Beside Still Waters Ministries

To go along with how the Holy Spirit can work in traditional hymn in my worship confessional from this last Sunday, I thought I’d post the Sunday School lesson I wrote about worshipping through liturgy.

What do you think of when someone says the word “liturgy” to you?

One of the most misunderstood ways of worshiping today, especially in the more “free” type of church – like non-denominational churches, is the purpose and meaning of liturgy.  At one United Methodist church where I served they did not use much liturgy, though that is actually fairly uncommon for a United Methodist church.  I myself did not understand it or appreciate it until college, when in my musical education I was exposed to sung Masses and other such liturgical choral works by singing them and studying about them in Music History.  In Seminary I also studied Church History and Spiritual Formation, and developed an even greater appreciation for liturgy as being another way in which I might pray and draw into God’s presence.  So, we’ll take a brief look at liturgy, and discuss how God has used it to give us a form by which we might worship Him.  Let me also say that I believe God gave liturgy as a way we can worship Him, but it is not the only way or a “better” way or even a “lesser” way than a more “free” type of worship.

LITURGY  (Greek leitourgia), a function, service, or duty of a public character. These public services or duties among the Greeks were frequently, if not always, connected with religious ideas or ceremonies of some kind, even when the duties themselves were of a secular character — those, for instance, which had reference to the supervision of theatrical exhibitions or the presiding in the public assemblies. The religious meaning of the word in such case was not necessarily involved. In Isa 7:30 (Sept.), the idea of religious service predominates; in Rom 13:6, that of the secular, as under God; and again, ins. Luke 1:23, and in Heb 10:11, it refers to the priestly function. At a later period we find it used by Eusebius (Life of Constantine, 4:47) in speaking of the work of the Christian ministry. By a very natural process, the word, which thus designated the public function or service performed by the ministry, became restricted in its meaning to the form itself — the form of words in which such service was rendered, and thus, certainly before the middle of the fifth century, we find in the Church, in the present sense of the word liturgies, forms for the conducting of public worship and the administration of sacraments.  (from McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia. Electronic Database. Copyright © 2000, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Forms of liturgy with which we might be familiar:

The Lord’s Prayer – Matthew 6:9-13
Communion (Great Thanksgiving) – 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Catholic Mass – specifically, the Apostolic or Nicene Creed
Daily Prayers (Morning and Evening, and The Canonical Hours)
The Holy Rosary or The Jesus Rosary for Protestants

Do you know of any others? Please feel free to share others that are meaningful to you in a comment below.

One thing that seems to be lacking in Christians today is that they do not feel that they know how to pray.  Liturgy was not originally intended to be strict and binding, but rather to give anyone and everyone a way to learn how to pray and/or to be able to pray when they are so distraught that they cannot think of what to pray.  In our human-ness centuries ago, Roman Catholicism did make it very binding and much of the liturgy lost its meaning and its power.  This still somewhat tends to be true, but even in “free” types of churches there are many other things which have become just as binding and meaning-less.  What is it that makes us want order, and yet become so bound to it that we forget what made it meaningful in the first place?

What would you think of your church using liturgy a little more often in your worship services, if you do not currently? Perhaps sometimes have your church do a congregational prayer of confession and forgiveness, or some other liturgical-type of prayer. 

It wouldn’t have to do this all of the time, because that would quickly get in the same rut as any other thing that we do a little too regularly.

Challenge:  Think of either a Scripture or a prayer that you could say every day right when you get up in the morning (that is, when you have conscious thought…) and/or when you go to bed at night.  (Or whatever strange times of day you do those things).  You don’t have to do this, but I think that if you find something that is meaningful to you and you really get in the habit of doing this daily you’ll find that it makes a big impact on your day-to-day life.  This is as much of a challenge to myself as to you.

For further reading:  The Roman Catholic Ordinary of the Mass and Office Texts – if you read them, really look at the words and let them sink into your heart and mind.  Also the Service of Word And Table I from the United Methodist hymnal (pages 6-11), which I also suggest that you read and you will see some of the part of the Catholic Mass.

The chorus of the song “Creed” by Rich Mullins is I think a great way to view liturgy:
I believe that what I believe is what makes me what I am
I did not make it, no it is making me
It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man