Running a Worship-Based Church

Technically, all groups of people serving in a ministry capacity are a “church”.

From the exterior, it looks different, but those differences are largely cosmetic.

  • Most Christian churches are conducting the exact same worship of Jesus, though the emotional thrust of the worship will vary dramatically.

The entire convergence on this page is not precise, but accurate-enough.

  • It’s important to note that the order of most rituals move around constantly.
  • Denominations have been split over relatively minor aspects like placement of elements and choice of music.
  • While the Catholic Church suppresses all dissent, Protestantism has a vast and immeasurable range of permutations to every single rite.

How Rituals/Sacraments Matter

Most of the conventions that make a “typical” church are borrowed from a few source traditions:

  1. The Hebrew temple had many traditions established (many of them from Levitical law).
  2. After the Temple fell in 2 Kings 24:10-14, the Hebrew people maintained their worship by adapting the rituals for synagogue “mini-Temples”, which included many rituals not in Hebrew law.
  3. New followers of Christ imitated synagogue tradition (mostly) and added their own adaptations.
  4. As Gentiles arrived, some traditions were removed or permuted to accommodate non-Hebrews.
  5. By approximately 200 AD, the Catholic Church later codified and standardized those traditions.
  6. Within a few centuries, the Catholic traditions were practically the law, and the cultural assimilation meant pagan rituals merged into the practice.
  7. Starting in 1517, the Protestant Church removed many of those traditions, but didn’t add many.

The Bible itself only has a few verses that indicate daily details on how to run a church:

  • Some sacraments (i.e., communion/Eucharist and baptism), though on a more personal level and without many details.
  • Specific qualifications necessary within people you wish to appoint as leaders.
  • Almost every other Bible verse about the church are simply patterned expansions into a corporate culture from living among family and friends.

However, across a few thousand years, the Church has had some good ideas.

While Christian rituals are very heavily inspired by Jewish and pagan tradition, the redemption in Christ makes the entire experience direct into a different form towards the unknown.

  • Further, how the rituals are performed can create a dramatic difference in how the congregants interpret it.

Each denomination derives a certain form of meaning over rituals by their interpretation.

  • Over the centuries, many of the rituals have been expanded far beyond the Bible, and the biblical basis is either nonexistent or only partly applicable.

To that end, this is an attempt to indicate all the ways you could do church.

  • You can, however, apply any Bible verses about living well on an individual level to make new rituals and sacraments, which will likely spin into a different denomination over time.
  • A church should develop its own creativity in discovering new ways to live more like Christ (Hebrews 10:24-25).

Therefore, while most of the essays here use Bible citations, this page doesn’t call for an exhaustive listing.

  • If a believer has read through the Bible at least once, they should be able to see what the pattern is and why it would make sense.

To make it simpler, there’s a clarification legend throughout this body of text:

  • R: Roman Catholic tradition
  • E: Eastern Orthodox tradition
  • P: Protestant tradition preserved from Catholicism
  • I: independent tradition outside the Catholic canon, or idea that has been proposed or tried in some churches

None of the following are technically “necessary” for any salvation-based matters.

Statement of Faith

The statement of faith is essentially a philosophical assertion of all aspects that unite your church together.

  • It can be long or short, but it will be controversial, no matter what (Matthew 10:34-36).
  • Generally, the more details, the more controversial, but the more likelihood you’ll find like-minded believers joining your church (if any).

The sacraments and rituals directly flow from the creeds and catechisms you choose to adopt.

You can draw from a wide variety of creeds and catechisms for inspiration.

Sacraments

Churches often have ritual ceremonies, also called sacraments.

  • Almost anything that gives God praise is good, even if it’s not specified in the Bible.
  • It’s only natural if the church’s sacraments will reflect the good parts of the members’ original culture and traditions.
  • These sacraments may or may not dovetail into the rest of a weekly church service.

Greetings

Calling each other by familial titles (e.g., brother, sister).

C/E: Deprecated in most uses, but leaders are still referred to as “Father”.

P: Typically not used in most denominations except Pentecostal, except with smaller groups of believers among each other.

Baptism

A symbol of our spiritual baptism in Christ, and commanded by Scripture (1 Peter 3:21).

