What is Reverence? Andy B, Teaching (October 2021)

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Is reverence something we need, as Christians, in the current world?

Is reverence a bygone requirement for believers, surpassed by the death and resurrection of Jesus?

Is reverence something we should be bothered about in our churches and families?

Andy B takes a look at something that he has been thinking through, and about, for more than 2 and a half years; pondering and chewing what he saw as a lack of reverence in so many churches, it seems normal.

But is that normal good? Is that normal right?

What does God say about it? What can we learn through scripture about the idea of reverence in our modern, fast paced world?

Andy B takes a good look at all of this, and draws some interesting conclusions about reverence, and it’s relevance, or not, in our homes and communities.

Andy B

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So it's another teaching series video from me. And this time I've been chewing for quite a while now on the idea of reverence. What does reverence mean?

Is it a biblical thing?

Is it some't we can forget about?

Is it relevant in the current church?

Is it something we should be thinking about?

What does it really mean to us in 2021?

And I've had many observations where I've been in churches, particularly church building kind of context, church services, where I've felt, and had chats with people, and saying, there's an absolute lack of reverence in this place. And that's not right., Something doesn't feel good. But I never really had the answers as to what was wrong. 

When Jo and I were in one particular church, I thought there was a riot outside the building. Truly. Genuinely! I thought there was a riot going on. And the children entered the church building. And I said to Jo at the time, that's not right. There's something here that just isn't right. 

And I've seen in many other churches the same sort of thing. Where it's, perhaps more obvious with the way that children are interacting in the services, but, actually, there's something that's just not right.

And I say this as a man who is passionate about children's ministry. I'm a children's worship leader. I love to see children engaged in church life. I don't want them to be the church of tomorrow because that's rubbish. They are the Church of today. They're our brothers and sisters now. They've got just as much relevance in the church as anybody else.

Jesus faced so many issues, with his own disciples pushing the children away from Him. And Jesus said no! Let them come to me.

So, I say this as a man who is deeply passionate about the involvement of children in church life. 

And yet what I've seen in churches is a lack of reverence, not just of children, that's not fair. But it's more obvious with the way that children are interacting in the services.

And you could say, well, they don't know how to behave. We need the children in the church. And I've been in churches where the children are literally out of control. And when I've spoken to people in the congregation, they say, ah, yes, well we want to make sure that we're not the church that doesn't have children, so the children can do whatever they want to in here. Because we must have children here. And that's almost a verbatim quote, a number of times.

And that makes me really sad. Because when we think about the sanctuary of a church building, we want it to be open to people. But, actually, the sanctuary has a really important place in our church life. And this is me saying there's something not right about a lack of reverence in church life. And it's not that children are being irreverent. It's most obviously seen, when we see how children are interact in church services. And this is from a man who has a specialty in All Age Services, and bringing whole families together to worship God.

But there's something not right, sometimes, in churches, with reverence.

And I think, perhaps we've we've seen some problems in the past, haven't we? And we, we've been there as a family! I remember, distinctly, being in a church with our two younger children, and one of the older folks said "children, in my day, should be not seen and not heard. They shouldn't be here."

Now that is exactly what the disciples did to Jesus. Get the children away. He's far too busy to talk to with these ridiculous wastes of time. That was the disciples attitude, really, if you look at it. 

And what did Jesus do? Well, the same thing that the minister in that church did, was to take this woman outside, rather roughly, and say, don't you ever say that again in this church! Which was right and true, and she should have been spoken to like that. That was appropriate.

But, children should be seen, and should be heard, as should all of us. But what does that look like for us? 

And, again, I'm saying this as a children's minister. I'm going to say at the start of this, so I won't say it again. But, this is me, passionate about children in church life. 

They are not the church of tomorrow. They shouldn't be palmed off to Sunday School, to get them out the way, so the adults can have their church service. I'm deeply committed, and passionate, to children in church services, and the whole body together.

But, what should that look like? Not what does it look like? What it looks like far often, far too often, isn't very good. But, what should it be like?

And, perhaps it's a reaction to that, 'children should be seen and not heard' mantra that existed, so that people now say, 'well, children should be seen, and should be heard, and should be in the church, and therefore they can do whatever they want. As long as they're in the building.'

And I've been, tragically, part of conversations, in too many churches, where we want to make sure that we're not the church that people think is dead. So, we've got to see that we've got children here.

