Christianity Today has recently focused on the return to ritual in many evangelical churches. Click here. At Coastal Church we have been inching forward into this world. We weekly confess together the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds, (which are our gateway membership doctrinal statements), observe the Church Year, read from the lectionary, pray together the Lord’s Prayer and observe the Lord’s Supper each week. We still sing contemporary praise and worship music but use Taize music as well. I am finding out several things that please me.
How fuller the church service feels with the “presence” of the people. We pray together, confess together, respond to readings, participate. This is opposed to the “the people are coming this Sunday so what are we going to do from the front that will keep their attention and keep them coming back.” (Have to hustle and find a new skit, a new guitar solo, a new video and technological innovation – can’t you feel it, the people are coming, we must be ready – oh no, are we ready enough?) No, the people are coming to worship. they are the performers. They aren’t professionals and they don’t have to make up their parts and be “spontaneously authentic.” The lines of the service are pretty much written out and the people enter into the drama already there. The old and young, the able and not so able, the newer and older all get into the act. They don’t just sit and wait for the “stars” to wow them. They come from different towns and homes and situations. They come to play their base, take their position – some Sundays it will be this and some Sundays it will be that. But they will not just watch and look. It is their service.
Another thing that pleases me is the sense that as we enter to deep church we have more company. That is, I feel we are more connected to the universal church. We are together in this thing. Much of the contemporary church is ahistorical – it’s about the now. Constant flux. Keeps your attention but after a while church is like a TV with too many channels. It can’t settle down and pay attention. It is ADD. But when the church proactively seeks to bring the wisdom of the ages into its present, the doors to history and heroes and help open up in a way that the mere now cannot do.
Of course, for a lot us free church Protestants these steps are new. And so they have the feel of innovation. But to really gain the benefit we must move beyond the new into the old and then into the “now I see it” phase where the connections begin to reveal themselves – the line that extends from the Gloria, to the Psalms, to the readings, to the Lord’s Prayer and to the Creed, through the sermon and to the Lord’s Supper.
All churches have formulas for the services. Even spontaneity is planned spontaneity. The issue is not whether or not you are going to have a formula but how is it going to serve your purposes.
Some people just simply respond, “feels too Catholic to me.” Of course, they mean, not Catholic, but Roman Catholic. (I am still trying to figure out what is wrong with that in and of itself-let’s get more specific). I want our service to feel Catholic – universal, having a wide range of belonging to the people and not to the religious professionals. But many evangelicals don’t get that yet. They will entertain themselves to death until the people finally say ‘enough-what are you doing to my church?” And they grab it back from going to tinker toy land and give it some gravitas and a form of worship that holds the center.
