Worshiping as a church: God centered from the start (Fourth in a series)

The worship of God begins with God. He has revealed Himself to us. He has revealed how we are to worship Him. He has invited us to worship Him. So, we begin our worship as a church focused on Him.

Revelation and response form the flow of corporate worship. Others have made that observation, and I agree with it. God has revealed Himself to us in His Word. The Bible is how we know who God is, what He is like and what He has done. We respond to this revelation with worship. We praise Him for who He has revealed Himself to be. We thank Him for what He has revealed Himself to have done. We petition Him on the basis of who He has revealed Himself to be and what He has revealed Himself to have done and to still be able to do. We humble ourselves before Him in confession of sin and submission because He has revealed Himself to be far beyond us, far different than we are by nature.

As a result, a church’s Sunday gathering calls for us to be quickly confronted with this God we have come to worship. It is a blessed thing to be reminded as a body of believers in the first hours of wakefulness on the first morning of the first day of a new week there is one true God -- and He should have all our worship.

How does this aspect of corporate worship manifest itself? I believe there is no single correct way to do this. Here is typically how we do it as Covenant Community Church:

We begin with a song that acts as preparation for worship, invitation to worship and/or presentation of the God we will worship.

The worship leader follows by welcoming those who have gathered and seeking to help us focus on our purpose in coming together. He prays to the God we have come to worship, declaring His greatness and asking for His gracious work among us. Before or after the prayer, the worship leader, or the congregation, reads a passage about this unmatched God’s attributes or works that reminds all of us whom we have come to worship.

In these ways, we seek to give God His rightful place at the beginning of corporate worship. We are to be God centered from the start.