Worship

The Importance of a Fixed Liturgy By Eron Henry

Baptists tend to use “liturgy” with reluctance,

preferring other expressions such as “order of service” to describe how worship is ordered and conducted in Baptist congregations. But Nathan Nettleton of Melbourne, Australia, is unafraid to use “liturgy” to describe worship in his church. Nettleton claims, “Every church has liturgy. Whether it is accompanied by a rock band with projection on the big screen, or words read from a prayer book and accompanied by a pipe organ, it’s still liturgical action. The words of ‘praise and worship’ songs projected on a screen are still liturgical text even though we don’t tend to think of it that way.” Nettleton, a member of the Baptist World

Alliance®

Commission on Baptist Worship and Spirituality, is not quick to impose his idea or understanding of worship on others, but he is concerned about how worship is understood and conducted among Baptists. Too many Baptists, he believes, misunderstand the meaning of liturgy and are quick to reject as unacceptable those aspects of worship that are deemed to be too liturgical. “Because we have this history back in the beginning when we were suspicious of written texts for worship – non-biblical written texts – we think of ourselves as a tradition that does not use those, even though within the fi rst generation or so we returned to hymn singing.” He explains that “the fi rst Baptists wouldn’t sing hymns because they recognized them as non-biblical written texts. Now we tend to only think of liturgy if it is written down and spoken. If we sing it we think of it as something different, whereas in fact it is doing the same thing.” The rejection and the misunderstanding of a fi xed liturgy by Baptists have several consequences. Among these, Nettleton asserts, is that “many of our pastors have had no formal training

in the principles

of worship.” He referred to 1960s Baptist liturgical scholar Steven Winwood of Britain, who stated that only a church that has a fi xed written liturgical tradition can afford to neglect the teaching of liturgical principles. Nettleton elaborates by way of an illustration:

If you think of impro-visational jazz, you want your improvisational jazz to be improvised by people who have fi rst been trained in the principles of musicianship because they will improvise something that is worth listening to. It is a bit like that with our worship leaders. They received no training in the principles [of worship] but they try to do something not copied from someone else. If they don’t know what they’re doing they may produce something that is creative and original but not very helpful to anybody.

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Nettleton claims that “liturgy deepens the life of faith.” The Bible holds a central place and the liturgy takes “us into the experience of the story and connects us with the traditions of the life of our faith.” For him, it is deeply ironic that those who “most loudly proclaim themselves

to be Bible

reading

Nathan Nettleton

[Christians] actually read much less Bible in their worship services.” In many Baptist churches “there’s a pattern of worship that frequently has no scripture reading other than quotes in the sermon.” He recounts being in Baptist worship services “where there was no scripture reading. There were some quotes but the quotes served the sermon rather than the sermon serving the Bible reading.”

In contrast, he says, in more Christian liturgical traditions,

“there is actually more Bible reading. The Bible has its place and is allowed to speak on its own terms. It is not used merely as illustration for the sermon. There’s a more intangible sense of gathering around the word of God as a people who come to the word to hear what the word is offering to us.” One other consequence of the rejection of a fi xed liturgy is the

neglect of intercessory prayer. Nettleton says that even though it appears intercessory prayer is on resurgence in Australia, “there are still many places where you get the impression the congregation is not aware of the world outside of its own walls, no prayers outside of a particular sick list, or a political issue that directly affects that congregation. There is very little prayer for peace and justice and freedom and poverty in the wider world.”

Another consequence of rejecting formal liturgy is a failure to follow the Christian calendar. In this respect, the three-year lectionary plays a particularly important role. “Historically there was a time when Baptists were opposed to observing the Christian calendar and we were completely consistent on that. We didn’t celebrate Christmas or Easter either. At some point Baptists relaxed their positions on that and most of them celebrate

Christmas and Easter.” But that is where the Christian calendar ends for many Baptists, Nettleton declares. These Baptists “do not celebrate the rest of the calendar and justify not celebrating the rest of the calendar because, ‘We don’t do that.’ But yes we do because Christmas and Easter are part of it.” But, says Nettleton, “one of the things we’ve learned from any

attempt to get rid of the church calendar is that as soon as we do, a new calendar will start taking shape. We will end up having one any way.” Says Nettleton,

The unfortunate thing is that we have a new calendar that is set by the commercial sector in the world rather

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