A woman who was visiting a liturgical service kept punctuating the pastor’s sermon with “Praise the Lord!” Another woman finally turned around and said, “Excuse me, but we don’t praise the Lord in the Lutheran church.”
A man down the pew corrected her. “Yes we do; it’s on page 19.”
The conflict between form and freedom is not new, and we have both sides in our congregation. Some wish we would throw out the liturgy so we could be free to “move with the Spirit.” Others are tired of innovations and want to return to the good ol’ days when they knew what was happening and could follow the bulletin play by play.
Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? Yes! Order and ardor can be happily wed. Truth is canonized but not style. The issue is not structure or freedom, but Spirit. God has no preference for formless spiritualism or Spiritless formalism—he rejects both. Spontaneity offers no innate advantage over liturgy. Liberty is where the Spirit is, not where the preacher has thrown away his notes.
Protestants have traditionally been better workers than worshipers. Pastors may spend fifteen hours on sermon preparation and fifteen minutes throwing the service together.
God wants worshipers above anything else. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “He seeketh such to worship him.” Karl Barth wrote, “Christian worship is the most momentous, the most urgent, the most glorious action that can take place in human life.” If we agree, then it must not be “the things we do before we get to the important stuff.”
One glimpse into heaven reveals that it is of eternal significance. The whole Book of Leviticus was written to teach a nation how to worship, an acknowledgment that at the center of life is the worship of God.
Like other Christian disciplines, worship requires balance. Here are some the areas we try to handle appropriately.
Balancing Praise and Worship
Our family went to see “The Glory of Christmas” concert at the Crystal Cathedral, and it was glorious! Dr. Schuller asked that applause be held till the end of the performance. After every marvelous piece of music, complete with drama (live camels and flying angels included!), my four-year-old daughter clapped vigorously. She knew it called for a response, and I could not convince her that silence was more appropriate (much to my embarrassment). With all respect to Dr. Schuller, I think Naomi was taking her cue properly from a joyful heart, not the rubrics of the evening.
Reading about the worship of Israel convinces me that God is no grouch. Dancers, singers, and instrumentalists combined to make worship a time for rejoicing: “Four thousand shall offer praises to the Lord with the instruments which I have made for praise” (1 Chron. 23:5).
One of the men in our church said, “I used to think Cecil B. De Mille was overdoing it—trumpeters on this wall, heralds on that wall, and a chorus in every corner. But after reading the Old Testament, maybe he was downplaying it! I’d love to see a service with processions, banners, colorful vestments, and antiphonal singing.”
David declared it legal to shout to the Lord; Pentecostals have gradually made it more acceptable.
And yet after entering his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise, there comes a time of needful quiet—worship. “Know ye that the Lord is God” is best done in silence. “Be still and know that I am God.”
One of the Hebrew words for worship means “falling on one’s face.” Prostration before God says we are seeing something of his greatness in contrast to our frailty. In worship, Isaiah’s “Woe is me” is more appropriate than Peter’s “It’s sure good to be here.”
We realize in worship we ultimately have frightfully little to say to the Lord who inhabits eternity. In the words of the hymnwriter:
“O, how I fear thee, living God,
with deepest, tenderest fears,
And worship thee with trembling hope
and penitential tears!”
A congregation that praises loudly without worshiping meekly has not experienced the awesome and terrible side of the Almighty. To celebrate his presence is one thing; to tremble before him, as the psalmist exhorts, is another.
Yet praise is usually the necessary prelude to worship. It is rare for people to drop to their knees after the opening prayer. The skillful leader woos the congregation into worship like the patient lover draws the beloved. The congregation is brought into the audience of God more by evoking than provoking. The leader who breaks in with a jarring “OK, let’s sing all the verses of Number 317, and real loud on the last verse” doesn’t realize that instead of exhorting, it’s better to enter into the experience of praise and encourage others to follow by example.
Some congregations excel in praise, complete with guitar, tamborines, and drums. But having learned to make the joyful noise, let us also practice the blessed quiet. Noisemaking seems out of place when “the Lord is in his holy temple.” Clapping after every choir anthem does not distinguish between the joyful moment and the sacred one. The holy hush is just as powerful as the jubilant hallelujah.
I’ve found most congregations are more adept at praise than worship. Where this is the case I have used times of planned silence. A sermon that has gripped hearts may need a moment to settle before the service moves on. We have discovered that words of confirmation and personal application often grow out of the soil of silence.
