Liturgies Services
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the ensigns of popery
R. Scott Clark
Puritan Board Senior
The word liturgical is a loaded term. It connotes in some circles: "people doing things in worship they shouldn't...."
It is derived, however, from a NT word: leitourgeo (leitourgew) which occurs in Rom 15:27. The abstract noun leitourgia (leitourgia) occurs in Luke 1:23 and Phil 2:7.
Those who formulated our RPW, however, did not see an ordered, planned, service with read prayers as opposed to the RPW. In fact they (including Calvin) thought the RPW required a "liturgy" (as opposed to what? a free-form service waiting for the "Spirit" to tell the minister what to do next?). You can read three of those here.
You should also see B. Thompson's Liturgies of the Western Churches.
In my experience, virtually everyone has a "liturgy" whether they recognize it. The liturgy may be informal or formal and it may be good or bad, but a certain order and pattern is unavoidable. Even the most "Spirit-filled," and "Spirit-led" Pentecostal churches (not usually considered "liturgical") have a liturgy. In my experience, the "Spirit" usually leads the same folks to do the same things at more or less the same time in the service. It's interesting how the "Spirit" is so regular in his spectacular, supernatural operations.
It is certainly true that some have abused and deformed the Reformed liturgies or have created liturgies that defy the RPW and such is happening today. We should not let the fact that the FV fellows (some of whom I have seen ignorantly wearing a ROMAN tab collar rather than the protestant collar worn with honor by confessional Protestant ministers for centuries-- more evidence that these are just children pretending at "church" and over reacting to liturgically barren fundamentalism) are resurrecting the some of the errors of the Tractarian and Mercersburg movements bring discredit on the idea of liturgy" altogether.
Liturgy does not denote "Anglo-papist" or "Papist" worship per se anymore than the phrase "doctrine of God" denotes "Open theism."
Trying to worship without a liturgy is akin to trying to talk about God without doing theology. It's not possible. So the next questions are "whose liturgy" and "does it conform to the revealed will of God as understood and confessed by the Reformed churches?
On this see D. G. Hart, Recovering Mother Kirk and Hart and Muether, With Reverence and Awe.
As you can see from the liturgies linked above and many other sources, the Reformed churches have long had a liturgy. The fact that even these liturgies strike some as "high" (i.e., as tending toward Anglo-papism) indicates the degree to which revivalism and religious subjectivism has colored our conception of worship.
rsc
[Edited on 2-19-2006 by R. Scott Clark]
[Edited on 2-19-2006 by R. Scott Clark]
Presbyrino
Puritan Board Freshman
A non-liturgy, liturgy
I used to attend a pentecostal church where the pastor, on occasion, would not prepare a sermon because he would wait for the "Spirit" to give him the message that morning. We could always tell when the pastor did not prepare his message because he would then preach a "spirit-filled" message, as opposed to his other messages which must have not been "spirit-filled".
Scott
Puritan Board Graduate
WrittenFromUtopia
Puritan Board Graduate
Our Church follows the following liturgy:
CALL TO WORSHIP
PRAISE (PSALM)
PSALM/SCRIPTURE MEDITATION
INVOCATION
PRAISE (PSALM)
TITHES & OFFERINGS (PSALM)
PASTORAL PRAYER
SCRIPTURE READING
SERMON
PRAYER
PRAISE (PSALM)
BENEDICTION/BLESSING
DOXOLOGY (PSALM)
CALL TO WORSHIP
PRAISE (PSALM)
PSALM/SCRIPTURE MEDITATION
INVOCATION
PRAISE (PSALM)
TITHES & OFFERINGS (PSALM)
PASTORAL PRAYER
SCRIPTURE READING
SERMON
PRAYER
PRAISE (PSALM)
BENEDICTION/BLESSING
DOXOLOGY (PSALM)
Of course a set order of worship is a must. Liturgy in this strict literal sense is scriptural and Reformed. However, the connotation liturgicalism has is "high church" ceremonialism and outward rituals. A service of read prayers is against the RPW and not what the Reformers intended. The reading of prayers was established as a temporary practice until the church could establish a regular ministry. It was done in churches without ministers only. Ministers were expected to pray extemporaneously. Reaction against this liturgicalism does not stem from "revialism" but from Puritanism.
