Let All Things Be Done For Edification

By Robin G. Jordan

There is a trend in Australia, South Africa, North America, and the United Kingdom among evangelical Anglicans to abandon formal and official church liturgies and to replace them with informal local patterns of worship. Where this trend has gained ground, Sunday worship in evangelical Anglican parishes is indistinguishable from that in other evangelical churches. The evangelicalism of these parishes is increasingly indistinguishable from popular evangelicalism.

The Church of England’s Common Worship and New Patterns for Worship recognizes this development in Sunday worship. Rather than resist this trend, they provide examples, guidelines, suggestions, and worship material that local churches can use to develop their own patterns of worship.

Some evangelical Anglicans would take this development a step further. They would dispense with official church liturgies altogether. They would turn the Anglican Church into a non-liturgical church. They argue that people want theology not liturgy.

Those who argue that people want theology not liturgy are right in their observation that there is a deep hunger for sound Biblical teaching. But are non-liturgical services the best medium for the transmission of this teaching?

For the past eight years I have sojourned with non-liturgical churches. A typical non-liturgical service consists of a few opening songs of praise, an ex tempore prayer, announcements, the sermon, an invitation, and sometimes a closing song. The service may include testimonies—live or video, the collection of an offering, a special song, and on occasion a discussion panel, guest speaker, or interview in addition to or in place of the sermon. The sermon may be introduced by a video clip and on occasion a drama or skit. This type of service has been described as “linear” in its approach to communication. All the elements of the service are planned around and set up the focal point of the service—the sermon. It is geared to folks with a modern mindset (as opposed to those with a post-Christian, post-modern mind set). Folks with this mindset want things very orderly and systematic as they learn in a logical and progressive manner. They prefer in general to sit and listen.

This particular pattern of worship originated in the revivals of the nineteenth century. In the twenty-first century the electric guitar, the electric keyboard, the drum set, the lead vocalists and the back-up vocalists, and the opening worship set have replaced the organ, the piano, the choir, the soloist, and the opening medley of hymns and gospel songs. But the basic pattern is the same. In one classification of different types of Southern Baptist church services, it is designated as the Sandy Creek Revival type service.

In “traditional” churches non-liturgical services may include some liturgical elements typically the Apostles’ Creed, the Gloria Patria, the Lord’s Prayer, and responsive readings. Advocates of the Seeker-Sensitive or Seeker Friendly Service and Contemporary Worship, however, regard such elements as too churchy and too off-putting to first time visitors and therefore they rarely if ever include them in their services.

Services in non-liturgical churches have been described as a “concert” with a sermon. In some non-liturgical churches this is a fair description of their services.



Returning to our earlier question, “Are non-liturgical services the best medium for the transmission of sound Biblical teaching?” One thing that is frequently lacking from non-liturgical services is the public reading of Holy Scripture. Whatever Scripture is read is usually a part of the sermon. This often takes the form of snippets of Scripture that the preacher uses in the development of his message. These brief Scripture passages may be projected on a multi-media projection screen as the preacher is talking about them.

The contemporary Christian and praise and worship songs that are increasingly used in non-liturgical churches may contain Scriptural allusions and language. But their value as a teaching tool is limited. They are likely to be used only for a short while and then replaced with newer songs in a few weeks. A number of them are not particularly memorable. They do not have lyrics and tunes that the congregation can leave the service singing or humming. They do not provide the take-home package that traditional and modern hymns, choruses, and gospel songs do. One explanation is that they were not written for the congregation but for the band. It may take the band several rehearsals before it masters a particular song.

A number of contemporary Christian and praise and worship songs express bad theology from a biblical and Reformed perspective. If these songs are memorable, then the congregation takes this bad theology home with them.

The teaching in a non-liturgical service is tied to the sermon. How much it imparts to the listener depended upon the skill of the preacher at keeping the attention of his listeners and getting his message across to them. This, of course, is true of preaching in liturgical services, but it does highlight the limits of a non-liturgical service as a medium for the transmission of sound Biblical teaching.

One of the criticisms of a lot of preaching heard in evangelical churches is that it lacks theological depth. The older mega-churches like Saddleback and Willow Creek that were at the forefront of the Seeker-Sensitive/Seeker-Friendly Service movement have been reappraising their services. While these services attract thousands of people, they are producing large numbers of spiritual immature Christians with low motivation for spiritual growth. These services are non-liturgical.

It is sometimes argued that non-liturgical services do a better job of preparing listeners to be receptive to hearing the preacher’s message. The listener is left in a better frame of mind. He is willing to give the preacher his full attention. But does a worship set of three songs prepare the heart in the same way as praising God, confessing one’s sins, and hearing the reading of his Word?

