WE ARE LITURGICAL
We Are Liturgical
We believe that the highest calling for every Christian is to glorify God and be in relationship with Him forever. Worship is a holy encounter with the living God, filling us with peace and promise. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the Gospel.
When modern American Christians talk about “worship,” they often mean the music and the sermon. But biblically, worship is far more than a concert with a TED Talk. Worship is where heaven and earth meet. It is the Church’s participation in the heavenly liturgy—on earth as it is in heaven.
Throughout Scripture, God never treats worship casually. He gives specific instructions about where He is to be worshiped, how, by whom, with what posture, and the ceremonial practices, precisely because He intended earthly worship to be a copy and shadow of heavenly worship (Heb 8:1-5; 9:8-9; 9:23-24)
God sets the terms.
God designs the form.
God reveals the pattern.
Our task in worship is not to be attractive to outsiders, or culturally relevant. Our task is to be faithful to the model which God Himself gave to us.
Characteristics of Heavenly Worship:
Holy
Joyous
Reverent
Beautiful
Collective
Musical
Centered on God/Christ
Ritualistic/Ceremonial
Prostrating
Use of incense
Call and response
Vestments
This is the template. Earthly worship is meant to reflect this reality—not the comfortability of a coffee shop hangout with religious lyrics and lectures layered over it.
We are not gathering on Sunday to consume a religious product.
We are called into the presence of the Most Holy—the One before whom even the mightiest heavenly creatures cover their faces, fall at His feet, and repeat, “Holy, holy, holy.”
If our worship bears little resemblance to that heavenly pattern, something fundamental has gone off the rails.
The contemporary worship model has changed the structure of the church service, inside of the walls of the building, to more closely align worship to our image, and to the image of the culture outside of the walls. This is backwards. The transformation that is supposed to result from worship is God continually transforming us to become more aligned with His image.
Whatever its intentions (often sincere), contemporary worship represents a massive shift away from Scripture’s understanding of why the Church gathers.
Worship in Scripture
Exodus 25-30
(Not a “Just do whatever you feel like” vibe in these Exodus chapters)
Exodus 25
Offerings for the Tabernacle
The Ark
The Table
The Lampstand
Exodus 26
The Tabernacle
Exodus 27
The Altar of Burnt Offering
The Courtyard
Oil for the Lampstand
Exodus 28
The Priestly Garments
The Ephod
The Breastpiece
Other Priestly Garments
Exodus 29
Consecration of the Priests
Exodus 30
The Altar of Incense
Atonement Money
Basin for Washing
Anointing Oil
Incense
Hebrews 8:1-5
Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord. 3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. 5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary; for when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.”
Hebrews 9:8-9
8 By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary is not yet opened as long as the outer tent is still standing 9 (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper,
Hebrews 9:23-24
23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
Isaiah 6:1-7
In the year that King Uzzi′ah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
6 Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven.”
Revelation 4:1-11
After this I looked, and lo, in heaven an open door! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up hither, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and lo, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne! 3 And he who sat there appeared like jasper and carnelian, and round the throne was a rainbow that looked like an emerald. 4 Round the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clad in white garments, with golden crowns upon their heads. 5 From the throne issue flashes of lightning, and voices and peals of thunder, and before the throne burn seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God; 6 and before the throne there is as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And round the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to sing,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing,
11 “Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created.”
Heavenly Worship
The posture and reverence illustrated in the preceding Scripture passages is precisely how we are commanded to worship. At the heart of all of this is who Christ is.
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”— Hebrews 1:3
If this is the One we stand before each Sunday—
If He is truly present in His Word and at His Table—
Then the posture of our worship cannot be casual.
We are not to worship him casually, as if he is our buddy at a coffee shop.
He is the Lord of glory, before whom even angels veil their faces.
Historic, liturgical, sacramental worship is not about nostalgia
It is about honesty—about ordering our worship, bodies, buildings, and practices as if Christ is actually who Scripture says He is, and actually does what Scripture says He does, and as if he is really present in our worship services, through Word and Sacrament.