  • Water baptism doesn’t give salvation, but does show it to the world (Luke 23:29-43).
    • Most churches that baptize will stress the significance of baptism.
  • The water can be by immersion or sprinkling.
    • Immersion symbolizes the complete end of one’s identity as part of this world.
    • However, sprinkling can imply that we’re imperfect and will still sin (and therefore need God’s continued work).

C/E: Baptism is at birth (often with circumcision), or possibly during Confirmation.

  • Along with baptism, many Christians borrow from Hebrew tradition and circumcise infants as well.

P: Baptism is only after conversion.

Confirmation

A public declaration of faith in Christ.

C/E: Confirmation is the completion of the water baptism.

While there’s no ritual for Protestants, they honor someone’s private prayer to receive Christ (“the Sinner’s Prayer”):

  • e.g., “Father, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from you. I am very sorry and now want to turn away from my past life toward you. Please forgive me and help me to avoid sinning again. I believe your son Jesus Christ died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.”

Eucharist/Communion

The elements include a type of bread representing Christ’s bodily sacrifice and grape juice or wine to represent covering our sins with His blood.

  • Irrespective of its meaning, communion is Jesus’ command (John 6:53-58).

Elements

  • C/E: official sacramental bread, made without yeast
    • P: saltine crackers or any bread made without yeast
    • I: standard bread
  • C/E: a cup of wine
    • P: individual half-shot glasses of grape juice

Routine

  • C: Presentation of the Gifts and Preparation of the Altar
    • The bread and wine are brought in front of the altar to be blessed.
  • C: Prayer over the Offerings
  • Eucharistic/Communion Prayer
    • C/E: a highly ordered set of multiple prayers and sayings that converts the bread and wine into Jesus’ physical body and blood (transubstantiation).
      • The timing of when this happens differs between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox.
    • P: a prayer and meditative song.
  • C: The Lord’s Prayer
  • C: Sign/Rite of Peace
    • The leader prays for Jesus’ peace to fill everywhere.
  • Fraction Rite/Lamb of God
    • C: the bread is broken by the leader
    • P: the bread is broken by the people, or passed around pre-broken on a plate
    • I: the people go to the bread and break it off themselves
  • Communion
    • C: an acknowledgment that nobody is worthy to receive the gift, then the leader takes it, followed by the people
    • P: a recitation of the Bible verse saying to consume the elements (Matthew 26:26-28)
  • C: Prayer after Communion
    • A request that the benefits of the communion will remain active in daily life later.

Penance/Confession

Asking for forgiveness of sins under Christ’s atonement (James 5:16).

C: Confession is performed by a congregant with a church leader.

P: Most don’t perform any type of confession, but usually imply it can be a prayer conversation with God.

Marriage

Ceremonies are frequently performed in churches.

While all Christians agree with the marriage ceremony, the details vary tremendously.

Ordination

Appointing new church leaders.

  • C: a set of ceremonies and public declaration to commemorate the event.
  • P: announcements of the elected vote results.

Anointing of the Sick

Honors people dying and passing on to the next life.

  • Most Western cultures make the loss of life from this earth a grim and dark affair.
  • Many Eastern cultures view death as a mixture of sorrow from missing someone and tremendous joy of their spiritual victory and chance to finally see God.

Usually represents as a funeral service, often with a wake service before it.

Laying on of Hands

Giving blessing, healing, or authority with physical contact.

  • C: Deprecated for most uses except for confirmation.
  • P: Pentecostals in particular emphasize its importance.

The Peace

A 2-3 hour period of time before the Eucharist/communion for believers to seek reconciliation.

Inspired by Jesus’ command to leave your gift at the altar and find closure first (Matthew 5:23-24).

P: Only practiced occasionally, if at all.

Love Feasts

Spending time in close fellowship with other believers over a meal.

  • While it was originally an informal matter, it became more formalized by the year 200 AD.
  • The love feast was historically the original place for Eucharist/communion.

P: Only practiced occasionally, if at all, but often expresses through mid-week Bible studies.

Weekly Rituals

There’s a general flow to traditional church.

  • Though the order sometimes changes, the flow has been relatively fixed throughout history.

A. Introduction

Begin a formalized attendance, with everyone present.

Elements

  • C: altar present to represent Christ’s sacrifice
  • Cross present at the center-rear of the stage to represent the story of Jesus on the cross.
    • C: Jesus is hanging on the cross to represent His continued sacrifice for our sins.
    • P: the cross is empty to symbolize His victory over death.

