Holy Joys Podcast
A discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church. A ministry of holyjoys.org.
Holy Joys Podcast
Preparing for the Sunday Service
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David Fry and Johnathan Arnold discuss the Sunday Service and how they prepare for weekly worship.
Obviously, the sermon prep is what is well known. But as pastors, we want to talk about what else goes into preparing for that Sunday service.
SPEAKER_01So I am not inflexible. We've got to get through everything every week. There's some things that I think are more important than others, but it does give us a guide to make sure every week is meaningful.
SPEAKER_03So it's dialogical, but it's intentional, it's planned, it's organized, it's directed.
SPEAKER_00You're listening to the Holy Joys Podcast, co-hosted by Jonathan Arnold and Dr. David Fry. Visit us at holyjoys.org and stay tuned for weekly discussions of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_03By Sunday service, I'm speaking particularly of a Sunday morning worship service, which in most places is going to be the main corporate gathering. And there are a lot of aspects to prepare for for that worship service. Obviously, the sermon prep is what is well known, but as pastors, uh, we want to talk about what else goes into preparing for that Sunday service. So, Jonathan, I think uh both of us actually to this very day, uh, we have been working on uh this coming Sunday putting together the service. Uh what do you do uh from Sunday to Sunday as a general outline, and then we can break that down to prepare for the coming Sunday morning service?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So when I came to the church that I'm pastoring a year and a half ago, they had a very simple and very um unplanned liturgy. Um so they had they basically started out with announcements. Um fact, you know what, they may have done announcements in the middle of the service. Um they had a prayer, congregational singing, um an offering, and a special song sometimes, and then and then the sermon. I mean, it was pretty pretty basic. Um I don't know if I mentioned congregational prayer in there, um, and then the sermon, and that was basically it. Um, I do think that the former pastor would give a benediction, but I don't know that um, you know, for the last couple years, under the leadership that they had, there was even a benediction of any kind. So I just started very slowly introducing new elements into the service and would just add something every couple weeks. And um, one of the main things that we added was a scripture reading. So I moved the podium, which was like for Sunday school, uh, which is as a lectern, to the opposite side of the communion table, so that in addition to the pulpit, we always had a podium and we had the a big Bible. I got a big pulpit Bible to put on there, on the lectern, and keep that open for the scripture reading. And then we began to add other elements uh into the service. We had more cut more frequent communion. We started out once a month, then we increased that to twice a month. Um I began to do a children's sermon. Um on the weeks that we didn't have communion, we did we did the Creed. Um, we started out with the Apostles' Creed, then we went to the Nicene Creed, and this was all just easing people into more liturgical elements. And recently here within the last couple weeks, um well, let me back up actually. For a f for a few months, I started including some of the elements in the bulletin, the weekly bulletin. So I would include the just the the passage reference for the the scripture reading of the week. So I would have, you know, this week's reading is Ezekiel 26, whatever. Um, and then the sermon text, you know, is John chapter three, whatever. So started to include some of that in the bulletin. But in the last couple weeks here, we've expanded the bulletin to include everything that is in the service. And I've had, I wasn't sure how people would respond to that because they weren't used to it. I've had very positive feedback on that. People really seem to enjoy it. And I feel like it's increasing the amount of participation. And uh this past Sunday was just an awesome, um, just an awesome time of worship. Probably one of the one of the highlights in my ministry there. The spirit was there in such a powerful way. And the reason I mentioned that is um is because we've had more intentionality and more structure than we've ever had. But I feel like we we also still have a lot of freedom and there's uh God is honoring it and using it. And it's a beautiful thing, a beautiful blend. And I I had this thought just this week. Like, I feel like this is this is a we're getting close to what probably an early Methodist service would have been like. I mean, we're really we're really moving that direction. So it's been great. So um with that said, it has really simplified my preparation because all I'm doing now is taking last week's bulletin, which I call like a worship guide, and it's it's uh eight pages. So that's um only two sheets of eight and a half by eleven paper folded together um into half sheets. Um, and I just go through element by element, and I can you know sub in this week's scripture reading and prayer, and I I take a lot of time thinking about how all of that works together, you know, the songs and the readings and leading up to prepare people's hearts for the sermon uh and so forth, and try to make sure the whole service is work is working together.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah. So I have several questions I want to ask you. Uh before I do that, I'll just very quickly run through what our order looks like as well. Uh we begin with a call to worship. Uh, that is now I write that most weeks. Uh that will be anywhere from 100 to 300 words uh in length. Uh and then we go into to the liturgy of the word. And we do not read all of the passages for each week that you would find in the lectionary, but we will usually read at least two, sometimes three. And if I only have two, it's usually uh the psalm and the gospel uh reading. Uh, but I will almost always have the passage that I'm going to be preaching from as well. So that's if that's not from the gospel or from the psalm, then we'll have that as well. Uh so often we'll have um three uh uh passages that we're reading. And then we go into the uh invocation, and that's a a uh just an extemporaneous prayer that I end with the with the weekly collect, uh, which is a prayer uh from the Book of Common Prayer. And uh often in a high church setting, uh, when that collect is is read, it's of course it's printed, would be printed in the bulletin. We don't print it in the bulletin, but it would be printed in a uh bulletin at a high church liturgy, uh liturgical service. Uh they will only pray that prayer. Uh, not very often would they add anything extemporaneous to that. I I