The Order of Worship
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!
Psalm 150:6
God is passionate for His glory, so He made all things to magnify Himself in worship. The Westminster Shorter Catechism famously begins:
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Part 1 (What is Worship?) | Part 2 (Posture of Worship)
Does God care how His people worship Him?
We were made for worship. To that end, God has made Himself known and defined and described how He is to be worshiped in His Word. Our corporate service of worship at ROC is designed to be God-exalting, Christ-centered, biblically warranted and Word-saturated. Animated by God’s grace we gather together in joy, reverence and awe to
- publicly declare God’s glory
- openly confess our faith in Him
- hear His Word proclaimed
- mutually encourage one another
- and offer our entire lives to Him in worship.
It is important to keep in mind that God is the audience, and we are the worshipers offering God our reasonable service of worship. Those who lead us work to ensure that God remains the focus and that the elements are biblical and edifying.
Therefore, the worship of the only living and true God requires thoughtful preparation and Biblical reflection to avoid being cavalier or culturally driven in our approach. If God’s Word is sufficient, then we need only to look to the Bible to learn how God is to be worshiped. So, it is vital we worship with understanding, knowing what we are doing and why. God does indeed care how He is worshiped.
Gospel Structure
Structures communicate. So the structure of our service follows the outline of the Gospel. God Himself calls His creation to worship Him. Worship begins with God, as He initiates relationship with us. The greatness and glory of God’s nature and character are declared in song, as we remember who God is and what He has done. When confronted with the Holiness of God, we are immediately reminded of our sinful unworthiness and are driven to Confession of sin.
In response to God’s gracious assurance of forgiveness we thank God for His grace and goodness to us in Jesus Christ. We then come to express our dependence upon Him in prayer, asking for His help and strength to live for Him as we should. We sit under the preaching of His Word, where God addresses us, teaching us who He is and what He requires of us. Our service concludes when we promise to live for His glory and depart under His blessing to serve Him in His world. Let us break it down in more detail.
The Elements Explained
(Check out our weekly bulletins where this structure
is elaborated week-to-week)
God Gathers Us To Himself
- Prelude – A selection of instrumental music builds our anticipation as God’s people gather together, greeting one another in the Lord.
- Welcome and Announcements – All of life is worship, so in this part of the service we are made aware of the worshiping life of the church family outside of our Sunday morning gathering.
- Silence of Anticipation – Silence in our world is difficult to find. The prelude ends, signaling the time has come to be silent before Almighty God, and prepare our hearts to focus on Him.
God Calls Us To Worship Him
- Call to Worship – Out of the silence God calls His people to worship –the purpose for which we were created and redeemed. Worship begins with God. He initiates. He mercifully seeks us out. The call also reminds us why we have gathered.
- Prayer of Invocation – This is a prayer asking for God’s help by His Spirit to respond to His call for worship. We recognize that apart from Him we can do nothing, that our strength is insufficient, that our minds are easily distracted, and our hearts divided. So we must rely on God’s enabling grace to worship Him as He deserves.
- Confession of Sin – Having been exposed to God’s greatness and reminded of the foundational truths of our faith, we are confronted with our sin. Our hearts ought to be driven to confess and repent of our rebellion against God and our failure to live according to His Word. (Currently this is part of our opening prayer)
- Assurance of Pardon – With our sin before us, we hear God’s gracious promise of pardon through faith in His Gospel. (Currently this is part of our opening prayer)
- Song of Praise – In response to God’s call we joyfully sing of His greatness, character and His mighty deeds with songs that are saturated with God’s Word. Singing is a way God’s people declare God’s Word to one another in order that we might be built up in our faith.
- Corporate Confession of Faith – The confession of faith is also a means by which we declare the great truths about God and affirm our belief in what God has revealed about Himself. Here we unite our voices with Christians everywhere, past and present by confessing the essentials of the Christian faith using historic creeds and catechisms.
- Collection of Tithes and Offerings – We give in response to God’s grace as an act of worship, not in order to acquire God’s grace. Giving in the context of corporate worship is a public declaration that God’s Kingdom is our priority in life, that all we have is a stewardship from God for which we will be called to give an account and an tangible way we demonstrate our trust in God to meet all our needs.
God Equips Us With His Word
- Pastoral Prayer – We speak to God in prayer, because Jesus taught us to pray and modeled a life of prayer. Prayer is an act of faith by which we unburden our souls upon God and seek His grace and help to meet our needs.
- Reading of God’s Word – After we have spoken to God in prayer, God speaks to us in His Word. God’s Word is living and active, empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is the means by which He makes himself and His perfect will known to the world. God creates, saves, sanctifies and judges through His powerful Word. So hearing God directly address us through His Word is a real engagement with the living God.
- Proclamation of God’s Word – In order to know and live for God we must understand His Word. A sermon is a public explanation of what God has said in His Word applied to our lives.
God Sends Us Out to Into His World
- Song of Response – We sing as a unified commitment and encouragement to put into practice what God has made known in His Word for His glory.
- Benediction – God has the first word in worship and the last word! We receive His blessing in order to remind us we need His help to live for His glory in the World.
Final Thoughts
Now that we better understand what we are doing on Sunday mornings and why, let us enter His gates with thanksgiving and praise, with a singular eye to God’s please and glory in worship.
— David Camera
