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Whatever else is true of Reformed folk, I’d say this is indisputable: We love our preaching. Many of our greatest heroes are preachers, our church services tend to be formed around the sermon, many of our favorite books had their genesis in the pulpit, and our conferences are mostly made up of a succession of sermons based upon a common theme. As I said: We love our preaching.
I would never disparage such a commitment, of course, but I would say this: If there is a negative consequence to the Reformed emphasis on preaching, it could be that some people interpret it to mean that the rest of a church service is not very important, or that the rest of a service is important not in its own right, but only because of its connection to the preaching.
But to ask whether one part of a church service is more important than another is like asking whether the most important ingredient in bread is the flour, the yeast, or the water. It’s a nonsense question because if you take away any of those ingredients, you don’t have bread. If you eat only the flour but skip the water, you may have eaten something, but it’s not bread. If you knead together yeast and water, you have created some substance, but it’s not dough and if you bake it, it won’t emerge as a well-formed loaf. You need it all to make something that is genuine, that is nourishing, that you can describe as bread.
I have often been struck by how many people arrive late to church. Week after week, many people miss the call to worship, as if it’s not all that important to be called away from the cares and concerns of the other six days of life and to be called specifically to a time of corporate worship. Many people miss the opening song, as if we don’t benefit from having our hearts tuned to praise our God. Many people miss the confession of sin, as if there is no great benefit to hearing a pastor lead the entire church in confessing their transgressions, and they miss the assurance of pardon, as if there is no special benefit to hearing a pastor assure the congregation from God’s Word that their sins have truly been pardoned, set aside as far as the east is from the west. Many people roll in only after all of this has taken place—on time for the preaching, but too late for so much else.
But the fact is, if you prioritize arriving for the sermon but miss the prayer or singing, you haven’t had a full experience of worshipping God. If you don’t put in the effort to arrive on time, and so consistently miss the first few minutes, you are depriving yourself of elements that have been integrated into the service because they are of such benefit to Christians. Corporate worship cannot be less than a sermon, but it must always be far more. And like the ingredients in bread, though they can be described separately, they need to be experienced together, because each is a necessary part of the whole.
So to those who are habitually late, perhaps because they simply don’t put the effort into being on time—consider the opening elements of a service, and what you are missing. To those who are habitually late because they dislike the songs or see little benefit in the first few minutes, know that you are depriving yourself of an opportunity to worship the Lord with his people—to hear from him, to speak to him, and to experience his blessings. And to all of us, even those who are always present from the call to worship to the benediction, let’s regard each element as essential, each a necessary part of distinctly Christian worship through which we express our praise to God while he lavishes his grace upon us.
