As I Was Saying is a forum for a variety of perspectives to foster faith-related conversations among our readers with the goal of mutual learning, even in disagreement. Apart from articles written by editorial staff, these perspectives do not necessarily reflect the views of The Banner.
As a church planter, you get used to people asking questions about all sorts of things. When people visit our church, I often receive questions about our liturgy. The word “liturgy” traditionally means “the work of the people,” but it is also shorthand for the specific elements of any worship service. Understood this way, every church has a liturgy. A service might include four songs, some announcements, a sermon, two concluding songs and a goodbye—that is its liturgy. A more traditional service, however, will include a call to worship, prayer of confession, assurance of pardon, and other formal elements.
As a new church that utilizes a historic liturgy, one question comes up time and time again: “How can you have such a formal liturgy and still be welcoming to outsiders and those who aren’t Christians?” The implication behind the question isn’t particularly subtle. Liturgy is assumed as being for Christians, whereas a more open and informal service would make a non-Christian feel more at ease, and thus more open to the gospel. The further assumption is that a congregation invested in evangelism or mission needs worship to be decidedly less liturgical, less formal, and thus less historic.
The question often comes as a veiled critique, or sometimes as a dire warning. Interestingly, it generally comes from Christians, many well-seasoned in their faith. Novelty is presumed to be a virtue for those interested in mission, while tradition is the ultimate vice. The regularity of the question has afforded me the opportunity to reflect on liturgy, hospitality, and how the two intersect.
Hospitable Liturgy
I take it as a given that any local congregation should have hospitality as part of their stated ministry philosophy. We all ought to want those who don’t yet consider themselves Christians to be present in our worship services to encounter the gospel and the church, and to experience, even if only second hand, the means of grace and the hope of glory.
This desire extends back to the earliest testimonies of the New Testament into the first centuries of Christian expansion where non-Christians were welcomed for worship services, and yet still dismissed before the Eucharist. Paul spends all of 1 Corinthians 14 discussing both the intelligibility of worship and its proper order. He also notes that the “unbeliever” and “inquirer” are likely to be present in worship services. Those early Christians did not feel the need to adjust their liturgies in order to make them more palatable. What they did, however, was recognize the need to catechize and invest in the unbaptized accordingly.
Liturgy was not a barrier to hospitality. Rather, it was an embodiment of it. Thus, liturgy is both hospitable and an act of hospitality.
No one likes to feel stupid or out of place. Far too many church services, both high liturgy and low, unwittingly take aspects of their worship for granted such that they haven’t thought through how someone new might encounter them.
Consider what a seemingly innocuous yet careless phrase like, “You all know this story” signals to the person who isn’t familiar with the Bible. This is not to suggest that Christian worship should be immediately palatable to the outsider. Far from it, in fact. Liturgy is a prime opportunity to “keep Christianity weird” as it points us to the transcendence, glory, and holiness of God. In our experience, we have found this is precisely what many outsiders are looking for. You might get better music on Spotify, a better talk from TED, or better socializing at your local pub quiz, but what you can’t get is Christ or his Church. You can’t outsource the gospel or the sacraments or the transcendence of worship.
But you can have a hospitable liturgy. It simply requires being deliberate.
Liturgy by Explanation
In my own context, we work hard to do “liturgy by explanation,” educating throughout the service. The challenge is to avoid verbosity and allow the liturgy to do its work with minimal interference.
The words between the main movements of a worship service are like the mortar between bricks, binding things together. These transitional phrases carry operative and stated theology. They should be deliberate and considerate of those who are new to worship. These words signal to the person new to the pew that their presence was anticipated and is therefore welcome. Making the liturgy hospitable begins by simply expecting those who don’t know the moves of the liturgy to be present, and then to accommodate them where possible.
Accommodation does not mean stripping the liturgy away, but guiding people through it. As a bricklayer learns both by explanation and by laying brick, so a hospitable worship service guides worshipers through the participatory movements. Liturgy by explanation guides both the seasoned worshiper and the skeptic together through the moves so that each can participate in the service a bit more intentionally and thoughtfully.
Simple transitional words, often far from simple in their theological assumptions, alert those who are new, or newly returned, that they will be guided through the service. Likewise, it signals to regular attenders that outsiders are expected and welcome, and therefore this worship service is a place to bring friends who are exploring the faith. .