I've heard churches think, well, we don't want anybody else to think that those children don't belong to us. I mean, where are these attitudes coming from? They're certainly not coming from a relationship with Jesus Christ, and the love of His Kingdom being built here on Earth.

It's usually fear.

Let's jump to some scripture.

2 Timothy Chapter 3 verses 16 and 17. This is the CSB.

"All Scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

So, the Bible, the Holy Bible. the scripture. Everything in there is good. I say that at the start as well, 'cos I'm not going to repeat that all the way through. But, if it's in Scripture, it's good. 

Let's just jump again too Ecclesiastes verse 8, sorry Ecclesiastes chapter 8 verse 12. Thi is the NIV.

"Although a wicked man commits 100 crimes, and still lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God fearing men, who are reverent before God".

So, reference is clearly right at the start of scripture, all the way through, reverence is really important.

It's lacking, I believe, in many churches. But, it shouldn't be, I don't think. And that's what I really want to look at. 

I think one of the things, just to pick up on here, is that reverent and fear, depending on which translation of the Bible you are using, I'm going to be using NLT, ESV, CSB, NIV, loads.

They either use the word reverent, or they use the word fear, and it's the same kind of thing really. They just translate it slightly differently. A fear of God, reverence of God, awe of God, sometimes. It means the same thing.

We'll come onto the definitions later.

But, my passion is to see churches that are filled with orderly worship. What is orderly worship? Will I remember in one church, sadly, one woman heard me saying about these, the children, being really, they, we were trying to teach them about reverence. And she was really, really angry at me. 'How dare you teach my children to be silent?'

Well, reverence isn't silence. Reverence isn't about 'not' being part of something.  Reverence is some't different. So, she had a misunderstanding about the word reverence, and we'll try and pick that as we go along.

But, we had this riotous bunch of children in one church, and within two or three weeks we were coming into the church peacefully, and calmly. Everyone said what have you done Andy? You've gone, it's just like you've just squashed them, and, and oppressed them. 

And no, we just taught them that that's God's sanctuary, and we need to treat it with respect, and reverence. And reverence, for God, means respecting other people. And actually, they're in a place of quiet. And we need to respect that.

And that's all we did! No hard teaching. Nothing really, particularly, much. Apart from leading by example. And saying it's not appropriate to go running, and charging, and shouting into the church in the middle of a church service.

And within 2-3 weeks these children were peaceful, and calm. And we used to perfectly come into the church building. And it was never an issue. And we've done that many times, by the way.

I think there's this attitude of we, we react to 'children should be seen and not heard', therefore children should be definitely seen, definitely heard. And yes, that's true, but appropriately.

And I think what we're seeing in churches across the particularly UK, and I've been to many different churches, dozens and dozens in the last five years or so. And what I've seen is a lack of reverence.

We don't want children to be seen and not heard. We don't want to be not seen and not heard. We want children part of our lives. Part of the church life. But, it needs to be an appropriate way. And by appropriate, I mean we should be worshipping together and coming together. We should be edifying one another. Building one another up. But acting in a reverent way. 

God is the same in the Old Testament, and the New Testament. He doesn't change. 

I think, perhaps, one of the things is reverence is an Old Testament thing. Covenant. The sanctuary. All these old words, well, that's for the Old Testament. We, we, we're past the resurrection now. Jesus has come and died, so we can get rid of the reverence.

And actually that's rubbish. It's all through the scriptures. From Genesis right through to. 

Revelation, you will find the importance of having reverence towards our Lord Creator God. 

Hebrews chapter 5, verse 7, ESV says this.

"In the days of his flesh Jesus offered up prayers, and supplications, with loud cries, and tears, to Him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence."

Jesus. The Son of God. He is God. And yet His prayers were heard by His father because He had reverence. So reverence isn't something that we should be ignoring. It's really important!

If you've got prayers that aren't being heard, well, this scripture, certainly suggests that, well, maybe you're not coming to God in reverence. We'll explain what that means a little bit more as we explore this, but we need to be reverent towards God.

When Jesus died and rose again, and the curtain temple, sorry the temple curtain, ripped in two, from top to bottom, which is amazing in itself. When that ripped, we had access to Jesus in a way that we hadn't had previously.

