The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Regulative principle

I think worship is a corporate experience where God's people come together before the face of God to receive a word from Him and to respond. God can speak through songs, proclamation, reading of scripture. and various liturgical moments such as the assurance of pardon, call to confession, and the reading of the law. The people respond through prayers, songs, litanies, confessions, professions of faith, offerings of themselves and of talents and gifts. I also think fellowship should occur in a worship context.

If we pay attention to the biblical models of worship and biblical prescriptions of worship, we do as scripture says in Acts 2: "They devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching, the breaking of bread, the fellowship, and the prayers."

When we say they devoted themselves to fellowship, that wasn't just exchanging handshakes and hugs and waving at each other in the congregation; it was far more substantial. People had a sense of responsibility for one another. This came together in worship.

Another part of worship was "the prayers." For the early church, I take "the prayers" to mean that there was already a collection of prayers that came from the apostles, from Jesus, from the prophets, the Psalms, and from people like David and Moses. Today in individual or small group worship, we break into spontaneous prayers, and say whatever is on our minds and whatever is in our thoughts. That is fine, it's personal. In more formal, corporate worship contexts, some have a time of prayer requests. People say "My Aunt Minnie's got cancer, my Uncle Charlie's in the hospital, or this person is unemployed." The preacher then prays for that. But that likely isn't what was going on in the book of Acts.

Was it more than that? Absolutely. I think it was the collection, the reading, the sharing, the collective memory of God's people, of the prayers they had received from the apostles and the prophets. In other words, they were sharing scriptural prayers with each other. What I have seen happen in prayer in worship contexts in evangelical churches, in which I would include the CRC, is that prayer has become largely petitionary, largely intercessory, largely need-based, and largely spontaneously-offered and collected. Not a lot of attention is given to memorized scriptures and prayers of the saints; and that is where I think the liturgical churches have a much better handle on prayer than we do.