Word-Centered Worship
Blog post by Justin Nash
What goes into planning your corporate worship service? What do you do in the service and why do you do it? What informs and shapes your times of worshiping the Lord together? We want to be very careful how we answer these questions because how we worship the Lord matters to him (John 4:24). We should not plan a service by asking, “What would we like to do?” or “What do we assume would ‘reach’ people?” Rather, we are compelled to ask, “What has God called us to do?”1
The answer to that question is found only in Scripture. So, it is to Scripture we must look, but not only does Scripture inform how we worship together, it also ought to serve as the content of our services. In his excellent little book “Corporate Worship: How the Church Gathers as God’s People” Matt Merker offers a valuable model that is grounded in the Bible and affirmed throughout church history. In doing so, he helpfully distinguishes between elements, forms and circumstances.
Elements, Forms & Circumstances
Elements of worship are the activities that Scripture positively calls us to perform in our corporate devotion to God. These make up the non-negotiable substance of our corporate worship. As Merker writes,
Following the Protestant Reformation heritage, we can summarize these elements under five headings: read the Word, pray the Word, preach the Word, sing the Word and see the Word (summarized and depicted in baptism and the Lord’s Supper).2
Forms of worship refer to the manner in which we go about the elements of worship. The Bible does not explicitly address questions of form. These require wisdom. Different churches may come to different judgments. Certain forms may be more or less wise. The Bible may not specify what forms to use, but it gives us principles and wisdom to guide us as we seek those forms that tend most to exaltation, edification and evangelism.3
Circumstances are the practical aspects of how a church organizes its worship gathering: when and where we meet, the layout of the chairs, whether or not we use air conditioning. These are questions of prudence, not biblical requirement.4
Word-Centered Elements
Regardless of form or circumstance, the following five elements should be the substance of our times of gathered worship:
Read the Word (1 Timothy 4:13)
There should be times of simply hearing an extended passage of Scripture read out loud. There is a clear biblical mandate for this element of worship (1 Timothy 4:13). This may be a single reader, a responsive reading or a corporate reading. However we do it, reading the Word should be a normal part of our times of gathered worship.
Pray the Word (Matthew 21:13)
Scripture should inform our prayers, but it also gives us words to pray. The Bible is full of prayers that we can use in our churches today. Even if we don’t pray the prayers verbatim, we still gain valuable language and values for praying in a way that pleases the Lord. Donald Whitney’s wonderfully helpful book “Praying the Bible” offers guidance for how we can do this.
Sing the Word (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16)
Musical styles can be a touchy subject in some churches. But style really isn’t the issue. Style is a matter of form and circumstance, not substance. Whether we are singing traditional hymns or contemporary praise songs, we must always evaluate the propriety of a song by its fidelity to Scripture. The words and ideas of the Bible ought to make up the content of our singing regardless of the form that singing takes.
Preach the Word (2 Timothy 4:2)
The Bible must be the content of all of our preaching. This might seem self-evident, but, unfortunately, it is not. Our sermons should draw their meaning from the text of Scripture, not impose our thoughts or ideas on the text. The Bible must be central and the vast majority of the sermon’s content, not our clever illustrations, worldly wisdom or engaging storytelling. The imperative is to “Preach the Word!”
See the Word (Baptism & Lord’s Supper)
Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:38–39; 1 Corinthians 11:23–26; Colossians 2:11–12)
In baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the Word of God comes to life in a visual and palpable way. We see the gospel acted out before our eyes. We touch the water that portrays our death with Christ, the cleansing from our sin and our new resurrection life. In the supper, we touch and taste the bread and the wine that represent the body and blood of Christ. In the ordinances, the Bible is made tangible and physical to us.
So, how does your worship service measure up to this model? Is your service word-centered, or is it centered on something else?