do. I begin the prayer with an extemporaneous prayer and then end with that collect. And that seems to, uh like I really I I enjoy that. I think uh it resonates with people. And then we go into congregational singing hymns and uh and then we follow hymns with a prayer of praise. And uh then from there, there's a little bit of a transition in the in the service, and that uh I uh one of the pastors will get up, uh share if there is an announcement that needs to be made, we try to keep that to a minimum. Uh but we we do that as we're preparing to take our offering. Uh we take our offering, there will either be an instrumental song or we'll have another congregational song or or even a special song during that time. After the offering, we'll have one more song, and then the sermon, and then we close with a benediction and uh with communion and benediction uh on the Sunday mornings that we serve communion. We serve communion either every Sunday, either Sunday morning or Sunday night, uh, one or the other. Uh so that's sort of a rundown. So let me ask you this. Uh first of all, you you uh call your Sunday bulletin a worship guide. Uh is that is that how people uh understand it?
SPEAKER_01So I have somewhere in there a reference to the worship guide, but I haven't like put that on the front yet. So I'm still calling it the bulletin because that's what they're used to, and then just occasionally referring it to the worship guide. So like anytime that I introduce a new term like that, I just start to just feed it in a little bit. And so I haven't really front-loaded that, but that's the way I'm trying to help people to start thinking about this as not primarily being um just informational, like a bulletin, but as an aid or a guide to engage us in worship.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, I would be very interested in hearing uh feedback that you get. Um, I, of course, have have been in church services. In fact, uh this summer visited a church and they have you know the full guide. And it's not it, it's it's even larger than an eight and a half and eleven folded, you know, as a book fold. Um, you know, it's a fairly large guide, but you're following through and you know pretty much has the whole liturgy written there. And uh so I do that for anyone that's participating in the service, uh, for the sound guys, for anyone who's going to need to know what's coming up next. I have not done that for everyone. And uh so far, the feedback I've gotten from the ones who do have it, uh media guys, you know, special singers, others who are going to be on the platform or participate somehow, uh, they actually like following along. Yeah. And and so uh, you know, there's a possibility we may expand that. Uh, but then I've also gotten some other helpful feedback from others uh that I've asked who do not get that bulletin every week. And I've said, hey, would it be helpful if I print out all the scriptures, like the whole text, so you're actually reading it while the reader's reading. And uh the feedback I've gotten from that from uh a few is they actually like the um the just listening to it. And there's something different that uh they're connecting with as they are just listening and not even seeing the words, they're just hearing. I try to be very intentional about the readers I choose. You know, these are good readers, they're they're capable readers, and they're not gonna read too fast, they're going to pronounce things carefully and correctly, and and uh really share the word of God in their reading, right? And so I think that was really helpful feedback uh for the reading of scripture. Now let me ask you this question again, um, or another question. Uh, do you you may have mentioned this, but do you begin with a what what's ordinarily called a call to worship?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let me actually walk through because I I don't think I did actually walk through.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you gave us several elements, but I don't think you gave us an order.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and and I'll do that, but also comment on what you said there. When I introduced this for the first time and said, hey, you know, the the text of the scripture reading is here, um, all this stuff is here. I said, if this is helpful for you, use it. If it's not, you can scrap it, right? This is it's a tool, it's a resource. Use it how it's helpful for you. So there's only a few places where I will say, you know, in your bulletins, read responsively this question or this, whatever. But most of it, a person doesn't have to depend on or use it. So it's up to up to them. Personally, I am not a great audible learner. So like just hearing the scriptures read, like I'm very easily distracted. It uh it really helps me to be able to follow along. The other thing is right now we are in a facility with terrible acoustics. And so even our best readers who are very clear, um, there's like echo, and sometimes it's hard to make out the words. So having the words to follow along is helpful for our context. But yeah, I agree. There is something about just listening to the word read that is beneficial. But yeah, so our bulletin is broke down into four parts. Uh, before service, and the second major heading is the service of the word. The third part is the service of communion, and the fourth part is after service. Okay. So in the before service section, we have a word to our visitors. You know, grab a hymnal. If you need a ESV Bible, there's one in the back, you know, welcome. There's contact cards on the back, you know, that kind of stuff. There is a section uh that's written to parents of young children. And I adapted this from a Presbyterian church, which adapted it from some other church and used by permission, but it's uh it's great. I love it. It says, uh, God gave children the vibrant energy that sometimes causes them to wiggle and make noise. They belong right here with God's family, where you have so faithfully brought them. Stick with it. Feel free to sit towards the front where it is easier for you and your little ones to see and hear what's going on. They tire of seeing the backs of others' heads. Quietly explain the parts of the service, sing the songs, and participate in the prayers and the responses. Children learn how to worship by watching you. If you need to leave the service with your child, please feel free to do so, but please come back. As Jesus said, let the little children come to me. And then there's a word to our members as well. Uh, to our members. Children are not a distraction. The sound of children in the church is the sound of Jesus keeping his promises. It is the sound of his church that lives on and never dies. Please welcome children and give a smile of encouragement to their parents. So we have uh that there. We have a word about preparing for worship. So encourage.
