EACH WEEK, HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of Christians all over the world go to church. There are some constants. In almost every church, Christians are praying, reading the Bible, hearing sermons, singing songs, and sometimes receiving the Lord’s Supper. There are also differences. Some churches are more liturgical. That word can mean a lot of things, but we are using it to mean that the words said by the people and the minister (except for the sermon) are written down in advance, and the words usually don’t change from service to service. When they do change, it happens on a fixed, predictable schedule. Liturgy is scripted, not improv.
Most Christians attend liturgical services. If you’re Ethiopian Orthodox or Swedish Lutheran, if you’re a Roman Catholic in Mongolia or an Anglican in Nigeria, then on a typical Sunday you almost certainly go to a liturgical service. That’s been true for most Christians throughout history. But for several generations, many Protestant churches in the Western hemisphere have been running in a different direction. They emphasize novelty and spontaneity, and they are making a sharp turn toward technology-saturated worship. Meanwhile, in the last few years, there has been a growing interest among Protestants, especially among young evangelicals, in liturgical worship.
These two trends are not a coincidence. If you are tired of always chasing something new, and of following celebrity pastors and worship leaders, then liturgical worship can off er you a path of peace, a distinctive rhythm for how to be taught by Christ and abide in him.
Different churches have different liturgical “scripts.” Since the Reformation, the one that’s been the most widely used and influential in English-speaking churches is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. How to Read the Book of Common Prayer walks you through the Book of Common Prayer, inviting you into these liturgies that have shaped the lives of so many millions of Christians—from Jane Austen to the martyrs of Uganda, from John Wesley to the martyrs of Papua New Guinea.
If you struggle to summon up the right emotions and words, there is another way. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is soil that’s good for putting down roots. Here is a bench to sit down on and rest awhile—a place to stay put.
Of course, our hearts need to be in the prayers we say, and it is not enough just to recite the words. The liturgy does not work by osmosis; it does not form us as Christians automatically. The same is true for hymns and songs in worship. It is not enough just to sing the words without meaning them. Yet there are still many advantages to having hymns composed before a service instead of being made up on the spot—advantages like greater participation, assurance of doctrinal soundness, and compelling and memorable words. More than that, singing familiar hymns again and again actually enhances rather than diminishes their capacity to express the inarticulate longings of our hearts. If we can sing hymns written down in advance, without thinking that makes them fake or insincere, why not say prayers written down in advance?
The idea that liturgical prayers are in conflict with prayer from the heart, with really meaning what we say, is relatively new in Christian history. Jesus, the apostles, churches before and after the Reformation—all used fixed forms of liturgical prayer. For most of the last two thousand years, Christians have used liturgical prayers and spontaneous prayers, with liturgical prayers predominating in public worship and adding richness and depth to the spontaneous prayers used in private worship. This Christian tradition of liturgical prayer is carried on in the Book of Common Prayer.
Samuel L. Bray is the John N. Matthews Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame as well as a McDonald Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He is coauthor (with John F. Hobbins) of Genesis 1–11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Translators.
Drew Nathaniel Keane teaches in the Department of English at Georgia Southern University. He formerly served on the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music for the Episcopal Church. He is coauthor (with Samuel D. Fornecker) of a forthcoming commentary on the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
Adapted from How to Read the Book of Common Prayer by Samuel L. Bray and Drew Nathaniel Keane. ©2024 by Samuel L. Bray and Drew Nathaniel Keane. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
Adaptation from How to Read the Book of Common Prayer by Samuel L. Bray and Drew Nathaniel Keane
Adapted from Chapter 1, “Liturgy?”