But we do not begin there. Our preludes used to be typically quiet organ meditations. People entered in silence and did not make a sound until the opening hymn. But starting with silence makes it harder for people to feel a kinship with one another. Too often the quietness betokens only unholy hush of mental inactivity.
We now sing songs of praise for fifteen minutes before the service “officially” begins. This change has brought a greater spirit of celebration and camaraderie. And, I believe, helps us balance praise and worship.
Balancing Structure and Spontaneity
Liturgical forms give worshipers a sense of continuity. Confessing the ancient creeds reminds us that the church is a lot bigger than we are and has been around a lot longer. Forms help establish community by creating church family traditions, so valuable for people whose present situations change by the minute.
Liturgy gives people identity. It links them with saints around the world and down through the ages who share a common confession. It helps guard against an individual piety and a proud contemporaneity. People who tend to be dazzled (and tyrannized) by the latest model Oldsmobile and computer appreciate coming to a Sunday service and finding some things don’t change as fast.
Liturgy gives structure to worship, reminding the participants of the breadth of concerns in the hearts of the saints. You will have an agenda, whether it is planned years in advance or on the spot. Ritual provides a workable plan, which is often the springboard for spontaneity.
Liturgy is drama, and the better it is performed, the more beautiful worship can be. The psalmist who combined holiness and beauty (“O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness”) saw that ethics and aesthetics are friends.
Protestant worship often lacks aesthetically, because it has throughout its short history shown more of a propensity for freedom than form. But, if actions do communicate better than words, if symbols are the language of the soul, then the forms of the faith can speak to our subconscious in ways that spoken propositions cannot.
But forms have their liabilities. We who want to worship God in the worst way often do. Rite easily moves into rote. Those active participants may learn the forms and stay disengaged throughout the whole process. The prophets denounced the priests who made rite more important than righteousness. Jesus said of the scribes, “In vain they worship me.” While their lips honored God, their hearts were far from him.
Spirit is replaced by technique, doing the rite thing the right way. The state of the art supersedes the state of the heart. Any sensitive worship leader appreciates the importance of mechanics, but when the how to’s get magnified, externals have replaced internals. Nothing made Jesus angrier. Liturgy void of Spirit is brassy.
So, we emphasize freedom and leave the rite—right? Wrong. Freedom without form imprisons us as much as form without freedom. What the Corinthian Christians lacked in maturity they made up with frenzy. Paul put an apostolic check on their emotional excesses and gave some structure and guidelines to their free-wheeling worship. Freedom can be human-centered, superficial, or just lazy.
From an anthropological point of view, Mary Douglas argues that “the contempt of external ritual in modern western society has led to a private internalizing of religious experience . . .” We miss the artistic, the mysterious, the subconscious, and the historical in the overly intense drive for the immediate. Enthusiasm may run high, but nervous systems cannot take that much stimulation for long.
Again, balance is needed. A Spirit-inspired free prayer does more than a cold form. But, a well-crafted prayer that expresses the heart of the worshiping community does not have to be cold. Liturgy that breathes will not suffocate the saints.
A small directive can give worshipers just enough structure to set them at ease. A train on its track is going somewhere. Some might call that limiting, but those willing to be instructed make good team players. They can have their part, and play their part, and know it is a part, not the whole.
Theologian J. J. van Allman writes, “Liturgical beauty is a protest, not only against all aesthetic self-centeredness, but also against negligence, coarseness, casualness and in general against vulgar familiarity.” Total freedom leads to heresy. Anything doesn’t go. There are ways to approach God, and there are avenues that dead-end. Uzzah found that out when he touched the ark. Truth is a boundary in which the Spirit moves.
Worship is as much a matter of seeing as of hearing. We have so elevated the pulpit (sometimes as much as twenty feet in some post-Reformation sanctuaries) that we have created stiff-necked people who think they have worshiped if they took good sermon notes. For Israel worship was a dramatic production that invited the attendance of the majestic Lord of Hosts. The more the senses are involved—seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, hearing—the more the people of God are doing liturgy. If the form has not created such action, we have not properly used it.
Ways we have sought to let the liturgy live in our church include combining the great hymns of the church with more contemporary worship songs, often without a break in between. When they are in the same key, one can flow beautifully into the other. The hymns have a theological richness often missing in modern songs. On the other hand, the songs of today have simple Scripture texts that are quickly learned. They enable people to worship freely without props.
