Month: February 2022

One aspect of worship that is often overlooked in many contemporary churches, especially churches that are not tied to any historical, or denominational, church, is confession. The Bible encourages confession of sin, both privately and corporately. The most common examples of confessions are instances in which someone is confessing their own sins or the sins of a group, or even of an entire nation. But there are also examples of corporate confession of sin, including Nehemiah 9:1-3 and a call to corporate confession in James 5:13-16.

I’m not sure why some churches don’t include confession in worship. Are they worried that people may become offended and attendance will decline? Do they think it’s not important, and in the desire to keep the worship service from being ‘too long’ they leave it out? Having a time of confession necessarily requires talking about sin, and that in itself can be a very sensitive subject, so maybe it’s just safer to not talk about it.

I think a common misconception that creates the sensitivity around this topic is that, if we confess sin, we’re admitting that we’re “bad” people. When we come to church, we don’t want to be told we’re bad. In fact, just by coming to church, doesn’t that show that I’m a good person? The problem is, we tend to think of sin as only real bad things: murder, theft and the like. But anything that falls short of God’s perfect law is sin. Moreover, every person is born with a sinful nature, and no one is able to lead a sinless life (Psalm 53:3, Romans 3:23). I love what Joel Hunter wrote in his devotional book Inner State 80: “We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.”

The best thing about corporate confession in worship is that, after taking time to be honest with God about our sin, we can be encouraged by the reminder that God forgives us, and even receive forgiveness from God right then and there.

Of course, you don’t have to wait for corporate worship to confess. Confession is a vital part of personal prayer and worship. Not only confessing our own sins, but the sins of our family, of the church-wide body of Christ, or of the nation. God encourages us to do this, and He has given us examples of confessional prayers in the Bible, that with a very little effort can be adapted and used today to cover these areas of confession. Some include Ezra 9:6-15, Nehemiah 1:5-11, and Daniel 9:4-19.

Confession in worship helps remind us that none of us is perfect, that we need God’s forgiveness, and that we are not alone – everyone else needs forgiveness too. By participating in corporate confession in worship, it can help us to be more open to private confession in our personal time with God. Perhaps, God is waiting to intervene in troubling situations – in our personal lives and even in our nation – until we get honest and serious about confession, and turn away from the things we confess (2 Chronicles 7:14).