Growing in Worship Together

About Our Liturgy

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Simon Peter, John 6:68, NIV)

About This Guide

We pursue Jesus Christ as the true goal of the Christian life. The Scriptures teach that there is a transforming power when we are in union with Jesus. The apostle Paul teaches that we are crucified with Christ, and it is Christ who lives in us (Galatians 2:20). Through baptism we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection (Romans 6:3–5). And Jesus sends his disciples to baptize in the name of the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:18–20). Christlikeness is the fruit of a life in union with the holy Three.

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink." (1 Corinthians 12:12–13, NIV)

Through Jesus, believers are united with Christ and with his people. When we gather for public worship, we do so out of that shared identity as God's people.

Corporate Christian worship draws believers into life with the Triune God. As one body, we affirm "one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all" (Ephesians 4:5–6, NIV).

This guide walks through the shape of our Sunday gathering, so that we can understand why we do what we do and enter into it more fully.

Before We Begin: Why Liturgy?

The word liturgy comes from the Greek leitourgia (λειτουργία), which means "the work of the people" or "public service." For Christians, it has come to mean the shape or order of our corporate worship.

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." (Acts 2:42, NIV)

In the early church we see a devotion to formative practices, the elements of an early Christian liturgy: teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Other parts of the New Testament show them singing psalms and hymns as well (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16).

Beliefs are taught explicitly, through teaching, sermons and reading. Beliefs are also taught implicitly. Just as children learn to speak by imitating the sounds they hear from their parents, we are formed by the words and actions of the liturgy. In this way, liturgy does not merely instruct; it shapes the hearts and minds of those who take part in its rhythms, so that our inner lives come to reflect the Christian story.

Mike Cosper makes the point that the words we hear, sing and speak in worship shape us in many ways at once:

our picture of who God is
our understanding of what the church is and does
our understanding of human brokenness and healing
our sense of purpose, as individuals and as a church
our affections: awe, humility, delight, sorrow for sin, and hope
our vision of wholeness for ourselves and for all creation
our ways of engaging with God, with one another, and with the world

Our liturgy follows a simple movement that runs through all of Scripture: God calls, we worship, God speaks, God invites, we respond, and God sends.

1. God Calls

"Worship begins with God. God speaks, we respond"

Everything we do is a response to God's initiative. "God Calls" begins our gathering with that reminder: worship, prayer and all that we do are a response to God's grace. Throughout Scripture, God is the one who calls creation into being, and the one who calls his people to himself.

God says, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). In Leviticus we see God's intent: "I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people" (Leviticus 26:12, NIV).

The God who desires a relationship with his creation reveals himself to his people. The psalmist sings, "The heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1). Edmund Clowney observes that we can only call on God's name if we know it, and "it is God who takes the initiative by making his name known." Our response is awe and worship. We join the chorus of every creature praising the Lord (Psalm 150:6).

Greeting

The apostle Paul makes a habit of opening his letters with a greeting: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 1:7, ESV). We begin the same way, receiving God's grace and peace before we offer anything.

Doxology for the Land (On occasion)

We give thanks to the Creator God and confess that "the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" (Psalm 24:1, NIV).

We also acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the unceded territory of its first stewards, the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. In Ephesians 2 we see that Christ's work on the cross makes peace, reconciling humanity to God and to one another.

Call to Worship

"The Mighty One, God, the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to where it sets." (Psalm 50:1, NIV)

The Call to Worship invites the people of God to turn our attention together to the Triune God and to become aware of his presence. God's call draws out our response of worship.

"Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!" (Psalm 95:6, ESV)

Seasons of the Church Year

At certain times of year, seasonal elements are added here. During Advent, for example, we light the Advent wreath. The season of Advent took shape in the early centuries of the church; the wreath itself is a younger tradition, beginning in nineteenth-century Germany. Its growing light highlights Christ as the Light of the World (John 8:12) and the fulfilment of prophecies such as Isaiah 9:2: "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light."

2. We Worship: Song and Prayer

We respond to God with adoration and praise.

Song

"Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples." (Psalm 96:2–3, NIV)

When God rescues the Israelites from slavery, they erupt in a song of praise; Moses and Miriam lead God's people in singing (Exodus 15). Singing is a whole-person act that involves our bodies, our minds, our emotions and our hearts. Paul instructs the church in Colossae: "Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts" (Colossians 3:16, NIV).

Singing praise is also a quiet act of resistance. Every time we praise the triune God, we refuse to let anything else take God's place. John Witvliet calls every hymn of praise "a little anti-idolatry campaign."

In Revelation, a great multitude from every nation stands with the angels before the throne, declaring, "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb" (Revelation 7:9–12, NIV). Singing is a unifying practice. It captures the heart of Paul's hope that the church would glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ "with one mind and one voice" (Romans 15:6, NIV).

