One of the things I often ask my wife after a Sunday service is, “how do you feel it went?” Seems like a normal question, right? We want to know how things went, if they were good, or if things bombed. But in recent months I have been working by God’s grace to shift my focus from asking about how things felt, to if they were faithful.
I think this is one of the biggest traps of the modern evangelical world. The question we are always seeking to answer is, “how do we feel about this?” And while our emotions are from God, and are important, I think we have put too much focus on whether or not something felt right, rather than focusing if things were faithful, and that we encountered God. It’s like we’ve built our spiritual lives around chasing that next emotional high, the kind that comes from a perfectly timed light show or a song that hits just right in the chorus. We walk out of church buzzing, convinced we’ve had a profound encounter with the divine because our hearts raced and tears flowed. But what happens the next week when the music doesn’t land the same way, or the preacher’s message feels a bit flat? Suddenly, doubt creeps in. Did God show up? Was it real? This cycle leaves us fragile, tethered to our moods rather than to the unchanging faithfulness of Christ Himself.
The Psalms model this beautifully for us. David cries out in the rawest emotion, from despair to ecstasy, but he always circles back to God’s steadfast word and promises. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” he declares in Psalm 119:105. That’s not about feeling enlightened; it’s about faithful obedience in the dark. This emotionalism didn’t come from nowhere. It traces back through revivalist traditions, where manipulating crowds for decisions became the measure of success. Charles Finney and his “new measures” in the 19th century turned meetings into high-stakes emotional theaters, complete with anxious benches and public professions designed to wring out responses. It worked for a season, filling pews and sparking movements, but it planted seeds of shallowness. Today, we see it in worship sets engineered like rock concerts, sermons crafted for viral soundbites, and metrics obsessed with attendance bumps or altar call counts. Emotions become the goal, truth the casualty. Jonathan Edwards saw this danger early on, warning in his treatise on religious affections that not every tear or thrill proves the Spirit’s work. True godliness flows from a renewed mind delighting in God’s glory, not from stirred sentiments that mimic conviction.
Contrast that with the ordinary means God has given His church: the faithful preaching of the Word and the right administration of the sacraments. These aren’t flashy tools for excitement; they are the steady channels through which Christ pours out grace, week after week, whether we feel it or not. Picture the early church in Acts 2:42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” No mention of emotional metrics there, just persistence in Word, sacrament, and prayer. Paul hammers this home in 1 Corinthians 11, rebuking the Corinthians not for lack of feeling but for profaning the Lord’s Supper through division and selfishness. The Table isn’t valid because it moves us; it’s powerful because Christ is truly present, feeding our souls with His body and blood. The reformers like Calvin echoed this, insisting that God binds Himself to these visible signs, making them efficacious for faith not by our emotional response but by His faithful promise. Faith comes by hearing the Word (Romans 10:17), and the sacraments confirm it tangibly, sustaining us in dry seasons when emotions fail.
Theologically, this anchors us in God’s covenantal fidelity. Hebrews 10:23 urges us to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Our perseverance isn’t self-generated enthusiasm but participation in Christ’s own faithfulness, mediated through preaching that declares His finished work and sacraments that apply it to us personally. Baptism marks our dying and rising with Him once for all (Romans 6:3-4), a seal that no mood swing can undo. The Eucharist proclaims His death until He comes (1 Corinthians 11:26), nourishing us with grace that outlasts every high or low. This is paleo-orthodox wisdom, recovered from the church fathers who saw Word and Table as the rhythm of divine life in the body of Christ. Augustine called sacraments “visible words,” precisely because they convey truth beyond what feelings can grasp or guarantee.
Emotionally driven worship, by contrast, risks idolatry. It elevates experience over revelation, making the Spirit’s work dependent on human techniques rather than sovereign grace. John 4:24 commands worship “in spirit and truth,” where truth proclaimed and enacted precedes and provokes any genuine affection. When churches prioritize “what moves us,” they breed consumerism, where believers shop for services that deliver dopamine hits, abandoning the ordinary when it grows mundane. The result is fragility: shallow roots that wither in persecution or trial, as Jesus warned of the rocky soil in Mark 4:16-17. True spiritual vitality grows through steady feeding on Christ in His appointed ways, producing fruit that endures by the Spirit’s hidden labor.
In terms of praxis, this shift demands rigorous discipline. Begin with the pulpit: Preach the whole counsel of God, letting Scripture dictate the content rather than chasing relevance through felt needs or cultural hooks. Let exegesis drive application, trusting the Word itself to convict, comfort, and convert. For sacraments, recover their frequency and centrality. Move toward weekly Eucharist not as an add-on but as the climax of every Lord’s Day gathering, offered to all baptized believers without barriers of performance or worthiness. Administer baptism with catechetical preparation, teaching it as the foundation of Christian identity that no emotion can confer or revoke. Structure services around these means: Call to worship from Psalms, confession and assurance rooted in gospel promises, creed for shared belief, sermon for grounding and growth, Table for nourishment, and sending with benediction. Soak every element in prayer, drawing from the church’s historic offices to guard against novelty.
Evaluate Sundays by faithfulness, not feedback. Ask: Was the Word handled accurately, free from gimmicks or personal anecdotes that overshadow Christ? Were sacraments administered reverently, pointing beyond themselves to the Lord? Did the liturgy form us as a covenant people, confessing sin together, receiving grace together, feasting together? Train leaders and congregations alike in this metric through teaching and example. Small groups can reinforce it by studying Scripture exposition, sacramental theology, and the lives of saints who persevered without spectacle. Youth ministry shifts from entertainment to catechism and Table, equipping the next generation to value fidelity over flash. Even outreach flows from this: Evangelism proclaims the same Word preached inside, inviting sinners to baptism and Supper as entry into Christ’s body.
This praxis isn’t anti-emotion; it’s pro-truth. Holy affections, as Edwards described them, arise naturally when we behold God’s glory in the face of Christ through faithful means. Joy erupts at the Table’s foretaste of the kingdom. Awe fills preaching that unveils the cross’s depths. Love binds the fellowship around shared bread and cup. But these are fruits of the Spirit, not engineered results. When faithfulness governs, God surprises us: Quiet services become profound, dry seasons yield growth, and unity deepens amid diversity. Churches marked by this rhythm resist cultural drift, standing as outposts of the kingdom where God’s faithfulness holds His people steady.
Historically, this recovers the best of our traditions. Wesley, though his ministry is known for revival, urged constant communion and saw sacraments as “means of grace” where God works beyond feeling. The Free Methodist heritage, with its love feasts and emphasis on holiness, points toward a sacramental renewal that integrates evangelical zeal with ordered worship. Broader catholic practice, from Anglican formularies to Reformed confessions, affirms Word and sacrament as sufficient for the church’s life. In our time of hype and hurry, this theology and praxis offer rescue: a return to what God commands, because He is faithful to save and sustain through it.
The call is clear and urgent. Let us measure church life by alignment with divine appointment, not human applause. Prioritize preaching that thunders gospel truth. Elevate sacraments as the pulse of gathered worship. Persevere in these means through every season, confident that Christ builds His church upon them. Emotions will ebb and flow, but His word endures forever (Isaiah 40:8). In faithfulness over feeling, we find the treasure: a people held by God’s steady hand, encountering Him truly every Lord’s Day.