Category Archives: bible study

Berlin Worshipnight, 9 April @ IBCB

Berlin Worship Night

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the Berlin Worshipnight?

Since November 2000, the Berlin Worshipnight has been a worship gathering of Christians from different churches and denominations from all over Berlin. Because we know that God loves unity in his body we want to come together as one to worship the Lord and pray for our city.

Why does it take place at IBCB?
As a “multi-kulti” church we are a very good role-model for what it means to live “diversity in unity.”

(Special Note: Our Praise Team is going to play, too).

Why should you join us?

A lot of reasons! First of all: If you live in Berlin, you should have a heart for our city.  So come and join us together at the throne of God in music and prayer. Secondly: It’s fun. We have invited 4 different worship teams, so we will hear different styles of music and see different generations on stage. We can learn from each other, get to know new songs or styles and still be one body.

The Berlin Worshipnight is an awesome event with a big charisma. Also non Christians love good music and a good atmosphere. So you can invite your friends that are non-believers. We’ve seen quite a number of people that have become Christians after joining a Berlin Worshipnight!

What can I do?

  • Come and join us! We only can be one body if the body of Christ gathers together as one.
  • Bring a friend — believer or non-believer — and pray for that person.
  • Support Berlin Worshipnight financially.  There’s no entrance fee, but we will collect an offering to help cover the expenses.

 

What’s good about “Good Friday”?

Seems odd that we would call the day that Jesus was tortured and executed “good.”  Watching Wüger_Kreuzigungevents unfold as depicted by “The Passion of the Christ” was anything but “good;” it was difficult to watch!  How is it that Christians have come to refer to this day as “Good Friday”?

Part of it has to do with the meaning of the word “good.”  In its origins, the word “good” could simply mean pious or holy as in “a day or season observed as holy by the church.”  So in that sense today is indeed a “holy” or “good” day.

[The German for Good Friday — Karfreitag — seems to make more sense to me.  Kar from the Old German kara meaning “mourn” makes this “Mourning Friday,”  appropriate for a day we commemorate Jesus’ death.” (See the Wiki article “Good Friday” for more on the above.)]

However, on a deeper level, the “good” in “Good Friday” is more closely related to what God accomplished through Jesus’ death — our atonement:  how God addresses our sin and reconciles us to himself through the cross.  God’s sovereign plan from the beginning is that we should be made right with God, and Jesus’ death is an integral part* of that plan.

Throughout Christian history theologians have disagreed and debated the details of Christ’s death on the cross — its specific design, intent, and how it accomplishes what it does.  Some see in the crucifixion the satisfaction of divine justice made by the sufferings and death of Christ; others focus on the “in our place” aspects of Jesus’ death.  Still others emphasize the redemptive elements of God’s election to save us.

Indeed, these are important topics of discussion; however, such conversations should not obscure the essential goodness of a common assertion of them all — God has taken the initiative to take care of our fundamental flaw (i.e. sin) by making us right with himself through Jesus Christ. Good Friday is about God’s good work of atonement.  Through Jesus Christ and his death on the cross God offers us the free gift of salvation.  And that is good!

May we all love and praise the sovereign God of heaven and earth for the salvation accomplished in the atonement of Jesus Christ the Lord.

*Though a focused look at each aspect of the Christ-event is rewarding, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are to be taken as an integrated, interdependent whole.