Routine

  • Entrance – a chant/song that triggers everyone to arrive.
    • C: a procession for all the ministers, who bow or kiss the altar.
  • Greeting
    • C: everyone makes the Sign of the Cross and the leader gives a greeting.
    • P: Entrance and Greeting merged together into an announcement that the service is starting.
  • Penitential Act
    • C: acknowledgment of our sins, with a short repetitious prayer saying “have mercy on us, O Lord”, then another short prayer where the people respond with a Greek variation of “Lord/Christ, have mercy”.
    • P: maintained only in Lutheranism
  • C: Collect
    • Leader offers a brief prayer, then asks the gathered assembly to pray, then gives the prayer of the day.

Conditional Routines – Sundays and solemn days

  • C: Glory to God
    • After the Penitential Act, everyone sings “Glory to God in the Highest” (Luke 2:14).
  • Baptism (see below)
    • C: a separate ritual altogether, with rituals surrounding it.
    • P: a standalone ritual as part of the Introduction.

B. Liturgy

Public reading of the Bible and music to inspire spiritual thinking.

Routine

  • Bible Reading
    • C: Read 2 Bible verses, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament.
    • P: Read a selected passage from the Bible in between worship songs.
  • C: Responsorial Psalm
    • A song in-between readings directing focus on the reading.
  • P: Worship music
    • 2-6 songs in-between the Greeting and Homily directing focus on Jesus.
  • C: Gospel Acclamation/Gospel
    • A leader reads the Gospel, and the people respond with a Hebrew variation of “Praise the Lord!”
  • Homily
    • C: a leader’s public speech by a leader that starts with a reading, then an explanation of how it shows ways we ought to live better lives.
    • P: a leader delivers an expository speech that references Bible verses, then explains how they apply to our lives.
    • I: the people from the audience come up to the stage and give a few words of insight based on the Bible, often taking turns.
      • While many of the laity are definitely qualified to give a message, most churches only reserve that power to approved clergy.
  • C: Profession of Faith
    • A public declaration of a creed, usually Apostles’ or Nicene.
  • C: Universal Prayer, aka Prayer of the Faithful
    • The people intercede with God on behalf of the Church, world, and themselves.

Conditional Routines – Sundays and solemn days

  • Additional Bible Reading
    • C/E: On Easter, a reading from the book of the New Testament church from Acts.
    • P: On Easter, a reading about Jesus’ resurrection and the empty tomb.
    • C/E: A final reading from one of the four Gospels.
  • C: Profession of Faith

C. Eucharist/Communion

A sacrament involving eating and drinking to symbolize Jesus’ sacrifice (see above) (Luke 22:19-20).

  • While its basis does vary dramatically, the ritual must be distinguished as for believers only.

D. Concluding Rites

A final parting word for people to leave with and take into their lives elsewhere.

Elements

  • P: tracts that give a schedule of future church events.

Routine

  • Optional announcements
    • C/E: Leader describes the schedule for any upcoming liturgical events.
    • P: Indicates any events happening right after the current event or logistical considerations the people may need to know.
    • I: Expresses practical needs within the Church and who to contact about them.
  • C: Greeting and Blessing
    • A formal blessing that typically refers to the Trinity.
  • P: Altar Call
    • A meditative song with a simple Gospel presentation that petitions non-believers to follow Jesus.
  • Dismissal
    • C/E: the leader says a Latin translation of “Go, it is the dismissal”.
    • P: the leader formally concludes the meeting, often with a future call to action tied to the Homily.

E. Christians-Only Fellowship

A period of time following the main service for believers to spend more time with each other.

  • If it happens on the same day as the main service, The Peace will be in-between.

P: Practiced on occasion, but typically as a mid-week Bible study.

Crowd Participation

The conformity of Christian culture should reflect the principles God established in the Hebrew law (1 Corinthians 14:26-40).

  • Whatever you do, do it peacefully.
  • Don’t condemn prophecies or tongues, but make sure it’s one at a time and builds up the Body.

However, some practices are taboo according to the Bible.

  • When women have questions, they should be silent in the public congregation and ask their husbands at home (1 Corinthians 14:34-35).
    • This doesn’t forbid female teachers, but individual questions can be very distracting.
  • Sinful behavior should never be celebrated or honored (1 Corinthians 5).

Implicit Meaning

All Christian tradition older than 20 years is simply how the Church had adopted their culture of origin from the past.

