Image: Public Domain

Our Implicit Witness

The effort you put into what you do is usually indicative of the value you give it. Mundane tasks are often performed with a certain lack of enthusiasm because they are …mundane. In the same respect, we tend to approach things we are passionate about with zeal and determination. In school I generally did poorly in classes that didn’t interest me, but excelled in classes that did. Paul warns us about this idea Colossians 3:23 and tells us to “work heartily, as for the Lord.” This doesn’t mean that we have to do our mundane tasks with fake smiles plastered on our faces. But we do need to be careful not to fall into apathy. It’s often well applied in reminding us that the way we work affects our witness. If we are known as Christians and we acquire a reputation of being the unreliable one in our workplace, the gospel suffers. Conversely, if we work well, remembering that we are representatives of the kingdom of Heaven, the gospel shines. This is part of our implicit witness; how we live our lives can be an excellent testament to what Christ has done. It is however, just one part of our witness. It would be a shame if this was where our application stopped.

Our Explicit Witness

If the way we carry ourselves in our implicit witness can have a positive or negative impact on sharing the gospel, then certainly the way we carry ourselves in our explicit witness will also contribute to its effectiveness. It would be a mistake not to see our verse in Colossians as directly related to Paul’s previous words in verses 16 and 17. When we get to Sunday mornings we can’t afford to approach our services like an unexcited child approaches school. It would be a disservice to our church families. This means that it’s not acceptable to approach our work in a Sunday morning service with apathy. It isn’t to say there’s no place in church for people that are suffering from depression. Indifference is not the same place as sadness. Indifference is a dangerous thing because no matter how well we may think we hide it, people will see it. Visitors will see the passion we approach our work with and infer the value we ascribe to our God by it. Our church family – those we are meant to be encouraging in godliness – will see us modeling apathy and impatience.

This concept, hopefully, can be seen in the work we do when we gather to worship our God. It’s why so many hours are poured into reading and studying before preaching. That duty doesn’t stop with the preacher though. Every person involved in the service should be working for God’s glory. If you are involved in the music, you should work hard to play and sing in a way that serves the congregation and shows that you are there for God’s glory, not just because you have to be. John Piper reminds us that duty alone is not nearly as compelling as joy in Desiring God.

How shall we honor God in worship? By saying, “It’s my duty?” Or by saying, “It’s my joy”?

Worship is a way of reflecting back to God the radiance of His worth. Now we see that the mirror that catches the rays of His radiance and reflects them back in worship is the joyful heart.

We are not working “heartily, as for the Lord” when preparation is not prioritized. Nor are we aiding the congregation when we don’t study and work at improving our skill. In the same way, a life spent reading God’s word and praying will be one that is prepared to do a reading and offer a prayer on a Sunday morning.

If these tasks of a Sunday morning have become mundane to you, spend time in the Psalms to remind yourself that what you do on a Sunday morning is not just for you. There is nothing unexciting about entering into the presence of the living God to sing to Him, to pray to Him, and to hear from His word. The effort we put into our work on a Sunday morning – our explicit witness – is equally important to it. Therefore we should work hard with the goal of representing our Saviour well.

This is the second in a two part post on preparing to lead a service. Read the first half here.

Image: Wolfgang Sauber via WikiCommons

The Praying

Prayer of Praise

The church service is a place where the community of believers can pray together. It is a healthy thing to use the Sunday service as a place to train the congregation how to pray correctly and reverently. For example, we have a dedicated prayer of praise that usually comes off the back of a Bible reading. This prayer will reflect on the passage read, and praise God for it. Because Jesus taught that all Scripture is about Him (Luke 24:27) and Paul argued that all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), it is a fair contention that we can praise God through any Bible passage (although obviously some require a great deal more sensitivity and thought than others).

The prayer of praise will usually only focus on about three different things in that passage that we can praise God for. This is because we don’t want the corporate prayers to be so long as to be a distraction in and of themselves. This prayer naturally lends itself to leading into a song of praise on a similar theme that has been prayed.

The Prayer of Confession

Another prayer that is helpful for the congregation to learn how to do appropriately is the prayer of confession. This prayer focuses much more on our sinfulness, particularly over the last week. Again, this usually comes off the back of an appropriate Bible reading (although it would also work very well before the sacrament of communion).

