One very tangible way to prioritize the means of grace is through adding evening worship services in addition to morning worship services.  This may not be practical for every congregation, especially with limited pastoral staff or in places where most of the congregation lives at a great distance.  But, if possible for a congregation,  it is one very helpful way of both bookending the Lord’s Day and of setting before the people the public means of grace.

In a new year, people will often make resolutions.  New commitments, new patterns, new goals.  In the evangelical world, Bible reading plans are formed and become part of the fabric of the lives of Christians, which is good as it drives people into the Word as it is a means of grace.  But I would suggest that Christians ought to recommit themselves also to the public means of grace in corporate worship and in the life of the church. 

As Reformed people, we typically hold to what is referred to as an “ordinary means of grace” philosophy of ministry.  According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism question 88, “The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption, are his ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.”[1] Christ ordinarily works in the hearts of His people through these means of grace.  I want to make two applications in this brief article.  First, I will make an application to pastors and elders; second, I will make an application to congregants.  

First, for pastors and elders, this means that we ought to devote ourselves to confidence in the ordinary means of grace.  There were many things taking place in the book of Acts, some which were very specific to the time of the Apostles.  But if you study what the Apostles were most devoted to, it was the Word, sacraments and prayer.  We read in Acts 2:42, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”  We read here of a “fellowship” of the saints which is built upon the Word, sacrament and prayer. The “apostles’ teaching” has to do with the Gospel message and the teaching that we now have recorded in the Scriptures–in other words, they were teaching the Word of God.  The Word was being preached and taught.  The “breaking of bread” most likely relates to the Lord’s Supper, which is a sign and a seal of the covenant of grace, and which Christ uses for the nourishment of His own people.  And of course, they devoted themselves to prayer.[2] If this is what the Apostles devoted themselves to, then surely we as pastors and elders ought to as well.  The Apostles were trusting in the power of God to work according to His Word, and they prayed to such an end and were not infrequent in administering the sacraments.  If the Apostles to whom the Lord entrusted such care in the early days of the church devoted themselves to these means of grace, we certainly should do so as well.  What does this look like at a practical level?  For one, it means that our trust and dependence is in the Lord–we are called to faithfulness and to leave the results of that to Him. 

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