Pastor Joe Thorn shares ideas on planning:
CHRISTOCENTRIC:
We have no interest in offering generic worship to a generic deity who only goes by the names “You,” “Him,” and “He.” As Christians we are worshipping our “great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” and everything in our worship gathering is leading the congregation to see and respond to the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Taken as a whole, the worship must exalt Jesus’ person and work.
BIBLICAL:
When we say that we work hard at being “biblical” in our worship we mean more than using biblical language. We really only want to do what Scripture prescribes for us in the gathered assembly. This is typically called the “regulative principle” in worship, but there is even debate among RP adherents. For us, we simply do not include anything as an essential element of corporate worship that isn’t given to us in the word. I don’t mean to make it sound like this is a simple issue, but this is how we try to operate. For us the essential elements are the public reading and faithful preaching of Scripture, prayers, song, offering, the sacraments.