Over the past several years, I have taught courses to seminarians and pastoral interns on the theology and practice of worship in the Reformed tradition. Part of the syllabus requires students to interact with worship services posted online, evaluating the elements, coherence, and execution of the liturgy. Services are not prescreened, and we select churches around the PCA with various worship styles.
The assignment requires students to critically engage worship services, cultivating a conscious interaction with matters that frequently fly under the radar. After reviewing a significant number of services, several consistent liturgical themes have surfaced that deserve comment.
Previously I surveyed the roles of the call to worship, confession of sin, pastoral prayer, and Lord’s Supper in PCA worship services. This essay examines the order of the elements God prescribes for worship.
Historical Roots of Liturgical Order
In John Calvin’s Geneva liturgy, corporate worship began with a recitation of Psalm 124:8 followed by a prayer of confession. Following confession, the congregation sang a psalm to thank God for his grace. The congregation then listened to the reading and preaching of the Word prefaced by a prayer for illumination. After the sermon, the minister led a robust pastoral intercession covering a wide range of topics with a periphrastic expansion of the Lord’s Prayer. The service concluded with more psalm singing and a benediction. On Sundays in which the Lord’s Supper was celebrated, the communion liturgy was inserted after the pastoral intercession.
This order reflects a clear theological narrative that progresses through five distinct stages: (1) entering God’s presence, (confession of sin, assurance of pardon, and thanksgiving in song), (2) listening to God’s Word (reading Scripture, prayer for illumination, sermon), (3) responding to God (intercessory prayer and thanksgiving in song), (4) communing with God (Lord’s Table and song) and (5) departing in peace (benediction). Though some details vary, this same structure and overarching theological narrative characterize the liturgical orders of Martin Bucer and John Knox as well.
By contrast, The Directory for the Public Worship of God drafted a liturgical order that built the service around the reading and preaching of God’s Word. In the Directory, the service begins with a call to worship which is followed by an invocation that includes a prayer for illumination. Readings from both Old and New Testaments follow before a psalm is sung.
After singing, the pastor leads the intercessory prayer which includes a confession of sin, a variety of supplications, and closes with a second prayer for illumination. The sermon follows this prayer and concludes with a pastoral prayer of thanksgiving. Due to tensions on the committee responsible for drafting the Directory, the document notes that the intercessory prayer could also be offered here, in keeping with John Knox’s liturgy, and could be followed by the Lord’s Prayer. This option was an accommodation of several Scottish delegates who favored the traditional order of prayers following the sermon. After the prayer, another psalm is sung, and the service concludes with the benediction.
The purpose of this liturgical order was to construct a liturgy around the reading and preaching of God’s Word. While the Directory pursues a laudable goal, it is important to note that the liturgies of the Reformed tradition did not have a low view of the reading and preaching of Scripture. Reformed predecessors, including Calvin and Knox, simply situated the preaching of God’s Word in a theological narrative that reflected liturgical forms found in Scripture. The reading and preaching of God’s Word followed confession and thanksgiving in song because petitions for God to teach and instruct frequently follow prayers of confession in the psalms (Consider Psalm 25; 32; 51; 143).
Reflections on Modern Practice
Acknowledging that Scripture does not prescribe a fixed liturgical form, Presbyterians have allowed each congregation to structure their own order of worship. As a result, there is a broad range of liturgical orders in the PCA. The diversity makes it difficult to offer substantive commentary, but here are two general observations.
First, many ministers lack a theological narrative that drives the progression of the service from one element to the next and binds the elements together into a coherent experience. Rather than flowing through a seamless progression of elements, ministers guide the congregation through discrete blocks disconnected from the broader whole.
For Presbyterians, elements of worship exist in the liturgy because God commands them (Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1-5). We focus lots of attention on what God prescribes, but there seems to be little biblical and theological reflection on the order and the relationship between these elements.
Given this, liturgists frequently transition from one element to the next with a procedural note: “Next we will give our tithes and offerings to God,” or “Now, let’s turn to page 100 in the Trinity Hymnal.” These liturgical transitions, or stitches, between elements reveal the absence of a broader theological rationale as to why an element is being done at a particular point in the service and that element’s relationship to what has gone before and what follows.
For instance, as discussed in a previous article, Calvin followed the sermon with the intercessory prayer in his liturgical order. His sermons consistently conclude with an invitation to call upon God in prayer in view of what was heard in the Word of God.
Calvin’s conclusions served two purposes: (1) it wrapped up the sermon, summarizing its content; and (2) it transitioned into prayer, ushering the congregation into an appropriate response to God’s Word. This is not a procedural transition, but a transition born out of a theological conviction that the intercessory prayer is to follow the sermon, sowing the Word in prayer, asking God to help us obey his will, and praying for the world through the lens of the Word. Calvin exhibits a theological narrative in his order of worship by preserving the dialogical relationship between hearing God’s Word and offering our prayers to God.
To overlook the theological narrative aborts the dialogical structure of worship in which one element, in accord with liturgical forms found in the Bible, leads to the next. This distorts corporate worship by making it something less than an interaction between heaven and earth.
Second, many ministers in more liturgically robust services spend too much time explaining the elements of worship. These explanations (more like lectures) about the elements of worship are different from the liturgical transitions mentioned previously. A well-constructed liturgical stitch transitions the congregation intuitively into the next element based on a theological understanding of the relationship between the elements while a didactic transition offers a theological apologetic for each element (why we confess our sins, why we read and preach from Scripture, etc.).
In a didactic mode, the minister focuses on teaching the congregation about why we do what we do. Frequently, more time is spent on the explanation of the element than in the spiritual exercise God prescribes through the element. This overly didactic approach subtracts from the congregation’s engagement with God as the emphasis falls on theological comprehension rather than spiritual exercise informed by theology. My students consistently observed this liturgical error at the call to worship, confession of sin, offering, profession of faith, and observance of the Lord’s Supper.
These two approaches yield different experiences in worship. Didactic transitions talk about God. Liturgical stitches seek to induce engagement with God by promoting a dialogue. They reflect two different philosophies of worship. One is focused on congregational comprehension of God; the other on congregational dialogue with God. To emphasize the dialogical element between God and the congregation is not less theological—it is applied theology.
Conclusion
The Reformed liturgical tradition offers an example of a coherent theological narrative that unfolds in five stages: (1) entering God’s presence, (confession of sin, assurance of pardon, and thanksgiving in song); (2) listening to God’s Word (reading Scripture, prayer for illumination, sermon); (3) responding to God (intercessory prayer and thanksgiving in song); (4) communing with God (Lord’s Table and song); and (4) departing in peace (benediction).
Other prescribed elements can be tucked into this broad outline as well. The tradition preserves the dialogical shape of worship, allowing the congregation to engage with the living God.
Chuck Colson serves as senior pastor of Christ Church Presbyterian in Jacksonville, Florida, and also serves as guest lecturer at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.