We had access to God in a way that, before, was sacrifices, Old Testament prophets and all this. And, then, the curtain ripped, and Jesus died and rose again, and now we have access directly to God. Which is amazing.

We should still have reverence for God. We should still have reverence for the sanctuary . And what's a sanctuary? It's the bit where you come together to worship.

Now that doesn't mean to say it should be silent. I like lots of loud, worship, music. And well, that's not silent. I love children getting involved in all sorts of things, and that's definitely never ever silent. So, reverence isn't about being silent. It isn't about being dour. It isn't about being boring and old fashioned and traditional. Reverence is about acknowledging that our Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, is who we are here to worship. That's the purpose.

I wonder how much in your church life you've seen reverence gone out the window. I, I'm using children 'cos it's a really, it's the thing I'm most passionate about, is seeing children involved and engaged in, in church life.

But, maybe there's other areas.

We went to look at some churches in a town one day, and there was a lad kicking a football, and they were playing football at the side of the church service. Now, I would say, that was inappropriate. 

It was encouraged. Well, at least they're in the building. 

Well, yeah, there's a, there's some't to be said for that. But the church service isn't about making people feel comfortable, and getting them in the building. The church service is supposed to function in order for us to worship God. To edify one another. To speak in tongues. For healing. For all these things that go on a church service, whether it's a house church, or a big church.

But, what I've seen is this reaction against 'children should be seen and not heard' to let's let children do whatever they want to do, make as much noise as they want, we'll have no sense of order or propriety in the service.

And, all of a sudden, when you say those things, 'oh you just want to be boring and children should be sitting down. Absolutely not!

If you've ever been to one of my all age services you would know that's not the truth.

But we're far too reactive aren't we. And God doesn't suddenly react to things. And nor should we.

We've seen with feminism, as well, that feminism, women were being treated in really harsh, horrible ways. And feminism rose up, in part, because they wanted to try and counteract some of the bad that happened against women. Well, that means, we make, that makes sense.

But when you're reactionary, you do, then, stupid things. And, what we've seen with feminism, is not just trying to get rid of the injustice against women, but 'we'll put injustice on men instead'.

Well, that doesn't resolve the problem. That's just you hit me, I'll hit you. Well, that, that doesn't solve anything. We know that.

So, being reactive is never a healthy thing.

Trying to deal with an injustice is good, and right, and appropriate. But to do it in a reactive way is not. 

1 Peter, 3. This is the NLT. First couple of verses of Chapter 3, 1 Peter.

"In the same way you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the good news, your Godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over."

Don't you think it's amazing that a wife, who has reverence for God, can win her husband to Christ, by doing nothing but by being reverent to God?

It's stunning! That's the power of reverence. It can win people to Christ.

Because, when we're reverent towards God. When we're trying to pursue His desire, His will. When we have him at the focus of what we're doing things happen, prayers are answered, husbands won to Christ, when they don't know Jesus, and their wife is reverent towards God, because of God. What happens? They biblically, say, well, I'm I'm going to honour the authority of my husband. And, then, he's going to be one to Christ because of her passion to commit to Jesus Christ. 

That's phenomenal. That's the power of reverence. That's the power of obeying God's word over what we feel we wanna do. 

Colossians 3, 22. I don't usually go through scripture like this, but we are today! Colossians 3, 22, NLT.

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time. Not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear. 

Of the Lord."

Slaves, we can easily interpret into workers.

If you have a job, your employer is your master, using the same language. So, slaves have reverent fear for the Lord. Serve your earthly masters, your employers, and work diligently, as your job. 

It goes on to say about how we shouldn't be trying to do it to be seen to be working really hard, we should just be working really hard. 

And as we simply get on with the job of the job, that reverent fear of God is gonna impact the lives of people around us. And what does it say? Well, if you're an earthly slave, if you are an employee, and you work for your employer well, your inheritance will be in heaven. What a thing to wait for!

How much more important is revering God, having reverence for God? As opposed to what we want or don't want to think about? 

Psalm 5 verse 7 CSB. 

"But I enter your home by the abundance of your faithful love. I bowed down toward your holy temple in reverential awe of you."

When did you last bow down, bow down? When did you last bow down in reverential awe? Or see somebody else do it? 

I've seen it in some, particularly, Holy Spirit kind of encounter worship services. People are so struck by the power and beauty of Jesus Christ, that the Holy Spirit is upon them, and in them, and they get on their knees.