SPEAKER_03And that stays there, right? Like that's there every week.
SPEAKER_01Okay. That's an entire panel. The first whole page of the bullet is just, and then the final part at the bottom of the page is prepare your heart for worship. We want you to fellowship before the service, but it's also important to prepare your heart to worship the triune God. A few minutes before the service, please take your seat, relax in God's presence, listen to the prelude music, pray, and look over today's worship guide. So that's something I've really been trying to gently encourage our church towards because for a long time I just felt like people came in five minutes before the service, chatted, service started, and it was like a boom, we were into it. And so we're really trying to ease people in and get their hearts engaged. And then the last part of that is the announcements. Um, so someone will get up. Lately, I've been doing that before one of our elders, Dave, was doing that, and share the day's announcements. And that is not part of the service. You know, I have that clearly delineated. Announcements is not part of our worship, it's a it's a preliminary matter. And um, what I want to do is introduce something right here where um after announcements, after somebody up gets up and gives announcements, um, the elder encourages the congregation to take a moment to relax in God's presence. There is um a song played, like an instrumental number at that time where it just plays through like one or two verses of a hymn, and somebody gets up and lights the candles. So we always start our service with lighting candles as a symbol uh that when God's people are assembled in Christ's name for worship, the Jesus, the light of the world, is present with us in the service. Do you use do you use a single Christ candle or do you use two candles? Two candles, one on each side of the communion table. Yeah. Um, so that's that's something that I want to make more significant. But right now, we don't have a separate thing there. We just go right into the call of worship. Um, so yeah, call to worship is how we begin the service. And lately I've been doing um the same opening, and then I just change out the second half. So every week I say, brothers and sisters, we have gathered to worship the triune God. They respond, we have gathered to praise the Father who loves us. And then I say, We have gathered to exalt the Son who redeemed us by his blood, and then they say we have gathered to magnify the Spirit who unites us as one body in Christ. Because I'm really trying to stress that Christian worship is Trinitarian. Then from there, I have a few more verses that I'll draw from a passage. So, like this week, I'm preaching on John chapter four, where Jesus says, the hour is now coming, worship the Father and Spirit and truth. So I have there for our call to worship John 4, 23 to 24, and I will say the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshippers worshipers will worship the Father and Spirit and truth. They will say, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him, and then I'll say, God is spirit, and those who worship him are spirit worship and spirit and truth. Then we go into a psalm reading. And sometimes that's responsive, um, but often it's just reading a psalm from beginning to end, and then we always end that with the glory of potri. So a psalm and the glory of potri.
SPEAKER_03Uh so everything you just described is uh much of that is is permanent. It's it's the same each week, and then you make a few changes there. For instance, the psalm is not always going to be the same, but you you end that with the same, you're singing the glory of potri, you're responding. And when you read a psalm, is it always a psalm there? Yes. Okay. And when you do that responsively, are you just doing like line by line responsively or verse by verse?
SPEAKER_01Um so far we have done uh verse alternating verses, but I know it's pretty common to read in half verse, so it's shorter amount, which gets more back and forth and is a little nicer for reading. Sure.
SPEAKER_03And that's all printed, so everyone's seeing who is who is uh reading each part. Okay. What how much variation is there in your from week to week?
