How Do You Order Your Worship Service?
I recently received this question from one of our readers:
“I wanted to know if you’ve written anything on “order of worship”. I struggle with this all the time. I feel like calling for tithes and offerings never is placed in the right spot, the children’s story become a sermon for adults, etc. How many times do people stand up and for what, etc. any thoughts on this?”
I’d like to take a moment to share what we’re doing in our church, but I’d like to give an opportunity to bring it to the entire group, here, so you all can share your thoughts as well on how you order your worship service.
So let me get the ball rolling.
1. Opening Song. This is usually an uptempo song that’s used to bring everyone together. In a sense, it’s an ice-breaker that helps everyone to get focused on God and come together.
2. Welcome and announcements. During this time I get up and have everyone greet each other while music plays in the background. After a few moments I ask them to take a seat. I introduce myself and then call the people’s attention to the program and I encourage everyone to begin filling out our response card. In this post I share a little more about what I actually say during this time.
3. Continued worship set. We then sing about 3 songs. The last song in this set is what we call the “prayer” song. So at some moment in this last song, we invite people to come forward if they have a special prayer request that they want to bring to God.
4. Prayer. We then ask everyone to kneel, as far as possible, and then there’s the main prayer.
5. Sermon. I then get up and speak. During the appeal time I pull out the connection card (our response card), and challenge them to take some next step.
6. Receive tithes and offerings. After the close of my sermon I have a short prayer. We then have someone come forward to call for the tithes and offerings. He/she has a short prayer for all those that will give and for all the decisions that have been made. The ushers then come forward and receive the tithes and offerings, as well as the connection cards.
Most churches receive the tithes and offerings before the sermon somewhere, but we do it afterwards so that we can receive the completed connection cars as well as the tithes and offerings at the same time. This way everyone has something to put in the buckets as they come around.
7. Closing song. After the closing song I get up one more time and give a short final blessing. I’ll quote from Numbers 6:
- The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
And that’s it! You’ll notice that there’s a few things missing that many churches have. We don’t have a children’s story, because we have children’s church. As to when people are standing, they stand whenever we’re singing. I’ve found that this helps people to sing better and to be more excited in their singing. During the other times they’re sitting down.
At the end we have some snacks and refreshments in the lobby as people walk out.
So what about you all? If you can, please take a moment to share what you do in your worship service in your church. I’m curious and I’d love to hear about it for myself as well. What do you do and why?
[image by Daniel Pipitone]
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Our church has two services: the first contemporary and the second traditional. The contemporary is out of the box and has a very similar flow as the one you describe with the opening song(s), welcome, continued set and tithe and offering after the sermon for the same reason – although we are still trying to tie in the whole concept of decisions in the sermon.
The major difference in our contemporary service is we have a big dose of video throughout. Usually we have at least two videos somewhere – either for a worship intro, a tithe and offering piece, or a thematic one related to the sermon. A few people have called our service the video service
because of that.
I like the use of videos! Where do you get the videos from?
We have the traditional order that has not changed in the last 20 years (or as far as I can remember).
Sabbath School (program, lesson, closing hymn)
Personal Ministries (10 minutes– and it is 10 minutes of a mini sermon)
Announcements (forever and no one pays attention)
Worship service (as long as it takes for the people back there to get ready (sometimes 3-4 hymns)
Entrance- standing
Welcome
Opening Hymn- all standing
Bible text
Prayer- all kneel
Tithes and offerings
Children’s story
Special music
Sermon
Closing Hymn
Prayer
We do use videos (sometimes) for the children’s stories and I have used them (very effectively) for special offerings for ADRA (right after the children’s story). I used to be Personal Ministries director and I would not use the 10 minutes myself but instead gave them to other departments to promote their activities.
This only varies slightly if there is a youth sabbath or campana de evangelismo. I don’t think people are adamantly against change it just hasn’t occurred to them that they can. However, my mother’s church will not veer from their formula. If you change it they will get mad at you.
I hear you, Maria. For a lot of spanish churches it’s tough to change anything.
Here is how I do it.
1. Music, upbeat then medium. It is a time if gathering and focus. Music sets the theme and pace for worship.
2. Welcome and any pertinent announcements
3. Sometimes worship in giving here
4. Prayer time. I sometimes will have periods of silence or ask people to gather in groups for private prayer. My goal is to try to move worship from the stage to the pew
5. Children’s message and outreach offering
6. Reading of the Word
7. Exposition of the word
8. Response. This could and mostly is a song but could be a card while a soloist sings. Worship is our response to the truth God reveals. So a message with no opportunity to respond to God is shorting out worship.
I’m tryingout planning center looks like an easy cool way to plan worship and keep the team in the loop. Its free to plan 1 service and up to 10 people on the team.
Sounds nice. You do a more contemporary set? I’ve tried planning center before, but couldn’t quite figure it all out. I think I’m going to try again, though.
Here is our break down.
1. 2 Songs
2. “Half Time” This is where our church takes a few minuets to pray for some of the needs in our church (missionaries, illnesses, upcoming outreach events.) There are no announcement during this time. We let people know that if they want to find out what is going on in our church then read the handouts we gave you when you walked in. We also have a communication tear off at the bottom of the handout that we encourage everyone to fill out, even if they are regular, during the service. This lets us know where they are in their relationship with God.
3. 3 more songs
4. Prayer and we dismiss the kids to follow their teachers to their classrooms. We want the families to worship together.
5. Sermon
6. Response – we encourage people to let us know what “next steps” they are taking. Each week the communication tear off on the handout is different. It is specifically written for that Sunday’s message. We then have a “communication basket” that we pass through the crowd. We make is very clear that this is not for money. If people would like to give, they can give online or there are tables at the back that have offering envelopes and baskets for their tithes and offerings.
7. Dismiss.
We have 2 identical services on Sunday. One at 9:30 and the other at 11:15 This gives us about 30 minuets between services to talk and hangout. It also lets our people have the change to hangout with the people from the other service.
Sounds like a nice set, Brian! Thanks for sharing.
1. Song
1a. Prayer
2. Greeting–literally a conversation I have with the congregation, some announcements, but mainly just chatting like I would if I was quickly saying hello and catching someone up quickly on my week (the week at the church) also welcome babies and new members here.
3. Children’s church
4. Offering appeal (but don’t collect offering here)
5. Prayer
6. Singing
7. Sermon
8. Song and collect tithes/offerings and connection cards.
Thanks, Chad. Interesting set up. I’d love to see it in real life to get a feel for it. Do you like it like that? Do you feel that it works well?
Did you notice a difference in the amount of giving by collecting the offering after the message. From late-comers, and those moved by the message to give more? Do you ever have alter calls , and if you do where would you put it?
To be honest, we haven’t noticed much of a difference in the giving. But many churches that have moved it later have, because more people are in church at that time.
We moved it for two main reasons:
1. Theological: giving should be a response to worship. So when you place it at the end, it allows the people to actually respond to the worship service.
2. Practical: by having it at the end, it allows us to make appeals through the use of the “connection card, ” and then when the offering bucket goes around people can put their card in the offering bucket. That way everyone has something to put inside.
I don’t normally have a “come up to the front” altar call. If I did, it would be in the same time where I use the response card. AT the end of every message, I have an “appeal” time. I invite them to pull out the connection card and I ask them “what is the next step that God is calling you to make today?” That way everyone can “safely” make any decision they want.
Does that make sense?