We also include well-known liturgical responses as a part of our informal prayer and praise services. By doing this we are telling the people we like to bring out the treasure of things both old and new.
Balancing the Timely and the Timeless
God is a progressive. While the saints are singing, “Gimme that old-time religion” the Almighty is declaring, “Behold, I do a new thing.” He is not the old fogey some might picture him—we are the experts at maintaining the status quo. We routinely turn movements into monuments, institutionalizing them so we can control them.
We don’t do well with change, though we desperately need it. Those trained by Jesus to be people of the Spirit rather than people of technique will be alive to the now, “The Spirit blows where it wills,” and sensitive people are eager to catch the direction of the wind.
The New Testament has two Greek words for time, chronos, or linear time, and kairos, which is opportunity. Hebrews thought more in terms of kairos than chronos. The opportunity presents itself and must be seized. It is the fullness to time. All times are in God’s hands. He orders the times and seasons, and his creation must be sensitive to his action and respond appropriately.
If we are only alive to the chronos (and in our church, the clock is in clear view) we might get out at the scheduled time, but fall short of God’s opportunity. Sensitivity to the moment does not preclude planning, but it may prompt the minister to change his direction because of some nudging he believes is from God.
When God comes into the midst of his people, we should know it and be able to respond to it. To be locked in to the bulletin at that time is to be absorbed with the menu rather than enjoying the food.
There are times in liturgical worship that cry out for free expression. That’s why we often allow people to tell how God is working in their lives. To miss this is to leave worship unfulfilled.
And yet the past has volumes to say to the present. Faith is related to history. The God who acts is known because of the God who has acted. History and encounter are cousins. Remembrance and realization meet in worship.
James Dobson, Christian psychologist, writes that “our generation has the idea that history first began when the Beatles hit the Paladium. Such thinking alienates us from yesterday and creates a rootless society.”
The strength of the contemporary is that it speaks our language. The major liability is that it appears (and may be) shallow. It has not stood the test of time. The danger of time-dated material, however, is that it is so distant it seems unapproachable. Gregorian chants make fine songs for monks, but not for kids in Levis and sandals, or so it seems. People like one or two antiques around the house, but they don’t get much use.
Can we blend the two together? We try by offering a variety of musical styles. To throw out Bach because half the church is under thirty is to cheat the young. Those who appreciate “good” music will get it elsewhere, but few youth will ever go for Baroque unless we make use of it.
Contemporary music reaches their ears. Still, there is a side of God they are less likely to know. When President Kennedy was assassinated, several radio stations abandoned their normal programming and played three days of powerful classical music. Rock ‘in’ roll was judged inappropriate for the situation. It could not speak what had to be said.
So we use both hymns and worship songs. Music shapes theology. Of the 287 Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, 116 come from the Psalms, the hymnbook. The theology of today’s songs will shape the minds of our children. Luther said, “Music is the handmaiden of theology.” His enemies said, “Our people are singing their way into Luther’s theology.” We make sure our music is saying what we want it to—then use it generously.
We also mix free prayers with written prayers of the great saints. This way, people grow to appreciate “the older members of their family.”
Balancing Leaders and Laity
Worship in the New Testament drew both from the sacrificial system as well as from the postexilic synagogue service. The Lord’s Supper took the place of the Passover as the dramatized act of redemption. The indwelling Spirit made every believer a priest and gifted member of the body. According to New Testament theologian Ralph Martins Pauline worship stood on three legs: the didactic, the eucharistic, and the charismatic. Word and sacrament were blended with the sovereign activity of the Spirit.
By the time of Constantine, the freedom of the Spirit had been replaced by form. An increasing division between the people and the priest left the laity with little to do but watch. They did not share in communion, now a mass. Long cathedrals magnified the separation.
The Reformation recovered the truth of the priesthood of all believers. The Scriptures were given to the common people, singing by all was encouraged, prayers were spoken in a language all could understand, and sermons were preached to build up the people of God.
And yet how much new ground have we won since 1517? Does the Spirit blow as it wills in our services? Do we have a new trinity, as some suggest—the Father, Son and Holy Scriptures? On Sunday morning are we entertaining spectators or training participants? Is it a one-man show or a gathering of the called? Church was not meant to be a place where the minister ministers and the congregation congregates. Worship is not something done for the laity but by them. Our goal, according to A. W. Tozer, is more than believing—it is beholding. Actively beholding.
