Most of the time, I write blogs because my mind has been mulling over a subject for some time and I just need to write myself clear. This post is no exception to that, although the title may have been provocative enough for you to have clicked on this post so you want me to get right to the point. Alright, I’ll say it:

I don’t think things that have become “ritual” are always bad.

There, I said it. And now, maybe you’re reading on because you’re enraged, or curious, or confused. Whatever the case, I would like to now get my thoughts on this out there for your consideration and, more importantly, biblical discernment.

I’m gearing up to preach through the book of Leviticus in 2027 at MissionWay (yes: that book!) and it’s made me realize how much ritual was part of worship under the Old Covenant. Maybe I should have done this up front, but I’m working with the following definition of the word “ritual” in this post: “a sequence of actions or words performed in a fixed, regular way, often imbued with deeper symbolic, cultural, or religious meaning.” I’m not talking about weird incantations, vain repetitions, or pagan acts with mystical overtones. I’m talking about the things we do and say in our worship to the Lord regularly that carry a deeper meaning. Consider the following example from worship under the Old Covenant in Leviticus:

Leviticus 24:1-4
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. 3 Outside the veil of the testimony, in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall arrange it from evening to morning before the Lord regularly. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. 4 He shall arrange the lamps on the lampstand of pure gold before the Lord regularly.

Why light the lamps regularly? Because the lamps were to represent the light of the glory and presence of the Lord and were to be a constant reminder to His people. I bet Aaron got tired of arranging these lamps from time to time. But the Lord commanded it be done and it pleased the Lord. And should Aaron ever wonder if the Lord was still with His people, this daily ritual was a tangible reminder for him.

Let’s talk about a more modern ritual: communion or the Lord’s Supper. My entire life, I have heard people say that we ought not partake in it too often because it may become too “ritualistic.” Now, I share their sentiment that I don’t want the Lord’s Supper to ever become boring, but I have often responded to that remark by saying “I kiss my wife everyday and I have yet to get tired of it.”

I don’t think we’re actually concerned about ritual here. We’re concerned that partaking of the Lord’s Table on a more regular basis might actually reveal that it’s not as significant of a thing in our hearts as it ought to be. the problem is not if something will become ritualistic, it’s if our hearts are truly grasping the deeper meaning of the ritual, or if over time we have just become bored with the sacred things of God.

I actually think when we’ve become bored with something God has commanded us to do, we ought to do it even more and beg Him to change our hearts. Beg Him for our hearts to behold this act of worship as glorious and beautiful because He is glorious and beautiful and He has commanded that we worship Him in this way.

There’s more I can say, but I’ll leave it here for now and I’m sure I’ll say more in my sermon series on Leviticus.

I am a stickler for time. I think it’s important to be on time for things like church (hear my argument on that here). But I also think that if you tell me something is going to last 30-minutes, you should honor that commitment and keep the event at 30-minutes. What about church services? Should they have a timer as well? How long should they be? Should they ever be allowed to go over the time-limit? Should we try to fit in as much as we can to that allotted time so that we maximize it as best we can? Let’s talk about it.

First, let me say that at MissionWay, our services are usually more toward the 75-minute mark. I won’t actually spend too much time arguing for a specific amount of time that church services should be because there’s no biblical rule on that and there are many things each church ought to consider when making that decision. Only other thing I will say on this point is that I do believe it’s generally a good thing to have a “standard” amount of time you plan for your church services to last. While there are certainly reasons to go longer or shorter than that time frame, generally it’s a good idea for people to know about how long the church service will last.

I do want to talk about the propensity we have to stuff our services as full as we can with as much as we can. There’s so much we want to accomplish on any given Sunday: worship through song, prayer, communion, baptism, time for missionaries to share, announcements, the sermon, a response time, etc. Sometimes, it feels like we just moved from one thing to the next so quickly that we had no time to really process any of it.

Bryan Chapell - “We need opportunities to consider why we are doing what we are doing, and we may need time to let the significance of aspects of worship weigh in our hearts. Meditation, reflection, and silence can be as important to worship as simply taking the next traditional step in the service.”

Bryan hits the nail right on the head with this one, I think. In the book of Psalms we see a little word pop up over and over again. It’s the word: Selah. It has been translated many ways and carries a few diffent ideas with it, but one thing that it means is to stop, think, and meditate on what was just read or sung. How often do we actually do that in a worship service? We usually want the transition from one thing to the next to be seamless and brief. But what if there were actual moments of silence intended for reflection? What if we had time in the service to think about what’s happening and truly respond to it in the moment? I think we should intentionally build times like this into our services.

