Calls to Worship, Invocations, and Benedictions, by Ryan Kelly. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2022, xlix + 223 pages, $19.99.

Dr. Ryan Kelly is associate director of choral activities at West Chester University of Pennsylvania where he directs several choirs and teaches courses in conducting and choral music. Dr. Kelly is director of music and organist at Proclamation Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Bryn Mawr, PA. He earned his D.M.A. (Doctor of Musical Arts) in choral conducting from Michigan State University; he also has an M.M. (Master of Music) from the University of Oklahoma and a B.M. (Bachelor of Music) from Houston Baptist University. He is not seminary trained nor an ordained minister of the Word, but he is well-read in the subject.

His concern is to provide this book for ordained men and others who choose calls to worship, invocations, and benedictions for the Lord’s Day worship in the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition and to help other traditions “to better understand, implement, and execute these worship elements” (xi).

In his preface, Dr. Kelly explains that his thinking is influenced both by broad study in the 500-year-old Reformed Christian liturgical tradition and the study of other liturgies. He is aware that today “worship styles are strikingly dissimilar among the greater Reformed Church.” He argues that there is no “historical and universally accepted” worship style and “that there is no single authoritative Reformed practice” (xii).

However, the author is aware of the regulative principle and the danger of offering “strange fire” to God in worship (xi). “Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them” (Lev. 10:1, emphasis mine). He might have also referenced Jesus’s teaching on humanity’s desire to worship God with that “which he had not commanded,” by considering Jesus’s evaluation of worship during his day: “In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:9).

In twenty-seven pages he gives an overview of the historical function and development of the call to worship, invocation, and benediction, as well as a defense for using them. Volumes could have been written on the topic, and the end of the book has chapters on practical and study resources which are well worth pursuing for anyone interested in more depth on the study of liturgy. Both chapters are full of articles, essays, and books on liturgy.

It might be useful to know that there is a technical language usually used in the discussion of worship—elements, forms, and circumstances of worship. Elements are those parts of worship that make it worship—prayer (sung and spoken), ministry of the Word, sacraments (baptism & Lord’s Supper), sharing (koinōnia κοινωνία). Recall that the worship “style” of the church in Acts was “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). During the lifetime of the apostles, the church could have done many activities when they gathered for worship, but they committed themselves to worship using these four elements.

Forms are the actual content or words used in each element of worship. The words of a prayer are a form. The words of a hymn are a form. The words of a sermon are a form, etc. Circumstances are the physical environments of worship which are common to any public assembly of people for a religious or non-religious purpose. This book is almost entirely about the forms used in the call to worship, invocation, and benediction. Those forms are listed as such with subheadings not in biblical order, but according to Advent, Christmastide and Epiphany, New Year, Baptism of Our Lord, Transfiguration, Lent, Palm Sunday, Eastertide and Ascension, Pentecost and Holy Trinity, Reformation, All Saints, Thanksgiving, Christ the King, and Ordinary Time. If one does not follow such a calendar, then this organizational structure is less useful.

Dr. Kelly states that the Reformed traditions have lots of freedom due to a variety of differing liturgies from Calvin’s to others. The problem with human traditions is not that it is a tradition or that it is human, but that it should be evaluated as a bad, good, or better tradition than other ideas. We all should be aware of the noetic effect of sin in our thinking about any tradition. When Scripture is used in the call to worship, invocation, or benediction, the choice should be informed by careful biblical and exegetical thinking about what the Scripture meant in its original context, and the change in covenants from Mosaic Law with its worship to the New Covenant worship should be specifically considered (Heb. 12:18–29).

Before using this book (or any similar book), every pastor should be careful to do his own exegesis on passages Dr. Kelly suggests for these forms, and make sure his congregation will not misunderstand a passage to be used. The congregation must be biblically informed as certain Scripture used for calls to worship, invocations, and benedictions could be misunderstood by the congregation. As one example, there is a reason to be careful when applying Psalm 24:3–4 to a call to worship—“Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.” “Ascending the hill of the Lord” can be rightly understood as an Old Testament typological phrase about sinners reentering God’s presence with new covenant realities. If it is understood by members of the congregation as walking into the building on Sunday, it has been misunderstood. Christ is the only human being who had clean hands undirtied by sin and possessed a pure heart. If worshippers think they have to have that quality in them in order to worship, there is a problem. If worshippers think their lives are clean and undirtied by sin, there is a bigger problem. Each pastor must carefully select any biblical texts to be used in worship.

Dr. Kelly has done a great deal of work, and he has carefully referenced others’ works in footnotes and in his last chapters. Buy the book, study his suggested forms and their appropriateness for your congregation, and study his footnotes and additional references. Additional resources may be found in the Directory of Worship in the Orthodox Presbyterian Book of Church Order (2015); two books by Hughes Oliphant Old: Leading in Prayer (1995), The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship (1975); and Samuel Miller, Thoughts on Public Prayer (2022).

Stephen A. Migotsky is an Orthodox Presbyterian minister and serves as the pastor of Jaffrey Presbyterian Church in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Ordained Servant Online, June-July, 2024.