At its most basic worship is meeting with God. The flesh does not know how to do this anymore. It is only the Holy Spirit, on the foundation of Christ’s sacrifice, and the word that God has given which provides a way to the Father. The Scriptures, the word that God gives us, also gives us the elements that should be part of this worship. Worship is simple; It is teaching, prayer, eating bread, and drinking wine.
We read of these elements in Acts 2:42, immediately after Christ has sent out his Holy Spirit, the initial formation of his church. “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” The purpose of this passage is to show the dedication of the new Christians to the newly formed church of Jesus Christ. God did not give this passage as an outline for worship.
But this passage does help us identify what acts are most important in the worship of the church. We see a simple summary of what goes on in the worship of the early church: “teaching, breaking of bread, and prayers.” We have a fourth concept here too, “the fellowship.” The fellowship is not so much an element of worship but designates the fact that the new converts were continually coming together to spend time together in community with both God and one another. It is that “meeting with God,” which we have already mentioned.
For our purpose, though, we will focus on the elements of worship. We assume that you want to come to worship God regularly.
Scripture distinguishes these elements of worship. However, they cannot be separated. Properly, our devotion is manifested as a configuration of all of these elements. To say it with greater simplicity: the elements come as one package. They form a single sacrifice of praise before the Lord. This reality suggests that element may not even be the best word to describe these things; the word “elements” suggest the possibility of isolating parts from the whole. However, for our purposes, the concept is useful.
The first element in our passage is the Apostles’ teaching. The Apostles were sharing and reflecting upon Christ’s words and works before the first Christian congregation. They would later write down this teaching in the gospels. God calls us to continue to reflect on the Apostles’ witness to Christ. Christ did not physically write any part of the Bible. It was the Apostles who wrote down the events of Christ’s life and further reflection upon those events. We continue to teach and apply that teaching without adding anything to God’s revelation, for Christ is the final word. This is the first and most important part of worship; the preaching of the Word.
We devote ourselves to the Apostles’ teaching by seeking to understand the whole Bible in light of what God is doing in Christ. Notice the word “devote” in Acts 2:42. As a church, we are called to devote ourselves, mind, heart, and soul to the teachings of the Word of God.
We next see a reference to the breaking of bread. In light of how this “breaking of bread” is often connected with the church’s worship, we can guess that this a reference to the Lord’s Supper. It could merely refer to eating together, but this is highly unlikely. For this guess is strengthened by the observation that the church would not have automatically used titles like “Lord’s Supper or Eucharist.” The phrase “breaking of bread” fits very well with the language used at the institution of the Lord’s Supper. It would have been an easy shorthand for Luke to use and expressive of the broader fellowship it signified among the body of Christ as well. When we consider these things and the importance placed on the practice of the Lord’s Supper right from the beginning of the church, we are justified in seeing this as a reference to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Finally, we see a reference to the prayers. The definite article “the,” as in “the prayers,” suggests that these are more than just prayer generally speaking. Most likely, this refers to the Psalms, the book of prayers. The Psalms were a regular part of Jewish worship and would become a regular part of Christian worship. “The prayers” would also include other written prayers that were a regular part of Jewish worship, as well is unwritten prayers. The practice of praying closely connects to the practice of singing. We know that the Jewish people sang the Psalms. They sang their prayers. There were choirs among the Levites and they sang the Psalms as part of worship. We know from Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 that singing was a vital part of worship as well. What is more likely than that these early Christians were singing the Psalms?
We promised to keep it simple. Here’s the simple part. How do we worship God? We take the opportunity to read his word and to explain it. This practice should not be complicated. In many churches throughout history, this was done through the pastor sitting or standing in front of the congregation and going through a portion of scripture verse by verse. The Lord’s Supper is also part of worship. Everybody sit down. Pray over the bread. Pass it out. Pray over the wine. Pass it out. Use the words of institution that Christ gave in scripture. Finally, pray. Pray with written and unwritten prayers. Use speech and song. Use the Psalms. They are God’s prayer book. Allow that to form your selection of hymns; and your hymn-writing.
(I would add that there is an underlying order to worship that God calls us to observe as well, but that is an argument for another blog-post)
Now, I will be the first to admit the importance of many other questions. About what type of music might be better, what might be the better way of preaching, how we ought to order our prayers, and to what degree tradition should affect these choices. Fundamentally, if a church has these identifiable elements in its worship and does not seek to hide them or cover them up, I willingly accept that church as a legitimate church. It is a church that I spiritually worship with at Mt. Zion. It doesn’t matter if they choose to have electric guitars, rap elements, preachers that tell a lot of jokes, whether they look more or less disorganized, whether they have choirs on top of congregational singing, whether they are highly traditional and formal or highly contemporary and informal, and whether they have dancing and hand-raising or they “do church” mostly seated. I argue that some of these practices are better than others, but if we can begin with the regular explanation of the word, the regular practice of the Lord’s Supper, the singing of psalms and hymns, and the constant use of prayer. We can grow from that point.
Too many churches lose God’s word in trying to be relevant or cool. Maybe they are bored with scripture. Too many churches lose the Lord’s Supper because they arbitrarily make it challenging to practice every Sunday. Possibly, they don’t think it’s important or they make it too important. Too many churches lose God’s prayerbook. They lose the Psalms and so their other prayers lose the pattern of worship given by God.
We will make everything a lot more complicated. Scripture has a lot to say about worship. And there is a lot of materials to work through and apply to our worship service. But at its heart, when we gather together to worship God, we want these three things: most importantly, the word of God, secondly, God’s holy supper, and finally prayer.