Across town, at Christ Church, hundreds of people gather, singing traditional hymns with the help of an organ and choir which marches in from the back of the church, led by a cross and a young person swinging a pot full of incense. As the hymn finishes with a flourish, the people open their prayer books to begin at exactly the same place where they began last week. Father Tim Johnson, decked out in a set of colorful vestments, intones an opening prayer and a sense of mystery and solemnity fills the old building.
The two ministers can't understand each other. “How can you worship using the same book and the same prayers week after week?” Pastor Jim asks Father Tim. “Doesn't that get boring after a while? And how can God be real in such a stale atmosphere?”
Father Tim is equally confused: “Isn't it exhausting to create a new service every week? Don't people get nervous wondering what's going to happen next? It all seems so temporary.”
This dialogue stresses the heart of Christian life: worship. People approach worship in particular ways with distinctive likes and dislikes, and this variety honors God. At the same time, the “worship wars” are ever present in the mutual suspicion and misunderstanding between advocates of liturgical or contemporary worship.
It used to be that churches with a liturgical worship style scoffed at Pentecostal or evangelical forms. Today advocates of contemporary worship believe that liturgical worship in mainline churches is deader than a holy doornail. Conventional wisdom states that a liturgical church doesn't have a prayer of a chance at the edge of the 21st century. Perhaps it's time to reexamine the very real value that liturgy can bring to worship.
Encountering the Mystery of God
Every church has some kind of order or pattern in worship, and every life has some kind of ritual. There is always a certain pattern that, when followed, creates a sense of comfort and a sense of memory, the “way we've always done it.” We crave predictability and regularity, especially in the significant passages of life when the changes seem overwhelming. When we shrink back from the dynamic holiness and presence of God, ritual can help us encounter the mystery of God without being lost in it. Ritual helps to make sense and order out of what feels disordered and out of control.
Paul understood well the tension between freedom and order. His Jewish liturgical background was filled with times and forms of prayer and ritual observances like the Day of Atonement, Passover, and the Festival of Booths. Yet the Spirit often told him to undertake certain work, or to pull out of other work, and he himself spoke in tongues and prophesied under the Spirit's control. For Paul, Jewish ritual observances were communal, and everyone participated in reciting the prayers, lighting the candles, and reading the Scriptures.
This is what liturgy is all about. The word is Greek. It means, “the work of the people.” From its earliest days, the church's worship was liturgical, with a form and pattern of Word and Sacrament.
The Rev. Roger Ames, rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Akron, Ohio and a longtime leader in charismatic renewal, says, “What is disturbing to some is that the visual impact is Roman Catholic -- the vestments, the altar in a church, the sacraments every Sunday. The Reformation response so often is, 'That can't be real in worship that is in spirit and in truth.' They react to symbols, not to what the symbols are trying to communicate.” Ames says that the liturgical and contemporary styles blend well together at St. Luke's because “we affirm that the liturgy was made for man, not man for the liturgy, and we let the worship flow.”
Connecting with History
Liturgy gives worshipers a sense of rootedness. “I really believe that contemporary worship styles create an audience, but that liturgy creates a congregation,” says Fred Craddock, retired professor of homiletics and New Testament at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.
“Liturgy presupposes, but it also helps create a memory of the church's tradition,” he said. “Part of what's happening today is that some worship leaders and ministers realize that younger couples and people have no memory of church. Instead of taking time to build deposits in the memory bank, they operate a no-memory church. It's kind of an abortion -- I know it's a strong word, but I mean it -- to presume that you can be a church without drinking from the well of the past and from tradition.”
The Rev. Stan White, rector of Church of the King in Valdosta, Ga., is one with a thirst for the water from the well of the past. His congregation formerly was Pentecostal and independent, but eight years ago he and most of his members made the transition into liturgical worship, even joining the Episcopal Church and using the Book of Common Prayer.
“As a nondenominational pastor, I wasted a lot of time to validate and justify the pattern we were following,” he said. “There's something about the sacraments and liturgical life where we don't have to do that, and that feels safe and rooted. Our ministry is a lot more integrated now. I don't have a dualism about the world and the church, but I have a deeper sense of all of life being holy. Life as worship now flows from sacramental worship on Sundays.”
Shifting the Focus
Finally, liturgical worship enables the minister to worship while leading others. The spotlight is on the Word or on the Table, and not on the minister or the people. “Liturgical worship and sacraments take the emphasis off of one personality -- a preacher, a performer or a testimony -- and put Jesus in the center.”
Jeff Wright, worship arts producer (worship leader) at Community Church of Joy, a 2,000 member Lutheran church in Glendale, Ariz., says that attendance at their two liturgically oriented services has been growing steadily in the last year. “We try to recreate the essential elements of the liturgy, like the Apostles' Creed, a Prayer of Confession, or the Words of Institution at Communion,” he said. “We keep the elements and message of those historic pieces and repackage them.”
The value of liturgical worship is that, rooted in history and filling all of life with a sense of God's presence, the worship leader doesn't have to worry about coming up with the right prayer, the right words, or the right order. The rituals and forms create a channel for the Spirit of God to flow as it has for centuries, where we don't have to try so hard to be worshipers.
Rediscovering Liturgy in Your Church
Incorporate one new liturgical element every few months that requires participation, such as a traditional hymn, a responsory prayer, or an act of confession.
Use liturgical forms such as are found in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, the Methodist Book of Discipline, or the Lutheran Book of Worship, and leave plenty of room for the Spirit to move in times of silence or Spirit-led prayer.
Use ancient prayer texts or written prayers instead of spontaneous prayer as a way for worshipers to connect with Christian memory.
Invite a believing pastor from a liturgical church to lead one of your worship services, using his or her liturgical form. Ask the pastor to help instruct worshipers on what they are doing and why.
This article is reprinted with permission of Worship Leader magazine and CCM Communications.
John Throop is pastor of Christ Church in Peoria, Ill., and a church management consultant.
