How to Gather Well: 5 Ways to Prepare for Corporate Worship

I almost called this article, “Getting the Most out of the Gathering,” but I was cautious about accidentally communicating something in the title that I don’t mean. To be clear, I don’t believe the gathering is primarily about us getting something. I trust we all understand that it would be wrong to come to church with the mindset of expecting to have our preferences catered to. That is not the ‘getting’ that I mean.

But it is clear through the pages of the Bible that God has ordained the Christian gathering to be a place for us to not only offer worship to him but also to receive grace from him.

John Piper makes this point, saying,

I think there is an epidemic in the church of starving Christians who are in church every week—even Bible-preaching churches—and yet are not being matured, edified, and encouraged.

When we come to corporate worship, we ought to come with the intention of receiving from our heavenly Father. We are coming to fellowship with him and his people, and to enjoy the many blessings that he intends for us.

John Owen says it like this:

So while we are coming to receive, it doesn’t end there—we are also coming to give. We see the same thing in Hebrews 10:24-25:

So, how do we gather well? How are we to come to church so that we are receptive towards God and attentive towards one another? Let me suggest five ways to maximize the fruitfulness and benefit of the corporate gathering.

1. Live a Life of Worship.

There is very little benefit for a Christian on Sunday who has no intention of following Christ with their entire lives. This is what Jesus condemned the Pharisees for: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Matt. 15:8).

Jesus is not honoured by worship that comes from lives that are distant from him.

Is this not what Paul says to the church in Rome in Romans 12:1, when he appeals to us to “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship”?

This is the first thing we need to understand—we will never get the full benefit of the gathering when our hearts are far from God all week long.

2. Prepare Your Heart in Advance.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, a foundational Reformed confession, says that people properly come to corporate worship, “after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand.”

So, how do we prepare our hearts beforehand?

First, ensure that you are in right relationship with others. The Bible makes it very clear that if you are involved in conflict with someone in the church, you must seek to make it right before you come to offer your worship (see Matt. 5:23-24).

Second, ensure that you are in right relationship with God. Consider reading and praying Psalm 51 before you come to worship. Confess your sins to God, and truly repent over them. Don’t just feel sorry—commit afresh to putting that behaviour behind you. Take your sin seriously if you want to take worship seriously.

Third, get good sleep. The Puritan Thomas Watson says,

So watch what plans you make Saturday night, and take time to prepare the practical things that will be needed in the morning. This will help you have plenty of time to get to church so that you aren’t rushing or drowsy.

These are some simple things that you can do to help prepare yourself and your family for corporate worship.

3. Pray for the Gathering

A simple practice you can start to implement on Saturday night and Sunday morning is to take a few moments with your family and pray for what will happen the next morning. This will help train your family to anticipate going to church and train them to treat going to church with a sense of reverence.

There is a spiritual nature to the gathering. The presence of God, mediated through the presence of the Holy Spirit within the people of God, is moving and active as we gather.

Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 2:13, “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” The Holy Spirit is involved in the proclamation of God’s Word, and communicates spiritual truths to those who are spiritual through the singing, praying, and preaching of the Word.

Pray for those teaching the Word, for the planning of the worship service, that the congregation would come prepared, that any unbelievers present would see the living God and be saved, and that your own worship would be honouring to God.

4. Plan to Come Early and Stay Late.

Many of us lament that our modern church gathering culture has almost eradicated fellowship opportunities. There are many causes for this, but one is that many people arrive for service late and leave almost immediately.

We need to recover the practice of coming to church early and staying late after church. This gives time to let God use us to be an encouragement to others. There may be an opportunity for you to pray with others, to comfort a hurting saint, to use your spiritual gifts, or to serve practically.

Here is another idea—pick a Sunday, plan to have extra food available at lunch, and ask the Lord who you should invite for lunch after church. In general, make time in your Sunday afternoon for fellowship. Tell yourself, “Church is 9:30am to 2:00pm on Sundays.” Don’t plan to do groceries at 1:00pm.

5. Resolve to Sing Loudly

One of the many reasons we sing in worship—especially singing good doctrine and truths about God that are written in moving poetry and melody—is that singing has a God-intended function of stirring our love and affections for God.

The Psalmist tells us in Psalm 147:1, “For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting,” and the apostle James writes, “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise” (Jas. 5:13).

Singing is a good and pleasant act, and it is expected of God’s people that they sing of him, about him, to him, and to others, because of the effect it has on our hearts and minds as lowly creatures.

Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian, says this,

Now I do not agree with Edwards that singing is ‘wholly’ appointed, but it is certainly partially appointed to stir our affections.

So before you go to church, resolve to sing. Resolve that if you don’t like the song, or if it is too high or low, you will sing anyway. When we don’t sing, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to fan into flame fresh affection for God, and we rob God of the glory he is due from creatures he has made.

Caveat & Conclusion

I want to add a word of caveat here. I’ve given you many good suggestions on how to prepare for corporate worship, but in some seasons of life, just making it to church at all is a victory worth celebrating. So even if you don’t manage to hit all these points of preparation, that’s okay—go to church all the same. Go with anticipation that the Lord will still supply you with grace in your weakness.

The gathering is intended to transform us. As the apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18,

So I pray that the next time you go to church, you will not only be more fully able to appreciate all that God intends for us as we gather with his people, but you will go prepared and ready to behold Christ and be changed.

¹ John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, 24 vols. (Johnstone and Hunter, 1850–53), 7:437.