Prayer

Prayer is a response to the God who chooses to be present with his people.

"Prayers don't seek God, they respond to the God who seeks us." — Eugene Peterson

"For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." — Jesus (Matthew 18:20, NIV)

There is a distinctive strength when believers gather in Jesus' name. The disciples, men and women, made a habit of joining together in the upper room to pray (Acts 1:12–14). They were gathered in one place when they were filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4). Since God adopts us into his family, it would make little sense for his children never to express their love for the Father together.

We pray to the triune God. Most often, following Jesus' teaching, we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. Yet Scripture also shows prayer addressed to each person of the Trinity:

To the Father: Matthew 6:9; John 16:23; John 17; Ephesians 3:14–19; 5:20
To the Son: John 14:13–14; Acts 7:59; 2 Corinthians 12:8–9; Revelation 22:20
In and by the Spirit, who helps us pray and is himself the Lord: Romans 8:26–27; 2 Corinthians 3:17; Ephesians 6:18; Jude 20

Clement of Alexandria described prayer as keeping company with God (Stromata 7). Corporate prayer draws our church into communion with God, giving glory, praise and honour to the holy Three.

"To pray to God is to be a complete person before God." - James M. Houston

In prayer, as Houston goes on to say, we become who God always meant us to be: open before him, confessing and forgiven, humbled and obedient, sustained and guided, and renewed day by day.

3. God Speaks

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." (John 1:14, NIV)

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16, NIV)

The Reading and Preaching of Scripture

God reveals himself through his Word: through Jesus, the Word made flesh, and through the written Word of Scripture. The reading and preaching of the Word are how we hear the voice and instruction of the living God.

In Exodus, Moses "took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, 'We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey'" (Exodus 24:7, NIV). In the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus reads from Isaiah and explains it (Luke 4:16–21). Paul instructs a young pastor: "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching" (1 Timothy 4:13, NIV).

Hearing the Scriptures shapes who we are becoming. The psalmist teaches that a young person stays on the path of purity by living according to God's word (Psalm 119:9–11). When Jesus prays for his followers, he asks the Father, "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17, NIV).

Teaching is part of how "the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12–13, NIV). When Peter preaches on the Day of Pentecost, he reads the Scriptures in light of Jesus of Nazareth. He declares that God has made Jesus both Lord and Messiah, and calls for repentance as the response (Acts 2:14–38).

4. God Invites

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me." (Revelation 3:20, NIV)

In "God Invites" we make a habit of responding to the God who draws people to himself. God invites us to turn to him, to receive his forgiveness, and to be united with Christ and his body.

Confession and Assurance

In Isaiah 6, God reveals himself as holy, and Isaiah becomes keenly aware of his sin. The intensity of his encounter with God's glory makes him cry out: "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty" (Isaiah 6:5, NIV). In corporate worship we respond to God in the same way, acknowledging that we are sinners in need of his grace.

The apostle John teaches, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us" (1 John 1:9–10, NIV).

The Israelites gathered together to confess their sins and then to remember God's faithfulness to them (Nehemiah 9). William Dyrness describes confession as a "healthy orientation to reality." Corporate confession acknowledges that:

the world is not the way it was meant to be
the church is not the way we were meant to be
I am not the way I was meant to be

Confession is an act of worship. It cultivates humility before God and our dependence on the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Our world offers plenty of self-help counsel, with secular liturgies that refuse to name guilt or wrongdoing. The prophet Jeremiah warns against those who "dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace" (Jeremiah 8:11, NIV).

Believers can look to the One who gives a peace the world cannot give (John 14:27). We cling to the promise that God will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Because of this assurance, we can live in the grace of Jesus Christ.

"There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:1–2, NIV)

"I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.' And you forgave the guilt of my sin." (Psalm 32:5, NIV)

The Lord's Supper (Eucharist)

"While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat; this is my body.' Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'" (Matthew 26:26–28, NIV)

The Lord's Supper is one of the two sacraments Jesus gave his church, alongside baptism. It is also called the Eucharist, from the Greek word for thanksgiving, because Jesus "gave thanks" as he took the bread and the cup.

Through the bread and the cup, the gospel is made tangible. James K. A. Smith describes it this way: "It's as if the story we've been hearing and rehearsing now comes with live illustrations."

The apostle Paul teaches, "Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf" (1 Corinthians 10:16–17, NIV). The Lord's Supper unites us with Christ and with the people of God. At the Table we do not only remember Christ; we meet him and share fellowship with him.

It is also a foretaste of the banquet to come in the New Jerusalem, when God's people will celebrate the wedding supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9).

