpret the information in the right context...  I talk about the important topics when and how I feel neither of us will be too busy with or focused on other cares. 


Also, I speak to different people using different tones of voice, expressions, vocabulary, sentence structure, etc. based on who I am communicating with. Some of my friends get texts with abbreviated words (or misplaced words because of T9,)  I'm sure each person thinks the way I speak to them is the most important but that's not necessarily the case... Paul said "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might win some."  (1 Corinthians 9: 19-23) and that's what we all do so why wouldn't God be smart enough to speak to each of us in different ways and at different times according to our personalities, education, intellectual capacity, etc..?  Retorical question because he is smart enough and he does do just that.
 
So, I think the most important part of any given service is different for each person... I'm just crazy enough to believe that if a certain part of a service doesn't necessarily "interest" me or connect with my way of thinking that it's because God is connecting with someone else and furthermore I love that he is!  I would say "that song was life changing, that moment was so awesome, God really spoke to me!" While you may say "the sermon really touched my heart, so glad I got to hear it!"  An elder may say "I can't believe he read from that text today, God has been dealing with me all week regarding it and he just confirmed it."  Yet a newer person sitting in the same service we're in may say "Thank God that pastor explained what everyone was doing; jumping around up front like they were in a mosh-pit, everyone speaking other languages with their eyes closed, then going around touching each other foreheads and yelling!  Not so bad once you understand."  To each person attending the same service the most important part can and most likely will be at a different point.


In my opinion, humble as it may be, choosing a certain sliver of time to be the most important overall is silly. Why would I (or anyone else for that matter) want to limit God to getting "what's really important" done in just a few minutes of a church service?  And, if we do limit Him to one portion of any given Sunday church service should we even bother staying for the rest of it?  No, and I am decided, I will not be the one to try and limit God's work, in fact I want to do the opposite, don't you? If so, let him know, eh.  "God, you can use any time during any day, not even only when I'm sitting on a church pew, to talk to me!"