Nobody comes to church because they really love the notices, do they? I’m sure some places make them really fun and engaging (surely someone must, right?) but most of us just reel off the stuff that’s happening in the week. Some don’t even have notices at all. It interrupts the flow of the service and it feels a bit perfunctory when we are there to worship the Almighty God of the universe. Just give everyone a notice sheet and don’t bother with them. Often, they are viewed as an inconvenience, against the flow and heart of what we are doing and just a tedious and utilitarian end to a service of worship.
Well, I think notices are important. They’re not an intrusion into our service. They aren’t taking us away from the heart of what we are doing, but are really and truly an active expression of what we are aiming to do. They really matter and, in my view, not only should we keep them in the main body of the service, we should draw people’s attention even more specifically to what notices are there to do.
That obviously begs a question. What are notices there to do? Well, I’m glad you asked. And just before I answer it, let me say a quick word on liturgy.
Us nonconformists can recoil from the word liturgy. We have an aversion to it. It all feels a bit Catholic or a bit Anglican, which feels to us like Catholic-lite. But the truth is, we all have a liturgy. Liturgy is just the order in which you do stuff. We might prefer terms like order of service but that is just a longer way of saying liturgy. And the order you do stuff says something about the priority you place on the stuff you do and the order in which you do it.
In our church, we aim to hear from God’s word, then we preach the word, pray in response to the word, sing songs that underline the word and share testimony about how the Word has spoken to us. That is broadly the order in which we do things. After a short welcome and an opening reading or song, we read the word. We want to communicate that – before we do much else – we want to hear from God. The only things we do before we read the word is to ask God to speak to us through his word before we hear from him. We want him to set the tone so we preach right at the front end of our service. Once we’ve heard from the Lord, everything else we do is a response to the word in prayer, song and testimony. And right at the end of our service, we have our notices (at least the bit we live stream; we turn the video off at communion because we think the Lord’s Supper is specifically for the gathered church not private individuals).
For some, the notices are an intrusion. They are the necessary but quite annoying change of gear in a service of worship. We have been built up through the Word, we have responded to it in prayer, we’ve encouraged each other in song and we’ve shared with each other in testimony all centred on the Word. And then come the boring, dusty notices that don’t seem to be in tune with anything else we’ve done. But that is so wrong!
We hear from the Lord from his word read and preached, we pray in response to the Word, we sing in line with the Word, we share testimony about how the Word has spoken to us and then we hear the notices, which are the very means of getting about doing what the Word has called us to do. Notices aren’t an intrusion into an otherwise word-centred meeting. They are the practical outworking of what the word drives us to do. We’ve heard gospel truth that should encourage us in our love for Christ, love for his people and love for the lost. The notices are the practical, visible ways we will set about obeying the word and doing all that it calls us to do. It shouldn’t be a perfunctory add-on, it shouldn’t be a tedious addition out of tune with the rest of the meeting, they should be an active encouragement to take our gospel responsibilities to one another and to our communities seriously. We may pray in response to the word in the service, but the notices are the practical action we will take in response to the word in the week. It is not less part of our worship; our reasonable service.
So don’t just skip over your notices on Sunday. Don’t drive them out of the main body of the meeting like they shouldn’t be there. But equally, don’t treat them like an annoying little add-on to a service of worship either. They should be no such thing. Instead, draw people’s attention to the fact that this is the way we will honour the Lord in deed and truth this week. This is how we will respond to the word preached; we will take up our gospel responsibilities to one another and to our community by engaging in these activities together for the sake of Christ and for the good of his gospel. That isn’t a perfunctory, inconvenient blip on our worship. That is worship. That is taking the word seriously by being doers as well as hearers. That is true faith in action. Don’t skip over your notices, highlight them to be the very opportunities you have to worship God in the week and your way of tangibly living in light of the gospel. Even your notices glorify God – don’t ditch them!