The One Liturgical Worship Rite

In large measure, the reason many churches today are splitting over forms of communal worship may be found in the relative paucity of direct guidance that the NT provides. We want to be NT churches. The only trouble is . . . the NT doesn’t give us much specific instruction on how to do church, that is, the cultic gathering. Nowhere does the NT tell us to build churches, to meet on Sundays, to have morning worship services, to open with a song and a prayer, to have a long sermon, and then to close with a benediction. . . . About the only custom which it prescribes as a regular occurrence is participation in the Lord’s Supper. . . . Remarkably . . . this is the one liturgical worship rite that the NT describes, but we treat as optional or occasional or random. We squabble over everything else and neglect the weightier matters of the gospel. —Dan Block, “The Joy of Worship: The Mosaic Invitation to the Presence of God (Deut. 12:1-14)” (audio message)