The perils of liturgy - 16 March 2009 |
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‘Liturgy’ is just ‘what we do in church’.
All churches are therefore liturgical churches. The only difference is how much of the liturgy is planned and written beforehand, and how much is composed on the fly. In (falsely) so-called ‘liturgical’ churches, most of it is written beforehand; in (falsely) so-called ‘non-liturgical’ churches the Minister freewheels most of it (best of luck – rather him than me). But all churches have a liturgy. Liturgy is inescapable.
FWIW, this also means that many churches that think of themselves as ‘non-liturgical’ do, in fact, have a fairly well-defined ‘planned’ liturgy – the elements of the service take place in a pre-planned order, everyone prays (some of) the same prayers, sings the same songs, makes the same responses to the readings, etc.
Without (at this stage) entering the debate about where on this scale of liturgical planned-ness is the best place to land (we’ll save that for another time), it’s clear that different degrees of planned-ness and spontaneity in liturgy will lend themselves to different misunderstandings and abuses. More ’spontaneous’ services are likely (unless the leader is incredibly gifted) to err towards blandness, diluteness and even error; whereas more ‘planned’ occasions are at risk in other ways.
Some of these dangers – the perils of (planned) liturgy – are highlighted in Jonah 2.
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog