Liturgy: Habits Shaped by Grace
For several years now, I’ve been told that our Sunday service is fairly liturgical (others would argue that we’re not liturgical enough!) and I think I know what they mean by this comment. What they’re implying is that the order of our service has some early church elements such as a pastoral prayer, weekly communion, or a benediction. Apparently, Roman Catholic churches where Gregorian chants take place can only have this imbedded into their services, but I digress. A liturgy, in the end, is a discipleship tool and the Sunday gathering is more than a weekly service: it’s where the people of God are gathered to be shaped by habits of grace.
So, let me set the record straight. Allow me to address the elephant in the room. Let’s place on the table the real chicharron: all churches are liturgical. Every single church across various denominations have a liturgy.
WHAT IS LITURGY?
For some reason, the word “liturgy” has fueled interesting buzz around many theological camps. It seems as though, 20 years ago the wave of church planting was sexy and stimulating whereas today, the new rave is about liturgy because it promotes familiarity and stability. I have some thoughts about why this is taking place, but that’s for another post.
Concerning the word “liturgy.” It comes from the Greek word, leitourgia, which is a combination of two words: people and work. A liturgy is a “work of the people” and most simply refers to the order of service. Therefore, if your church begins Sunday with only one song, prayer, a sermon, and then a dismissal that is a liturgy. If your church has a call to worship, pastoral prayer, assurance of pardon, sermon, songs, and a benediction then you have a liturgy. If your church has any order of service (ANY order of service), then you have a liturgy.
What I’d like to stress, however, is that in spite of what your liturgical order is, is it intentionally spiritually formative for your congregation?
HABITS OF GRACE
The biggest reason that we have placed so much intention behind our liturgy is because it’s more than an order of service, but habits shaped by grace for weary sinners. Every single element in our liturgy is meant to communicate something about the character of God and when the saints gather weekly, my desire is for them to be spiritually formed by grace-filled order in their lives.
There’s much to consider when people get to church on Sunday. For some, their work week has gone well and their days may have been coated with some rest and enjoyment. Then, there are others who are exhausted and running on fumes from their week. Some may have been encountering one of the most challenging seasons of their life and are battling everything from sin, depression, and spiritual apathy. So when these individuals come to our church, I want to ensure that we’ve done everything possible for them to expericence God’s grace for them the minute they walk through the door.
We place a high value on a culture of hospitality. The first experience someone is going to have when they walk through the door (member or visitor) is one of gospel centered hospitality. Our lobby is warm, inviting, and designed for one to be able to stop and breath, even if it’s for a moment, so their your mind and heart prepare for the rest of the service.
Once in service, each element is an ongoing habit that helps to shape the heart by grace. For instance, the call to worship is designed to grab our intetion of the beauty of God, our pastoral prayer is meant to comfort hearts as we cry out to God, the song selection is not meant to only invoke emotion but the worship of God, the sermon proclaims the goodness of God for sinners and sufferers, communion is a spiritually tangible reminder of God’s grace for weary sinners, and the benediction is both a blessing of dismissal and deployment.
An intentional liturgy should be a thoughtful construction of habits that shape weary sinners by God’s grace in order to continue walking and working faithfully with the Lord throughout the rest of their week.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Every church has a liturgy. The question is whether or not there’s more to it than a simple order of service. For the weary saint, it has to be. For the encouraged saint, it has to be. For the suffering saint, it must be. For the one who doesn’t know Jesus, it needs to be.
Everything else in their life is shaped by something, a habit. Our lives are literally daily liturgies. Therefore, let us seek to create intentional litugries in our churches so that the people are best shaped by habits of grace.
