The first part of bringing people in a more actively participating role in worship is to bring them to a place of understanding the what and why of liturgy. This can go a long ways in helping people engage more fruitfully and deeply with liturgical worship. The second part involves how the liturgy is done. [...]

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One of the persistent objections to liturgical worship is that it doesn’t actively involve the congregation enough in worship. Sometimes people who are adverse to liturgy came from liturgical backgrounds where the meaning of the liturgy wasn’t adequately taught (or possibly adequately learned…). Thus these people have come to associate liturgy with the “meaningless repetitions” [...]

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We’ve looked at how there is room in liturgical worship for spontaneous and charismatic worship elements, and how liturgical worship can be greatly beneficial and formative for church communities. But let’s get down to some nuts and bolts issues: What kind of a liturgy is Simon Chan talking about in his Liturgical Theology? In addition [...]

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A friend of mine saw that I was reading a book called Liturgical Theology by Simon Chan, looked at me curiously and said, “Why in the world are you reading that?” “You don’t approve?” I asked. “Don’t you use liturgy in your church?” “No.” “So the basic elements of worship change radically from week to [...]

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Simon Chan writes in his Liturgical Theology that one of the reasons evangelicals have become suspicious of the liturgy, and of sacraments in general, is because they are actually children of the Enlightenment. British evangelical scholar Philip Seddon has noted that evangelicals have “a deep-seated suspicion of references to ‘mystery’ or to anything that is [...]

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I’ve been chugging through Simon Chan’s Liturgical Theology and blogging about it. Chan has some important things to say to the evangelical/charismatic church, I think. According to Chan, worship is what makes the church the church. For the missional church to gain any traction and sustain energy it must be fueled by worship. Like Matt [...]

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My interaction with Simon Chan’s Liturgical Theology continues… Worship can be ideally described as the response of the church to the revelation of God in Christ. But there has to be a way for that to be actualized. The abstract concepts must take concrete form. This is where the church’s liturgy comes in (liturgy = [...]

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Simon Chan’s Liturgical Theology, in chapter two, reiterates (as many have done before) that true worship is always a response to God’s initiative. God moves first in revealing his divine glory (which is simply disclosing who he is), and we respond by “glorifying” God, that is, acknowledging him for who he is. God’s revelation; our [...]

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One of the questions Simon Chan brings up in his book Liturgical Theology is whether our doctrines are formed by our practices, or vice versa. Do our worship practices arises out of some “objective” or “neutral” doctrinal observations? Or do our doctrines about worship arise out of our experience of it? Perhaps those on the [...]

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