Typically at the end of each of my sermons, I ask everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes for this exact purpose. Sometimes, the songs we sing have moments of instrumentation. Maybe we ought to view that as a time for reflection rather than a time to enjoy the music. Maybe in-between songs, we should offer up simple and short prayers to the Lord in response to what we’ve heard and sung.

What if we crammed less into our services, and orchestrated them with more intention? Each aspect of the service building on the one before it and all of it pulling our eyes and hearts back upon Jesus. This would have a greater impact than the well-transitioned, full of activity, one-hour “worship experience” that many churches have begun to strive for.

I suppose this blog is less about the amount of time a church service should last, and much more about what we do with the time that we are given for it. A 30-minute church service aimed at exalting Christ and intentionally leading people to worship can accomplish much more than the well-crafted 2-hour long service that focuses on entertaining the masses with a religious flare.

If you had the ability to walk into numerous church worship services across cultures all over the globe, you would likely be struck by the reality that different people express their worship in different ways. There are churches where most people sing with their hands at their side, while in others, half the congregation lift their hands. There are churches with no instrumentation, and others with full orchestras. You would find that some churches dance expressively in worship, some only sing from the book of Psalms, some turn the lights down, and the list goes on and on.

There is much beauty in the diversity of the body of Christ and it is a wonderful thing to see people worship in various ways. This might lead you to believe that it doesn’t matter how we worship, it just matters that we worship. I want so badly to affirm that statement because it sounds right and why would any of us want to discourage anyone from worshipping in any form? But Scripture is clear that we may not worship however we want. Maybe you don’t agree with that, but I can prove my point very easily.

What if someone walked into your church this Sunday carrying a lamb and they wanted to sacrifice it on the stage as an act of worship before the Lord? I certainly hope you would quickly object, and you would be perfectly right to do so. While that was a commanded practice under the Mosaic Law, because Christ, the True Lamb of God, has been sacrificed once and for all, we no longer worship the Lord in that way.

So, we can’t really worship however we want, can we? In case you’re still not convinced, go with me to everyone’s favorite book of the Bible…Leviticus:

“Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.”
Leviticus 10:1-2

These men had been given very specific instructions for how they were to worship the Lord, what types of offerings they should bring, how and when they should bring them. While we don’t know exactly what the “unauthorized fire” was that they brought, the important thing is that it was “unauthorized,” meaning that this was not how God had commanded to be worshipped. And God put them to death.

Among the many things this story teaches us is this predominant truth: God determines how He is to be worshipped - not us.

The story of Cain and Abel also comes to mind here. We don’t know exactly why the Lord did not accept Cain’s offering, we just know that He didn’t. And rather than Cain seeking the Lord for how He ought to have worshipped, he responded in anger by killing his brother.

I recently heard someone say “I just don’t sing in church, that’s not how I worship.” What about the fact that Scripture commands you to sing in worship to the Lord? Where? Basically the entire book of Psalms. More explicitly though, see passages like Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16. It’s not your choice whether you sing to the Lord, He has commanded that you worship Him in this way.

I have heard many other people say “I don’t need to go to church to worship.” But the Lord has commanded that you gather with His people and worship Him. While it is true that gathering with the Church is not the only place you can worship, it’s simply unbiblical to say you don’t need to do that. God has determined that we ought to worship Him in this way.

If I haven’t stepped on many toes yet, this next part may do it. Though, I am not aiming to be offensive, I expect this to ruffle a few feathers. However, my desire in this post is to spur us on to a more biblical view and practice of corporate worship. So, here goes.

It is wrong for churches to aim their services at the unbeliever. If you are crafting your worship services first and foremost to appeal to unbelievers - even if it’s in the hopes of reaching them - you have missed the entire point of the worship service.

And before some of you cheer too loudly at that last paragraph, I will also say: If you are aiming your services at believers first and foremost, you also have got it wrong. Worship services are meant to be aimed at the Lord. He is the reason we are there. He is the One we ought to be fixing our minds on. He is the One Who ought to inform every single aspect of our worship service.

This does not mean we forget who may be in the room and what they may need. It means that the only person who should influence what we do, why we do it, and how we do it, is King Jesus Himself.

It’s time we dispense with the mindset that we may worship the Lord however we want, and begin worshipping Him in all the ways He has told us to. The crazy part is, when we begin to do this, our churches will actually become much more effective. After all, Jesus Himself said: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).

I had the privilege to serve as. youth pastor at South Shore Community Church in Sarasota, Florida for 5 where every Sunday at the end of the service, we would say together “Here at South Shore, we don’t just go to church, we are the Church!” I believe they still repeat that mantra to this day. I loved saying that every week as a reminder and have repeated it to our church a few times over the years. Here are several things I love about that statement and what it communicates.

