Our church has some fixed elements in our service and some that we cycle through or only include on an occasional basis (see our 15-part podcast series on the Sunday Service). We also leave room for spontaneous aspects of worship, such as testimonies, unplanned songs or choruses, and so on, as the Holy Spirit leads. However, I try to keep our Sunday morning worship services to around an hour and 15 minutes, and so it’s helpful to add up the time that various planned elements take so that I can plan my sermon accordingly. The following times are approximate (usually rounded up a few seconds to provide some flexibility). Parts with asterisks are sometimes omitted.
Part I: The Service of the Word
- Acclamation and call to worship: 1–2 minutes
- Opening prayer/Collect for Purity: 0.5 min (spoken slowly)
- *Summary of the law: 0.3 min
- *Kyrie and Trisagion: 0.2 min
- Gloria Patri: 0.5 min
- Hymn of praise: 1 min (Gloria in Excelsis) or 3–5 min (worship song)
- *Prayer before the lessons: 0.5 min
- Scripture reading(s): 1.5–3 min each
- Hymns: approx. 3 min each
- Sermon: 20–30 mins (depends on the day/season—see below)
- Creed: 1 min (Apostles’) or 1.5 min (Nicene)
- Prayers of the People (aka “congregational prayer”): 5 min
Part II: The Service of the Lord’s Supper
- Invitation: 1 min (w/ a few transitional/prefatory remarks)
- Confession (of Sin): 1.5 min (w/ a moment of silence beforehand)
- *(Prayer for) Absolution: 0.5 min
- Comforting Words and Peace: 0.5 min
- Offertory: approx. 3–4 min
- Sursum Corda and Sanctus: 1 min
- *Song (e.g., Holy, Holy, Holy): 3–5 min
- Prayer of Consecration: 2 min (spoken slowly with pauses)
- Lord’s Prayer: 0.5 min
- *Prayer of Humble Access: 1 min
- Words before the ministration (Agnus Dei, etc.): 0.5 min
- Distribution: 4–5 min (varies significantly based on congregation size)
- *Post Communion Prayer: 0.5 min
- Doxology: 0.5 min
- Announcements: 1–2 mins
- Blessing and Sending: 0.5 min
Sermon Length
Our Sunday worship services begin at 10 AM, and I try to be done by around 11:15–11:20 AM. The portions of the liturgy before the sermon are usually around 20–25 minutes in total. The portions after the sermon (Creed, Prayers of the People, Service of the Lord’s Supper) are usually around 25 minutes in total. This means that I begin preaching around 10:20–10:25 AM and need to be done preaching by around 10:50 AM. This gives me 25–30 minutes for my sermon.
When preparing my sermon, I almost always write a manuscript (usually in a conversational tone, like it was a transcription of my natural speech). Speaking at about 80–100 words per minute, this means that my manuscript needs to be around 2000–2400 words. Since I usually add extemporaneous comments as I preach through my manuscript, I aim for around 1800–2100 words to allow for some flexibility. For an example of a 25-minute sermon, see “The Gospel According to Ruth: Gentiles Grafted In.”
On major feast days (e.g., Pentecost) or during major seasons of the Christian year (e.g., Easter) we often have more Scripture readings and some added liturgical elements, and so my sermons tend to be shorter (around 20 minutes). For an example of a 20-minute sermon that expounds texts drawn from a traditional lectionary, see “Lazarus and the Hope of Physical and Spiritual Resurrection (John 11:1–45).”
From time to time, I have a unique sense of the Spirit’s help while preaching, go “off notes,” and preach longer (or we have several unplanned testimonies or a spontaneous song). In these cases, I often choose to cut something out from the remainder of the liturgy (e.g., the song after the Sanctus). However, I have learned to never rush through the liturgy after the sermon (especially the Service of the Lord’s Supper) and to simply be comfortable with occasionally having longer services (e.g., that run until 11:25 AM) as long as it is for a good reason and does not become a habit due to insufficient preparation.
