Church Services - Order of Events
The following are suggested order of events for any local ICG Sabbath or Holy Day church service.  These are drawn from my thirty-seven years of church tradition and experience.  There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that establishes a specific order of service.  Our current method has grown out of biblical principles of doing things in order and without confusion.  They work.  They are also based on the biblical principle and directive to feed the flock.  Clearly the local minister or minister of record will make the final determination of how he will conduct services.  These are his duty and responsibility.  This page is showing what we have traditionally done.  It is a historical record rather than a church policy or directive.
 
I am going to show two general order of events.  The primary difference is the placement of the opening prayer.  For decades, the opening prayer was always after the song service.  The song service was designed to be a call to service.  The song service is actually a form of prayer.  Some ministers these days place the opening prayer before the song service.  I see nothing wrong with this practice.  I discuss this in my Menu-driven, Open-forum Bible study.  It is menu-item seven, "Song Service and Prayer" located here.
 
Order of Service One:
Song service - 2-3 hymns.
Opening prayer - by a baptized male with some length of time in attendance.
Sermonette - 10-12 minutes, by a baptized male with speaking credential or ordination.
Hymn
Announcements - usually given by song leader or minister.
Hymn and/or Special music.
Sermon - target these days is 60 minutes but can run from 30-90 minutes.  Given by male with ordination or speaking credential.
Hymn
Closing prayer.
 
Order of Service Two:
Opening prayer - by a baptized male with some length of time in attendance.
Song service - 2-3 hymns.
Sermonette - 10-12 minutes, by a baptized male with speaking credential or ordination.
Hymn
Announcements - usually given by song leader or minister.
Hymn and/or Special music.
Sermon - target these days is 60 minutes but can run from 30-90 minutes.  Given by male with ordination or speaking credential.
Hymn
Closing prayer.
 
Notes - Suggestions
The following are both my opinions and items gleaned from years of church experience, directives and policies along with church documents, such as the Field Church Guidelines.

Sermonette - Sermon:  One could also have what is called a "split sermon."  Rather than at 10-12 minute sermonette followed by an hour sermon, we have two split-sermons of roughly thirty minutes each.

Sermonette - Sermon: Most all messages should be Salvation Process related.  Most all subjects should be from the "trunk of the tree" meaning from our 33 primary doctrines and topics directly related to the Salvation Process.  See a suggested topic list here.  Clearly, from time to time, there are messages dealing with prophecy but the number of them should be rather small when compared to the number of Salvation Process-related messages.

Sermonette - Sermon: The individual holding the responsibility for the local church [usually the minister or minister of record] is encouraged to work with all credentialed and ordained speakers to ascertain message and subjects prior to there being given.  I have a form I use.  See it here.

Song Leader: Clearly this should be someone with training and/or talent in leading hymns.  He should be baptized with a good attendance record.  He should never sermonize any of his comments during song service or announcements.

Hymns:  Should be from our hymnal and/or hymns we have traditionally used over a long period of time.  See hymnal here.

Special Music:  Generally, the responsible party [minister/host/minister of record] should hear/review the song or number to be presented in Special Music.  Taped items are traditionally used along with live performers.

Announcements:  Should be approved by the responsible party.  Sometimes announcements can get out of hand and/or take up too much service time.  Some congregations therefore use bulletin boards, printed announcement sheets and/or Sabbath bulletins.  We have a resource at the church site on producing these bulletins.  Click here.

Opening and closing prayers:  Should run about a minute.  The baptized male should not sermonize.  In small local congregations and groups meeting in homes, if no male is willing to preform the opening and closing prayers and/or the congregation is made up of females only, it is permissible to have a baptized lady open and close in prayer.  We have outlines for prayer giving.

Bible Studies:  Bible studies are usually separate from services.  They might be done on a Friday night or after services and a lunch period.

Bible Studies:  Regarding materials: It is fine to use a video presentation that presents the history of, say, the Holy Land or the Temple and other biblical subjects where preaching is not the focus.  One that has been used extensively is the first generation of tapes/DVDs, "That the World May Know", which is a teacher/historian discussing aspects and locations of the Holy Land.  We even have posted the description and guide to this video series.  Click here.  However, we do not encourage anything that is preachy, covering foreign doctrines and teachings or those overly focused on prophecy.

Special Cases:  In rare cases and usually involving a guest speaker, we might see the normal order of services give way to a Bible Study in the place of the sermonette/sermon time.

The Literature Table:  Only ICG booklets, tapes, CDs and DVDs allowed.  The local minister or minister of record may also provide sermon and/or Bible Study literature of his sermons and Bible studies.  All outside materials are not allowed and should be reported to the responsible party at once.

Guess speakers:  As Garner Ted Armstrong once said, "ICG speakers may speak in any church they wish."  "No outside speaker is ever allowed to speak at an ICG service."  We hold to this directive.  No outside speakers are to speak at ICG services whether live or on tape.  Outside of services, members may read or listen to anything they wish.  Having said this, they may wish to read the following, as there is a biblically mandated principle and responsibility in doing so.  Click here [first item on the page].
 
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