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Zeteosearch.org offers resource guides because, week by week, preachers must say something intelligent on an intimidating list of topics raised by biblical texts. To do so they need to become minor experts on a good number of them. Resource Guides help you prepare for whatever you’re doing – preparing a sermon, planning worship, teaching a class, or just studying to deepen your faith – and find inspiration that spans across a vast range of Christian church traditions.

About Resource Guides

Zeteosearch.org offers resource guides because, week by week, preachers must say something intelligent on an intimidating list of topics raised by biblical texts. To do so they need to become minor experts on a good number of them. Resource Guides help you prepare for whatever you’re doing – preparing a sermon, planning worship, teaching a class, or just studying to deepen your faith – and find inspiration that spans across a vast range of Christian church traditions.

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Affirmation of Faith

To affirm or confess faith is to join others in publicly avowing belief or trust, usually in someone divine ("I believe in God the Father, Almighty"). In a secular culture, confessions of faith may be fantasy, heresy, idolatry, or commercial blather, but for Christians they are serious business. They put...

Assurance of Pardon

The good news of the gospel is that in Christ we are forgiven! The announcement of this truth is one of the most beautiful moments in worship. Using scriptural words reinforces the truth that our assurance is based on God’s words of promise, not merely on our own hopes and...

Baptism is a physical ritual mandated by Jesus through which God acts to nourish, sustain, comfort, challenge, teach, and assure us. A richly symbolic action, the celebration of baptism stirs our imaginations to perceive the work of God and the contours of the gospel more clearly. Baptism also signifies the...

Blessing or Benediction

Depending on the worship service, blessings can happen at times in addition to the benediction, such as in a prayer for someone or as part of an ordination. However, the benediction is when a blessing always occurs within a service. The benediction takes place in, with, and around the sending...

Call to Confession

The call to confession reminds us of our sinfulness, our need for confession, and our ability and call to approach the throne of grace. Sometimes the call to confession is itself a prayer for God to hear the confessions and be gracious; other times it serves to call the congregation...

Call to Worship

The call to worship is our entrance into worship. The call to worship is not merely a greeting from the pastor or leader, but God calling God’s people into worship. The call to worship is not a simple greeting to welcome people to church and introduce the pastors; it is...

Close of Worship

The close of a worship service depends a great deal on the theme and development of the particular service. Some services end in celebration, others in quiet contemplation. Some end in a confident call to discipleship, others in a quiet prayer for God’s comfort. This section begins with invitations to...

The closing prayer is a final prayer to God as a worship service concludes, thanking God for God’s presence and grace seen in the service, expressing gratitude for the gift of worship, and praying for the Spirit to sustain and strengthen the congregation as it heads out from the service...

The words of greeting establish the lines of communication in worship. God always comes to us before we come to God. So it is fitting for worship to begin with scriptural words that convey God’s greeting to us.

Lament (to God, typically) is faithful protest over sin, sorrow, loss, sickness, death, enemy threats, or any of the other ills humans face, often accompanied by weeping, moaning, wailing, breast-beating, or other signs of anguish.