[Edited on 2-20-2006 by Peter]
[Edited on 2-20-2006 by Peter]
"...A collection of prayers, prefixed to the psalms in metre usually called Knox's Liturgy had long been in use. It was used as a help to weak ministers, at a period when it was difficult to find well qualified persons to supply the pulpits and the prayers in this book were still used in the churches by the readers who were employed to read the Scriptures to the people before the ministers began the proper service of the day, and in some places on the morning and evening of every week-day...This project [creating a new liturgy] was not carried into effect- probably from their knowledge of the aversion of the Scots to fixed forms of prayer. The people did not question the lawfulness of set forms, but their necessity; they had been long habituated to hear them read, thought not by their ministers; and they considered it altogether at variance with scripture, with the practice of antiquity, and with the very nature of prayer, that the Church should be shackled and bound to an invaruiable formulary in this part of divine worship."
139,140 Thomas McCrie, the Story of the Scottish Church
This should help to correct and clarify some of the things I was saying.
139,140 Thomas McCrie, the Story of the Scottish Church
This should help to correct and clarify some of the things I was saying.
Scott
Puritan Board Graduate
Baxter, among others, approved of both form and improvised prayers. He writes about them in his Christian Directory.
I know American Puritans had a strange view that one had to have improvised prayers so that the one praying could follow the Spirit. They relied on a text in Romans (can't recall which one off the top of my head) that seemd inapplicable to me when I read it.
I know American Puritans had a strange view that one had to have improvised prayers so that the one praying could follow the Spirit. They relied on a text in Romans (can't recall which one off the top of my head) that seemd inapplicable to me when I read it.
historyb
Inactive User
Thank you all for your great answers again. I guess when it was brought up on another thread about Reformed Episcopalian Church I went searching on the web on got a bit nostalgic for liturgical type services.
Then I kinda wondered about it, so I ask here. Always good to get others opinions.
Then I kinda wondered about it, so I ask here. Always good to get others opinions.
WrittenFromUtopia
Puritan Board Graduate
We don't have a corporate confession of sins in our normal liturgy. The invocation is more of a commentary on Scripture or a Psalm prior to engaging in further worship. The call to worship is usually just a reading of Scripture, nothing else.
Read Prayers
The Westminster Assembly left this subject unsettled; there were those who wished to read the prayers of the Westminster Directory for Public Worship and those that saw that as wrong and that they were only helps to compose prayers. Gillespie was opposed to read prayers in his anonymously published work Reasons For Which the Service Book Urged upon Scotland ought to be Refused. I think Leishman comments on te issue in: The book of common order of the Church of Scotland commonly known as John Knox's liturgy / and The directory for the public worship of God agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. With historical introductions & illustrative notes by George W. Sprott and Thomas Leishman (Edinburgh : Blackwood, 1868). Leishman's text and commentary were reprinted in 1901. Gillespie's work is in print in the Naphtali Press critical edition of English Popish Ceremonies, and it is also in the free ebook collection of the Anonymous Writings of George Gillespie. For the latter see http://www.naphtali.com/anonymous.htm
[Edited on 2-21-2006 by NaphtaliPress]
The Westminster Assembly left this subject unsettled; there were those who wished to read the prayers of the Westminster Directory for Public Worship and those that saw that as wrong and that they were only helps to compose prayers. Gillespie was opposed to read prayers in his anonymously published work Reasons For Which the Service Book Urged upon Scotland ought to be Refused. I think Leishman comments on te issue in: The book of common order of the Church of Scotland commonly known as John Knox's liturgy / and The directory for the public worship of God agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. With historical introductions & illustrative notes by George W. Sprott and Thomas Leishman (Edinburgh : Blackwood, 1868). Leishman's text and commentary were reprinted in 1901. Gillespie's work is in print in the Naphtali Press critical edition of English Popish Ceremonies, and it is also in the free ebook collection of the Anonymous Writings of George Gillespie. For the latter see http://www.naphtali.com/anonymous.htm
[Edited on 2-21-2006 by NaphtaliPress]
el calvinist
Inactive User
What! No sacrament!?
This is our liturgy for March 5th:
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God's Greeting
Confession of Faith
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord: who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
Call to Worship
Psalm of Adoration
Psalm 100A
Prayer of Invocation
Reading of the Law
Corporate Confession of Sin
O Lord our God, we come to You as Your sons and servants, grateful for the redemption that is ours in Jesus Christ, and yet aware of our continuing need of Your grace. We confess that we have sinned against You. We have broken Your commandments. We have fallen short of Your glory. We have not loved You with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. We were born in sin and have continued to sin. We acknowledge our guilt. We rightly fall under Your curse and judgment. Blot out our transgressions, wash us from our iniquities, deliver us from blood guiltiness. Forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.
Absolution
Psalm of Thanksgiving
Psalm 32C
Pastoral Prayer
Psalm of Preparation
Psalm 119Q
Reading of the Word
Galatians 1
Prayer for Illumination
Sermon
Introduction to Galatians
Prayer of Application
Lord's Supper2
Offering with Psalm of Praise
Psalm 145C
Benediction
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