Built Up in His Presence
On the final Sunday before we welcomed our new Senior Pastor, Associate Pastor Bryce Roskens gave a timely message on the state of Steamboat Baptist. I’d encourage you to go back and watch it. One of his central points was that worship matters—specifically, that consistent Sunday worship is vital to the health of the church and the growth of its people. And I want to double-down on that here.
In 1 Peter, the apostle gives a really powerful picture of worship and why it matters.
The Living Stone and a Chosen People - 1 Peter 2:4-5
As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
When we worship, we approach the LORD as the foundation and cornerstone of our faith. And in turn He builds us up, just like the living stone of Christ. Our worship and singing is acceptable offering because of the atoning work of Christ on the cross.
Approach - “As you come to him, the living Stone”
To “come to the living Stone” is to gather as the Church. Jesus says in Matthew 18, “Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there with them.” While God is present with us in personal prayer and Scripture reading, His presence is uniquely manifest in the gathered church.
The gathered church offers a concentration of God’s presence not found anywhere else.
As a Christian, I have the Holy Spirit within me. If you are a Christian, then so do you. Get a hundred of us in the room together, and there is a concentration of God’s presence because of a concentration of God’s people.
To approach the Lord is to gather with His people.
Build - “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house”
What happens once we have come to the Lord? He builds us into a new spiritual house built around Himself. What a kindness of God! We come to him and he gives something to us! He builds us up. Meaning He shapes our habits, and forms our thinking, and convicts us of sin so that we fit just as He desires into His kingdom.
Jesus is the foundation. The Living Stone. The Cornerstone. Not our shared economic-social-political demographics, but our shared need of a savior in Jesus Christ. And in an abundance of grace God builds us up around Christ the Cornerstone into a unified people in which He resides.
Worship - “offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus”
Then we have a job to do: Worship. Offer spiritual sacrifices. This is singing boldly (even if you’re not musical!), having “ears to hear” the preached word (that means, staying awake, and paying attention!), this might even mean shaking hands with someone you don’t know (even if you’re an introvert!).
And on the surface these actions of singing, listening, or fellowship do not seem particularly transformative. But as our mediator, Jesus stands between us and the Father making these actions pleasing sacrifices to the Lord and the means by which we are built up.
2026 Consistency
In his sermon, Pastor Bryce shared that by God’s grace our attendance numbers stayed fairly stable during a season of transition between pastors. Which is rare for churches as often there is a significant decline.
But there is a gap: Average attendance for 2025 was 277, yet on the candidate weekend for Pastor Ariel we had over 400. I think that gap represents the regularity of attendance. The difference that Sunday was not guests or visitors. It was everyone who attends all gathering on the same day.
So as we continue through 2026 and begin sitting under the preaching and shepherding of Pastor Ariel, I encourage you to come to church more often than you do now. God is present when we gather, and in His grace we are built up—and our worship is pleasing to Him.
-John Day, Worship Pastor