This prayer should model humility in coming before God as a sinner (helpful for any non-believers in the fellowship) and be specific enough to let everyone know we are all in need of confessing our sins (such as asking for forgiveness because we have lied this week). It should not be specific to the one praying however (‘Father forgive us for we have lied, just like I lied to Susan yesterday. That dress did make her bum look big. Forgive us, we pray.’).

What is often helpful is a moment of silence during the prayer, as this allows us all to follow the lead and confess sins that weren’t addressed that morning. These will hopefully be more specific to our own situation.

A key thing we want to be wary of in this prayer is the role of each Person in the Trinity. Praying that ‘God forgive us,’ is good and correct, but praying that the ‘Father died for us,’ is not true. It’s all too simple: ‘Father forgive us for the lies we have told this week. We know that You died on the cross to forgive us, and that You had to go to the cross because of our lies. So we are sorry.’ The Father sent the Son to die for us, and we know this because the Holy Spirit opened our eyes and minds to the truth. It is helpful to model this distinction and reverence to the congregation.

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

This is a prayer before the offering (although I know not all churches collect an offering during the service). It’s a reminder to the congregation that we don’t give because of obligation, but we are privileged to give because all we have comes first from God.

As with the other prayers, this is a helpful opportunity to teach the congregation. In this prayer the lesson is that we ought to thank God for the things we have, be it financially, relationally, or spiritually.

The Pastoral Prayer

In this prayer, we finally come to God with our requests. Note that the first three prayers are all a dialogue with God that does not involve us asking for things, except forgiveness. We have praised God, we have confessed our sins, and we have thanked God for the blessings He has showered upon us.

In this prayer we come before God together and pray for one another. We pray for specific members, we pray for other local Gospel-preaching churches, we pray for aspects of our civil authorities (as Jesus commanded), we pray for any evangelistic endeavours within the life of the church and we pray for one or two major events in the world occurring in the previous week or the upcoming week.

The Corporate Reading

Something that I’m fairly new to, is the aspect of corporate readings. However, once you get past the initial confusion and awkwardness, this is a really helpful method of declaring truths to one another.

The only real difference in this and the principles of singing is that there is no music or singing. The concept is the same, in that we are declaring to one another the great glories of God, the Trinity, the cross and the resurrection.

In our church, we tend to use scripture as well as some of the great Christian creeds written by devout believers throughout history. Often we will use part of our Church Covenant, as this is a short synopsis of the basic tenets of faith we hold as a body of believers.

The Sermon

This is by far the most important aspect of any morning service. I say this because the sermon is the point in the service when the living, active and holy Word of God is brought to bear on the listeners. Therefore, everything else in the service ought to point towards and enhance the position and message of the sermon.

The service should whet the appetite of the congregation so that by the time the sermon begins we are hungry to listen and eager to be fed. It makes sense, then, that the rest of the service should be on a similar theme to the upcoming sermon, so that the congregation isn’t jarred by a major change in tone or sentiment.

A typical mistake is to have a very humbling and moving sermon that culminates in a deep thought requiring contemplation, only to jump right into a very loud and fast-moving song. The reverse is equally unhelpful. Thus it is wise to allow the preacher to choose the final hymn, or at least have the music team know the general thrust and theme of the sermon so as to pick an appropriate song to close with.

Nevertheless, the sermon is the time when the congregation will be fed. It is through the correct and faithful declaration of God’s word that His promises are heard, His Gospel is proclaimed and His love expressed to His people.

The Order of Service

Below is a standard Order of Service for our church. It’s very simple, easy to follow, and yet hopefully prepares the congregation to get ready for the sermon.

Welcome and Notices
Theme

We come this morning to worship God, our loving heavenly Father

Call to worship: Psalm 68:4-6
Song

All Creatures of Our God and King
O Great God

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 1:22-40
Prayer of Confession
Scriptural Assurance of Forgiveness: Colossians 3:12-13
Song

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)

Congregational Reading: The Lord’s Prayer
Prayer of Praise
Song

Jesus The Very Thought Of Thee

Pastoral Prayer
Song

What A Friend We Have In Jesus

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Offering
Sermon: Matthew 18:1-14 – ‘Become Like Little Children’
Song

When Peace Like A River

This is the first in a two part post on preparing to lead a service.

