"The Structure of Our Worship: Consider first the broad outline of our worship service. We find five basic elements here. Take a look at your bulletin as we consider this. Notice that the first and last elements are the Call to Worship and the Commissioning. These are the book-ends of our service. The church is the called out gathering. The word for church (ekklesia) means “called out.” So at the start of the service, we call you out of the world and into the church, and at the end of the service we send you out again. You are sent out with a blessing and a task.
So the first invites us in from the world to assemble before the Lord to worship Him. The last sends us out into the world in order to function as ambassadors of Christ and of His gospel. If we have learned rightly, when we are being sent out into the world, we are letting the clutch out. Worship is the engine, but we have to let the clutch out.
Then there are the central three elements of our worship.
Confession of Sin—we wipe our feet at the door. We wash our hands for dinner.
Consecration—we offer ourselves up to God as living sacrifices.
Communion—we sit down for table fellowship with our God.
Our name for the worship that deliberately and self-consciously follows this basic pattern is covenant renewal worship. This is not because the covenant was going to expire, like a lease. That is not why renew it. It is an everlasting covenant. But it is also organic and alive, and needs to be nourished and fed." -- Douglas Wilson, The Structure of Our Worship
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