Order of service for church: three sample orders with times

An order of service, also called an order of worship, is the list of what happens in a church service and in what sequence. Below are three sample orders with the minutes each part takes. Take the one closest to your church and change it. The bulletin maker below starts from these same orders, so you can watch one fill in as you type.

Free tool you can try here

Turn an order into a bulletin

Type your church name and this Sunday's sermon. The order of service on the left is the simple order below.

This free tool is made by Hamilton Holdings LLC, the company behind Covenant OS, and published on Church Posting.

Church name

Sermon title

Sermon passage

Order of Service

1. Welcome and announcements
2. Call to worship Psalm 95:1-7
3. Song Come, Thou Fount
4. Prayer
5. Scripture Hebrews 12:18-29
6. Sermon A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken
7. Offering
8. Benediction

Cedar Hill Baptist Church

Sunday Worship

Today: A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken

Use it free

The maker is free, needs no account to start and opens with your words already in it.

A simple order, 70 minutes

This is a plain order with singing, prayer, Scripture, a sermon and an offering, and nothing has to be printed for the congregation.

A call to worship is a verse or two of Scripture read aloud to begin, such as Psalm 95:1-2: “Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout to the Rock of our salvation! Let us enter His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him in song.”

A benediction is a blessing from Scripture spoken over the congregation at the end, such as 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

A call to worship goes on the screen as it is read. Psalm 95:1-2 looks like this as the first slide of the service.

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout to the Rock of our salvation!

Psalm 95:1

An order with the Lord’s Supper, 75 minutes

On a Sunday when the church takes the Lord’s Supper, shorten the sermon by a few minutes and put the Supper after it. The church can sing during the Supper or right after it, so this order has no separate song of response.

For the Supper, the pastor reads 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, says who is invited to take part according to your church’s practice, and prays. The deacons serve the bread and then the cup, and the church sings a hymn.

A fuller order, 75 minutes

Some churches confess their sin together each week, hear a promise of forgiveness from Scripture, and say a creed. A creed is a short statement of what Christians believe, such as the Apostles’ Creed, said aloud by everyone. This order adds those parts, and the congregation needs the words in a bulletin or on a screen.

In the confession, the congregation prays a prayer admitting its sin, aloud or in silence. The assurance of pardon is a verse that promises forgiveness, such as 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The pastoral prayer is the longer prayer for the church, the sick, the town and the world. A doxology is a short song of praise sung by everyone.

How to build your own

1. Start with the sermon text. Choose the Scripture reading, the call to worship and the songs to fit it.
2. Write the minutes beside each part and add them up. If the total runs past your usual ending time, shorten a part now.
3. Put a name beside every part, and tell each person by Thursday.
4. Keep the announcements to four or five. Our announcement examples show how to write them.
5. Keep the same order most weeks, so the congregation knows what comes next.

A blank template

Copy this list and fill it in each week.

The free bulletin maker, made by Hamilton Holdings LLC and published on Church Posting, starts from these same orders and prints the finished order as a folded bulletin, and church slides puts the songs and readings on the screen. Every public domain hymn is in the hymn library with its words ready to project.

The Scripture on this page is from the Berean Standard Bible. Its publisher dedicated the text to the public domain as of April 30, 2023, so you may print it freely.