  • The Catholic tradition is how Europe combined with Christianity after the Roman Empire fell.
  • The Protestant traditions are derived components that mix modern thought with both Catholic tradition and anti-Catholic sentiment.
  • Most modern (and any future) Christian tradition is assembled on a Protestant framework, but with very modern views.
  • Your culture will vary on practicing church, and no church model is ideal because each person derives meaning differently.

Common Failures

Weekly church gatherings tend to partially alienate the motivational gifts from serving in a broader capacity:

  • Encouragement will find the most satisfaction in the uplifting music and good news in the announcements.
  • Serving will be satisfied when they see opportunities to help in the ministry’s operations.
  • Giving will be satisfied in supporting the group at large.
  • Teaching will be most satisfied with the preacher’s study and additional Bible studies, or a teaching role for themselves.
  • Prophecy will be satisfied by the preacher speaking difficult truths.
  • Mercy won’t find any satisfaction in the main service, but often through off-topic discussions about personal issues during meetings.
  • Administration finds satisfaction when they see everything well-organized, or if they’re free to run a ministry.
  • Faith will usually never find satisfaction outside of stories of missionaries, church plants, or new ministry opportunities.

One combined solution can accommodate every member’s individual needs:

  1. The weekly meeting is encouraged as a pick-and-choose experience:
    • Unless they’re conducting it, each person can meet for any particular element of the service.
    • There’s no requirement for them to attend the entire service.
  2. Preaching and teaching never expand beyond crowds of ~150 people.
  3. When sub-leaders are appointed to preach and teach, each group has its own autonomy.
    • If anyone discovers new ideas, everyone hears about them, even if they’re bad.
    • Leaders are responsible to publicly address their decisions with the entire gathering.
  4. If anyone has a divergent opinion from the group’s culture, and it’s more personal preference than morality, the leadership will be fully open to any changes from it.
    • This shoudl include sending a significant minority with that person to pursue other unrelated ministries.

Denominational Distinctions

Conformity to Christ is conforming to what the Holy Spirit dictates.

If you pull anything from existing denominations, you’ll also often draw their added criticism because it was inspired from them.

  • Many Protestants have generational trauma from their division with the Catholic Church, so they’ll likely condemn any Catholic rituals as religiousness.
  • Most Catholics believe their rituals are part of the journey to salvation (instead of a response that accompanies it) so to them removing the rituals is a lesser version of their faith or outright wrong.
  • Big Eva has tailored the rituals and sacraments to maximize engagement and appeal, but requires minimal involvement or requirement to change.

Expect conflicts with other Christians.

  • God designed all good things, and using a good thing in its place with Him as part of it is just as spiritual as any long-standing traditions or denominations.
  • Even extremely non-religious domains (e.g., science, engineering) can be holy if Christ is at the center of it.
  • By implication, this means all secular things can be holy, and that is taboo among most Christians, even though the Bible indicates it clearly (1 Corinthians 8).

Growth

Most pastors are territorial, but they sin when they do.

Organizational Hierarchy

Most churches assemble as a hierarchy:

  • The nonbelievers and Christians from other denominations are at the bottom.
  • Once someone regularly attends, they’re considered to be a more significant part of the ministry.
  • In many denominations, someone can go through a set of rituals to become a member.
    • Membership might be a single class, or may have more elaborate public rituals involved.
  • Lay-leadership are people who volunteer to assist in the church’s activities.
    • Sometimes they’re picked as the need arises, other times they’re formally appointed or voted in.
  • Pastors/elders are formalized roles ordained by the top-ranking leadership.
  • At the top, there is typically a pastor/elder or a board of elders.
    • This individual or group dictates what the church will do on a grand scale.
  • Above the ministry, the denomination may have further leadership and requirements.
    • Most denominations require adherence to a specific set of theological values.
    • In the Catholic denominations, many priests are subordinate to further leadership (e.g., bishops, cardinals).
    • Some denominations (e.g., Calvary Chapel) require giving all finances to a central control, and are then disbursed the funds according to need.

However, the Bible itself only refers to appointing “elders” and “deacons”.

  • In other words, there’s not much regarding the hierarchy of trust beyond whether someone is fit to lead.
  • The greatest spiritual leader will have endured persecution in Jesus’ name.