Image: Public Domain

The Purpose of Corporate Worship

The importance of the weekly worship service in the life of the local church can barely be overstated. Not only is it regularly commanded by scripture, but non-attendance by members is often one of the first ‘signs’ that things are not going well in the life of that believer. So if it is important that we all meet together and worship God, surely how we do so is also important? After all, we must have some coherency and unity in what is going on otherwise the whole thing will go awry.

Have you ever seen a dance movie? (I haven’t…) but imagine that there is one kid in the dance troupe whose synchronisation is completely off. They are so out of rhythm and touch with everyone else that they end up ruining the whole thing. That’s what church would be like without structure. Which is exactly what Paul the Apostle says (although he didn’t have the poetic flair to suggest a wayward dancer). In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says that ‘everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way,’ (v. 40) because ‘God is a God not of disorder, but of peace.’ (v. 33)

The service leader has a lot of responsibility in first organising the various elements of required worship, and then in putting together the service in such a way as to best harmonise the music and prayers to direct the hearts of the congregation to prepare for the feeding of the sermon.

Thus it is vital that the service leader (or leaders) understand the purpose of the Sunday worship service, how the elements can fit together in order to guide the congregation to humble and prepare their hearts for the sermon.

What are these elements? Well, throughout the New Testament we see a number of things commanded for public and corporate worship. We don’t have the First Jerusalem Calvary Church service sheet, so we have to piece together the expectations and commands from the various letters and books in the New Testament.

The Elements of Corporate Worship

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says that we should sing hymns, hear a word of instruction or revelation or tongue or an interpretation. All of these ‘must be done for the strengthening of the church.’ (v. 26) As for singing, Paul commanded the Ephesians to ‘speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.’

Elsewhere, James commands ‘confess your sins to each other’ (James 5:5), and to ‘pray for each other’ as an act of love and obedience.

####The Structure of Corporate Worship

#####The Call In our own church context, we tend to start with an exhortation – or call – to worship. This is usually a short extract that reminds us of the theme of the service and calls us to prepare our hearts for worship. An example of the Call to Worship could be Isaiah 12:4-6:

⁴ And you will say in that day:

“Give thanks to the LORD,

call upon his name,

make known his deeds among the peoples,

proclaim that his name is exalted.

⁵ “Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously;

let this be made known in all the earth.

⁶ Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,

for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”

This call to worship acts as a buffer from the ‘business’ of announcements and the ‘hubbub’ of activity before the service begins. It does what it says: it calls the congregation to prepare to worship.

There is nothing in the Bible to demand that we begin our service with a call to worship, so far as I know, but it is interesting to note that Psalm 95 is titled ‘A Call to Worship and Obedience.’ Nevertheless, calling the congregation to worship is certainly a helpful action.

The Music

This is a very contentious issue, and I am not about to delve into the fray. However (see me delve into the fray!) as a Reformed Christian, I believe that the leadership of the church has a solemn duty to ensure the music is as Biblical and helpful as possible.

The music is however, more often than not, a distraction. And it is the single most difficult issue in most churches because it is so conditionally determined. What one guy likes (electro-punk with R ‘n’ B jazz) will completely clash with what another guy likes (Japanese canine opera). Trying to harmonise these differences is like trying to make a cat act like a dog. It is both unrealistic and not the best use of anyone’s time.

Music is there to serve the congregation in singing. It is not to bring about an emotional high or low that distracts us from the proclamation of God’s Word during the sermon. If the Holy Spirit moves individuals to tears during the praise time, that’s fantastic! But the purpose of the musicianship is to aid the edification of the congregation, not manipulate and cajole them into a frenzy.

Beyond that, however, it is wise to have a balanced mixture of old hymns, psalms and modern praise music. This ensures a healthy balance that will not satisfy any one preference, yet will not unfairly satisfy only one style either. This is a good and fair use of the leadership’s discretion to minimize discontent with the music.

Remember, the music is not to be an emotional blackmail. Nor does it function as a replacement for the sermon. It allows the congregation to prepare for the sermon by encouraging each other with glorious truths of God’s character, nature, and goodness.

Editor’s Note: There will be more in-depth discussion on music and song choosing in future posts. You can read the second half here.