Monday, September 5, 2011

Order of Worship

I have had a few conversations lately about the order of a worship service for churches. One person, whom I have grown to respect greatly, told me it would be wise to gather from others their orders of worship and evaluate what would work best for our church. I've posted today on a few networking sites and had some feedback. However, I thought it may be better to put things in one place for myself, and hopefully it would be helpful for others.

How do you think through and set up your order of worship? Do you use particular categories? Do you just have a particular order? Any thoughts and details would be very helpful.

8 comments:

Josh Cousineau said...

I am commenting so I can see what other people say. As I plant a church I would love to have more thoughts about this very topic.

Dan Rolfe said...

(cut and pasted from facebook)

Call to worship (scripture, or liturgy, or spontaneous), 4 or 5 songs (old and new), prayer and response, offering, welcome and announcements, 5 to 10 minute fellowship break, scripture reading and sermon, response song, sending blessing.

Pastor Randy said...

Thanks, Dan!

Pastor Randy said...

I've had several responses, but unfortunately it hasn't been on here!

Anonymous said...

That Dan guy's order of worship looks a lot like our church. crazy.

Sean Tanner said...

I believe there is a lot of freedom with order of a worship service. But here have been my thoughts the order. (Don Whitney has a 3 helpful articles on how to improve a worship service found on his site). But here are my thoughts. -- Sean

1) Welcome and greet (include a blessing to church/believers [e.g. "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."]
2) Call to worship (includes Scripture reading & prayer)
3) 2 Songs
4) Greeting one of another
5) Worship through financial giving (Scripture reading, prayer, the collection; short video about SBC/CP or other ministry opportunities or involvement while money is collected)
6) Weekly reading a portion of the Baptist Faith and Message (because our churches don't know what they/we believe; Ideally hitting each section/sub-section twice in a year), taking breaks from this w/ creeds.
6) Prayers of the People (Announcements, requests, praises; pray for all)
7) 2 songs
8)Prayer for illumination
9) Preaching of the Word (Read text, sermon)
10) Song
11) Lord’s Supper (a real meal; weekly; possibly read church covenant beforehand)
12) Song
13) Benediction (with departing blessing)
* Everything should have a connection/proclamation of being Gospel-centered and Kingdom-focused

Sean Tanner said...

I really like a revelation-response approach throughout the worship service.

Pastor Randy said...

Jason, I see it takes Dan commenting to get you to! Thanks for stopping by though.

Sean, thanks brother. Can't wait to talk more about this with you!