A note from our Managing Editor: This article is part of a series on the role the elements of the Sunday worship service play in everyday discipleship. While our individual churches may not formally include each of these liturgical pieces, we hope you will be blessed to understand the heart of Jesus behind these historic practices and allow them to shape your daily life as disciples.

If you are familiar with Saturday Night Live, or really any live comedy program, you might know the phrase “cold open.” It refers to the unenviable moment when a performer steps on stage to open the show and elicit laughs from an audience who is just settling in, finding their seats, and not yet primed to laugh. They are cold. It is tough work, an uphill slog in an effort to set the tone for the rest of the show.

Any pastor who has stood up at the beginning of a church service knows something of this feeling. The congregation is cold—distracted, running late, coming off an argument in the minivan, hungover, ashamed of hidden sin, low on affection for Jesus. Even the most faithful saints rarely walk into church on a Sunday primed to participate fully in the joy and depths of the gospel. Everyone carries unseen burdens of the mind and soul. Yet it is the pastor’s job to set the tone for worship, to invite people into the rest that Jesus offers (Matt. 11:28–29), to lift their eyes to the goodness of the gospel.

Many churches treat the opening moments of a church service as disposable, something to be spent lightly in order to get the good stuff. Services open with banter or announcements or stream-of-consciousness commentary, and it’s only when prayer happens or the kick drum starts that the worship service really begins. Church leaders are often ill-prepared, so when the mic comes on, they have little of substance to offer or are unable to offer it clearly and well. While these opening moments are intended to set the tone for the worship service, they are often disjointed, leaving the congregation (especially visitors and new believers) unsure of what to expect.

When we, as church leaders, make these mistakes, we are wasting an opportunity that cannot be repeated. Ray Ortlund Jr. and Sam Allberry say it wonderfully in their book, You’re Not Crazy: “We’re not meant to be conveying our welcome but Christ’s welcome. It is not about exchanging a cultural pleasantry but declaring a heavenly reality. We’re meant to be inviting brokenhearted sinners to collapse into the open arms of Jesus . . . The welcome on a Sunday morning is where we pastors deconstruct the posing of nongospel culture and reconstruct in its place the beauty of gospel culture.” This welcome is no mere welcome; it is a call to worship. It is a declaration of how God feels today, how God feels about you today, and what God promises to do among his people (Zeph. 3:17; Luke 15:20; Ezek. 36:26).

When we step up on a Sunday for the cold open of the service, we are not trying to overcome what is in the hearts of people. We aren’t hyping them up or correcting them or easing into things like they need worship training wheels. We are speaking directly to the matters that are on their hearts, even if they cannot articulate those matters. We offer hope to the hopeless, belonging to the disenfranchised, a reminder for the forgetful, clarity for the distracted, comfort for the hurting. And we can do all this in a matter of moments with simple words, just by inviting them into the presence and work of Jesus.

For years, the church where I serve (Immanuel Church, Nashville) has used the following call to worship at the opening of our services.

To all who are weary and need rest,

To all who mourn and long for comfort,

To all who fail and need strength,

And to all who sin and need a Savior,

This church opens wide her doors and her heart with a welcome from Jesus Christ.

Other churches use other liturgies or scriptures to convey the same invitation from Christ. The point is that we, as shepherds over the people of Christ, are offering an invitation from Christ to those who feel far from Christ into the hope and restoration of Christ. When we do this faithfully and consistently each Sunday, we see five results over time.

1. A Welcome For Sinners (Rom. 15:7)

So many people walk into church wondering, Do I belong here? Even long-time attendees and outwardly okay people wonder if they have a place in church because of their shame and guilt. People are hard-wired to believe they need to get themselves right before God will accept them, so bringing sins into church is terrifying. But an invitation into the grace of God in Christ shows them that everyone needs the same cleansing, and it is freely offered in the gospel. This invitation is sanctifying for believers and evangelistic for not-yet believers.

2. Rest For the Weary (Matt. 11:28–29)

The world is a heavy place, broken and hurtful and exhausting. Even the most joyful church members are carrying (or have carried) heavy things in their hearts. Often, a worship service feels disconnected from the reality of pain and sorrow and weariness. So, people need a reminder that Christ offers peace that surpasses understanding in every real circumstance. Often, people are bringing the exhaustion of past church experiences into worship—cynicism, injury, burnout—and they need the assurance of rest and peace in Jesus. So, a call to worship invites people to sink into their seats with confidence that Jesus is bearing their burdens and dealing with the heaviest things in their lives.

3. Joyful Singing (Eph. 5:18–20)

When broken sinners and weary saints feel the welcome from Jesus, they no longer have to persuade themselves to sing a joyful song. Worship through music no longer feels so dissonant with their souls. A barrier has been broken down between them and their genuine expressions of praise and need. A call to worship invites people out of emotional bondage into glad worship.

4. Receptivity to the Word (Rom. 2:4)

C.S. Lewis writes about the “watchful dragons” that scheme to keep truths out of our hearts. When people, especially hurting, weary, and guilty people, walk into church, their watchful dragons are alert and ferocious, ready to turn away any promise or proclamation that attempts to offer hope. They intend the parishioner to remain miserable, unaffected by the gospel. But a call to worship that is not a challenge but an invitation that speaks to the heart without hype can stupefy those dragons, leaving them inert as the hope of the gospel through singing, praying, and especially the preaching of the Bible, washes over the listener.

5. Accountability for the Church (1 Corinthians 11:1)

To stand in front of a congregation and offer a welcome from Jesus is to write a relational and cultural check that the church must then be able to cash. We cannot offer a welcome from the stage and renege on it in our relational interactions. Our churches are miniature local expressions of the body of Christ, so we extend the welcome through our interactions and relationships and prayers. Our call to worship is not just a tone setter for the service; it is a trajectory for our entire church ministry and community.

Our welcomes, our calls to worship, deserve the same level of intentionality as our song selections and sermon preparation. It is our first declaration of Jesus and invitation to Jesus, and all that follows in a worship service backs it up and builds on it. They only last a few moments, but in those moments, the tide can turn in the heart of a desperate person. The fog can clear in the mind of a distracted person. A burden can be lifted off a weary or anxious person. And the entire body of Christ is oriented toward the loving heart and mighty work of our Savior.