written & compiled by Julie Durbin; edited by the FMLN Coordinating Council

When life presses in from every side, we find out what we are made of. We fall back on habitual ways of being and doing. In prolonged encounter with crisis, we fight a daily battle between spiritual disciplines and our addictions, between hope and despair.

This year has been a prolonged encounter with crisis. Even those who are doing relatively well are exhausted. Many are struggling with depression, anger, and a sense of the futility of work. Those who lead ministries feel the crush. Among other pressures is the concern that in trying to get people to attend church online or in person or both, we have a product that just isn’t selling these days. 

But what if worship is not a product to sell, but a practice to inhabit?

A growing number of Free Methodists are recalibrating corporate worship with an eye toward the long game, adopting and adapting practices that have strengthened the Church throughout the changing centuries. They have formed the Free Methodist Liturgical Network (FMLN), committed to the following mission:

Grounded in the timeless worship of the ancient church and Wesley’s evangelical-sacramental practice of ministry, the Free Methodist Liturgical Network seeks to connect, resource, and encourage churches and pastors in their ministries of worship and Christian formation.

So, the FMLN is a new worship-focused organization within the denomination, but why is it a “liturgical” network? Isn’t Free Methodist worship—free? 

First, we need to build a shared understanding. Liturgy, a form of the Greek leitourgia, means “work of the people.” Though we may think of liturgical worship as formal and elaborate, all worship is liturgical; everyone has a liturgy. But we are not always conscious of the liturgy we practice and the lessons those patterns teach us. Sometimes we have great liturgical practices going on in our churches even as we call them something else.

At 3^rd Step Church, a recovery ministry of the Monacrest, FMC in Monaca, PA, weeknight services have a simple format that includes singing, prayer, a message—all expected elements of a worship service. But they also have their own particular liturgy: they read the 12 Steps, memorize a Scripture verse, pray a form of the sinner’s prayer, and conclude with the Serenity Prayer every week. The liturgy of AA, long appreciated by people in recovery, is good for Christian discipleship. 

Churches that are intentionally “liturgical” often follow an order of worship known as the fourfold pattern: Gathering, Word, Table, and Sending. At the center of the pattern is what we see in Acts 2:42. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” As Constance Cherry notes, the Word and Table pattern is seen in the earliest documents about Christian worship. We Gather at God’s invitation, receive revelation in the Word, are reconciled at the Table, and Sent into the world. Music is not kept to an opening “worship set,” but is instead sprinkled throughout, highlighting the Scriptures and movements of the liturgy. 

Leaders who use the fourfold pattern are free to contextualize, choosing language and forms that will be most meaningful for their congregations. As Pastor Heather Baker Utley of Tapestry Church in San Antonio says, “liturgy is a work of the people gathered, and it’s only bound by the imagination and theology and collaboration of that group.” Liturgical worship offers both form and flexibility. 

Many of our churches have worked hard to break out of old patterns and embrace innovation: why would anyone choose liturgy now?

I asked this question of the Free Methodist Liturgical Network in the early spring, and their responses have only grown in relevance to the challenges we have all faced this year. I’ve arranged their thoughts in six major themes. 

These are some of the primary benefits of liturgical worship.

Participatory and Multi-Sensory

Liturgical worship is serious about worship being the work of the people. Although clergy have special tasks in proclaiming the Word and administering the sacraments, the people have a significant role as well, and that job isn’t finished at the end of a worship song set. 

In I Corinthians 14:26, Paul writes, “When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation” (NIV). That entire arc of I Corinthians is dedicated to helping the church in Corinth with order in worship, order that is particularly needed because worship is participatory in the early church. We see similar references to participation in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16. 

Dan Sheffield, pastor of Grapeview FMC in St. Catherines, Ontario, sees this Scriptural call for participation reinforced in educational theory, which teaches that “the more we participate, the more we actually learn and engage.” Educational seminars and teacher in-service days are filled with appeals to make our classrooms more interactive, more hands-on, and more participatory. 

“A liturgical service isn’t a classroom where we fill our heads with knowledge about God,” says John Crow of Epworth Chapel on the Green in Boise. “It’s more like a gym where we work our spiritual muscles through praise, prayer, confession, passing the peace, receiving communion, and then being sent out into the world to be salt and light.”

It’s also multi-sensory. Pastor John continues:

“A liturgical service is a full-body experience, including the sights of the candles, the cross, and the colors of the season; the sounds of hymns, both modern and ancient, the taste of the bread and wine, the movement of standing, sitting, and kneeling, and maybe even the smell of incense. If all that can’t capture one’s head and heart, I don’t know what will.”

Accessible and Reproducible

Liturgy is good for more people than we realize, and it’s generally more reproducible. 

Rebecca Letterman, from the team of supporting clergy at Community of the Savior in Rochester, NY, makes the point that liturgical worship doesn’t depend so much on a particular leader’s charisma. Russell Veldman, pastor at the Lawrenceville FMC in Illinois, says it allows people who may not be as naturally expressive to worship and lead well, without having to pretend to be something they are not.

We all want to make newcomers feel welcome in our churches. Pastor Raeanne Barlow of the 3^rd Step Church says of their services, “There is something about knowing what to expect when you are new; this is accessible to everyone, everything is explained.” And although we might worry about worship becoming too routine, she adds, “Isn’t that the risk with any worship song we sing?” If our hearts are not connected, any worship practice can get stripped of meaning. Intentional leadership and communication is always needed, regardless of the style and form we choose for worship.

John Crow attended a conference on disability and the church where key speakers explained that the calm and repetition embedded in liturgical worship allowed children with disabilities “to enter into worship through ways beyond the merely cognitive. One speaker said his son could repeat the communion liturgy by heart.” 

