With the reaction to hymnbooks and “boring singing of choirs and soloists,”
the evolution of the worship service in many churches has landed on singing
that sounds like performance of the people up front, and then the sermon.
Is there more?
There is more.
And before more of the young switch out or over to the formal and sense-filled traditions of
the ancient church, maybe more of us can consider some of the strong additions that
combat spectator mentality in worship, or passivity.
POSSIBLE ADDITIONS THAT POINT TO THE LORD
AND ADD PARTICIPATION AND MEANING
- “The Lord’s Prayer” — rather meaningful, to say the least. The content reflects the heart of the writer!
- “Confessions” — “The Apostles’ Creed” is elevated prose, and the common objection that you are making people say out loud what they are not sure of in the heart — that could be said of every song we ask them to sing!
Read the first questions and answer of the Heidelberg Confession and you may get tears in your eyes, and it may motivate you to check into this if you were not yet sure. (Sing it with the rich Getty song, “What Is Our Hope in Life and Death?” Beautiful content!)
And of course there are others. Some have written their own, using their church statement of faith. - Pastoral prayer — and often by the pastor. Some say this and the sermon are the two main ways you pastor the church all at once!
I like the P-R-A-Y plan because it teaches families and individuals a pattern for regular prayers —
Praise, Repent, Ask, Yield.
And it is an easy prayer for the pastor and wife to pray back and forth.
Or to sometimes have people stand during the Ask part when, for instance, you say you will be praying for students and service men and women….or to represent someone they love when you are going to pray for the sick. (Whenever we did this, or another category like the unsaved, people who stood would thank me for praying for the one they loved. Peekers told me about a third of the people would stand for some categories!)
The Yield is related to the theme or text of the day.
Many times the prayers in the service are ad-libs by the guitarist, as he strums. - Scripture Reading: “Give attention to the public reading of Scripture,” is a pretty clear instruction in I Timothy 4:13; and some writers remind us that the Bible was written for oral reading first. We should not always skip this, or assign it to people who may not do it well just “to get them involved in ministry,” as one pastor told me. As if ministry is what you do up front!
- “Church life moment” — a three-minute update and promo in-between worship songs to invite people to pray or give or go! My own plan was communion, first Sunday; groups (usually an interview to show how helpful they are), second Sunday; missions, an update on giving and a feature on where the money goes, local or global); and finances or youth, to give an update, fourth Sunday. These are more than commercials, though they are that. And staff interviewed, and never gave away the microphone! And three minutes was a true deadline, except for communion.
- “Just As I Am” moment — Billy Graham is in the presence of our Lord, but he knew that a response time is needed for the sermon (in addition to a whole way of life response, of course). Today that is often during the closing prayer, where you direct them to silently pray in the area of the sermon purpose — “Ask God for help you to forgive others,” for instance, if that was the point of the sermon. And also to deal with the salvation assurance, if your sermon briefly “went to the cross” and explained what salvation means. Another brief pause so they will pray quietly.
This is instead of praying material you forgot in the sermon, or emphasizing one of your points — which I hear often in reviewing sermons. I always say, “God does not need to hear what you forgot”! - Benediction — so much better than another summary of the sermon or “see you next week” kind of glibness.
I wonder why so many New Testament letters end with a beautiful benediction, if that is not to help us to end our times with others or our services with the blessing of God. And glory to God.
Nothing wrong with singing
or the sermon, of course;
but there is more.