What this song does in a room
"Come Now Is The Time To Worship" is older than most of your congregation thinks. It came out in 1998, which means it has been an on-ramp into worship for over twenty-five years. It still works, and the reason it still works is that it does exactly one thing and does it well. It invites. There is no hook, no climb, no big modulation. It just opens the door and waits for the room to walk through.
In smaller rooms, the song does its best work. Eighty people in a Sunday morning gathering will sing this one before they sing almost anything else, because the melody is so intuitive it bypasses self-consciousness. In larger rooms, the song can feel dated unless you lean into the simplicity and trust it. The temptation will be to dress it up. Resist that. The song was built bare for a reason.
What this song is saying about God
The song claims that worship is a present invitation, not a future obligation. Psalm 95:1-6 is the spine. "Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." Notice the verbs. Come. Sing. Shout. Bow. Kneel. The psalm is action language. The song borrows that imperative directly.
Psalm 100:1-4 adds the entrance. "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name." The song is essentially a gate. It walks the congregation through it.
Philippians 2:10-11 is the eschatological weight the bridge carries. "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." The bridge of the song quotes this almost verbatim. What is being asked now in worship is what will be true universally in the end. The room is being invited to rehearse eternity.
This is not a song about worship in general. It is a summons to come now, not later. The urgency is the theology.
Where to place this song in your set
In the Gospel Ark frame, this is the call. The opening summons that gathers the room. In the Isaiah 6 pattern, this lives at the very top, the "I saw the Lord" moment. The room is being oriented toward the throne.
In the Tabernacle frame, this is the outer court. The gathering of the people before the work of worship begins. Psalm 100:4 is explicit about this. "Enter his gates with thanksgiving."
Practically, this is an opener. In small rooms it works almost weekly. In larger rooms, save it for services where simplicity is the asset. Christmas Eve, communion services, prayer gatherings, and intergenerational Sundays where you have older saints who will remember it and younger people who will hear it fresh.
Avoid pairing it as a second song behind something energetic. It needs to be the first move, not a follow-up. The bridge can land as a sober moment, so do not undermine that by rushing into the next song.
Practical notes for leading this song
Default male key is E. Default female key is G. Tempo is 66 BPM, which is unusually slow for an opener. Trust that tempo. The song is a gentle gathering, not a kickoff.
The melody sits comfortably for both keys. There is no range challenge. The challenge is making it feel intentional rather than apologetic. Sing it with conviction. Do not let the simplicity make you treat it as filler.
For the production side. Lighting: warm wash, low intensity. Build the bridge with deeper saturation only if it serves the gravity of the "every knee" moment. Audio: open with just piano or acoustic guitar. Add band only after the first verse, and even then, restrained. Pad is your friend. ProPresenter: clean slides, no animation, no background motion video. This song is too quiet to compete with visual noise. Click: optional. If your team can carry 66 BPM by feel, the song will breathe better without it.
Songs that pair well
Songs to come in from: nothing. This is an opener.
Songs to send into: "Holy Holy Holy" (deepening the reverence), "Open the Eyes of My Heart" (extending the invitation), "Build My Life" (modernizing the surrender posture).
Before you lead this song
You are about to gather a room before God. The song is older than some of the people in it. Lead it like it is new, because for someone in that room, it is.