The Biblical Form of The Divine Service Day and night they never stop saying: Holy, Holy, Holy. . . ( Revelation 4:8 ). I must pause to defend the corporate nature of our liturgy, specifically the use of coordinated, congregational prayer in our service. I am referring to the responses and prayers that we recite together. My goal in this section is to discuss and defend the use of set or fixed congregational prayers—that is, printed prayers prayed in unison by the congregation. The question I want to answer in this section is a very common one: Why does the congregation often use printed, pre-composed prayers? I thought spontaneous, free prayer was more spiritual?

The Three Crucial Steps in the Service Without going into too much detail, the basic order of sacrificial/covenantal worship ought to be clear in your mind before we proceed to explain the service in detail. You might think about the three major “sections” or “movements” within the service as three “steps.” The movement of the service is something of an “ascent” into God’s presence along the pathway he has established. (In some sense it is also God’s “descent” as well, but we will discuss that aspect when we come to the Communion meal.) Just as every sacrificial animal passed through three “zones” and underwent three major “operations” on its way up the altar and into the presence of God, so also the human worshiper travels the same sacrificial pathway up the “holy mountain” into God’s presence. By faith we understand our progress during the Lord’s Day service to be God’s graciously drawing us into his presence, making us fit, in Christ, for fellowship with him.

What, then, is the purpose of our Lord’s Day service? According to the Scriptures, in corporate Christian worship members of the believing congregation are engaged by the Spirit and drawn into the Father’s presence as living sacrifices in Christ. “Through Christ we. . . have access in one Spirit to the Father” ( Eph. 2:18 ). Our reasonable liturgy, the apostle Paul says, is to offer ourselves as living sacrifices ( Rom. 12:1-2 ). On the Lord’s Day the Lord himself visits his people in judgment and salvation, reconstituting and restoring them for life in his presence and work in his kingdom. In response to God’s covenantal initiative—his drawing near to us—we confess, thank, praise, and pray as renewed creatures who through the Spirit are enabled to give unto our Covenant Lord the glory due his Name.

There is a great deal of confusion today about the meaning and practice of Christian worship. Why does the church come together on Sunday? What is the purpose of a church service? What is supposed to happen? What part does the congregation have in the service? One way to answer these questions would be to compose a list of the various activities that we typically engage in during the Sunday meeting. We assemble together, sit, meditate, stand, hear, sing, pray, confess, praise, read, think, eat, drink, etc. Of course, with such a list we have not really answered the question: why do we do those things? To what end? For what purpose? What does all of this hearing, speaking, standing, sitting, singing, praying, eating, and drinking accomplish? At the end of the service what will have happened? What will have changed, if anything? Are we there for an emotional experience? An educational lesson? What is the point of doing all this? Moreover, if we can ask questions about the grand, overall meaning of the service, we can also ask about the form and content of each specific activity. Why do we do these things and not others? Why do we sing some prayers and say others? Why do we stand sometimes and sit others? Why do we say these words and not others? Why do we sing these hymns and not those?