The church isn’t a building

It’s important that you know when we talk about “going to church,” we are not saying that the building God’s people meet in is not “the church.” God’s people are His Church (1 Corinthians 12:27). In that sense, God’s people can gather in a large building, a home, under a palm tree, underground, in a barn, or wherever else for that matter and still call it a church service because wherever the people of God are gathered, that’s where the Church is.

Sunday morning is not our only duty as The Church

The statement, “we don’t just go to church, we are the Church” reminds us that as we leave the Sunday morning service, we are still the people of God. As we go into our jobs, schools, homes, gyms, etc, we are still bearing the Name of Christ and are to live as His ambassadors. We also should find ways to gather with other members of the church throughout the week because we don’t have to wait until Sunday to fellowship with one another.

“We” are the Church, not “Me”

It may seem like an insignificant difference or just semantics, but we would not say “I am the Church.” No one single Christian “is” the Church. Each of us individually are members of the body of Christ, but we need each other. The word “church” in our English Bibles is the Greek work ekklesia which in part literally means assembly or gathering. This means that one Christian in their room on Sunday morning watching the livestream is not The Church. They may be observing the Church gathering on their screen, but at that time, they are not among God’s people and therefore have not “gone to church.”

You cannot say you love Jesus and hate His bride - the Church. Some have used the statement “we don’t just go to church, we are the church” to mean that they don’t need to gather with God’s people on Sunday. But this is exactly why we did not say “we don’t go to church…” we would specifically say “we don’t just go to church…” Though sometimes the person saying it from stage would mess that part up, it was important for us to say it that way because we wanted people to know that one important aspect of being a part of the Church was to gather with the other members of the Church.

I have also heard people say things like “church doesn’t just happen in buildings. It can happen on the side of the road, and in your bedroom, and on a nature trail, etc.” But unless you’ve gathered in those places with God’s people for worship and the preaching of God’s Word, you haven’t really assembled as the Church. You may have had a time of worship with the Lord, and I’m not diminishing that. But let’s be sure not to confuse private worship with public, corporate worship. Let’s not downplay the importance of God’s people regularly gathering together to do what the Church has been doing for thousands of years.

Let’s live out the truth that “we don’t just go to church, we are the Church” by contiuing to gather with God’s people for worship, prayer, the Word, and the sacraments, and then let’s scatter as the Church to go and make disciples throughout the rest of the week.

H.B. Charles tells a story in his book “On Worship” about a church member who complained following the worship service that they didn’t really enjoy the service. The pastor quickly and bluntly replied: “That’s okay. We weren’t worshipping you.”

Have you ever had a similar complaint when leaving a church service? Have you ever left a church because you didn’t care for the style of worship or maybe the voice of the one who leads the singing from the platform? Maybe the preacher wasn’t as engaging as you wished he had been, or the service was a little too long for your liking. Is it possible, you’ve got the wrong idea about who the worship service is for? The question should never be, “Did I enjoy worship today?” It should always be “Was the Lord pleased with the worship here today?”

As H.B. Charles said in the above-mentioned book: “The worship wars of past decades argued about whether worship should focus on seekers or the saints. Ultimately, both sides were wrong. God is the target audience of worship.” He is the One we are there for. He is the One we should be fixing our eyes and attention upon.

This is why you should sing in worship. It’s why you should pray along with the person praying from the stage. It’s why you should give your undivided attention to the sermon (and every aspect of the service for that matter). We participate in the worship service because our participation is an act of worship to the Lord. It’s why being on time matters (a topic for a future post). If we’re there to meet with and worship the King, we had better be on time and ready to join in!

Do we benefit from and receive spiritual blessings from worship services? Of course we do, but only when we have made worshipping Jesus the #1 priority. As He is praised, He inhabits the praises of His people and His people receive blessing upon blessing.

I fear that far too many people show up to church on the Lord’s Day looking for what they can get out of it rather than what they are there to offer to the Lord. We are not consumers of worship, but are to be consumed by the One Whom we are there to worship. Hebrews 12:28-29 says “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”

It is possible to walk away from a church service feeling uplifted, happy, and even like we “got something out of it” all the while we wre exalting ourselves rather than the Lord. On the flip side, I would say it is impossible for us to lift high the name of Jesus and not be blessed immensely as He draws us to Himself (John 12:32).

This truth also informs the content of our worship services. If we are there for Jesus, the songs we sing and the sermons we preach had better reflect that. Too many songs focus on the believer and how we are getting through trials. Too many sermons are more like TED talks that give us 5 tips for a better life. Who are we worshipping with that kind of material?

May we enter each Lord’s Day worship service with the words of Psalm 115:1 on our minds, hearts, and even coming out of our lips: “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory.”