While the Apostle did put the clamps on the Corinthian “charismaniacs,” he did encourage considerable liberty by the individual worshipers (1 Cor. 14:26-33). How much freedom are pastors willing to risk? Do they want the person in the pew healed of spectatoritis?
A revolution in communication has put the pressure on pastors to do their stuff on Sunday. Some feel guilty if they do not run a three-ring circus for people who are paying well to see a good show. God deliver us!
But we do need pastoral leadership in worship. Paul’s admonition about the need for “distinct notes” (1 Cor. 14:7) came in the context of corporate worship. Tending the flock includes giving them the best we can when they are all gathered together. The more secure the leader the more we are able to draw the people into worship and take them where the Spirit is moving.
One way I’ve tried to live this out is by letting the proclamation of the Word be shared by a variety of people, although I do most of it. I work with people individually and as a group to prepare them for speaking assignments. When I preach, I often use members to share testimonies as an illustration of my main point.
I’ve also found that the more people are free to respond to the initiative of the Spirit, the less nudging they need from the pastor. In our church, the teaching through the years has created an expectation that God will indeed move through the people and not only the pastor.
The End of Worship
Most of us spend too much time with people, too little with God. We enjoy the koinonia in the outer court; we are less comfortable entering the Holy of Holies. We ride more on the good ship fellowship than the more important one called worship.
Yet the cure of countless physical and spiritual maladies is found in approaching His Majesty.
When have we worshiped? For some it is when people have raised their hands or clapped joyfully. For others, when they have contributed to inspired singing or heard a powerful sermon. For still others, when the service has moved smoothly without any hitches in the sound system, the ushering, or the music.
For Israel, however, it was meeting with God. Being in the Presence might bring quietude or exuberance, weeping or joy, repentance or reflection. But worship meant coming to God on his terms and encountering him.
One morning God moved among us in a special way. A woman came out the door with tears in her eyes. “I’ve never worshiped before,” she exclaimed softly. “I’ve been to hundreds of services, but today I worshiped.”
And that, of course, is the reason for all our attempts at balance—to enable people to enter the presence of God to worship.
Paul Anderson is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in San Pedro, California.
ADDING FREEDOM TO FORM
Balancing form and freedom means different things in various congregations. Here’s a snapshot of the way it’s done at Trinity Lutheran Church.
We feel like beginners in our worship experience. We know God is calling us to greater celebration and deeper praise, so we pray more for good worship than good sermons. I often remind the people that they are in a worship service. They do the serving; theirs is the important part.
We use a liturgical format, but free expressions in the midst of the structure help people appreciate the traditional forms.
The music team begins by leading the congregation in singing. People used to enter the sanctuary quietly while the organ played meditative music. Some prayed; others read the bulletin. Now we “enter his courts with praise.” This half-hour segment is mostly a continuous flow of worship songs, although we sometimes intersperse spoken words of thanksgiving from the congregation. It reaches a high point, often moving into spontaneous “singing in the Spirit,” just before the invocation.
The worship leader, usually a layman, invokes the name and presence of God, announces the theme of the day, and leads in prayer. The introit follows.
Hymns are sung in a variety of ways: men only, women only, a cappella, in four-part harmony, antiphonally with the choir, or with full instrumentation. The bulletin directs accordingly. We do not feel uncomfortable about sometimes practicing descants or four-part harmonies, so that when we tell the congregation they are the choir, they believe it.
The spoken introit combines the theme of the day with an appropriate psalm. The Kyrie follows as a prayer for God to have mercy on his people. The mood is subdued as the congregation kneels and offers up free prayers of intercession, including petitions for members of the congregation as well as broader concerns. We sing either a familiar Kyrie from the Lutheran liturgy or one recently composed by one of the musicians.
The Gloria in Excelsis comes next, again using either a traditional musical text or a new composition. The mood is exuberant, and the leader sometimes takes the congregation from the Gloria right into a familiar chorus.
The Scripture readings are assigned to different lay people. Following a brief comment on one of the passages by the reader, the pastor invites the children to the chancel area for the children’s sermon, which gears a sermon theme to the level of small children. Then they’re dismissed to children’s church, and we proceed with the sermon.
Most members have already studied the sermon text in their personal devotions or home fellowship groups. Often we make use of visual object lessons or drama to enhance the communication process. People might be contacted ahead of time to relate an occasion when they experienced a truth relating to the sermon. For instance, when I spoke on the command for husbands to love their wives, three women shared how their mates had been succeeding.
