I belong to a Southern Baptist church. I know it sounds strange for a member of an SBC church to advocate for a liturgy style worship but I was truly astounded on my first visit. Over the past two years, I’ve been studying Lutheranism, and along with it a lot of the early church fathers’ views on worship and the sacraments. Though I’m not a member of a Lutheran church I highly enjoyed my experience at one last year when my family and I attended for a few weeks.

I had been captivated by the use of the Sacraments, order of worship, and the soaking of Scripture that is present within liturgical worship. The sacredness of the entire service was joyful and a refreshing change to the modern-driven, program-saturated, and fluffy “Christian” songs that are typical of most Evangelical mainstream churches. With that in mind, I would like to offer my five reasons why I believe Liturgical services, especially those that incorporate a lectionary, are superior to most modern worship services.

1. No Pressure on the Pastor

If you’re a pastor or one who teaches regularly you understand the pressures of planning and executing a sermon/lesson each week. In a liturgical setting that uses a lectionary, the pressure to come up with the next “big sermon” is eradicated. That’s because the lectionary is a guide in and of itself. It gives several options of Scripture from which to draw the sermon. While I don’t have a hard copy of a lectionary check out the screenshot below from one of the lectionaries in my Logos collection.

You can observe that there is an Old Testament, a Psalm, an Epistle, and a Gospel reading. The pastor will choose one of these four passages to preach from. This keeps things in line and ensures that the pastor doesn’t go off on a tangent or personal soapbox, as has been many a person’s experiences, including my own. Lectionaries are a wonderful guide and it keeps the flow of preaching nicely all year long.

2. Liturgical Services Follow the Church Calendar

This is much like the first point. Lectionaries follow the Church calendar, marking the seasons and times of the year. There’s no need, then for the pastor to come up with a Christmas service or Easter sermon every year. And the cool thing is that the lectionary is divided into these seasons automatically.

As you can see the services are conveniently divided by the calendar and provide the Scripture and service details according to the different seasons. This makes it quite easy to choose a text and study and prepare for the sermon. Of course, most will chide the idea and state that simply choosing a book of the Bible and preaching expositorily through it (vers-by-verse) would be far superior. While I agree that expository preaching is the best way to present Scripture, using a lectionary does not do away with it. The preacher may still preach in this fashion. The only difference is that the congregation is getting a well-rounded view of Scripture rather than waiting 1-2 years, depending on the length of the book, to move along to the next portion of Scripture.

3. No Smoke & Mirrors

Most worship services I’ve been in have a high-focus priority on entertainment. The choir sings, the soloist solos while the congregation sit back, smile, and clap when the performance is done. It’s all seemingly harmless and most would say it falls under the scope of Christian Liberty. But there’s something a little sinister (at least to me) about applauding a performance in a setting where the focus should solely be on one Person. Consider the video below of North Point’s Christmas Eve service back in 2016.

This video represents the extreme of self-centered worship but there are far too many churches adapting worldly measures in the name of reaching people. The Body of Christ is supposed to gather in order to pray, encourage one another, and be equipped to go into the world and make disciples. While I certainly believe there is a place for singing (I’m not referring to congregational singing) and artistic expression I hold the view that the worship service should be as sacred as possible. Call me legalistic, but many of the things I’ve experienced in some churches is inappropriate, in my opinion.

4. Congregational Participation

This sounds a little strange. I’m not talking about singing as a congregation or giving to the Church financially. I’m strictly speaking of the Sacraments ordained by the church, namely Absolution & Confession, the Eucharist, and Baptism. During these times, and especially the former two, each congregant participates in a personal way that is very meaningful. This participation then becomes participation, not just in the worship service itself, but in the body of Christ, along with His atoning work and redemption. This was probably the best part of my experience at a liturgical service. The reality of the Godhead and His grace washed my soul anew and I walked out of the service refreshed and exhilarated

5. Scripture Soaking

My favorite reason and argument for liturgical worship is the amount of Scripture present within it. From the time the service began until it ended I was soaked with Scripture. I understand most Evangelical churches base their services around the Word, but truthfully I’m accustomed to hearing only the Scripture passage of the sermon read and then other Scriptures read for support of the sermon text. For the Christian, the Word of God is life! It is what we base our doctrine, practice, and all of life upon. And the amount of Scripture I received was astounding. Along with the catechism book I received upon my initial visit I am always surrounded in the Word of God. The catechism book is one that I’ve been reading to my children at night. It is neatly divided into sections for easy reading.

Liturgical Worship was a change for me. I walked in the first time not really knowing what to expect. To be honest, my expectation was that it would be some kind of quasi cult-like ceremony with foreign chanting and figures walking in, dressed in ceremonial robes. But what I found was a God-honoring, sacred assembly of God’s people meeting together to bring glory to the King of Kings. What I experienced was a realization of the forgiveness of sins through Christ’s work and atonement. I’m not saying those things weren’t just as real as they were at my other church. I’m simply pointing out that at a liturgical service I saw those things more clearly than I ever had.

A lot of folks would disagree, and that’s okay. The conclusion for me is that a liturgical service is much more structured, sacred, Scripture-focused, and participatory. I would encourage you to find a church with liturgical worship and at least attend a couple of times. You may just end up coming to the same conclusion that I have. Have a wonderful Lord’s Day and a happy Father’s Day to all you dads!