Calling to Worship

The host of the worship service is divine. We do not invite Him to be present. He invites us. He always initiates; we respond. The worship leader issues God’s invitation to join the heavenly throng that already and always praises Him. The privileges and responsibilities of the call to worship that actually commences our focus on revering God are too good to displace with comments regarding the weather and yesterday’s football game. By using the words of Scripture as a call to worship, the leader automatically urges God’s people to respond to His disclosure of His own nature and purposes. This pattern established by the call to worship shapes the rest of the worship service. We do not approach God on our terms, but His. When He speaks, it is our obligation and privilege to respond appropriately in praise, prayer, repentance, testimony, encouragement of others, and service to what He declares about Hhimself. This corporate dialogue in which we as God’s people respond to God’s revelation is the sacred rhythm of covenant worship. —Bryan Chapell, Foreword to Robert I. Vasholz, Calls to Worship