One of the drawbacks of non-liturgical services is that they center on the band and the preacher. As a consequence they are not particularly congregational or participatory. The congregation may sing along with the vocalists in the band or they may listen to them, as they might at a secular concert. One or two of them might be invited to give their testimony or called upon to “lead the congregation in prayer,” in other words, to offer an ex tempore prayer on the behalf of the congregation. But that in most non-liturgical services is the extent of the congregation’s participation.

Congregants will come away from non-liturgical services feeling like they have worshiped God even though the most they have done is listening to some songs, watched a video clip, and heard a sermon. For these folks worship is vicariously experiencing the worship of others, primarily that of the band on the stage. A number of pastors recognizing this particular drawback of non-liturgical services take time to teach their congregations about the worship of God.

A liturgy follows what may be described as a script. This script determines not only the order of the service but also the texts that will be used in the service. Like the script of a play it has parts—parts for the service leader, parts for a single congregation member, parts for several congregation members, and parts for the entire congregation. Some parts do not change from week to week. Other parts change every week or every few weeks. The script may make allowances for departures and improvisation.

In his essay “Concerning the Service of the Church” Thomas Cranmer articulates an important principle that guided his compilation of the 1549 and 1552 Prayer Books: “nothing is ordained to be read, but the very pure word of God, or that which is agreeable to the same….” Cranmer believed that even the bare reading of the Holy Scriptures had the peculiar power to convince the understanding and to penetrate the heart,

Cranmer saw the liturgies of the Prayer Book as serving two purposes—to glorify God and to advance godliness. To achieve the second purpose, they must be edifying. Cranmer took to heart the words of the apostle Paul: “Let all things be done for building up.” A major characteristic of Cranmer’s liturgies is their didacticism. They were meant to instruct. The better Anglican liturgies employ Cranmer’s principles. Like his liturgies, they are teaching tools.

A liturgy teaches in a number of ways. One of these ways is repetition. The congregant not only repeats his own part week after week but he also hears the weekly repetition of the other parts. If the same liturgy is used every week, he will in time come to know his part and the other parts by heart. This is good old-fashioned rote learning. Unless the congregant has hardened his heart against what he is saying and hearing, he cannot come away from the service unaffected.

I can recall one young girl who memorized the entire Prayer of Consecration that she heard each Sunday as the priest set apart the bread and the wine for the Communion. As the priest read the Consecration Prayer from the Prayer Book, she quietly recited it with him until a busybody in the congregation fussed at her because she was saying the prayer with the priest. The girl was doing no wrong. When the priest says the Consecration Prayer, he does so as the “tongue” of the gathered Church as one early Church Father put it. It is not his prayer but the prayer of the whole ecclesia. I suspect that the girl learned more from her weekly recitation of the Consecration Prayer than the busybody who silenced her did from following the prayer in her Prayer Book. She had incorporated the prayer as a part of herself.

This points to another way that the liturgy teaches or more accurately can be used to teach. As the congregants integrates the words of the liturgy into conscious mind and then his subconscious mind from repeating the words and repeatedly hearing the words, the pastor or other service leader, as a part of his preaching in the service or his teaching outside the service, explains each text of the liturgy, elucidating upon what it says and what it means, pointing to where it comes from Scripture or showing how it is agreeable to Scripture. In this way the congregation prays with greater understanding. Instead of silencing the girl as the busybody did, someone should have sat down with her and explained the Prayer of Consecration to her. This could have been done in several sessions and would have enriched her understanding of what she was saying.

In The Priest to the Temple: the Country Parson, His Character, His Rule of Holy Life, seventeenth century Anglican poet-priest George Herbert describes how the parson, the clergyman of a parish, instructs his flock to mediate upon the words of the liturgy as they are saying them:

“Besides his example, he having often instructed his people how to carry themselves in divine service, exacts of them all possible reverence, by no means enduring either talking, or sleeping, or gazing, or leaning, or half-kneeling, or any undutiful behavior in them, but causing them, when they sit, or stand, or kneel, to do all in a strait, and steady posture, as attending to what is done in the Church, and every one, man, and child, answering aloud both Amen, and all other answers, which are on the Clerks and people’s part to answer; which answers also are to be done not in a huddling [=confused], or slubbering [= slobbering or careless] fashion, gaping, or scratching the head, or spitting even in he midst of their answer, but gently and pausably [= hesitantly, not rushed], thinking what they say; so that while they answer, As it was in the beginning, &c. they meditate as they speak, that God hath ever had his people, that have glorified him as well as now, and that he shall have so for ever. And the like in other answers. This is that which the Apostle calls a reasonable service, Rom. 12:1 when we speak not as Parrots, without reason, or offer up such sacrifices as they did of old, which was of beasts devoid of reason; but when we use our reason, and apply our powers to the service of him, that gives them.”

