9. It Proclaims Christ
God’s people gather because Jesus is risen from the dead.
We sing the praises of God together because we have been made the people of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We pray together because Jesus has made a way for us into the throne room of God through his death and resurrection.
We break bread and drink wine together, as a symbol of the death of Jesus and our experiencing him to be the Bread of Life who has brought us into the New Covenant, by his blood, through his death and resurrection.
We baptise people in our gatherings, as a symbol of them entering into new life in Jesus through trusting in his death and resurrection for them.
We greet one another with warmth and affection because we have been warmly welcomed into the family of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We open God’s word together to listen to it read and have it explained and applied to us, because we believe that the God of this book is our God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Our gatherings proclaim Christ. They proclaim his death and resurrection. They proclaim his rich character. They proclaim the wonderful promises that are ours in him. They proclaim the grace we have received because of him. They proclaim that we believe he is coming again to make all things new.
Our gatherings also proclaim this to the world around us. We strange folk have been gathering together for 2000 years, all around the globe, in the name of a Galilean Carpenter.
And as the world watches on, as we gather together, week after week, some of them end up getting in on it too. Some of them come to realise that this Carpenter was God in the flesh, who died for their sins, and rose again to freely give them new life.
So we gather, because the very act of gathering together, loudly proclaims that Jesus is risen from the dead and coming again.
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