After the message, we have time for quiet reflection. Words of confirmation or prayers of commitment regularly come from the congregation.
Confession is encouraged, either with the pastor or with a Christian friend, especially in anticipation of the monthly Communion service. Corporate confession often follows the sermon when the sermon text calls for it.
Repeating the creed provides an opportunity for corporate affirmation of faith. Normally one of the ancient formulations, such as the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed, is used.
After the offering, we invite all guests to stand and introduce themselves. Then worshipers stand and greet one another. Hugs abound.
Following the closing prayer and hymn, we dismiss the people to Sunday school with a benediction. Those with special needs are invited to the prayer chapel for personal ministry.
—Paul Anderson
ADDING FORM TO FREEDOM
Innovative worship has long been the pattern at LaSalle Street Church, where I serve as associate pastor. Liturgical dance, drama, and leadership by both men and women have been frequent and effective components of the services.
I have often exited the sanctuary knowing I had worshiped God, but in the past, there were also times when worship left me confused. I felt I had been entertained or taught, but I hadn’t really worshiped.
After several years of this vague dissatisfaction, I realized others on the staff and in the congregation shared my concern. We decided to develop a new pattern of worship.
After a proposal to hire a liturgical consultant flopped, the board of deacons proposed that I fill the role, since I was going to Oxford University for graduate work in worship during a sabbatical. I accepted and packed my bags for England.
While in Oxford, my wife, Kerry, and I attended Saint Aldate’s Church. This Anglican church led by Michael Green and David Prior attracts over a thousand people for worship. Such love and adoration for the Lord (combined with modesty and respect for order) marked the services that they often lasted as long as two hours—and no one seemed to mind!
The Anglican liturgy provided structural integrity, but the services also included evangelistic sermons, the singing of Scripture songs, prophecy, drama, and singing in the Spirit.
When we returned from abroad, I began to introduce some of the things I had learned from our Anglican friends. Since we considered worship something we do rather than something done for us, we began to expand congregational participation.
We changed the traditional pastoral prayer to a time we called “prayers of the people,” encouraging the congregation to offer intercessions. At times the prayers are short sentences, sometimes only a single word. Often the congregation responds to each utterance by saying, “Lord, hear our prayer.”
We changed Communion from the standard passing of the elements to the congregation to inviting the worshipers to the front, where they are served from a loaf of bread and dip their fragments into a common cup. The act of coming forward demonstrates the believers’ active faith and participation in the death and resurrection of Christ.
Many of the deacons have reported that serving each person individually—by name—gave new meaning to their involvement. Although most people liked coming forward, others felt that it was too “high church,” or even unbiblical. Eventually the board compromised, serving Communion the old way at one service and the new way at the other.
We incorporated another liturgical element. Near the end of the service after the sermon, we follow the ancient practice of “passing the peace”—grasping another’s hands and saying, “The peace of the Lord be always with you,” to which the other responds, “And with thy spirit.” It’s not a time to stretch our legs or chat with friends and visitors; it tangibly demonstrates that Christians are the church at peace with God and each other.
I suspect, however, that many misunderstand and still see it as a fellowship time. We’ve neglected to instruct the congregation. And this teaches a valuable lesson: People need to be taught to worship. When they don’t understand the reason for what they are doing, needless confusion hinders worship.
One of the frequent criticisms of our worship in the past was that people never knew what was coming next. Since the group planning any particular service determined the structure, few common ingredients persisted, except for the sermon and the ubiquitous offering.
We have now developed a standard order of worship that we follow each Sunday. Yet within this framework, freedom and creativity find their expression. For instance, in some services the prayer of confession is read in unison. Other times it is composed silently by each worshiper. Singing it as a hymn varies it again.
The structure we impose is like the choreography of a dance. Standard steps balance the freedom of creativity and openness to the Spirit of God, producing a beautiful “dance.” We want to free the congregation from anxiety about the mechanics of worship (left, right, step-close-step!) to focus instead on expressing their adoration for God (glide, swoop, flow with grace). This mindset keeps our worship changes in proper perspective.
We aren’t doing it to be creative and trendy but because it’s a servant of worship—a vehicle leading us to love and adore God.
Overall, the changes have been good, even when they came at the expense of breaking expectations and bearing the heat of misunderstood motives. Despite natural resistance to change, and despite our own failures, we have made progress toward our goal to deepen and enrich our practice of worship.
—Bruce Otto
LaSalle Street Church
Chicago, Illinois
Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
