If Calvin was on the worship committee

WTS professor Larry Sibley gives ten worship planning ideas from John Calvin.

1. Remember the necessary practices and always include them every week: the Word, prayer, the meal, and sharing.

2. Keep the traditional ordo: gathering, Word, sacraments, sending.

3. Let the Scriptures come through.

4. Connect the reading and preaching to prayer and the sacraments; balance the necessary practices as means of grace.

5. Provide a full diet of prayer.

6. Use the Lord’s Prayer as the backbone of praying.

7. Let the people pray: singing the prayers, Psalms, creed, Song of Simeon in the language of the people.

8. Focus on baptism to comfort the troubled consciences of believers.

9. Feed the poor from the Lord’s Table.

10. End by singing the Nunc Dimitis, the Song of Simeon (Luke 2:29-32).

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