Pentecostal Worship

The structure of Pentecostal worship has been and generally continues to be comprised of three basic units: Preliminaries Sermon Invitation/Altar Service Within this tripartite structure, spontaneity and informality are the key operatives that flesh out the basic form. The inclusion, order, and length of preliminaries such as congregational singing, testimonies, manifestations of the Spirit, special music, and prayer (to name a few possibilities) are generally different from church to church and service to service. Pentecostals shy away from codifying and writing down an invariable liturgy because of their belief that Spirit-led worship means flexibility in following the changing promptings of the Spirit. Nevertheless, in actual practice each Pentecostal church and pastor generally settles on an order of service that tends to be fairly constant. Though the congregation seldom has the written order, worship leaders often have copies. This alleviates the need for a "master of ce…