Maria Koppelberger, recent graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and volunteer with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks, also sees liturgy as accessible and reproducible:

“A person can put together an excellent liturgical worship service with almost no skill and no money. It’s portable across time and space and socio-economic levels. Its repetitive nature is especially helpful for people who are new to Christianity (new believers, children), folks who might have a hard time reading printed words (people with vision impairments, English language learners), and folks who have a hard time remembering the latest trends in worship (people with memory loss or developmental delays). Liturgical worship empowers lay people to participate. For example, if the worship leader can’t be there, the congregation can keep going without missing a beat. Everyone is welcome in this style of worship.”

Good liturgy can help us to be authentic about what we need to say to God. There is a range of emotional expression in every service—from penitent confession to exuberant adoration. Russ Veldman explains how well-formed prayers can help us learn to pray: 

“Sometimes we struggle with how to word our confession, and when you’ve prayed some standard prayers of confession several times, your mind and heart is trained so that when you need to do that spontaneously, you know where you’re going, and you know not to mince words. You know to be direct, you know to be clear with God, and you know that his mercy is there for you, because you’ve been taught.”

Liturgy allows us to be real—whether we are extroverts or introverts, rejoicing or sorrowing, doubtful or full of faith in the moment. It offers hope grounded in the truth and goodness and beauty of God. It moves us through all the emotions of our spiritual life.

Transcendent and Rich

Liturgical worship invites us to recognize the God beyond time and space, who has touched the lives of men and women in particular times and particular places. As Ronald White, retired pastor at Stanwood FMC and former superintendent of the North Michigan Conference, says, 

“When we use liturgy. . . we are reminded that the God we worship is timeless and that we are connected with a people of God who are worldwide and even out of this world, ‘the communion of saints.’ There is something authentic, deep, and solid about this form of worship that appeals to those who find mere relevance a bit thin and are searching for a truly transcendent God who is worth the inconvenience of going to church.”

Winfield Bevins of Asbury Seminary and Carey Nieuwhof of Connexus Church in Ontario both argue that the next generation is seeking meaning and transcendence. As Nieuwhof writes, 

“In a world that feels like a cacophony of noise and anger, and in a day where they have anything they want whenever they want at their fingertips, young adults are looking for something (some One) beyond themselves…an experience that can’t be reduced, fully explained and isn’t even fully definable.”

Grounded in Timeless Truth

While affirming the transcendent and mysterious, liturgical worship also offers clarity through statements of faith, creeds, that allow worshippers to be discipled in the faith every time they gather. Bevins explains that the next generation wants to be part of a gracious orthodoxy: “They want to stand up and confess the ‘faith once delivered to the saints,’ yet they reject dogmatic and exclusionary relationships with other Christians.” Free Methodists are seeking ways to partner with others and love God and people, while maintaining a gospel-drenched Christian witness. Perhaps it is time for the ancient creeds.

Scripture is heavily prioritized in liturgical worship. In churches where communion is celebrated weekly, the scripture has no less of a primary role. In fact, many of these churches follow the lectionary, enabling them to read the broad sweep of Scripture in a three-year cycle. Some passages are explained in the sermon, but some are simply read. As Russ Veldman shared, “The multiple Scripture readings in each service bear much fruit, and they remind us that if we read God’s Book, God does stuff. And wonderful stuff!” 

Other liturgical pieces—ancient prayers, service music—are largely taken from the Psalms and from Scriptural songs originally sung by Miriam, Simeon, or Mary the mother of Jesus. Liturgical worship is rich with the Word of God and the prayers of God’s people through time.

Steeped in the Great Story

One of the great gifts of historically rooted worship is the traditional Church calendar, which reenacts the whole story of the life of Christ every year. The lectionary is coordinated with the church year in such a way that preaching, singing, and all elements of worship can point in a unified direction. Many who have studied mission and evangelism in recent decades have noted the power of narrative and story-telling and its potential to reach today’s information-saturated (but Biblically uninformed) culture. Worship according to the great Story of Jesus embeds the whole church community in the narrative of the gospel. And as Russ Veldman reports, “It is healthy for a church to go through that cycle every year. There’s always something fresh, always something else to see…It never gets old.”

A Practice, not a Product

Finally, a liturgical perspective can guard us against treating worship as something to market to our customers; instead, it is a set of habits to cultivate. It is worship as a practice, not a product. 

The virtues of faith, hope, and love, and the fruits of the Spirit, are all things that must be cultivated. Holy living is only possible in the power of the Holy Spirit. But I think all Christians can agree, the perfect patience isn’t dumped on your head one day; it must be fought for in the daily grind of real life. Liturgical practices help train our minds, hearts, and hands for a lifetime of following Jesus. I believe this is the part that most Christians understand. The difference is, many accept this reality for faith as practiced individually, but haven’t seen the potential for its practice corporately. Devotional prayer and Bible reading needn’t only be a solitary habit; it can be richly cultivated in community.

Ways to Respond to a Liturgical Call

When we find ourselves yearning for good, intentional liturgical practice, there are a few ways we might respond. One way is to consider a liturgical option, to widen our concept of “ways that Free Methodists worship” to include these rich patterns of spiritual formation. Perhaps it’s time to add a liturgical service or add liturgical elements to an existing service.

Another way is to adopt a liturgical posture for all collective worship experiences. If all gathered worship has some kind of liturgy, why not be conscious of that liturgy and intentional about considering how worship can be more participatory, more multi-sensory, more informed by centuries of global Christianity, more richly fed by the sacraments, and more truly corporate?  

If you sense a call to explore the possibilities that tapping into liturgy may have for your ministry, the FMLN exists to help.

For more information:

Visit the Website: https://fmliturgy.com/

Write an Email:  fmliturgy@gmail.com

Join the Free Methodist Liturgical Network Facebook Group