SPEAKER_01Um, so like right now with the call to worship, I said the the beginning part is the same, and that will be like that for a few weeks because I'm trying to emphasize something, but then we'll sub that out eventually for something different. Um, the psalm obviously changes every week. Um, the pastoral prayer is extemporaneous, and sometimes I'll draw language from the collect. For a while, I was just doing the collect, and I just sense like maybe our people weren't quite ready for just word for word. So um, I've just been kind of going back and forth with that. Congregational singing changes every week. Um, so the next thing we have is pastoral prayer, what you call the invocation. Um, we have congregational singing that changes every week. Uh, we have a scripture lesson that changes every week. And we always end that with um the reader says, This is the word of the Lord, and the congregation says, Thanks be to God. Uh, we have the offering and an offertory. Uh, we have congregational prayer. And I actually started including in our bulletin uh under congregational prayer, remember, like as you pray during congregational prayer today, remember acts, adoration, start by praising God for who he is, confession, confess your sins to God. Thanks, thank God for his blessing, supplication, make your request known to God, and then here are prayer requests for this week, and then a list of the needs for supplication, trying to encourage people. Um you read through that right now. One of our elders does the congregational prayer time. I'm not, I don't usually lead that. Um, so it's however the whoever's doing it does it kind of not everybody has it in the bulletin. Yeah. Sometimes they'll highlight a few things, you know. Usually they don't read through all of it, but it's it's there. Yeah. Okay. And then after congregational prayer is uh a children's sermon. So we have the children come up, and uh, this this last Sunday we had a ton of kids. It was awesome. And sometimes that children's sermon will be like a simplified uh version of what I'm gonna give to the adults. Like I'll highlight one point in the sermon and I'll give an illustration. But lately, uh lately we've been working through the fat cat book from Lexum Press on the Apostles' Creed for all God's children. And the kids love to try to find the fat cat and point it out, and I'll ask them questions, and I will often turn to the parents or grandparents, you know, during that time, and it's it's pretty interactive. Um, so people seem to really like that. And then I have a candy jar up front and I have the kids grab a piece of candy before they go back to their seat. And so while they are doing that, I quickly make my way back to the pulpit and I say, you know, while the kids are getting their candy, let's look in our bulletins to the catechism question of the week. And so every week before the sermon, because that's kind of the teaching primary focus teaching time of the of the service, um, we'll do responsively. I'll read a question, they'll read an answer. Um so, like for the last two weeks, we actually did the same question what is the gospel? And we have a banner stand at the front of our church with uh a one sentence somewhere. Of the gospel out of the catechism and uh really trying to stress that. Um, this week it's actually on the second commandment. So systematically, you know, we'll work through the whole thing. And um, I actually thought this week of doing a confessional statement. So occasionally, instead of a catechism question, we will read uh like one of the articles of religion. So, you know, what do we believe about the Lord's Supper? And then we'll respond the Lord's Supper is and just read it straight out of the articles of religion.
SPEAKER_03So how long is the children's sermon?
SPEAKER_01Very short. Uh five minutes, Max. Five minutes. Okay. Yep. The kids come up pretty quick, they don't dawdle around. Um I talk to them, say a couple things to them. We read a page out of the the book. So they're coming up to the front.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01They're sitting on the front seats or on the floor on the floor in a semicircle around me.
SPEAKER_03Okay. And are you sitting?
SPEAKER_01No, I stand and I'll like lean down to them or whatever. Right now with our facilities, it's not very convenient. It was a lot easier where we were at before. Um, so there's not a whole lot of lot of options right now where we're at.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so at a later date in another episode, uh, I I want to come back around and talk about children and the Sunday service. Uh, I think there are probably several uh questions that we uh want to raise on that. Uh let me ask you this question. Uh, how many people are involved in leading the Sunday service generally?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay, that's a great question. Um, and I'd like to I'd like to hear the same thing. I'd be curious in your case. Um, I know you have a lot of people involved. So let me just go back to the beginning here. Um the announcements, uh, I've been doing them lately because we haven't had many, but before we had an elder do that, so that was one person. Um I do the call to worship and the psalm reading, um, congregational singing, that's a second person. Um, and then we have a little orchestra. Uh, the scripture reading, that's a third, that's somebody different that does the scripture reading, uh, the scripture lesson. Um, for offering, a different elder gets up. So someone other than me, and so that's another person. Uh, usually that same elder then leads in congregational prayer, but not always. Okay. So uh, like two weeks ago, I think it was, we actually had a layperson uh lead congregational prayer. Um, I do the children's sermon and then the uh catechism question and then the actual sermon uh usually, although I've been talking to my other elders about preaching from time to time, and so we're trying to get them plugged in so it's not always me preaching. Um and then with communion, I have uh somebody assist me with communion, which right now isn't is an elder, but eventually we'll probably be a deacon sometimes, uh-huh, and maybe more than one deacon. Sure. And then we have a couple people who can't come forward, and so we have another person that's appointed that every week that's their job is to take communion to that person and to our piano player. Um, so yeah, we have quite a few people involved throughout the service. So you know what? I haven't even mentioned mentioned special music. Um so like this week, I haven't even added that in. We didn't have somebody last week, so it wasn't in the bulletin. So I forgot about it. But this week we have a special song, so that will go in um right before the children's sermon.