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What to Expect in Reformed Worship: A Visitor's Guide

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Pastor Hyde has provided a helpful primer on biblical worship. In this concise booklet he carefully explains the structure and organization of a typical worship service--not for the sake of dry intellectual knowledge, but as a means of priming our hearts and minds for the worship of the living God. A good reference for believers and for unbelievers seeking to understanding what is happening in Christian worship.

Hyde, a minister in the URCNA, has done something that all Reformed pastors need to do. He has prepared a booklet to be given to visitors which explains why we worship the way we do. Unless your worship service is identical to the services at Hyde's church, you will need to modify his work in order to make it available to your church's visitors. Even so, Hyde's booklet serves as an excellent model for how a visitor guide should look. Undoubtedly, visitors to a Reformed worship service will ask questions about the order and style of worship. Being able to offer a visitor a booklet like this one would be a boon to your outreach efforts. Reformed worship is a beautiful thing, and Hyde explains it in a most winsome fashion.

As more and more people today are discovering the riches of the Reformed faith, a clear and pastoral explanation of Reformed worship is desperately needed. While there are many excellent resources that instruct the Christian on why we do what we do in Reformed worship, I have not read anything that is so beautifully geared to the newcomer and the uninitiated. As a pastor of a Reformed church, I plan to use this timely tool in great quantity!

"I believe the Church needs many things in our time. As a deacon in a local Reformed communion two years into looking for it, I feel confident in saying that one of them is a skilled leadership that can effectively bridge the worlds of rigorous theological reflection and the common laity; to reflect the mediatory nature of Christianity itself; and to know how true Christian worship is itself a phenomenon that can and should do all that is necessary for every Christian pilgrim. Reformed pastors today must have a grip on what DG Hart points out: "True theology yields acceptable worship, and proper worship reinforces correct doctrine. Worship is not a matter of taste, but an expression of theological conviction. When a church's worship does not reflect its theology, that church is incoherent and schizophrenic, and it will open the door to theological decline." Hyde is one of those pastors and this book shows how his efforts ought to be the envy of every local Reformed communion. Sometimes it is said that we Reformed have little sense of evangelism. But the underlying premise of this little handbook (which can easily be read in one sitting) is a heart for bridging the gap between a communion being well nurtured and warmly welcoming and encouraging the "outsider" to expectedly join in the cadence of that thick, rich cloud of witnesses. Simply put, Hyde doesn't want to leave anyone out. At the same time, he represents a confessional effort which wants to remain devoted to its Reformed, liturgical and sacramental roots to accomplish this, resisting about as well as one can the deeply influential forms of American revivalism and Evangelicalism. Men like Hyde prove that the best of confessional Reformed orthodoxy can both nurture those established in the faith and vigorously evangelize. Contra the natural piety of American cult and culture, we have all we need in our tradition to meet the missiological demands of Scripture.

Were I wandering any given narthex while looking for a place to worship and found this guide I would have found my home."

This is a wonderful explanation of the liturgy in a Reformed service! This guide provides meaning to the elements of worship and clearly details the "call-response" format. A must for visitors to a Reformed church!

From the perspective of a member of the URC this is an informative resource. As to the content of the 47 page book author Hyde goes into answering the why, what, and when questions of the Reformed worship service, defines terms, goes into the specific areas of the worship liturgy and gives Scripture references explaining why the service looks and sounds the way it does. As to the writing it is clear, organized, and a joy to read.