Beyond 4 hymns and a sermon

I'd like to draw your attention to this blog post on moving (Protestant) worship services beyond '4 songs and a sermon'.  The article is about recovering and understanding the other classic and much-needed worship practices that have been held in common across the universal church (including among the early Protestants).

Thankfully many of these practices he mentions have been retained (if not always appreciated and understood) in most Methodist churches, though some newer 'contemporary' services have jettisoned them, as if there were a conflict between singing new songs with modern instruments and also saying the creed or the prayer that Jesus instructed us to say.  In fact I've been to plenty of up-beat services that used new music, guitars AND creeds and liturgy; there is no inherent conflict.  The evangelical Anglicans seem to be leading the way on bringing together classic liturgy and contemporary music, but it is quite consistent with Methodist identity to do likewise, after all, the Wesley's simultaneously insisted on the goodness and the use of the inherited Anglican liturgy while at the same time creating and introducing new music, new hymns, for the people to sing to enliven that inherited form of worship.

I might have added another spiritual practice this author did not discuss: the offertory, which allows us to respond immediately (and sacrificially) to the proclaimed word that we have heard.