Here's the run down: liturgy is an inescapable concept, meaning it is not a matter of whether, but which. Some recoil at the sound of the word "liturgy" conjuring stuffy, high church, routinized ceremony detached from intellectual or emotional engagement. And for some churches and in some people's experiences, that is a fair assessment of their particular situations. The problem, however, isn't that there was a liturgy, it was perhaps, that particular liturgy. Many non-denominational types in active resistance and attempts to break free from liturgical scripts, have concocted a Sunday service free from traditional trappings. But in the process, they have not tossed liturgy aside, they have simply produced an alternative liturgy. You know the drill. Song, announcements, song, song, prayer, sermon, song, song. That liturgy takes place without much variation at the lion's share of non-denominational churches Sunday in and Sunday out.
My point here is not to imply this liturgy is wrong per se, but to point out that in attempting to be novel, most churches have merely adopted a different script.
There is much that could be said on the topic, so I will here limit my response to the thoughts I had in the days after listening to it.
Everyone is uncomfortable walking into a traditionally liturgical church where they are unfamiliar with the script. It is hard to know when to sit, when to stand, when to pray, when to talk, when to respond, when to come up front, when to stay back, etc... You have to learn these rhythms by being part of the congregation. Every outsider knows they are an outsider and every insider can clearly see who is an outsider by their comfort level/ability to interact with the morning's normative liturgies. An unchurched, non-believer may have a difficult time as others recite the Lord's Prayer together, having never heard it, but they will understand that the congregants here know this and do it often together.
Now take that same unchurched, non-believer and plop them down into a modern, non-denominational mega-church style liturgy and they feel much more comfortable. Why? It doesn't require participation. You can spectate. You can watch other people sing and worship. You can watch others dance. You can listen to others talk and then you can go home. No one may know you're new and you will not be forced to do anything unusual for you. It's just like going to movies. Which is a great invitational element. But it's not a great feel if church should be something more than merely going to the movies. Church is not a spectator sport or event you attend to take in. The Roman Catholic church circa pre-Reformational Europe was largely a spectator event. You watched other people sing, listened to other people pray, and listened to a sermon in language you didn't understand until you left. You weren't there to worship, you were there to witness others worship and hoped it somehow counted on your behalf.
One last note, the modern liturgy is also unfriendly to children. The songs are too new too often for any of them to memorize or pick up by osmosis and they can't read the screens because they're too young. They often get wiggly around minute 25 of most sermons and aren't spoken to by the pastor most mornings anyways.
How we worship and what liturgies we adopt have great impact on those who call our churches home and on those who visit. My point here is not to debunk per se all modern liturgies, but rather to point out that everyone prescribes to a particular liturgy and it is worth working through what assumptions our liturgies are built upon and where those liturgies may or may not be taking us.
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