I've done that. I've seen it. I've been prostrate in a church, because the power of God is more than I can cope with. And I lied down before Him. I bowed down before Him. 

That's what reverence does. 

Reverence doesn't equate to silencing children. That's ridiculous, and it's unbiblical! It's not even in the dictionary. We'll come back to that. 

But, reverence means, we are here to worship God and that's the purpose of why we're here. And it's keeping that in mind.

God loves orderly worship. 

We're not supposed to come in as we, we read elsewhere in Scripture, and this person does this, and this person does that, and it all has his mishmash and craziness. I've been in situations where people say, oh, that's great when that happens. 

Well, no it's not. It's not biblical. We're supposed to have orderly worship!

What's the point of seven people speaking in tongues at the same time? When those tongues need to be interpreted? No one's gonna hear what's going on.

One gives, and then one gives, and then one gives, and there's an interpretation. There's an order to what we do? There's a flow, there's a rhythm and it's smooth!

God is worthy of our praise and our adoration! He is worthy of us showing reverence to Him, every day of our lives. But, I don't think reverence is as common as we want it to be, or it should be. Or as it biblically commands us to be, we should be reverent towards God! 

We should have reference in Genesis, Ecclesiastes, Matthew. Paul talks about it. It's in Revelation. Reverence appears quite a lot in the Scriptures, and it's our heart and attitude towards God. 

Leviticus 19 verse 30 NLT.

"Keep my Sabbath days of rest. Show reverence towards my sanctuary. I am the Lord!" 

There you go!

When you're in a sanctuary of God, it should be reverence. Now, what's, what's the sanctuary? 

Well, Cafe Church happens. Fantastic! We have alpha in a pub. Brilliant!

We're not talking about places where Christians gather. We're talking about the sanctuary at this point. And this really revolves around how we should be. Because the sanctuary is the place in which we deliberately come to worship God. It's the place where we edify. It's that church building, most commonly. Maybe it's a house church, so someone's lounge or whatever, it's a garage.

But, the sanctuary is the place where we come to meet with God.

I've stood in churches that are 800 years old, and stood on the altar, and I've, I've, I've spoken to people. And there's a power that you can feel, quite tangibly. It's very  quantifiable, when you're stood at the front, and think. 'How many people have spoken about God in this place?' That's a sanctuary. 

I remember, at school, I needed to go and plug a keyboard in for a Christian Union that we were running. So, I walked into the sanctuary, the sanctified place. And the chaplain came along, 'How dare you go in there, you're not, you're not sanctified, you can't go into that place.'

'That's why. I need to put a plug in.'

And she said, 'Don't you ever go in there'. And she walked out.

So, I walked behind the rail and I plugged the keyboard in and carried on.

We don't need that kind of sanctified place, where people aren't allowed in, and it's this thing. That was the whole point of the curtain ripping in two. Now we have access.

The inner sanctuary, where that temple was, the curtain ripped in the temple. Well, behind that, one person went, once a year, to offer a sacrifice. They tried to rope to there in case they died. They pulled them out if they died. 

You had to go through once, one person, once per year, into this place, to offer a special sacrifice to God.

When Jesus died on the cross, that curtain ripped, that place was open. Why? Well, there's a heck of a lot of symbology in there, a lot of importance, because now we have direct access to God. We don't need to go through sacrifices, and prophets, and all the rest of it.

We still need prophets, and we still need to sacrifice, in a sense. But, we don't need to burn animals, and all that stuff, to come near God. We can do it everywhere, all the time!

However, that sanctuary is still important!

The original Ark of Covenant was, was a, was a, was a box on a cart and when somebody went to steady it because it was about to fall off, they died. Because, the power of God was so great that coming too close to it killed them.

We don't have that, because the curtain is ripped into. Now we can come near God. 

But, that doesn't undermine the idea of reverence, towards God, in a sanctified place. 

And we need sanctified places. They are important. They're not irrelevant in 2021. 

"Keep my Sabbath days of rest". 

There's the first part! Do you have a Sabbath? Rest is your 7th day of the week, is it a day of rest? Do you make sure it looks very different? Do you treat it differently?

As a Sabbath day of rest for us as a family I make sure, on a Saturday night, I get all the washing done, all the bins are emptied. I do everything I can, that's kind of mundane chore stuff, so on a Sunday none of that is to do.

