Service Structure

One thing a lot of people notice after attending their first service or two at Remedy is the order and structure of our service. Most church services are as follows:

1. Worship through singing (4-5 songs)

2. Worship through giving

3. Preaching

4. Depending on the church there may be a song or two.

While there is nothing wrong with this typical church service order, when we started thinking about how our services would look at Remedy, we decided to tweak a few things. The questions needing to be answered were: Why does the church gather? What is God’s purpose when his people come together? Biblically, what needs to be present and what needs to be absent from a service? Historically, how have churches organized services?

Phud and I talked, prayed, read and took advice from godly men and, through a little bit of trial and error, came up with the service order you will typically find at one of our services. There is one passage of Scripture  in particular of which I am constantly reminded and by which we try to format our gatherings. Ecclesiastes 5: 1-2 says,

“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few.”

Here is a typical service at Remedy along with some reasons why we do what we do:

1. Greeting/Announcements. This is used to welcome the church into a gathering, giving valuable information regarding the life or Remedy Church or pointing to where that information can be found, and is especially good for those nonbelievers who attend to find out exactly who we are as a church and what to expect throughout the service.

2. Song . We typically play only one song here. The implications of having one song to begin a service instead of the typical four or five are many. First, it reminds the people that we should not be quick to speak before a holy God. There is an infinite difference between us and God. Though we are redeemed and made righteous through Jesus, as long as we live on earth we will wage war with sin. Therefore, as we come before God we want to acknowledge our tendency to give in to the flesh and our utter need for his Spirit to renew our minds and direct us to Jesus, to his cross where we find restoration, love, and forgiveness. That is why this song is usually called a song of repentance and confession. By either singing about our waywardness or God’s holiness we are reminded again of the difference. He is a holy God. We are sinful man. This is how a Christian’s relationship with God should always be recognized. This is also a teaching moment for the people. This is how prayer should look in our lives. Jesus said in Matthew 6:9,

“Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

Look at the two things he says to us to first pray. God is in heaven and holy is his name. A church service could be viewed as a prayer. We talk to God, he talks to us, and we respond.

3. Preaching. After coming before God in prayerful humility and repentance, rejoicing in our salvation through Jesus and recognizing his absolute purity and holiness, we want to hear what he has to say to us. We do not want to continue in saying much of anything to him. Hebrews 1:1-2 says,

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”

God used to speak to his people through prophets but has now providentially ordained that we be spoken to through Jesus, who is the word (John 1). God HAS spoken. And his word is living and active, cutting to our very core (Hebrews 4:12). If we believe this, then God’s word is sufficient. In every way God’s word is sufficient and reveals to us Jesus. It shows us our sin and our need for Jesus. We are only commissioned to preach his word in its fullness and pray for the Holy Spirit to work in the hearts of the hearers. Thus, Remedy Church has exegetical preaching, going through the Bible word by word, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and book by book. With open hearts softened by the Holy Spirit and humbleness as we have realized God’s holiness, we receive from God truth to cut to our core and shape us. Then and only then are we fit to respond.

4. Response. The rest of our service is a time of worship. We are responding to Jesus as revealed in the preached word of God through singing, giving, prayer, and communion. These are all biblically ordained responses in which we as a church can glorify Jesus Christ! We sing songs of praise to him because he is worthy and has saved us and loved us first (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16). We want giving to be seen for what it is: an act of worship. For this reason we give our money along amidst the other acts of worship present in our service. We give to the church as an act of obedience and because we count our possessions as not our own but Christ’s, to whom all things belong (2 Corinthians 9:6-7). We pray with one another and for one another, for our church, our city, and the nations to know Jesus (James 5:13-16). Once a month we take the bread and juice as an act of remembrance. They represent Christ’s broken body and spilled blood by which our entire service is even possible (Colossians 1:15-23, 1 Corinthians 11:17-32). For believers this is worship. For nonbelievers this is a time to watch God’s people and meditate on the truth of the Gospel which has just been presented clearly to them. If the Holy Spirit convicts their hearts, they can spend this time praying, repenting, and confessing Christ.

5. Sending. With this we send the body of Christ out to love, serve, and share Jesus with a lost and dying world. Each week we pray for a people group. A website, www.joshuaproject.net, presents a different unreached people group each day and we want to take time to pray one of these groups corporately each week. There are THOUSANDS of unreached people groups adding up to billions of people in the world who don’t know Christ. As the church we want to pray for the nations to hear about Christ! We then sing and are sent as a church to go out to give of our time, money, and energy to further the Gospel and spread the kingdom of our coming Savior.

It is all about Jesus, because of Jesus, for Jesus, through Jesus, and by Jesus that we gather and worship. We have striven to format our services around him in a way that honors God’s word, encourages his people, and glorifies Jesus above all.

-Cam