From the Preface:
In the Summer of 2015, the Lord graciously granted me an unexpected opportunity. My father, who for 26 years pastored the church I was serving, resigned, and I was asked by church leadership to serve as pastor in the interim. For the first time in my life, I was responsible to prepare the gathered worship services of the church. At that time, I had never read a book on liturgics and had only passing experience in planning worship services as an associate pastor. The burden (and joy) of leading Lord’s Day worship now belonged to me.
I must admit that my early efforts were haphazard at best, but I was delighted to put ideas into practice. One of those ideas was the reading of Scripture. Of course, our church always read the main scripture passage for the sermon, but I had become convinced that Paul’s exhortation to Timothy must require more than a lone passage of Scripture. Paul instructed him to, “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture.” (1 Tim. 4:13, ESV) Committed to obey the Apostles’ teaching, I began shoving Scripture passages into the service where I felt they could be useful.
In the last decade, I have amassed and read a substantial collection of books on liturgy. My ideas have been shaped by Scripture and its interpreters throughout church history. I continue to grow in my understanding of corporate worship. The Lord also moved my ministry from Christ Community Church to Lake Wylie Baptist. Here, for the last ten years, we have completely reformed the liturgy. It started very slow and slight, but by God’s grace, we now have a robust Christ-centered liturgy every Sunday. Over a dozen men lead various prayers in our church. Elders administer the sacraments. God has been unbelievably kind. Even as I write this paragraph, tears of gratitude fill my eyes.
I have now compiled this resource to benefit both my own congregation as well as others. I pray that you too will heed the exhortation of Paul and devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture. Your people need to hear the voice of God summon them into his presence, call them to confess their sin, assure them of his great pardon, and bless them as they depart.
O may Thy counsels, mighty God
My roving feet command
Sandra McCracken
Jonathan Homesley
Lake Wylie Baptist
April 8, 2026