Even when we were working full time in churches, and we worked on a Sunday, I did the same kind of thing. And, Sunday was still a a day of rest, even though we were working on it. Interesting little paradox about people in ministry!

But, we did all the work on a Saturday, so that by the Sunday we didn't have to do all the mundane jobs. Sometimes we'd put the washing on 'cos we had to, or whatever. We're not, you know! If your ox is in a well go and rescue it. 

But, we tried to do what we could to make it a sanctified day. To make it deliberately for God.

We've sanctified our studio, where I'm sitting now. We prayed upon it. We've got a small altar, of sorts, with some lights on and when we're doing our prayers, we have the lights switched on to remind us that this is a place, this little 8 foot bit of space in our home, that we've given over to God for what we do, with BerryBunch.

We've sanctified the place.

And what goes on in here impacts the rest of the house. Now, it's not a special place. If you come into here, you're not going to feel all tingly, and suddenly be healed. That'd be cool wouldn't it? 

But, that's not what we're talking about here.

This is sanctified place, like Sundays are a sanctified day. But, the sanctuary is part of the church building, that we should treat with respect. 

God is very, very worthy of our reverence towards Him! Fear of the Lord should be normal. Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 9 through 10. NLT again.

"But watch out, be careful, never to forget what you yourself have seen. Do not let these memories escape from your mind, as long as you live. And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren. Never forget the day when you stood before the Lord at Mount Sinai. Where he told me, summon the people before me, and I will personally instruct them. Then they will learn to fear me as long as they live and they will teach their children to fear me also."

We should not be afraid of coming near to God. God wants us, desires us, longs us to come to Him.

But, it's a bit like if you go and see the Queen at Buckingham Palace. You're not gonna  go "Oh, alright, how you going?" 

You're gonna come in with some respect for who she is, the position that she holds.

In the same way, when we come before God, He wants and desires us to come towards Him. And, even better than a monarch, in the UK,  we can be with God, and in His presence. But, we need to do it in a respectful way.

In the same way that my children have a respect for me as father, as they have a respect for their, Jo as their mother.

They're always completely welcome to come and see us!

We have an open conversation policy. Anything they want to discuss ever is always on the table. They can come to us with all sorts of things, and they do. They'll knock on our door at 2:00 o'clock in the morning, "I, I really should have told you this, can I be honest about something?"

That's the relationship we have, because we have an open relationship with our children. But, they still come to us with respect, because we're Mum and Dad. Mummy and Daddy  when they're little, mum and dad now, mother and father, perhaps. later.

But, we're mum and dad, and they come to us and we want to help them, and talk with them, and and work through whatever they're struggling with.

God is even better than that!

We should fear for God's sanctuary. We should fear, have a fear, of the Lord. That should be normal. But, that doesn't mean to say we should be scared of God.

I looked up the word revere, reverence in the dictionary, revere, reverence. And I came up with these things. So, if you think reference is irrelevant today, here's the dictionary. So, this is as up to date as I could find it, and these are a few of the things I found.

Admiration for someone, respecting someone, holding to someone in high esteem, looking up to someone.

That sounds like the kind of stuff we should be doing. How much more should we have reverence for God? 

It definitely sounds good to admire God, respect God, hold God in high esteem, look up to God. 

How much more should we be doing that towards God?

But, how much should we revere Him in the church? How, how much? What does that look like? What does showing reverence mean?

God seeing us, and being able to hear our prayer, and answer them, even Jesus became, sorry, came out of, reverence, that Jesus had.

Husbands can be won for Christ by a wife who shows reverence for God. Doesn't have to say a word, and the husband can be won for Christ, because of reverence for God.

Workers showing reverence for God, with their human employers, are promised an inheritance in heaven.

This is why reverence is important today!

It's not an Old Testament thing!

It's not a past thing!

It's a current thing!

From Genesis to Revelation, we are taught about the power of reverence towards God. Especially when we're thinking about the sanctified places.

So why do we often see such a lack of reverence in the churches?

When that curtain was ripped in two, we can still have reverence for God. But, it's slightly different.

Playing a game of football during a church service, I would say, is not reverence.

That doesn't mean to say we can't have a gathering of Christians around football. Brilliant outreach!

But we've lost, I believe, this heart for what worship should be.

And I say that as a children's minister of many, many years, who is passionate about seeing children worshipping, today, being a part of our church lives, today.