Deductively, every church will have 3 different classifications of “believer” (Matthew 7:22-23 and 13:24-30, 1 Corinthians 3:10-15):

  1. People devoted and on fire for the Lord, with apparent spiritual fruits in their life.
  2. People doing good things, but with selfish intent in everything they do, who will still enter God’s kingdom.
  3. People who publicly look good, and have done good things, but don’t know Jesus personally, and will not enter His kingdom.

A church starts engaging in cult-like behavior when it starts mandating members attend something to achieve some form of status.

  • In a culturally diverse geographical region, the vast range of lifestyles a person can have will mean they can’t attend all the events even if they wanted to.
  • Church leaders who survive on donations often underestimate how much working a full-time job can consume most of a week.

Growth Models

There are a few major models for churches built around routine meetings.

The Traditional model starts in a house, then transitions to a building.

  • Usually minded to a specific cultural group with a narrow vision for who they’ll reach.
  • Traditional churches often have a strong passion for evangelism.
  • It balances resources well, and most people find them familiar.
  • The lack of demographic diversity, however, often fosters complacency.

The Launch Big model is a high-cost growth strategy that reflects secular non-profit organizations.

  • It has a consumerist, atheist angle that attracts non-believers.
  • Launch Big churches give a verbal Gospel presentation that can potentially reach tens of thousands of people at once.
  • Though it can grow enormous, it doesn’t usually send many missionaries or church plants.
  • They often create a secular culture and usually have weak discipleship.

The Organic House Church model focuses on minimalism and removing extra elements of services.

  • The original model expressed in the Bible (Acts 2:46).
  • Since they usually don’t advertise and stay small, most people are unaware of this model.
  • While they attract self-starters who network to find them, they leave most of the Body oblivious.
  • Organic House Churches keep an intimate connection with all the members, so everyone is motivated to serve each other.
  • Unfortunately, the leadership is usually held unaccountable for sins and the culture can often turn rebellious against larger churches.

The Multi-Site/Satellite model can split and reproduce into a separate campus at any time after reaching specific milestones.

  • A network of churches creates an enormous pool of resources the whole string of churches can use.
  • Unfortunately, they’re often held together by a leader’s personality, which creates a homogenous, fake culture if the plant isn’t sufficiently remixed in its destination culture.

The Missional Incarnate model is like the Traditional model, but stays smaller to focus on relationships.

  • Missional Incarnate is a hybrid of Traditional and Organic House churches.
  • The culture focuses on discipleship in its surrounding community, so they’re constantly moving and shifting to environmental needs.
  • While members keep room for outside growth, they encourage each other to get involved.

Logistics

The simplicity and diversity of a church decays at least somewhat as soon as it buys real estate:

  1. The extra overhead costs will require a minimum amount of contribution to pay the mortgage and utilities.
  2. Eventually, some members would prefer a partition for crying babies.
  3. Then, some members will want a separate children’s ministry to keep the children from disrupting the service.
  4. Then, that children’s church will expand to a middle/high school group.
  5. Over time, it’ll start segmenting into other groups (e.g., college, singles, elder groups).
  6. By this point, everyone has been demographically siloed and the church is no longer a unified body anymore.

Therefore, the best way to stay healthy is to never exceed 150 people, but preferably never surpass 60.

  • At that point, the split should come through an intentional purpose (e.g., church plant, missionary venture, etc.).

Correctly Measuring Success

Most measuring conventions create a perverse incentive (Goodhart’s Law):

  • Attendance metrics motivate flashy, shallow performances to increase attendance.
  • Conversion metrics motivate shallow presentations and high-pressure sales pitches.
  • Membership metrics motivates high-pressure selling for membership.
  • Ministries or event metrics build a frenzy of unproductive activities.
  • Financial metrics incentivize pushing people to give for the wrong reasons.
  • Preparedness metrics (i.e., how “equipped” believers are) will often degenerate into a bureaucratic system of attending classes.

Some of the best measurements are still difficult to define:

  • Measuring member satisfaction is difficult to trace and doesn’t distinguish between legitimate issues and individual sins.
  • Measuring spiritual growth is impossible because religious people can imitate it.
  • Measuring fulfilled ministry needs often requires people to discuss things God told them to stay silent on.

However, missionary satisfaction and church plant success are worth tracking.

  • Missionaries are the front lines and church plants are the supporting teams for fulfilling Jesus’ great commission (Matthew 28:19).
  • Outside of helping other denominations, missionaries and church plants are the most selfless possible ministry activities.