EMBRACING LITURGICAL WORSHIP
I grew up in a non-liturgical denomination and did not transition to a liturgical one (The Episcopal Church) until my late 30s. When I did so, it was not because I was searching for an alternative form of worship. It was accidental, a function of my employment at that point in my life. I was the Headmaster of an Episcopal prep school, and we were obliged to have a chaplain on staff, to offer a religion curriculum and to worship together as a school community on a weekly basis. Additionally, I began attending services at a local Episcopal parish on Sundays. Being in a liturgical space in a context of formal worship convinced me that I needed to become a part of this very different but compelling religious world. I loved the music. I loved the defined yet graceful service with its carefully, even exquisitely, composed or re-envisioned prayers, confessions, litanies, and creeds along with intellectually challenging sermons and regular exposure to scripture (four passages every week in the regular Rite II Eucharist) which followed a purposeful pattern. I loved the prayer book and came to believe that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer had a genius for the writing of worship text (his first edition of the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 did as much as William Shakespeare achieved in drama to lift the English language to a new level as a tongue of world stature through a version we know today as Elizabethan English). I wondered why I had never explored other religious options at an earlier point in my life, because a carefully planned liturgy gave me a sense of belonging and a feeling of comfort and grounding — all of which possessed an uplifting quality which I wanted to internalize. It was one of those moments in life when you recognize in a powerful way that you are finally in a place where you actually belong. A place of your own choosing. A place that fits you like a fine glove.
Because of my transition to this new world of liturgical practice, I was interested to learn recently that the latest analysis of America’s shifting values indicates that the decades-long decline in organized religion (as evidenced by regular church attendance) has plateaued and is in fact receding. Additionally, I was surprised to discover that young people are returning to church — perhaps not regularly, but definitely in notable numbers here as well as in cultures similar to ours. In the U.K., for example, college students at Oxford and Cambridge are now frequently attending Evensong (a hallowed Anglican tradition combining the evening daily office with choral music). The numbers are not large, but they are enough to attract the attention of the media. Even more interesting is the fact that these young people returning to a familiar religious world they mostly left behind in adolescence are spurning contemporary worship (i.e., non-denominational evangelical versions noted for their experimentation with modern methods of wooing the reluctant: live contemporary music, elaborate audio-visual productions, “Christian rock” choirs, enthusiastic “gospel preaching,” etc.) in favor of the more orthodox, liturgical form. Naturally, I was anxious to learn more about this trend, and the evidence suggests that young people in opting for more traditional modes of worship are seeking the enduring qualities of practices rooted in the distant past — because for them “ancient” is the same as “authentic,” a value they prize.
And, indeed, Christian forms of worship are very, very old. They go back to at least the pre-Christian world (i.e., 3,000 years or more) to which we can date key elements such as observance of “the Lord’s Day” (i.e., the Sabbath — note Psalms 92 and 134) and the precedent of morning and evening prayer. In Numbers and Exodus, God commands that daily offerings be made in the tabernacle. Hymns, canticles, incense, early musical instruments and other accompaniments of worship also date to this early period. The Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, the Divine Service, or the mass – different labels for the same ceremony – appeared very early in the worship circles which preceded the actual development of a Christian “church” in the post-Resurrection Mediterranean world. The general order and pattern of Christian worship took on something like its current shape by the late first and early second centuries CE. Thus, most of the common elements of the worship life of the early church fell into place at the very early point: the procession, the invocation, the confession and absolution, the introit and other musical components {psalms, hymns, chants, canticles}, the Kyrie and Gloria, the salutation, collect, creeds, prayers, offertory, consecration, Sanctus, “great thanksgiving,” Agnus Dei, benediction, etc. These components of worship took on more mature form in the medieval church, were re-shaped during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation of the 16th century* and were further refined in the Liturgical Movement of the mid-20th century. In other words, our current forms of Christian worship, especially in the world of liturgical denominations, can be traced back over many centuries and even millennia. Thus, by any definition, the basic elements of Christian worship are ancient, and it is this feature young people view as more authentic than forms of worship which have been produced over the past half-century or so in America.
(*These movements which embraced both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches primarily during the 1960s and 1970s “enabled Protestant churches to recover in part the Catholic liturgical heritage, while the Catholics seem to have appropriated the Protestant valuation of preaching, of shared worship in the vernacular tongue, and the importance of the laity as the people of God.”)
With respect to the particular example of Anglican or Episcopal worship, it is worth retracing a bit of English history in the period of Tudor rule (Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, etc.) because English religious life which has so greatly influenced belief and practice in the New World was at that point so intimately tied up with politics. From the middle of the 1500s through the late 1600s, England endured a time of enormous religious conflict which ultimately resulted in the assembly of two armed camps (the Cavaliers representing the “high” state church {the royal party} and the Roundheads representing the Puritan separatists who wanted to abandon the new state Church of England in favor of a “low” church Calvinist model); in the civil war which marked the middle of the 17th century, the end result was that neither party was able to prevail for long, nor could either group be eliminated which led to a kind of truce in which the official state church was revived without eliminating Calvinist and other separatist alternatives (though limiting them). Thus, England even today presents a patchwork of official Anglican and dissenting low church worship models which continues to shape British life.
