A Renewed Heart for Worship

Mary realized that her passion for Jesus had faded considerably over the years, even though she was attending a Bible-teaching church.

“My worship and service had become a kind of cold orthodoxy,” Mary admits. “The Holy Spirit convicted me that I was becoming quite like the Church of Ephesus in the Book of Revelation, ‘. . . you have left your first love,’ and began directing my thoughts toward searching for a new center of worship.

“That’s when I visited Berean. The moment I walked into the church and the worship service, I felt like I had ‘come home.’ Not convinced it could happen that quickly, I visited other Bible-teaching churches, but the Spirit convinced me that Berean was to be my new home for worship.

“What did I find at Berean that the Spirit used to convince me? It was walking into the auditorium and seeing a banner that stated Berean’s mission was to ‘glorify God by seeking to present every person complete in Christ.’ (COLOSSIANS 1:28)

“It was Bryan’s teaching. Here was a humble man, teaching God’s Word clearly and simply, applying it to our lives, no matter where each of us was in our spiritual walk. He gently and firmly encouraged us to get involved and told us how to do it.

“Next came the Discovery class with Mark Kremer. He shared with us Berean’s history, doctrines and philosophies and desires for its members. He convinced me that my spiritual walk was a process of unending new discoveries as directed by the Holy Spirit.

“Another thing that made me feel that Berean was my new home was its outreach beyond the church walls; its desire to reach out to all of Lincoln and the rest of the world. This included the goal of beginning 300 new churches in India and building a new expanded auditorium, all on the basis of faith that God was leading. This, to me, was faith in action and I wanted to be a part of this exciting body of believers.

“This March I completed the ‘Foundations for Ministry’ class. The purpose of this class is ‘to learn the basic structure of the Bible, how to study the Bible and basic Bible doctrine for spiritual growth and to prepare you to be more effective in service to the church.’ It does it all! This class helped me pull together so many of the fragmented threads comprising my understanding of Scripture. I will always be grateful to Bryan for teaching this class and helping us extract the exegetical idea from various scriptures to help us better understand God’s Word.”

Mary sums up her experience at Lincoln Berean by sharing how God has renewed her heart to worship, “My Lord Jesus is everything to me. The longer I live the more I desire to serve Him and thank Him, for apart from Him, I am nothing. One of my favorite hymns states my desire best, ‘Be thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art; Thou my best thought, by day or by night; Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light’.”

Mary’s passion for Jesus is back, and it’s unmistakable.