Typical Order of Worship:
- Singing
- Prayer
- Announcements
- Offering
- Scripture
- Sermon
- Prayer
- Benediction or Closing Song
The Protestant order of worship has its roots in the early Catholic Mass. Chapter 3 of Pagan Christianity deals with the history of the worship service since the Catholic Mass and describes the influences after the Reformation by Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and others.
“The high point of the Catholic Mass has always been the Eucharist.”
“Luther made preaching, rather than the Eucharist, the center of the gathering, but kept the same order of worship as found in the Catholic Mass.”
“Luther gets credit for making the sermon the climax of the Protestant service.”
“Reformation brought very little reform in the way of church practice.”
It was interesting to learn how Frontier Revivalism changed the goal of preaching to conversion and to read how certain practices came about, such as personal decisions, the altar call, and the sinner’s prayer.
As I said in my previous post, let’s take a look at this from the perspective of our practices in relationship to our principles. Do our practices influence and shape our principles? Or do our practices reflect our principles?
What are the principles or ideals that should be reflected in our gatherings?
- open participation
- every-member functioning
- mutual edification
- spiritual transformation
It was recently REVEALed that the typical Sunday morning service does not produce spiritual transformation. Is there a way to incorporate these principles in a Sunday morning service?
