1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2025 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
The Lord's Prayer is a prayer for all seasons. But it comes to us with particular pastoral urgency during Advent and Christmas.
Praying the Lord's Prayer during Advent and Christmas
Worship service ideas for the month of November.
Loving God, we cry out to you on behalf of the people of the Darfur region.
September is a time of new beginnings. The new school year, the new church school year, and a new year of church ministries and activities are all worth remembering, celebrating, and dedicating in worship.
The highlight of the October calendar may be World Communion Sunday, when Christians everywhere celebrate what it means to belong to the body of Christ—"the holy catholic church, the communion of the saints." In celebrating the Lord's Supper, we most deeply celebrate our oneness in Christ.
The Sunday for which this service is designated is World Communion Sunday. On this day churches around the world will come to the Table of the Lord as an expression of their oneness in Jesus Christ.
In corporate worship we are expected to give a response to what God has said and done. So we talk about the "service of response" of a worship liturgy, and it always follows the proclamation of God's word in the sermon. When God has spoken his word of hope and grace, it is unthinkable that we would leave church without a response. The dialogue of worship always includes the assumption that God waits for some response to his word.
Worship planning assumes that a calendar is used. The assumption in worship planning is that we anticipate future worship.
In the dialogue of worship in the Reformed tradition, congregational song has primarily had the role of the people's response to God. And that role has been shaped by Scripture, as shown through a study of the Psalms as the songbook of the Bible. In our discussion on congregational song, we will examine closely the nature of the Psalm songs and how that can serve as a model for our songs today.
We are called into the presence of God. We are exhorted to come with joy, thanksgiving, music and song. We affirm that he is the "great God," our maker and our shepherd. We can expect to be welcomed into his presence because we are the "flock under his care." What a rich spirit in which to begin worship!
While we cannot find either a precise order of worship or rules for the practice of worship in the Bible, we can discover much about the nature of worship by stepping into events of worship that are described in Scripture.
