The Teaching Corner

    The word “liturgy” comes from a Greek word related to the service of priests in the temple.  Over the years it has come to be the word we Christians use to describe what we do in worship.  Specifically when we refer to the liturgy we are referring to our pattern of worship:  all the rituals and activities of our worship experience.  Sometimes we talk about liturgy as the overall format of worship:  Gathering, Word, Meal, Sending.  Sometimes we use liturgy to refer to the specific actions we do:  the words and music that may accompany the greeting, kyrie, hymn of praise, prayer of the day, proper preface, etc.  In a general sense liturgy is our format for worship and we understand it to be the work of the people, not just the words the pastor speaks.

    Where does the liturgy that we use come from?  It comes from a combination of scripture and church traditions.  Many of our liturgical elements date back to the earliest Christian worship practices and, as an article in the March 2012 issue of The Lutheran points out, the words in all our liturgical expressions come from scripture.  While our liturgy ties us to the past of the Church, it is not static, but a constantly evolving expression of the present Church.  In this way the past, present, and even future of the Church is expressed through our various liturgies and liturgical music.

 
    These common elements that we have between our worship services do many things for us that we find of value.  They connect us to memory of other times we have been in church, helping us to know that this is church; they connect us with the experiences and worship of all those generations of Christians who have gone before us and other Christians today and tomorrow around the world, providing us with a tangible reminder of the communion of saints; and they allow us to keep our worship rooted in the words of scripture.

 
    While there are often disagreements about the specifics of certain liturgical practices in worship (what type of music we sing, whether we use LBW setting two or a different musical setting, whether we cut certain elements out or add others to make the worship more “contemporary”) liturgy is always a part of our worship experience.  Even so-called “non-liturgical” churches have their own liturgy.  As Christians who gather to worship God, liturgy is just what we do.