How to lead your worship service this Reformation Day (Matthew Barrett)

Reformation Day is just around the corner and if you are a Reformation-minded pastor or worship leader then you no doubt desire to see your people return to the great doctrines of the Reformation. This morning I want to encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to teach your church not only about Reformation history but about the beliefs and doctrines that led to Reformation and should continue to reform our churches today.

My guess is that you may be in a church where your people are not incredibly familiar with the Reformers and the solas of the Reformation. This is not to say that they couldn’t articulate the authority of the Bible or the significance of faith alone. However, it may be hard for them to explain these solas in any depth. For others, well, they may not even know what a sola is!

That said, here is one way you can bring your people along and ignite a passion within them for Reformation doctrine. Starting this Sunday I will be taking a break from my ongoing exposition through 1 Peter (fyi, I am a strong believer in expositional preaching that exposits through an entire book of the Bible). Last week I told my church, Fellowship Baptist Church in Riverside, CA, that we will take five Sundays for each of the solas: sola scriptura, solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, and soli Deo Gloria. In each of these sermons I will walk them through what each sola stands for, and in doing so incorporate some of the history behind these solas. So, for example, in my first sermon on sola scriptura you can count on hearing about Luther’s “Here I Stand” speech at Worms!

But that’s not all. I am a firm believer that the entire service should focus, as much as possible, around the passage being preached on, leading to the sermon as a climax. As the gentlemen in this T4G panel explain, Martin Lloyd-Jones refined this approach to worship so that by the time he came up to preach your heart was already impressed with the text he would be preaching on that morning.

So what does this look like? First, after one of our staff or elders welcomes the people and makes any necessary announcements, we will begin the service with a “Call to Worship,” but this time from Martin Luther. The text comes from Luther’s forward to Georg Rhau’s Symphoniae Iocundae (1538):

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits…Our dear fathers and prophets did not desire without reason that music be always used in the churches. Hence, we have so many songs and psalms. This precious gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God.

Following this call to worship are two congregational songs (by that I mean the congregation participates in singing these songs as opposed to a solo). But notice, even these songs are geared to preaching the message to the people through music. Since we just heard a call to worship from Luther, what hymn could be more fitting than, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” followed by a second hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.” The latter is perfect because you sing lines like the following:

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

Next is a reading and a prayer for the congregation. Typically this reading comes from Scripture, the Valley of Vision, or a church creed or catechism. Since this is a sermon on the authority of Scripture, the congregation will hear from the Geneva Confession (1536-1537), specifically its opening statement on “The Word of God.”

First, we declare that for the rule of our faith and religion, we wish to follow the Scripture alone, without mixing with it any other thing which might be fabricated by the interpretation of men apart from the Word of God; and we do not pretend to receive any other doctrine for our spiritual government than that which is taught us by the same Word, without addition or reduction, according to the command of our Lord.

This reading is followed by a prayer for the congregation.

After two more songs/hymns as well as the offering, we have an elder or church member come up to read the sermon text, this time from 2 Timothy 3:12-17, a passage which is at the very heart of the Bible’s inspiration, authority, and sufficiency. Churches are different, but I like to have the person reading the Scripture ask the people to stand as a church for the reading of God’s Word. With a sermon about to be preached on sola scriptura, standing for this reading is a great way to physically acknowledge Scripture as the inspired and authoritative Word of God.

Then comes the proclamation of God’s Word. I typically preach for 45 minutes and in this sermon I will define, explain, and apply sola scriptura so that our church not only understands what this sola means but sees with new eyes its centrality to Christian living as a church and as individual believers.

The service will conclude with a final song and notice once again that the song takes us back to the message. So we will be singing “Speak, O Lord,” by the Gettys. Just listen to how this song draws our attention to God and the necessity of his Word:

Speak, O Lord, as we come to You
To receive the food of Your Holy Word.
Take Your truth, plant it deep in us;
Shape and fashion us in Your likeness,
That the light of Christ might be seen today
In our acts of love and our deeds of faith.
Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us
All Your purposes for Your glory.

The service concludes with a final benediction from 2 Peter 1:16-21, once again a passage that lifts up Scripture as the holy and inerrant authority for faith and practice.

Well I hope that gives you a helpful example of how you can lead your church this October through the solas not just with a sermon but with the entire order of worship. Don’t miss this chance to root your people in these foundational doctrines of the faith so that come next year they not only can name each sola but tell you, pastor, how these solas have impacted their daily life.

Matthew Barrett (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at California Baptist University, as well as the founder and executive editor of Credo Magazine. Barrett is also Senior Pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church. He is the author and editor of several books, including Salvation by Grace: The Case for Effectual Calling and Regeneration. You can read about Barrett’s other publications at matthewmbarrett.com.