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The church I grew up in was overbearingly liturgical. Granted, overbearing is a personal opinion but it is one I will defend. I know there are other churches with more rote or ritual, but for a small Nazarene church, we had a stagnant order of worship. It wasn’t the most liturgical church on the face of the planet, but there was enough routine to be predictable. I could tell you when our worship leader would ask the congregation to stand, and when he would tell us “you may be seated” before either order was given. I knew when a certain pastor preached we would get a lesson in church history and Greek vocabulary. To this day, I can still recite the exact order of worship for both the Sunday morning and Sunday evening worship services/Nic, Rants, Raves & Random Thoughts. More here.
Question (for church attenders): How do you prefer your Sunday church service — liturgical, nontraditional, or informal?
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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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Transplanted_Texan on March 10 at 2:11 p.m.
I appreciate this entry from Nic, as it’s a subject near and dear to my heart and daily walk. For me, a liberal Episcopalian trending Anglo-Catholic, Sunday morning just doesn’t feel like church without the liturgy. I do enjoy evangelical praise & worship music and I feel a balance between formal written prayer vs. extemporaneous reflective prayer is important, but I still appreciate the liturgical Daily Office and just don’t feel like I’ve been to church if there’s no litrugical Eucharist. (Organs and favorite hymns help, too.)
-Wayward Episcopalian
Liz on March 10 at 2:47 p.m.
Well, I have gone the entire gamut from Eastern Orthodox to very, very nonliturgical. I like where I am at now: a few worship songs, some meaningful prayer and a meaty sermon.
JeanieSpokane on March 10 at 3:09 p.m.
I’d like God to be there.
BethB on March 10 at 5:09 p.m.
I’m more the loose-translation kind, but I agree with JeanieS - top priority is that God is there - which is everywhere, but especially there. Also, this is an interesting post for me to read given that I am going through my own throes of angst this week as I attend nine days of ceremony for St. Al’s Novena of Grace (at Gonzaga). It’s combining beautiful ritual with my tumultuous history with the Catholic Church here. And I’m not even Catholic. Still. I do love that Holy Water…..
cantyoureadthesigns on March 10 at 5:34 p.m.
With lots of colorful, poofy, fancy, even audacious vestments. Oh, and lots of incense. And pipe-organ music.
Stickman on March 10 at 7:48 p.m.
As one that used to be an alter boy of sorts, I never bought into the idea of any religion. I was forced to attend, and I made my statement every single day. Though it might have been slightly devious, I will never tell. Of course, I would if asked. Now, I believe that if any God is present, it is in each of us, and how we deal with people on a day to day basis. The god in each of us is within, not what we read or worship. It’s how we deal with every day life and how we treat our fellow man and the animals of course. We are all here in the same world, let’s treat each and every being as such.
Escapee on March 10 at 9:03 p.m.
My Mom carted our family around to just about every conceivable kind of church there was. From the extremely structured nature of a Lutheran Church service, to the reckless, screaming, speaking-in-tongues-type of services in Holy Roller churches, I feel like I’ve seen it all. That was then. I haven’t attended Church for going on 30 years now and I don’t miss it One Bit.