If a congregant has learned his parts in the liturgy by heart, he can mediate upon them during the week. The early monks memorized passages of Scripture so that, when they went on a journey and had no Bible with them, they could recite these passages to each other. They could also mediate upon the passages throughout the day, turning them over their mind like one does a diamond ring in a jewelry shop, looking at how the light strikes each facet of the diamond. In their case they were looking at a particular Scripture passage from different angles and reflecting upon how it applied to them and their lives. When we mediate upon the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit works through them to renew our minds.

Another way that a liturgy teaches is through participation. Non-liturgical services are primarily oriented to auditory learners albeit they may contain visual elements. Liturgical services, on the other hand, are directed at all three kinds of learners—those who learn by listening, those who learn by seeing, and those who learn by doing.

To take advantage of this particular strength of liturgical worship those planning and leading liturgical services that use the older liturgies may wish to encourage the congregation to take a larger part in a liturgy than rubrics may envision. Giving the congregation a larger part in a liturgy also teaches them about their role as God’s particular people, his royal priesthood. A number of the new Anglican service books, recognizing the contemporary desire for greater congregational participation and the benefits of such participation, have expanded the congregational parts in the liturgies that they contain.

Cranmer used the arrangement of the texts in the liturgy to instruct the people. He crafted the 1552 Communion Service to give expression through its texts and their arrangement to the New Testament doctrine that we are justified by grace alone by faith alone through Christ alone.

A liturgy through its repeated use not only instructs but also reinforces what it has taught. When a liturgy is itself theological sound, it ensures that sound theology is imparted to the congregation.

Cranmer also retained the Church Year and the Lectionary because he saw their value as a teaching tool. Each season and festival of the Church Year and their propers focused the people’s attention upon a particular event or sequence of events in the story of salvation. It also directed their attention to a particular aspect of godliness.

Cranmer’s 1552 Prayer Book is one of the better, if not the best, of the sixteenth century Reformed service books. It exemplifies the main characteristics of Reformed worship—plenty of Scripture, reverence, and simplicity.

In The American Prayer Book: Its Origin and Principles, Edward Parsons and Bayard Jones identify two antithetical desires in Prayer Book revision—one if for enrichment and the other for brevity. By their application of what they describe as the peculiarly Anglican principle of flexibility, the compilers of more recent Anglican service books have sought to reconcile these desires. This principle, they note, has been increasingly characteristic of Anglican service books since the beginning. Parson and Jones were writing in 1937. The commitment to the principle of flexibility has since that time produced books like Common Worship and New Patterns for Worship.

Both the desires for enrichment and brevity affect the usefulness of the liturgy as a teaching tool. When a service book caters to the desire for enrichment, the service book will offer a wealth of alternative forms from which the officiant may choose. Consequently, the congregant’s parts in the service may change frequently and the other parts that he hears may also change often. The burden of the teaching is thrust upon the preacher. When the service book caters to the desire for brevity, the officiant may reduce the service to its barest essentials. The congregant may discover that his part in a liturgy has been cut back or that he no longer even has a part in the liturgy. Here again the weight of the teaching is given to the preacher. For the optimal usefulness of a liturgy a teaching tool it is best to stick to the basic texts of the liturgy.

I have observed that it is generally not the congregation that grows tired of repeating the same texts week after week but the pastor or other service leader. Too much variety can overwhelm a congregation as well as reduce the usefulness of a liturgy as a teaching tool. When several options are provided in a service, I have observed an unfortunate tendency upon the part of the officiant to use all the options instead of making judicious use of one or two of the options that are appropriate to the season, day, or occasion. The result is an unnecessarily cluttered liturgy that is needlessly long.

A characteristic of the classical Anglican Prayer Book is its simplicity. In his essay “Concerning the Service of the Church” Cranmer recognizes the desirability of simplicity.

“Yet, because there is no remedy, but that of necessity there must be some Rules; therefore certain Rules are here set forth; which, as they are few in number, so they are plain and easy to be understood. So that here you have an Order for Prayer, and for the reading of the holy Scripture, much agreeable to the mind and purpose of the old Fathers, and a great deal more profitable and commodious, than that which of late was used. It is more profitable, many things, whereof some are untrue, because here are left out some uncertain, some vain and superstitious; and nothing is ordained to be read, but the very pure Word of God, the holy Scriptures, or that which is agreeable to the same; and that in such a language and order as is most easy and plain for the understanding both of the readers and hearers. It is also more commodious, both for the shortness thereof, and for the plainness of the order, and for that the rules be few and easy.”

We live in a time in which everything is becoming more and more complicated. People are overwhelmed by complexity. They hunger for greater simplicity in their lives. Those planning liturgical worship need to keep this need in mind in choosing what optional elements to include in a liturgy whatever service book they are using. The principle represented by the acronym “KISS,” that is, “Keep It Simple, Stupid,” is applicable to service planning as it is to most things.