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, okay. So so you have as far as people who have a speaking role in the in the service, uh, you'll have uh it sounds like you'll have, if I counted the different people, uh four, maybe five different people who are in some sort of uh speaking role, not just an instrumentalist, but someone who is leading in something. Does that sound correct? Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and I would say that's that's pretty similar to what we have. I usually like for someone else to do the scripture reading. Occasionally I will, uh, but I like for someone else to do that. Um, of course, you know, I'm not leading the music, someone else is doing that. Um someone else will usually uh pray the prayer of praise. I I will usually pray the the opening prayer or the pastoral prayer or the collect. And then someone else will pray the later prayer of praise. And and then we also uh for for our offering, which is sort of the middle of the service, uh, I will write a little liturgy there as well. So I always have a scripture, a short scripture for that, and like a single sentence line uh to add to that. And then I end with um the same way every every week uh I will end with uh the words um let me look at them now. Uh let us rejoice in what we have been given and what is ours to give, and and then pray for the offering. Um we will sometimes have uh more often recently, I will have an interlude between the um scripture and the uh prayer. Uh so we will start off a call to worship scripture and then have a little bit of music, just instrumental music, and then go into prayer right from there and then congregational singing. So it sounds like in in your case as well as mine and a lot of services I've experienced that uh we're really emphasizing uh what I know David Hartkoff has called dialogical worship, where there is a there's the the congregation's very involved. And I know I've been in services uh typically in more modern settings where the congregation really is not involved at all. Uh there, in fact, you wouldn't even know there's a congregation there unless the lights were turned up. Um I'm not against having lights up or down or whatever. That doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is is the congregation involved? Are they active worshipers or are they passive? And sounds like you have a good balance between the active and the passive uh experience in that worship service. And uh sometimes we need to get David Harkoff on here to talk to us about dialogical worship.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I actually uh two or three weeks, I guess that'd be two weeks ago. Seems like it was longer than that. But uh September 3rd for the call to worship, uh, I I did I wrote something that was inspired by David Harkoff's uh emphasis on dialical nature of Christian worship. So it was the same thing that I read earlier. You know, we've gathered to worship the triune God, praise the Father, exalt the Son, magnify the Spirit. And then I said, We gather because Christian worship is not a matter between me and God alone. The people responded, Worship is a conversation between God and his people. God speaks to us through the reading of his word, the preaching of his word, and the words of institution at the Lord's Supper. The church speaks back by lifting our voices as one in prayer, song, and confession of faith. This morning, don't be an observer, be a participant, and then the people respond. We will join in the conversation with our whole heart, and then listen as we let God's word be the first word in the conversation, hear the word of the Lord in Psalm 19. And that was the Psalm reading for that morning.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, one thing that I is a little bit different, what that that I do is rather than having a uh uh reading and response uh in regard to the catechism, I will often use a the question and answer in my call to worship. Uh I will find uh if there's one that just fits with what uh either the theme is or the with the scriptures or just the idea I have for the call. Uh so I did that actually uh September 3rd. Um I had a line from the from the first question from the New Methodist Catechism. Uh and that was a fairly short call to worship. Um yeah, I'm looking at, yeah, I I pulled out some of our bulletins here. Uh we actually have we have our own um uh designed uh bulletin, we still call it the bulletin. Every week is a different color. So I I think we have like six different colors that we so so you I I know at a glance that okay, this week is the blue. So if I have a green one in my Bible, I know I'm on I'm on the wrong page. I got good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um because these do typically stay on my Bible for a week or two at a time, and then I stick them in my draw. I I keep all of them. Uh but um uh again, what I do is I will I will add this extra, these extra pages into the bulletin of those who are going to get the entire service. And and so they can they can follow along here.
