Call to Worship

Part 3 of our series Worship Service Vision

Call to Worship – Excerpts from Bryan Chapell’s book, Christ-Centered Worship

· “The Call to Worship exhorts God’s people to turn from worldly distractions and to focus hearts, minds, and actions on revering him.”[1]

· “We do not invite [God] to be present. He invites us to “come before him” (Psalm 100:2). [Ps 100:2 Serve the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.} God calls us from all other preoccupations to join the people he has redeemed in recognition, praise, and service of his omnipresent glory.”[2]

· The Call to Worship is not simply [thing we do to begin the worship service, or to be to serve as a nice greeting] but is at once a weighty responsibility and a joyful privilege. The worship leader issues God’s invitation to join the heavenly [host] that already and always praises him. [3]

· “This awesome news and great privilege should be reflected with appropriate enthusiasm and joy …. Such a call will typically lead directly into a [singing together] as God’s people respond to the blessings of worship into which they are called. A well-planned Call to Worship often reflects the theme of the service or the nature of the occasion so that the remaining elements of the service are a natural outflow of, and response to, the content of the call.”[4]

· If the text itself does not have this imperative aspect …the worship leader should provide a word or phrase that instructs God’s people how to respond to the text cited. An added phrase as simple as, “In light of what God has told us about his love, let us worship him,”[5]

· By a scriptural Call to Worship we understand that God welcomes us to his presence and invites us to participate in his purposes. Though we are weak, he is welcoming; though our [sins] are great, he remains inviting. The Call to Worship [lifts up praise to God, declaring how is worthy of all praise, and should comforting to us that even though we are unworthy on our own, in Christ, we are made holy and invited into the throne room of God] We can come to him; he wants us, and he delights in our praise. All this reminds us that God has established our relationship with him by his grace and—far from releasing us from all holy obligations—that grace now compels our response of worship.[6]

Psalms 100:1 Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the LORD! Psalms 100:2 Serve the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Psalms 100:3 Acknowledge that the LORD is God. He made us, and we are his— his people, the sheep of his pasture. Psalms 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. Psalms 100:5 For the LORD is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations.

[1] Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 159. [2] Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 160. [3] Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 160. [4] Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 160. [5] Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 161. [6] Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 162.