Service

Heard in the wild

The longer version

What it means

A service is the church's regular gathering for worship, usually Sunday morning and often at more than one time. The shape varies by tradition but the ingredients are stable: singing, prayer, scripture read aloud, a sermon or homily, an offering, and — every week in some churches, monthly or quarterly in others — communion. Most run about an hour; Orthodox and Pentecostal services run longer. Many churches also have a Saturday evening or Sunday evening service, and a midweek one.

The word covers everything from a Catholic Mass to a Quaker meeting to a stadium megachurch gathering, which is why it's the safe, generic term.

Why people say it

Christians gather because the Bible tells them not to give up meeting together, because Jesus promised to be present where they gather, and because faith is communal — you can pray alone but you can't be the church alone. "Service" as a name emphasizes that worship is something done for God (service to Him) and, in Lutheran theology, something God does for the people. Either way, it's the week's fixed point.

How to respond

"What time is service?" is the question, and the church's website answers it. Arrive a few minutes early, take a bulletin, sit wherever's open (avoid the very front row unless you like it), follow the people around you for standing and sitting, and stay for coffee if there is any. Nobody expects a visitor to know the routine. If you're asked how you liked the service afterward, "it was good — thanks for having me" is enough.

If you hear it in different churches

Protestants of all kinds say "service." Catholics say "Mass" and reserve "service" for non-Eucharistic gatherings. Orthodox say "Liturgy" or "Vespers." Anglicans say "service" generally and name specific ones (Eucharist, Morning Prayer, Evensong). Quakers say "meeting." Evangelical megachurches may say "gathering" or "experience," which older Christians find a little much.

Where does “Service” come from?

The first Christians met "on the first day of the week" to break bread (Acts 20:7) and were told "not to give up meeting together" (Hebrews 10:25). "Service" for the act of worship comes from the Latin servitium and the idea of divine service; the German Gottesdienst ("God's service"), used by Luther, deliberately means both the people serving God and God serving the people. "Order of service" as a printed program dates to the 1800s. Multiple Sunday services at different times and in different styles are a twentieth-century development driven by growth and the worship wars.

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