Planning Traditional Worship

Long-range and short-range planning are essential to worship services characterized by strength, order, and beauty. Pastors and church musicians are responsible for planning, but participation in music during worship should include adult and children's choirs and the congregation singing hymns, psalms, and anthems together. In Into His Presence: Perspectives on Reformed Worship (Grand Rapids, Mich. : Christian Reformed Church Publications, 1985), James De Jong describes worship as a dialogue in which God's people receive God's greeting, pardon, instruction, and blessing, as well as respond in confession, thanksgiving, and praise. Many times the music in our services has blurred this view of Reformed worship. Howard Hageman tells of a worship service he attended in which the congregation had as much music to listen to as it did to sing, and the music had little or no relationship to actions of receiving and responding. Hageman then goes on to talk about "liturgical integrity" (Liturgy…