Liturgy in a Time of Limitations
As the USA begins to wake from the two-month sleep of the COVID-19 lockdown, churches across the country are making plans to get back to some sense of normalcy with respect to their regular, in-person worship services. Here in my home state of Alabama, most churches voluntarily postponed in-person worship services a week before Governor Ivy enacted a “Stay-At-Home” order which compelled them to do so. And, even after the governor and the president lifted those orders, churches are carefully weighing the risks of returning to regular congregational worship.
As churches consider this transition, the leadership of various denominations have released guidelines for re-opening. The association to which I belong, the Alabama Baptist Convention, has released its own guidelines. Most of the guidelines, while affecting the communal nature of worship, don’t restrict the act of worship. But, one recommendation does: limit or eliminate congregational singing. As Baptists, our worship services are almost entirely devoted to two elements of worship, namely singing and preaching. In fact, most Baptist churches in which I’ve served have 30 minutes devoted entirely to singing (with a very short prayer in the middle) and 30 minutes of preaching. So, what, if anything, are churches to do with the majority of the worship service in light of this restriction? Does this diminish the need and appeal of in-person congregational worship and heighten the usefulness of online worship where singing can be done in the home (or more likely, just observed)?
I have long been a proponent of a robust liturgy. By “liturgy” I mean an order of worship that includes elements described in Acts 2:42–44 and Ephesians 5:19. From these texts (and really much of the Old and New Testaments), I think there is strong support for an order of worship that is full of congregational readings, singing, prayer, communion, and preaching. But, my goal in this article is not to defend robust liturgy from Scripture. Rather, my goal is to show that a robust liturgy is practical, particularly in a time of limitations like this current pandemic. Like all of God’s commands, his commands regarding worship are for our good, spiritually and practically. A robust liturgy engages the congregation on multiple fronts, using various mediums and forms of art to draw believers to worship. There are three ways in which I believe a robust liturgy that includes more than just singing can be practically useful as we open back up.
A Robust Liturgy is Practical in Its Breadth
A liturgy that includes more than just singing provides a breadth to worship that allows for greater engagement of the congregation. Elements like congregational readings (whether responsive or simply the corporate reading of a psalm) engage the congregation without the need to sing. Members can read along as the Holy Spirit works through the Word of God to draw their minds to Christ. Offering congregational prayers of praise, confession, and supplication at stages in the service engage individual believers with their own praises, sins, and needs. In the past two churches I’ve pastored, I have led my congregation in the Lord’s Prayer at the end of my “Pastoral Prayer” each Sunday. While many Baptists see this as ritualistic and insincere, I would argue that it is no less so than going back to your favorite hymn or praise song time and again. But, especially in a time of restriction, this prayer connects us to the communion of the saints who have prayed according to its formula for thousands of years.
There are still other elements that can be included, like a time of testimony (planned or spontaneous) or a ministry/missions report. Including these various elements can broaden the experience of worship to engage the congregation with more than just music.
A Robust Liturgy is Practical in Its Depth
A liturgy that includes more than just singing also provides a depth to worship, drawing the mind of the worshipper heavenward as he or she participates in the ancient words and practices of the Church. When I was a youth, I looked with disdain at the rituals of “High Church” as spiritless worship. I believed that worship should be spontaneous and “Spirit-filled”. But, after 32 years enduring in the faith, I realize that those regular practices of worship are what have persisted through times of trial and times of triumph. The ups and downs of my faith have been leveled by the rituals of worship: prayer, communion, baptism, preaching, Scripture reading. I’ve also realized that the desire for “spontaneous” worship disconnects Christian worship from its Old Testament roots. The Old Testament worship service was full of ritual and symbol precisely because of the depth that it provided to the Church of Israel. Old Testament believers were immersed in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of worship, so much so that when God tells them that their sacrifices are a stench to him, they could physically relate.
Liturgy provides a depth of understanding that is not always immediately apparent. That depth is both immersive and cognitive. It is immersive because regular recitation of a scripture passage helps the congregation to memorize that passage. It also anchors them in how that passage relates to the rest of the story of Scripture and to the sermon they hear. Liturgy can also be immersive if it is organized well. The historic Protestant order of worship has sought to move worshippers from Law to Gospel, from praise to guilt to confession to assurance of pardon and ultimately to proclamation and blessing. That progression, week after week, immerses the congregation in the Gospel, whether the pastor’s sermon is amazing or mediocre, or whether there is outstanding, Spirit-filled congregational singing or dead air.
Liturgy has a cognitive depth in the same elements that give it immersive depth. Reading Scripture together is useful for memorization, for teaching children the faith, for preparing readers for the sermon, and for supporting the theology of the next song. Praying together, with various focal points of prayer at different stages of the service (like confession of sin and prayers of the people), allows the worshipper to think upon his own life and what the songs, responsive readings, and sermon are saying to and about him.
A Robust Liturgy is Practical in Its Assurances
Finally, a liturgy that is more than singing assures the congregation, even when the preacher doesn’t or can’t. Sometimes, a preacher just bombs a sermon. The best of them do. Sometimes, the faithful expository preacher just has a hard word from a hard text. A robust liturgy can stand behind the preacher, finishing his sentences for him, providing assurances that he may miss or avoid.
On the positive side of that same idea, a liturgy can and should magnify the point of a sermon. A well arranged liturgy will use cross-references and theologically similar points to bolster what the preacher says. Personally, in my own ministry, I feel that this frees me from having to provide every Scripture reference that supports my claim as we’ve already worked through many of those in the liturgy. While every preacher may not be ready to go that far, it is still reassuring to know that the liturgy is speaking with you.
Ultimately, singing is an essential part of corporate worship (Eph. 5:19), and there will be a time when churches feel comfortable going back to it. But, just because we eliminate singing for a time to help “slow the spread”, we do not have to only devote ourselves to a concert and a sermon. Liturgy can give us practical ways to engage the congregation in breadth, depth, and assurance of worship, even as we hope for normalcy.
