20 Thoughts On Worship Services
January 5, 2010Donald Whitney has many good things to say in his two articles: Ten ways to improve your worship service and Ten more ways to improve your worship service. His main points are…
- Focus on God in every element in worship.
- Have clear Biblical support for every element in worship.
- “Offer to God an acceptable service [i.e., worship] in reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28).
- Preach expositionally.
- “Give attention to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Timothy 4:13).
- Pray!
- Transition smoothly between elements of worship.
- Do as much as possible congregationally.
- Have congregational singing with musical accompaniment, not music with congregational accompaniment.
- Evaluate your worship service each week with several leaders.
- Plan worship only for people who can worship.
- Keep technology on a leash.
- Move the announcements, welcome, and time of greeting to the beginning or the end of the service.
- Prepare the congregation for worship.
- Construct a call to worship.
- Introduce new music wisely.
- Don’t hide the ordinances.
- Use confessional material.
- Lead in the corporate confession of sins.
- Scripturalize routine prayers.
unashamed 
Thanks for these. There are some great guidelines here. Not sure about #13 though. It seems to me that announcements and report-backs were an integral part of NT Christian gatherings. Is the suggestion to move them to the beginning or the end so that they don’t distract from and break into the “worship” of God? Or perhaps so that they don’t mess with the “flow” of the gathering? If so, doesn’t that misunderstand the nature of worship and border on a kind of mysticism?