SPEAKER_01Now I know at your church you have the overlay for the liturgical season, and you also have you have like banners on the wall that are hung that match the color. So in our current facility, we have an overlay, but that's it. So one of the things that I'm doing is our bulletin has running, you know, from the cover all through the bulletin, like the headings, it has the green color for ordinary season. And then when we get over to Christmas, it'll switch to gold, you know, Advent, uh, it'll be per what is it, purple, Pentecost, it'll be red. So the color will coordinate with the overlay to try to help uh because we don't have as many things in our building right now to kind of set the tone.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And we don't have every color of banner. We have uh red and we have the green, and uh don't think we have the purple and we don't have white. So we'll use uh so so on on those days for like Christmas, gold or white, um, Epiphany, you know, gold or white, and then and then the epiphany season is uh typically purple. Um you know, so on those special days, uh ordinarily white is is used unless it's unless you have gold. Um what we do for that as far as telling people where we are in the Christian calendar, we put that at the top, the inside page. Now you're on video, so our listeners can't see what I'm showing you. But on the inside page of our bulletin, we'll have the of course the name of the church, uh, the date. So this bulletin's September 10th, and then under that in italic smaller letters, 15th Sunday after Pentecost. Um or it could be ordinary time, whatever people want to, uh you know, whatever we want to put. Uh and so that kind of lets people know where we are. Of course, to most people that doesn't mean a whole lot uh until we get to Advent, right? Until we get to those Sundays where you have more frequent change. Uh so that's uh that's meaningful to me and lets people know where we are.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, on the front of our bulletin, I think I said earlier that I I got away from from reading the entire collect word for word every week. Yeah. Um, but I do have it on the very front page of the bulletin. So on our collect page, I have redeem welcome to Redeemer Wesleyan Church, Sunday, September 24th, 2023. And then I have the collect, and then underneath it says uh collect for the 16th Sunday after Trinity. So I'm I'm following the Sunday service. So he bases it, and that's from the 1662 BCP in reference to Trinity rather than Pentecost, but you know, same basic deal there. And so it's not front and center, but it does kind of cue people into where we're at in the the season.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, let's talk about the colic for just a second. So uh number one, um every pastor, if you have access to you know bcponline.org, you can find the colic for the coming Sunday. The way it's set up is it we'll say, you know, this is for the Sunday closest to you know September 20th or whatever might be. And so I think uh this week uh I just copied and pasted it into the uh liturgy. Uh so this is going to be the Sunday closest to the 21st, correct? Yeah, so I think it's proper 20. Uh, but let me, this is just the one from uh a few Sundays ago. The the thing I like about the colic is uh you're getting a a fresh prayer every week. And I I don't know, maybe other people are more creative than I am, but I tend to when I just pray extemporaneous extemporaneously, I tend to go into some of the same exact language, repeat some of the same things week after week after week. That's not bad. Uh but uh I I extemporaneous prayers do not tend to be very well thought out by definition. Uh the collect I think is uh it's very intentional, it's short, but very meaningful. So let me just read this one. It again it's short. Uh grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts. For as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast in your mercy through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. So it's a short prayer, but just really meaningful and very intentional. And those are uh you know, there's language there straight from scripture. Uh it's not language I would just typically use automatically if I'm just gonna pray extemporaneously. And so I actually had a um an older Baptist couple who uh attended our church, and uh they actually complimented a meeting, so we really appreciate your prayers. Like they're like they're they're like not the normal prayers that we are used to hearing in church, like they're really they're really meaningful. And uh so so that that helped me to know that hey, people are are noticing that uh these words are meaningful to them. So that that's I appreciate that. I'm glad to know that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so a word for pastors of churches like mine. Uh, if you're pastoring a church that is not used to written prayers, the number one thing that I would say is to read them slowly. I I learned that the hard way. It took me a while to learn that. So every week at the Lord's Supper, which I don't even think we got there yet in my service outline, but after the sermon, uh I have a I have my main points of my sermon in the bulletin. Um, and then I tell them where they can get my sermon notes at in the back on the handout rack. But then we have the service of communion. And in the service of the communion, we always have at least one lengthy written prayer, the prayer of consecration. And often um we have another written prayer, a prayer of confession from John Wesley's Sunday service. And those are long, and they have phrase upon phrase upon phrase upon phrase. I like to say they heap up phrases. And when you when you have that many words, it just gets overwhelming. And if you read it and there's these hard words, so um let me see here. There's this one place uh in the prayer of consecration. Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly ask you, and grant that we receiving these creatures of bread and wine, according to the holy institution of your son, our Savior Jesus Christ, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of the most blessed body blood. I mean, it's just like on and on and on. So, I mean, I have just slowed down and I have just prayed it from the heart, and I'll say, Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly ask you, and grant that we receiving these creatures of bread and wine according to the holy institution of your son. I mean, I will really slow down. And you abbreviate that prayer as well.
