8/26/15

Articles on young people seeking liturgical worship

I am one of THOSE young people (though a little less young with each passing day).  I love the liturgy, the creeds, and the sacraments of the church.  I love the "rootedness" and the beauty of historical patterns of worship.  I love that the liturgy doesn't try to be trendy but just is what it is, and always has been (mimicing as it does the patterns of eternal worship in heaven as they are glimpsed in Scripture - particularly in The Book of Isaiah and The Revelation to John).

As a pastor this means I find myself often seeking to ensure that our worship services follow the basic pattern and include the basic content that is handed down to us in our Book of Worship, which builds off of the more ancient liturgical heritage of Anglicanism.  For example, in Holy Week I re-worked a special Holy Thursday service that was inherited from a previous pastor who created it many years ago.  The basic idea of the service was a good one with precedents ancient and modern; in re-working his service I simply incorporated liturgical prayers, lectionary readings, and other elements that have historically been a part of the Holy Thursday experience of Christians and yet were missing.

I've been thinking about this as I've run across not one but two more good articles on young people being attracted to the liturgy, and why that trend is happening.  As far as I can see, it is still a pretty small trend; a minority report among young American Christians.  But I believe it is a genuine movement of the Spirit that is part of a larger "rebirth of orthodoxy" (to use Tom Oden's phrase).

SO, why might I (and maybe some others too) be interested in reconnecting with the "old-school" practices of faith and worship?  Check out these pieces:
5 Reasons Young People are Seeking Old Ways of Doing Church (which is a short and "spot-on" piece)
AND
Why Millennials Long for Liturgy (a longer, more in-depth, article with more personal stories)

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