thing I ask from the Lord… to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). When the community gathers and its symbols are enacted, beauty is deepened by eschatological meaning.8 Te beauty of God is revealed in worship as a foretaste of the communion that awaits us. In this sense, worshipers not only experience beauty but


are participants of it, with God. Trough both the aesthetic elements of worship and the beauty that arises in the act itself, the worshiper is addressed and drawn into communion with God, the one who is Beauty. 3. Te future of Adventist liturgy will be ritually vibrant. Tat human beings are ritualistic is not news. Tat we need


more rituals might be. In Te New York Times opinion piece “Tere Should Be


More Rituals!” David Brooks argues that our culture suffers from a poverty of intentional rituals that “concretise spiritual experiences” and give voice to realities “too deep for words.”9 Indeed, a continuity exists between the human need to


ritualize life and the processes of spiritual formation. French sociologist Émile Durkheim observed that ritual and symbolism offer a momentary break from ordinary existence, carrying the individual “outside himself.”10


German philosopher Josef


Pieper extends this insight in his reflections on religious festivity, suggesting that it is precisely in this emergence beyond the self, where divine ethos meets human pathos, that “renewal, transformation, rebirth” take place.11 Within the liturgy, ritual becomes a liminal space of mediation


where, directed toward God, the anthropological dimension merges with that of the theological. Ritual forms and nurtures faith; as liturgists remind us, “even as we perform the liturgy, the liturgy is performing us.”12 Consider the baptism rite. Te descent into water is not only


public testimony but also corpo-spiritual participation in death and rebirth. Te gathered are not simply observers; they, too, are participants. In witnessing the rite, the community rehearses and renews its own incorporation into Christ’s life. A similar dynamic unfolds at communion. When worshipers


feel the crumbling of bread in their hands, liſt the cool cup to their lips, see the gathered faces, and participate in the shared words, the isolated I is drawn into a communal we. Te familiar confession that “we who share this bread and cup are bound to Christ’s body” begins to mean something again.


Tis is precisely the pattern of formation witnessed in the


early church. Te rituals of sharing wine and breaking bread together not only fostered belonging but naturally overflowed into concrete care for the poor. Rituals may begin with action, but they certainly do not end there. Brooks might well be speaking to Adventists when he writes:


“We’ve become pretty casual over the years.… we’ve shed old rituals without coming up with new ones … and we’ve unwittingly robbed ourselves.”13 To limit our rituals to rites of passage impoverishes our


worship. Te few ordinances we practice start to lose their depth, and ritual slowly slips out of the everyday rhythms that sustain spiritual life. Te future of Adventist liturgy must be ritually richer and more vibrant.


Embracing Both Old and New Across the wider Christian landscape, we are witnessing a renewed desire for worship that is cross-generational, symbol-rich, and grounded in ritual meaning.14


Adventists are not exempt from


this longing. Embracing patterns of worship, old and new, can offer grounding and continuity that transcend the volatility of contemporary life. Such a vision does not abandon our heritage but deepens it, calling us to revitalize our worship as the meeting place between God and people, a place where the Spirit is welcomed and gently bears us toward new shores.


1 Fernando Canale, “Principles of Worship and Liturgy,” Journal of the Adventist Teological Society, Vol. 20, Nos. 1-2 (2009), pp. 89-111. 2 ibid., p. 110. 3 ibid., p. 95. 4 Sławomir Jeziorski, “Te Church and the Liturgy in the Contemporary World,” Liturgia Sacra, Vol. 54, No. 2 (2019), pp. 441-454. 5 Sally Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism: Inviting Unbelievers into the Presence of God (1995). 6 My personal paraphrase of St. Augustine, Sermons, 241, Easter: c.411 A.D., section 2. 7 See Tomas Aquinas, Summa Teologiae I–II, Question 27, Article 1, Reply to Objection 3, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 8 Patrick Prétot, “Sacraments and Healing: A Typology of the Relationship Between Two Dimension of Salvation,” Studia Liturgica, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2006), pp. 28-29. 9 David Brooks, “Tere Should Be More Rituals! Te Small Acts Tat Keep a


Society Together,” Te New York Times (Apr. 22, 2019). 10


Karen E. Fields 1995), p. 387. 11


(2003), p. 58. 13


Richard and Clara Winston 1999), p. 31. 12


Émile Durkheim, Te Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912, trans by. Josef Pieper, In Tune With the World: A Teory of Festivity (1963, trans by. E. Byron Anderson, Worship and Christian Identity: Practicing Ourselves Brooks, op. cit.


14 Colleen Carroll Campbell, Te New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (2002), p. 60.


16 AD VENTIS T T OD A Y


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