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).