How We Begin (And End) Services
22 Aug 2019
I don’t get to go to the cinema as much as I used to (there’s something about having young children that hinders your social activities!) I managed to go recently and was reminded of the amount of adverts and trailers you have to sit through until the film you’ve paid to see begins. Even when it does start you have to wait until what feels like a never ending series of logos of production companies have finished being shown. Then when the film finishes very few people sit through the 5 minutes or so of credits at the end - unless you have been tipped off that there is a post credits scene.
It can be tempting to feel like the start and end of church services are a bit like that. If we are there in time we hear the notices, and then the Minister says a few words that we may not pay too much attention to and then we finally we can feel get into the service properly with the first hymn. At the end we sing a hymn and the Minister closes with a few words that we say “amen” to without concentrating too much on what they are.
The routine of it all can breed contempt, and as a result we easily miss the significance of what’s being said.
Like many reformed churches, I begin the services with some verses from the Bible. There is a very deliberate reason for that. Although it might feel unnecessarily formal, it is important that the first words we hear in the service proper come from the Lord and not from us. Even more significantly than that, the verses chosen are those which assure us as God’s people of our right and privilege to worship him, and command us to do so. The words are a “Call To Worship”.
As Christians we recognise that we worship by how we live, bringing glory to the Lord 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. But there is something very significant about us coming together as his people and worshipping the Lord publicly as his people.
Hearing a Call to Worship should ensure we don’t take this for granted. It is a wonderful thing that the Lord accepts our praise and worship! After all, we were cast out of Eden for refusing to listen, obey and worship him. We cannot now arrogantly assume that the Lord wants to hear our praise. Yet, the Lord assures us that through Christ that we can worship him truly and our praise is acceptable. As we hear his word he also constantly reminds us of why he is worthy of our praise both because of who he is and what he has done.
The Call to Worship at the beginning of the service is an opportunity for us to stop everything else we are doing. In these words, the Lord reminds us that what we are doing for the next hour or so is unlike any other part of our week. As we hear Scripture we have our hearts and minds focused on the glory of the Lord. We also are filled with wonder at just how gracious he is to have opened a way for us to worship him truly.
As Bryan Chapell puts it in his book “Christ Centered Worship”
“In the Call to Worship, God calls us to give him praise, but the command is not onerous. It is an invitation to respond to God’s revelation of himself and his grace. In offering this invitation God is both host and honoree, and God’s people are both invited and compelled by his mercy to give him glory.”
The verses I read at the very end of the service are equally vital. They are not simply a closing prayer. We need to leave the worship service with the Lord’s words ringing in our ears. They are words in which God speaks to us, sending us out into the world with his blessing. Again, Bryan Chapell puts it helpfully:
“With these words the covenant people are reminded of the promises they have heard in worship so that they can go into the world to do God’s will with confidence in his promised care and enabling”.
This benediction is not a prayer from us to God. They are the words of the Lord to us, spoken by the Minister. So don’t feel you have to listen to them with your eyes closed, looking down, ready to say “amen”. Feel free to look up, listen hard, and giving the Minister eye contact, eagerly receiving the blessing of the Lord!
The experience of a worship service should feel very different to the experience of seeing a film at a cinema. Every moment counts, and the beginnings and endings are significant. So come with expectation, ready to meet with the Lord and to be sent out by him into the week.