How We Plan for the Gospel to Shape Our Gathering 

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of four articles on the design of a corporate worship gathering. 9Marks does not promote one way to go about the design of a worship service. Nevertheless, this is a good example of how one pastor taught his church about corporate worship and liturgy design. Here is Part 1, Part 2, and Part 4.  

We’ve moved in this series from the fixed and permanent to the more flexible. Every church should sing and preach the Word. But churches can go about that differently. I’ve known of churches where the congregation requests songs on the spot. That’s not what we do, but that’s one way to do it. 

In this post, I’ll outline how we design our worship services. There are five sections of material here working chronologically as they typically happen. But these aspects of service design often blend together. We have a formula to help us work well together, but we don’t mean to be formulaic. 

Focusing the Service 

The most consequential and non-negotiable part of our service is the preached Word. Preaching is the main way Christ by his Spirit saves and sustains the church. Preaching defines the gospel and, therefore, the church. For these reasons, preaching is the structural climax and thematic center of every service. Everything else leads to and flows from this. 

Each Sunday gathering has two themes based on the preached Word: a theme of revelation and response. The first focuses our attention on a facet of God’s glory and grace. The second focuses our response in a way appropriate to what God has revealed. 

Here are some questions we ask to bring focus to a service: 

• Is there a doctrinal theme in or related to this week’s text, last week’s text, or the series that would be especially useful for this Sunday’s gathering, keeping the overall diet in mind? 

• Is there a natural biblical response offered in the book or preaching text that we can draw from for this service? 

• How do these themes of revelation and response relate to the thematic emphasis of the sermon? (reinforcement, complement, contrast, etc.) 

Gathering the Texts

Several tools help us gather our songs and readings. The first is a song catalogue, curated with about 160 songs that we sing as a church. These are songs whose texts are, in our judgment, especially good and whose tunes are especially singable. They are also songs we can lead musically with excellence while still stretching us. We have songs that help us learn and sing just about every truth we believe. We have songs written for calling us into God’s praise, for leading us in confession, and for praying the Word. We tag each song in the catalog to help us find the best songs for each Sunday. The second tool we use is a liturgy notebook filled with Scriptures and readings. Some of these are home-cooked, but many are curated from various resources. 

In gathering our material, we want to avoid two ditches. We want to avoid the ditch of incoherence, where there is no thematic relationship between the songs. On the other hand, it’s our approach to avoid a service that is too matchy-matchy. Someone should not end the service and think, “Wow, we just sang a bunch of songs about how Christ is a ‘rock.’” Rather, as a result of the cumulative effect of the design, we want to proclaim together, “Jesus Christ is our rock!” 

Here are some questions we ask ourselves once our themes are chosen:

• What songs, readings, or prayers immediately come to mind? How might these serve the following elements: call, praise, confession, assurance, illumination, and response? With more research, what other songs, readings, or prayers might serve these elements? Is there a song or a reading in our catalogue that is specifically derived from this Sunday’s preaching text?  

• Is there an opportunity this week to use a song that we haven’t sung in over six months? Is this a good week to introduce a new song? Are there any newer songs we should repeat? Any regulars we should avoid repeating? 

• What additional themes have emerged so far in this preaching series—and especially last week—that we can at least subtly echo in this service? 

Organizing the Material

There are three basic patterns we can follow in designing a service. First, the historic gospel pattern, in which we move from a call/praise > confession > assurance > a prayer/song of illumination > preaching > response/ordinances > benediction. We may put a profession of faith in there, but that’s the general flow. This is our most typical pattern, and these elements will emerge in the other approaches as well, though some less prominently. 

Second, there’s the gospel narrative pattern, where we move through an event in Scripture, whether it be the Bible’s whole story from creation > fall > redemption > new creation, or an event like the Exodus. 

The third approach is the gospel passage pattern. This is where we take a passage of Scripture—a psalm or a paragraph in a letter, for example—and we work through that passage in the course of the service. 

Here are a few questions we ask in this phase:

• What pattern of service design seems best suited to the theme and texts we’ve gathered? 

• How can we bring a sense of proportion to this week’s service with songs old and new, songs to God and to one another about God, and songs traditional and modern? 

• How do each of these songs/readings/prayers uniquely relate to the service theme, and how should they be ordered? 

Ironing out the Details

This step involves writing out the Call to Worship, modifying any readings to better advance our themes, and crafting song transitions. To return to our metaphor of a building, transitional comments are like signs that move through the gathering. They aren’t destinations but directions to help us get where we’re going. These are typically short—one or two sentences—just like signs should be. They should be meaningful, minimal, and memorable so that they can be delivered comfortably and with connection. 

To write these, we identify where we are in the service and then meditate on the beginnings and ends of songs to form a simple verbal conceptual link between them. These brief comments do more than explain, moving us from one element to another. They invite and exhort us, moving our spirits, and moving us toward one another and to the Lord.

Here are some questions we ask in this phase:

• Where is the movement plain enough between elements that we can forego a transition at least once or twice during the service? Where is the movement between elements unclear enough that a transition of some kind is needed? 

• Where needed, how can we craft one or a few lines to help us move simply, briefly, poetically, and memorably (for the leader’s sake) from one element to another? 

• How can we adapt the readings to unify the service and advance its themes? 

Preparing the People

We want our gatherings to adorn the Word of God with undistracting excellence. We want to raise our affections with the Word. We want to involve the whole congregation without smothering their voice with our artistry. All of this involves a certain combination of musical and technical skill, spiritual maturity, nurtured relationships, and things like emails, software, and rehearsals. What does this mean for us week to week? It means involving the right people in the right ways and with the right preparation.

We are blessed with gifted musicians who love our Lord and his church. We have people skilled at playing instruments, arranging songs, leading rehearsals, mixing sound for the room, and organizing these parts to put our attention where it belongs. We have godly elders and deacons who prepare and lead us in prayers that are scriptural, understandable, and sincere. There are countless others. 

Focusing now just on music and musicians, here are some questions we ask:

• What kind of ensemble and instruments are best suited for this week’s songs? Is there a song we’re singing that requires a special musical touch by a particular musician? Importantly, who is available? 

• What musical settings and transitions will best serve this week’s service themes and design? What can we do musically with undistracting excellence? How might we hold out the truth of a song with our artistry? 

• Are there any opportunities this week for us to grow musically and technically? Are there any singing difficulties with one of these songs that require special attention? 

We also prepare our members for the Sunday gathering with details about the sermon text and theme, with playlists of songs we plan to sing, and with prayer. 

What Makes for Acceptable Worship?

Our concern in gathered worship is how we may offer worship acceptable to God. Our forms and expressions should be sensible for us as a unique local church. But our first interest is in worship that pleases the Lord. 

What makes for acceptable worship to the Lord? Simply this: the blood and righteousness of Christ. 

There are many matters of prudence when it comes to the songs we sing and how to order our gathering. We should come on the Lord’s Day with hearts devoted to him, no matter what happened that week or what we did the day before. 

But none of these things earns us standing with God. None of these things makes us acceptable to him. That’s because none of these things can make us worshipers of God. Christ and Christ alone makes us acceptable to God, and Christ alone makes sinners into worshipers. Christ himself is our worship leader, calling us into praise (Heb. 2:12).  

Before we come together, we must come to him. And having come together, we come through him! Remember this—planners and participants alike—as you prepare for church this week: “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:9–10). In Christ we have “come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering” (Heb. 12:22). Through Christ we have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken, therefore, “let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:18–29).