Dr. John D. Witvliet serves as senior scholar and program advisor for missional initiatives and professor of theology, worship and the arts at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to joining the Belmont faculty in June 2025, he served for 28 years as the founding director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and professor at Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary.
Last Updated: June 11, 2025
Planning worship for Good Friday is a challenging pastoral and theological task. How do we begin to acknowledge the power and the mystery of the cross of Jesus Christ? How do we proclaim, even on Good Friday, that Christ is crucified and risen? What emotions are appropriate to express? Do we rejoice or do we weep?
A quick study of thirty or more printed orders of service in my files suggests that most Good Friday services feature one of three strategies.
Lament is a sign of both honest faith and resolute hope. When we worship together, we bring with us our experience in the world, from our most profound joys to our most painful sorrows. Like the Old Testament psalms, thoughtful liturgy allows us to express the whole range of our experience in ways that are fitting to the message of the gospel.
John D. Witvliet has been appointed assistant professor of worship and music at Calvin College and adjunct professor of worship at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Two future articles will explore the way in which lament can function in the ebb and flow of weekly worship, apart from times of crisis.
We were buried with Christ through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
—Romans 6:4
Dr. James F. White is currently professor of liturgical studies at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, where he has supervised nearly twenty Ph.D. dissertations on worship-related topics. His sixteen books on worship include A Brief History of Christian Worship, An Introduction to Christian Worship, and Protestant Worship: Traditions in Transition, all texts that are frequently assigned in college and seminary courses on worship.
The Reformed tradition has always maintained that its worship is regulated sola scriptura, by Scripture alone. Worship is thus never understood to be an act of creative self-expression, but rather an act of obedience to God. We worship God not in ways we dream up, but. in ways that God teaches us in the Word.
Our guide for worship is Paul's letter to the Colossians. This epistle celebrates the lordship of Jesus Christ, reminds us of our "Freedom to Serve," and calls us to live in the fullness of our union with Christ. The order of worship mirrors the outline of this epistle, with hymns and prayers that serve to help us live into the truth of Paul's message.
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