SPEAKER_03What's that? And will you abbreviate that prayer as well, or will you okay, you'll pray the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that is so that is like the one thing in the service that I will not change. I feel like the prayer it I feel pretty comfortable kind of tinkering with uh the other elements of the communion liturgy, but I feel like that prayer of consecration is so important because it's it contains the words of institution and it's like one of the clearest presentations of the gospel. So it's that that's like the one thing that I feel like if I'm not gonna do anything else at communion, I'm gonna pray a prayer of consecration and distribute the elements. Um that's that's where you read, this is my body. Um, and I'll put my hands over the elements when I say you know those words of institution, because for Protestants, it's that word of promise united with the element in the context of the covenant assembly that makes it a sacrament. Um and then the prayer of confession, that I will um sometimes adapt. So it says, this is Wesley's prayer, but it says, Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men, we acknowledge and lament our many sins and wickedness, which we have from time to time most grievously committed by thought, word, and deed against your divine majesty, provoking most justly your wrath and indignation against us. So sometimes in there I will say, Um, forgive us for, and I'll start with whatever I just talked about. So last Sunday in the sermon was about John the Baptist and how the Pharisees tried to provoke him to jealousy over Jesus' uh ministry, baptizing more disciples than him. So I will say, you know, Lord, forgive us for any jealousy, resentment, you know, ungodly comparing of ourselves among ourselves, um, whatever. So it ties it back to the sermon. And then I'll just go from there and I'll just touch on any number of sins, lust, anger, greed, uh, and just go down the line. And I'll go really slow. The other thing I do is I'll have some time of silence there, where I'll tell people to just, you know, with the music playing in the background, to just search their hearts quietly in God's presence and have a moment of silent confession. And then I will read the general confession. On Sundays, on Sundays where I feel like uh maybe I preached a little longer or whatever, um, sometimes instead of the prayer of confession, we will have the Lord's Prayer, which says, Right, forgive us our trespasses, and then we'll just go prayer of consecration, distribute the elements. Um, so that's kind of my abbreviated service. But if we have time, we will do the prayer of confession and then we'll have the Lord's Prayer after the distribution of the elements.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I'll often use the Lord's Prayer as our prayer of confession. Uh, and then if not, I'll use the um the uh common liturgical prayer. Uh I know it as the prayer from the cloud of unknowing, um, but that ancient prayer that's included in the BCP. Um okay, uh, let's as we wrap this part up, because I think we'll come back in a different episode and we'll actually talk about our preparation uh for this, what that looks like as we uh go into each Sunday. Uh today we've kind of summarized what our actual service looks like. But let me ask you this question about the Sunday service. Uh, ours is about an hour and 15, hour and 30 minutes long. What's what's your service look like lengthwise?
SPEAKER_01Same thing. Um, so we start at 10 and we're usually done by about 11:15 to 1125. It's pretty rare that we go to 11:30. I will say that recently here we have started Sunday school back up. And so I have been giving them a 10-minute break, and we have had almost as many people in Sunday school as main church, which is awesome. And so there's only been a few people come in just for service. So we've been starting late. We've been starting at maybe 10 10. So we've been running till maybe 11 30 to 11 40. But yeah, it it's it's not that long. And that's the thing that I shared this actually with somebody um a little while ago, and they're like, How long are your services? Like, that's a lot of stuff. And I said, you know, it's amazing how much you can do when you plan and you don't have all the chattiness that David Hartkoff talks about.
SPEAKER_03That is true. That is very true.
SPEAKER_01And like, we don't, you know, we're not messing around. Like while the kids are getting their candy, we're not just all sitting there, you know, like a bump on the log. Like, I'm moving. Like, okay, catechism question. Like, you know, and we'll build in times that are slower or more reflective or times of silence and stuff. And if the spirit moves and and you know, we have testimonies and whatever, that's great. Um, sometimes on a whim, I've said, hey, let's skip the catechism question this week because we had some extra testimonies. So I am not like inflexible, we've got to get through everything every week. There's something That I think are more important than others. But it does give us a guide to make sure every week is meaningful, even if every week there isn't a lot of more spontaneous um movements.
SPEAKER_03So it's dialogical, but it's it's intentional, it's planned, it's organized, it's directed dialogue and worship um among the congregants, uh, with with the Lord. And uh and then you are uh and then you're you're preaching, and then you are also going back to participation when you're taking when you're uh offering communion, you're going back to congregation participation. How long do you preach on average? Honestly, all right, don't give us the you know 10 minute, 15 minute thing. Like really, are you preaching, are you preaching 30 minutes? Are you preaching 20 minutes?
SPEAKER_01You know, it it varies a lot week by week. And I so I recorded my sermons for a year, so I have a pretty good idea of length.
SPEAKER_03Okay, what's that look like?
SPEAKER_01And um, and and it like if I know, like this week, I know my sermon is gonna be longer because I'm covering the woman at the well. Okay, and the scripture reading alone is 42 verses, right? Right, right. So that that sermon will probably be uh 35 minutes.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01And I plan for that. We only have two congregational songs instead of three. Um, and I'm gonna intentionally keep certain things shorter than I normally would. Um so I would say a longer sermon would be 35 minutes, maybe 40 minutes. Okay. If uh I really sometimes if I get off notes and I really feel like the Lord's helping me, I'll I'll just kind of have freedom to go a little longer. And people usually respect that and are fine to get out a few minutes later. Um, but I would say on average lately it's been more like 25 minutes. Okay. Okay, that's good.
SPEAKER_03I would say my um over over the course of my preaching uh ministry, I would say I was typically 40, 45 minutes. Now I've consciously uh reduced that to about 30. I think I was even at 20 between 20 and 25 a couple weeks ago. Um I'm trying to, I'm actually trying to I'm aiming now for that uh twenty to thirty minute. You know, it kind of it will vary from week to week. 20 to 30 minutes is really what I'm aiming for now.