The work of the Spirit. Christ is present to us at the Table by the Holy Spirit. For this reason, the church's prayer at the Table has long included an epiclesis (Greek for "calling upon"): we ask the Father to send his Spirit upon us and upon the bread and the cup, so that we truly receive Christ. Gordon T. Smith teaches that we come to the Table prompted by the Spirit, that we come in the Spirit, and that we are graced by the Spirit as we come. In his words, "the Spirit is the one who makes the sacraments sacramental."

Word and Table. The sacrament works in tandem with the Word. Preaching proclaims the gospel, and the sacrament enacts it. We see this movement on the road to Emmaus: Jesus explains what the Scriptures say about himself, then takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it and shares it with the disciples, and "their eyes were opened and they recognized him" (Luke 24:27–35, NIV).

5. We Respond

Having heard the Word and received God's grace, we respond with song, with our offering, and by sharing the life of our community through announcements.

Offering

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." — Jesus (Matthew 6:24, NIV)

Mike Cosper describes the weekly offering as "an opportunity to deconstruct one of the human heart's greatest idols."

In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul reminds believers that though Jesus was rich, for our sake he became poor, so that through his poverty we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Paul is calling the church to follow Jesus' example of generosity. Earlier in that chapter, we see the Macedonian churches, in extreme poverty, giving generously and joyfully to the Lord (2 Corinthians 8:1–5).

Giving is not something to be done reluctantly or under compulsion. We are free to give as a joyful response to the gospel, "for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:6–8, NIV).

6. God Sends

Benediction

Worship ends with a sending. The benediction reminds the body of Christ that God sends his people into the world.

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." — Jesus (Matthew 28:19–20, NIV)

"Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." — Jesus (John 20:21, NIV)

We are sent by a God who promises to go with us and to empower us. The Holy Spirit enables us to carry what we have practised together (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, correction, teaching and more) into our daily lives. As we are immersed in the language of Scripture week by week, we are better equipped to love the people and places God has given us and to face the challenges of life.

For Reflection

1. Which part of our Sunday liturgy do you find easiest to enter into? Which is hardest, and why?

2. Think of a song, prayer or line of Scripture from worship that has stayed with you during the week. How has it shaped you?

3. Why might it matter that worship begins with God calling, rather than with us?

4. How does confessing our sins together, and hearing God's assurance, change the way you see yourself and others?

5. Where is God sending you this week, and what from Sunday will you carry with you?

A Reading Path

For those who want to go further, these seven readings follow the shape of this guide. Each is a single chapter, short enough to read in a week and discuss together.

1. Why worship comes first. John Stott, The Living Church, chapter 2, "Worship." Stott draws our attention to why worship is the church's preeminent duty and deserves our closest attention. True worship is biblical (a response to biblical revelation), congregational, spiritual, and moral. Pairs with About This Guide and 3. God Speaks.

2. Worship as spiritual formation. Mike Cosper, Rhythms of Grace, chapter 6. C. S. Lewis observed that habits shape character. Some habits are so meaningful that they shape our identity, our affections and our character, and corporate worship is one of them: gathering as the people of God, where we gather and how we gather all play a part in shaping who we are. Cosper calls it a yes to the God who saves and "a resounding and furious no to the lies" of the world around us, sung by pilgrims who are being shaped for their future home. Pairs with Before We Begin and 6. God Sends.

3. Liturgy, part 1. Mike Cosper, Rhythms of Grace, first chapter on liturgy. Why worship language is formative, and the ways the words we hear, sing and speak shape us. Pairs with Before We Begin: Why Liturgy?

4. Liturgy, part 2. Mike Cosper, Rhythms of Grace, second chapter on liturgy. How the movement of a service tells the story of the gospel. Pairs with sections 1–6.

5. Unitarian or Trinitarian worship? James B. Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace, chapter 1. As churches experiment with new forms of worship in a changing secular world, Torrance asks how we are to evaluate them: "What makes worship Christian in whatever form it takes?" What place do Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit have in our worship and prayers to the Father? His answer is that worship is not something we do by our own effort, but a sharing by the Spirit in the Son's own worship of the Father. Pairs with About This Guide, Prayer, and the Lord's Supper.

6. Prayer: the song of Israel. Mike Cosper, Rhythms of Grace, chapter 3. "The story of God and Israel is the story of God and us." Again and again Israel stumbles, forgets the One who called them out of Egypt, and turns to the gods of their neighbours. Yet God keeps seeking and calling them back to repentance, and provides a way for them to be forgiven. The Psalms give Israel, and us, a language for praise, lament and prayer. Pairs with 2. We Worship.

7. The song of Jesus. Mike Cosper, Rhythms of Grace, chapter 4. How Jesus fulfils Israel's worship and leads ours. Pairs with 3. God Speaks and 4. God Invites.