In terms of the current religious life of populations in general rather than of youth alone, it can fairly be said that those who favor the liturgical form of worship can point to many attractive elements which go well beyond the historical component and help account for the fact that most Christians in America are grouped into the largest category which embraces those of a strictly liturgical character (Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.), suggesting the continued hold which the liturgical model has on the bulk of Christian believers.
The case for the liturgical model can easily be made by emphasizing the diversity of elements which characterize it. A formal liturgical approach in which the great story of the Christian church is paramount helps us “recognize intuitively how small our own lives are…that the story we’ve concocted for ourselves is but a child’s nursery rhyme by comparison with the larger narrative to which we are called, a drama which is epic in scope.” An approach which focuses on how we enter into the grand drama of the Christian story also points to the continuing role of the active participants in that narrative: “we are the people who have indeed been gathered, who share in God’s very life, and are sent forth to proclaim the story and to invite (other) people to participate in it.” This lends a critical element of personal involvement to worship and intentionally “helps us remember symbolically our history and theology as a people and experience the ‘moment when Christ becomes present for us’.” This is accomplished in part by grounding us in the drama of the church year: the calendar of the church year “aims at nothing less than to change the way we experience time and perceive reality.” As Christians, we view the calendar in a way that goes well beyond a mere annual sequence of days, weeks and years to embrace the whole rhythm of the Christian narrative: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and Ordinary Time. This approach embraces a much richer, more meaningful way of marking and experiencing the passage of time.
Liturgical worship tends to automatically elevate the worship space itself, enhancing “sanctuaries as ‘Bethel places’…where God meets and blesses people” in a moving way. It engages the whole body in the act of worship (from standing to kneeling, to sitting, to leaving one’s pew to face or approach the altar for the creed and for communion, to singing or reading historic passages of scripture publicly in space devoted solely to worship (in what Episcopalians call “the beauty of holiness.”). It engages all of our senses so that the experience takes on a sacred quality and becomes both moving and memorable. Think, for example, of the wonderful music that accompanies worship, that vast and historic repertoire that is the envy of other denominations but an integral part of our liturgy, or the incense carried forth in procession, the beautiful vestments, the wonderfully orchestrated worship ceremonies such as communion, the confession, or the prayers of the people which engage people by signaling the need to stand, sit, or kneel. In this overall intricate plan by which the experience for everyone is heightened through movement, we find we are connected to believers who have gone on before us, and it is ideally structured so as to prevent our being distracted. As we enter into this mode of worship we find that it provides a cure for the “spiritual loneliness” many of us experience in the present moment with all of its complexities and all of its dilemmas. In every way, we find that it is about God, not our own personal agendas…which is precisely what we need in order to get outside of ourselves to contemplate the miracle of life instead of simply accepting it without reflection.
Although our prayer book services are fixed to some extent, they also permit variations in the script which enrich the experience. For example, the sermon breaks up the pattern of rhythmic features of the liturgy and focuses attention on the Gospel reading for the day while also expanding our knowledge of scripture, the Prayers of the People can be expanded to embrace local concerns, the choice of hymns, service music and chants adds variety to the experience, and processions, diaconal involvement and the appearance of soloists from outside of the congregation add additional elements of variety. And the national church provides an endless supply of guides to worship which make planning services a much simpler task than one might imagine it to be. And yet, much of the point of liturgical worship is the very repetition…. of words which are vital to the overall service plan (the creed, the confession, the Lord’s prayer, the fraction and distribution of the elements, etc.) but which over time lead to their becoming embedded in our minds which is particularly helpful in those moments of distress, sorrow, or nervous anticipation we all experience. There is much comfort in the familiarity that is developed by the various elements of communal worship as they become part of us through repeated reading (whether silently or aloud) and hearing. They are, in effect, imprinted deeply within us so that it takes only a simple prompt to bring them back to mind at a moment’s notice.
Often, it is the most prominent group in any category which has the greatest appeal; it is this reality that accounts in part for the success of the liturgical churches in continuing to provide a satisfying and enriching experience for the largest group of Americans. However, we should not take our mode of worship for granted but cherish it and seek to retain it in all of its comprehensiveness, elegance, balance, and sense of purpose.
Fr. Greg
Sources: Mark Galli, Beyond Smells and Bells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy, Paraclete Press, Brewster, MA, 2008; Alan Jacobs, The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2013; Molly Worthen, “What the Fastest Growing Christian Group Reveals about America,” The Atlantic, June 2, 2025; Colleen Carroll Campbell, The New Faithful: Why Young Adults are embracing Christian Orthodoxy, Loyola Press, Chicago, 2002.