One of the reasons for the popularity of the Roman Rite in the seventh century was its simplicity. By the sixteenth century the Sarum Rite, a late Medieval English variation of the Roman Rite, had become extremely complicated. A separate book, the “pie,” was required just to figure out what should be used, how, where, and when. The Book of Common Prayer of 1552, the second Edwardian Prayer Book, greatly simplified the liturgy of the English Church.

Since the sixteenth century, however, Prayer Book worship has lost its simplicity. This has been in part due to unauthorized additions from other books beside the Prayer Book and in part to duly authorized alterations and additions to the Prayer Book. The adoption of alternative rites, which have been both criticized and praised for their numerous variable options, has also contributed to its complexity in the past 30 years. Common Worship, which replaced the Alternative Service Book 1980 in the Church of England in 2000, is in actuality a collection of books under one title.

Simplicity is undeniably a part of the attraction of non-liturgical services. They have bare-bones orders of service. When simplicity is combined with high quality music, inspiring preaching, state-of-the-art technology, a top-rate Children’s Ministry, small groups, and a warm and friendly atmosphere, you have a powerful combination for attracting churchgoers and those who have gone to church sometime in the past. You may even attract some folks who have no previous church experience. My observation has been that when a liturgical church offers the same things, the fact that the church is liturgical recedes into the background.

One of the hallmarks of Anglican worship at its best has been simplicity and restraint. It has been sparing in its use of gesture and posture in the liturgy. It has avoided excessive, fussy and unintelligible ceremonial. It has kept away from cluttering the liturgy with superfluous prayers and devotions that needlessly prolong the opening and close of the service and give unwarranted emphasis to the ingathering and presentation of the people’s alms and oblations. It has practiced the liturgical principle, “Less is more.”

When the KISS principle is applied to a liturgy, we not only meet the need for greater simplicity but we also make the liturgy more useful as a teaching tool. We additionally meet the need for familiarity with familiar texts and a familiar pattern of worship. We offer people a measure of stability that may otherwise be lacking in their lives.

We live in a world that is constantly changing. Some folks are future-oriented and eagerly embrace the new and the innovative. They become quickly bored with routine. Others are not. They prefer things that are constant and not subject to change. They like order and structure in their lives.

Liturgical services are community-oriented. They are something that the members of a particular Christian community do together. They build a sense of community (albeit a first time visitor may not experience it in some churches because the congregation is scattered around the church sanctuary and have their noses in their Prayer Books.) They offer a common activity in which a particular Christian community joins. Through their participation in the liturgy newcomers enter the community and become over a period of time a part of that community. They acquire a sense of belonging. They have found their place. It becomes one of the bonds that tie them to that community and that community to them.

A well-put-together liturgical service in which everyone takes an enthusiastic part can not only help its participants grow in their knowledge about God but also can enable them to experience God. It can teach about community, the need for each other in our walk with Jesus Christ. It can build up the Body of Christ in so many other ways besides instructing them in right doctrine. It can provide opportunities for each of us to be good stewards of the manifold grace the God has given us (1 Peter 4:10-11), and be instructive in how God bestows gifts not for our own benefit but for the upbuilding of Christ’s Body. The Holy Spirit that links us to God (Romans 8:15, Ephesians 2:18) is the Holy Spirit that we share (1 Corinthians 12:11,13, Ephesians 4:4) and which links us together as God’s temple, his dwelling place (2 Corinthians 6:16, Revelation 21:23).

I cannot agree with those evangelical Anglicans who would dispense with liturgical worship altogether. Liturgical worship is a part of our evangelical Anglican heritage. It is not something that is sociologically Anglican, that is, something that is perceived as “Anglican” because one or more Anglican churches are doing it now, Indeed non-liturgical worship could be placed in that category except the Anglican Church does have a history of making use of non-liturgical worship under certain circumstances such as missions and Anglican service books as early as the 1926 Irish Prayer Book, if not earlier, make provision for non-liturgical services incorporating elements from the Prayer Book services. I do see a place in evangelical Anglican worship for both liturgical and non-liturgical worship, just as I see a place for both Tudor English and modern English services. I would no more bind all evangelical Anglican worship in a liturgical straight jacket than I would force all evangelical Anglican worship into a non-liturgical mold. I do believe that the local church is in the best position to determine what is going to work for it in its particular locality and what it can do best in relation to its size and circumstances. By the local church I mean the visible Church of Christ in a given locality, as defined in Article 19. Decisions as to what type of services and styles of worship a local church should be made by the local church. It is the local church that is on the front line in advancing the cause of the gospel, and we should do all we can to support and aid its gospel ministry.