Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Comparing Liturgies

This is in response to Jeff's call for posts for the Christian Reconciliation Carnival. For those considering entering, please submit your favorite liturgy or reconciliation-themed post.

I was curious what we would find if we compared liturgies amongst ourselves. However, the orders of service tend to be longer than we might have the patience to compare in our spare time as bloggers. With that in mind, I am here posting the general outline of the Common Service from our current worship book. There are several other orders of service as well; I haven't even compared and contrasted the different orders of service within my own book of worship. But here is a question for all you other liturgical worshipers out there from other Christian groups: how close is this to your own order of service? Are there differences? Are differences in the service used to highlight differences in theology?

Common Service
  1. Invocation (“In the name of the Father …”)
  2. Confession
  3. Song: Kyrie eleison (“Lord have mercy on us ...”)
  4. Absolution
  5. Song: Gloria in Excelsis (“Glory be to God on High …”)
  6. Prayer of the day
  7. Old Testament Scripture reading
  8. Psalm of the day
  9. Epistle Scripture reading
  10. Verse of the day and Alleluias
  11. Gospel Scripture reading
  12. Nicene Creed (communion) or Apostles Creed (matins)
  13. Sermon
  14. Song: "Create in me ..."
  15. Offering
  16. Prayer of the church
  17. The Lord's prayer (with the Glorias at the end)
  18. (Matins: skip forward to Nunc Dimittis; Eucharist continues)
  19. Prayers: Seasonal prefaces to the Eucharist
  20. Song: Sanctus (“Holy, holy, holy …”)
  21. Words of institution (“Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night he was betrayed …”)
  22. Song: Agnus Dei (“O Christ, Lamb of God …”)
  23. Distribution (“The body of Christ, given for you. The blood of Christ, shed for you for the remission of sins.”)
  24. Song: Nunc dimittis aka Song of Simeon (“Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace …”)
  25. Prayer of thanksgiving
  26. Aaron’s Blessing (“The Lord bless you and keep you …”)
I've skipped mentioning the various places where we have a hymn. So what do you say? How close is this to your own liturgy? How close have we stayed over the years of the divide, and how far have we drifted apart even in our worship?

2 comments:

Tony said...

Come this Sunday I'll keep all these in mind and pay close attention. I've studied the exacts of the liturgy before, but never really bothered to see how "true" my own church's liturgy was.

Weekend Fisher said...

Hi there

So, any insights? I'd be interested to hear about any differences you noticed.

Take care & God bless
Anne / WF