My 11 year old, Peter, has a lot of wisdom for the church, today. He shouldn't wait till he's 30 or 40, and he's going to a church, and he's got to a place where he's allowed to do something, and then that moves on to something else. Yeah, we should be moving through, but, we should be welcoming people into our church body, church family.  Whether it's a small church, house church. Whether it's a church building. We should be welcoming people in and who they are in Christ. 

Worship should be orderly. 

We should show reverence in church.

Reverence does not equate to silence.

If I ever hear anybody say children should be seen, and not heard, I will get quite feisty with them about how evil that comment is. And I will remind that Jesus rebuked the disciples for that very same attitude.

So, we should expect that attitude, at one level, because Jesus had to deal with it too.

But, silence is not reverence!

Reverence is not doing nothing. It's not inactivity or inaction!

Reverence is getting on our knees, before God, and saying 'You are the Lord of Lords and King of Kings'.

Reverence is saying 'You are worthy to be praised'.

Reverence is saying 'This is a place of worship'. 

God is our friend. Not quite accurate, actually. God is our friend, but he's also the Lord of Lord and King of Kings. And, when we come to God, we need to remember who He is. And that means reverence.

But we need to start showing reverence to the people, sorry, showing reverence to God, to people around us. We need to have a reverence for God in our in our workplace. Our workplace attitude, and heart, should be doing the best for our employer. Not to look good, or for promotion, or to get a thanks, or a pat on the back. The Bible tells us to have reverence for God, and that reverence for God in our workplace means doing the best for our employer.

Reverence in a marriage means that the wife honours the authority of the husband, in that home, and that reverence can win that man to Christ, when he doesn't know Jesus. Purely because of reverence.

Reverence, means, when you're praying to God, and you have a reverence for God, He will then know that He can hear your prayer, and answer it. It's not a formula. But, as formulas go, that would be a good one. 'Cos if we're in a place of reverence to God all the time, He'll hear our prayers.

Even Jesus had prayers answered because of reverence. And He's God! So, reverence is something we should have. And it's something we should be having in our churches.

My heart and passion is to see a church service that's, always, all aged. That's my biggest heart. If I could ever make any change, ever, it would be to see an All Age Service every week. 

All Age services might mean different things to different people. But, for me, an All Age Service is, a, intergenerational, using the current jargon, service of different ages of people, all contributing, all edifying one another, building one another up, bringing what they each have. Not children on a stage. 'Oh yes, well done', that's patronising and condescending. We don't clap the vicar 'cos he's said a prayer. Why would we clap a child for saying, a prayer? They need encouragement!. But, the church service shouldn't be about, 'ooh isn't it sweet?'.

The church sanctuary, the church service, should be a place where reverence is the most foremost of what we're doing.

We should have orderly worship. That doesn't mean boring. It doesn't mean silent and it doesn't mean not doing anything. Reverence is lots of activity, for God, towards God, towards one another, to edify, to build up.

Why this big thing on reverence?
For me, reverence is really important, because it's missing and lacking in too many churches.

We don't need to go back to the old ways of children being seen and not heard. Children should be seen, and should be heard. Everyone, should be seen and heard in a church context. But we need to do it appropriately. And appropriate means the purpose for which we are here is to worship God.

That doesn't mean to say we should be scowling at people who make noise. Children playing with keys? Who cares? That's fine!

But, it also means children shouldn't be charging in like a riot in the middle of a prayer time, if they know it's there. If they don't, and they run in, well we should love them, and not be cross with them. 'cos why would we? That's ridiculous!

But, when we've got a Church Service, everybody should be there to bring their thing. And that includes little children, and it includes all people, and people in their middle ages. It includes everybody who comes into that building, who wants to worship God, in reverence, should be able to contribute something. 

Reverence can win people to Christ without words.

Reverence gives you an inheritance in heave, if you're a worker.

Reverence means God can hear, and answer, your prayer.

Reverence is important, and we need more reverence in our lives towards God.

We should have an easy approach towards, coming towards, Jesus Christ. The power of the Holy Spirit in us. Jesus is praying for the right hand of the father. We're heirs to the Kingdom. We are part of God's throne room. It's an, it's an amazing thing.

But, we should still come with reverence towards God.

Because, He is the Lord of Lords, and the King of Kings.