SPEAKER_01Let me share something in case this is helpful that has helped me tremendously in shortening my sermons. Um I always felt like I have so much material, and I like there's so many things that I want to say, and I'm I'm on the fence about certain things, whether or not to include them. And um, I started doing something where um my first step of my sermon prep, after I've read the passage and prayed and you know, gotten into the study, is I take the full sermon text. So this week it's 42 verses, I copy paste it into a doc, a Google Doc, and I break that text down into lines, many lines, either a whole verse or a phrase or a word. And I go through that, and as I'm reading my commentaries, I distill my notes and my thoughts into that document so that when I'm done, I have about a four-page document that's like a study Bible, basically, or an abbreviated commentary with all my thoughts on that passage. I have been printing that out and putting that on the handout rack in the back of the church for anybody that wants to do deeper study. And it has alleviated me tremendously because this past week, uh, this past week, there was something I really wanted to say, but I knew it was gonna take a while. And I just put it in that document and told people about it. And those who are really learning and growing and want to know more are gonna go read that. So it's like the best of both worlds, and it allows me to really focus on what is the main thing, what is the main point, and then just driving that home in my preaching.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's great. And you can use that. I I've done something similar. Uh, you can use that then for your sermon-based midweek small groups, right? That becomes their handout. You know, hey, let's go, let's let's dive in a little bit deeper. The pastor has prepared these notes. Uh, I would, I would always have three or four inductive, uh not necessarily inductive, uh, some inductive, but some just discussion questions, application questions for discussion. And uh it's be it's a beautiful way to to study, to dive in yourself so that you're growing, but also it's not wasted in the sense that uh you know you're you're studying not just for yourself, but to help, you know, direct others as well. And if if uh if our listeners, if they happen to be a small group leader or have a small group ministry, or even if they're doing one-on-one discipleship, hey, pull that sermon, you know, those sermon notes out and go over that with your with your disciple. Uh, that's a great, great tool, great idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I have reflection questions at the end. So, like this last week on John the Baptist, one of my questions was uh the Jews tried to provoke John to jealousy by pointing to Jesus' larger crowds. Do you ever feel jealous because of someone else's success? Why was John able to take joy in Christ's success? How can it help you to avoid jealousy and celebrate the success of other Christians and churches? So, right now we aren't using those in our Wednesday Night Small Group because we're reading through the Bible, a Bible reading plan, but that's a great idea that maybe next year even we could do some of that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. So in the show notes here, we will try to link, um, upload some samples of our what we're using on Sunday of our respective bulletins, worship guides. And I know I have learned from looking at other people's materials. Uh, I absolutely encourage and welcome anyone out there who uh you have something you feel like is worth sharing, please do it. Uh I'm always looking for you know how can we just really make the most of our short time of gathering each week? Uh, how can we make the most of that? So open to that, but we'll share that in the uh in the show notes here to this episode. And we'll come back uh later time and and pick up some of these other questions as well. So I think it's been very helpful. Uh thanks for sharing your uh Sunday service with us. Do you have any concluding uh remarks you want to make?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just a quick PS because I I didn't uh mention a few things there towards the very end. We do say the Nicene Creed every week after the sermon. So I go over to the Lord's table, they stand, and we say the Nicene Creed. And then also we end with the doxology, singing the doxology, and a benediction. But then the fourth and final section of the bulletin is the after service section. And I've actually been investing more and more in this. So I have a few instructions like, you know, feel free to stay around for fellowship, drink coffee. You know, we have coffee there, we usually have breakfast goods, donuts, whatever. Stay as long as you want. I also have in here think about who you can serve or bless. So I have, for example, if someone requested prayer during the service for a discouraging situation, invite them to grab coffee or lunch this week or invite them over to your family dinner. Like do that right now before they leave, or it'll never happen. And then I have, you know, make plans to attend a small group. Then I also have reflection questions from today's sermon, um, which are from those study notes, but they're also in the bulletin. And then I have an instruction to read next week's sermon passage. So I tell them what the text will be for the following week so that they can do that in advance. And then we have this week's Bible reading plan. So this week, here's the the text from our one-year plan. If you want to stay caught up and join us to discuss it on Wednesday nights. So I'm trying to emphasize that um Sunday is not just like one aspect of the Christian life, but it's like the the reference point from which everything else is lived. Like our whole life flows into that and out of that time of corporate gathering. Right, right.
SPEAKER_03Good. Wonderful. Well, thanks for sharing. I think that's uh really insightful, and uh, we will revisit some of the elements of that uh as well, especially as we uh talk about, uh continue to talk about the dialogical nature of worship and uh how what a kid's experience might be as well in this uh in this liturgy.
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