Similarly, the liturgy and the transitional moments, the mortar between the bricks, educate Christians in their own faith and non-Christians in what we believe and why our worship looks the way it does. For example, we begin each worship service with a traditional call to worship, often taken from a psalm. This is not simply a welcome before the service starts. This is a summons from the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, to grant your restless heart what it truly seeks—communion with its maker. The liturgy, and the words between the words, teaches Christians what we believe and models how to communicate those things to our friends. When hospitality is considered, liturgy catechizes and evangelizes.
How Liturgy Welcomes
The other aspect of liturgy and hospitality that is often overlooked is that liturgy is in itself hospitable. Once again, the bricklayer learns by instruction, but also, and perhaps even more, learns the craft over time in the laying of brick by brick. So, too, in its repetition, its order, its corporate nature, and its catholicity, the liturgy is itself an act of hospitality.
Repetition
First, by its very repetition, the liturgy enables a newcomer the opportunity to follow along and, importantly, participate. Its predictable structure is inherently accessible, providing an easy entry point for someone new. In northern California, more people arrive late than early to worship, so it is often those who are new and unfamiliar who come early. As they wait in the pew for others to arrive, they have a printed liturgy to hold and flip through to familiarize themselves with what is coming. (As an aside, if you are a Christian who cares about hospitality in your local church, the easiest and most overlooked thing you can do to embody hospitality is to show up early and simply nod hello to whoever is already there. Chances are good they are new, feeling awkward, and would appreciate being noticed without being smothered.) By its simple repetition, the historic liturgy is itself hospitable.
Order
Second, the liturgy is hospitable in its orderliness. In a world of chaos and confusion, the liturgy is a guided practice that is ordered. It allows us to forget ourselves a bit, gives us the luxury of not being in charge of every decision that must be made. This, it seems to me, is a unique gift in a world of seemingly endless and exhausting options for consumption. It is hospitable to a newcomer to have a service that is not a choose-your-own-adventure—or choose-your-emotive-response. Liturgy is hospitable in that it is not asking you to gin-up authenticity. You are given the freedom to, as C.S. Lewis put it, “forget yourself in the rite.” When a liturgy is ordered and expected, it is dependable and stable in a world that often feels precarious.
Shared Words
Third, liturgy is hospitable by giving those who are new very concrete words and doctrines to try on and hear before they fully embrace them. Reciting the Nicene creed, for example, is an opportunity for those who are exploring religion and Christianity to ask themselves, “Do I believe this? Can I embrace this?” Similarly, for those who are experiencing seasons of doubt the liturgy is a communal expression of faith; though an individual might not feel the expression, nonetheless they can still participate. Even if you can’t say the Creed with wholehearted belief on a given Sunday, even if you are unsure what wholehearted belief looks or feels like, the liturgy reminds us that both the Christian faith and our worship is not merely individual but corporate. It isn’t just about you, and that is its own gift in a culture that puts the immense burden of the self at the fore of everything.
Shared Structure
Finally, liturgy is hospitable in its catholicity. The liturgy is something that Christians share broadly with those who have gone before, as well as with the global community of worshipers. While it might look and sound different in Nigeria or Vancouver or California, there is an enduring structure to liturgy that is shared across various traditions and cultures. It is thus an embodiment of hospitality to have an enduring structure to worship that recognizes itself as part of a global and historic communion. The person who comes in from outside the Christian tradition quickly feels herself part of something received and historic, a heritage larger than herself and a local congregation.
A Bridge, Not a Barrier
The people who have asked me some version of the initial question over the years most often do so from a place of genuine care for evangelism and hospitality. The question, however, betrays their own presuppositions more than it reflects the actual concerns of those who might be Christian-curious. It is a question left over from an era where formal liturgy in worship was seen as a barrier to evangelism and hospitality. That era is over (and truthfully, perhaps never should have begun).
The vast majority of Christian worship over the centuries has followed prescribed forms that were ordered. Only recently has the ideology of choice become a guiding principle that borders on idolatry. Instead, Christians have an opportunity to welcome the curious into their midst not by shedding their heritage, but by leaning into it precisely by explaining it. Hospitality is at the heart of Christian worship and Christian mission, and a traditional, sturdy liturgy can be the bridge between them.