There is a little bit of “herd” mentality amongst many of us. And some show more of this than others; while some do not exhibit such characteristics at all.
In any case, there is a tendency for many of us to evaluate our own behaviour against others, or against what is “expected”, culturally, or even liturgically.
What does that mean? This can come across in how we “accept” or “reject” liturgical choices and decisions on the ground of our or another person’s faith, or the different persuasian / emphasis on the manners of that faith. We might not agree with the manner in which a worship service begins – disorderly, or too formal. We might regard that the prayer of confession ought to be as near the start of the service as possible, while others have greater persuasion than such a prayer is not necessary, since we are all saved.
This page is not about principles on which to determine what is liturgically correct, or sound, or acceptable. The focus here is that we might have unnecessarily align, directly, the matters of our faith with the manner of the liturgy that we lead. One may be persuaded that 2 hymns and 2 prayers ought to have gone before the homily, or that the youths join the main church once a month, no more, since they are better provided in their own activity. To what extent these are framed by biblical basis or principles is probably subject to discussion, but that itself is seed of contention.
A “truth” remains irrespective of context. With respect to the way our liturgical is “done”, if we start from the other end, which is, what does the Bible tell us about the form and format of that liturgy. Ten people will likely come up with 100 different answers.
The response fo that exercise might take some of us to liturgical practices following the first century, even those “encouraged” or set down in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and the 20th century. Arguably, if 10 of us met to dicuss liturgy, we could draw up (a / the) 21st liturgy that we subscribe to use, as one that “speaks” about the manner of our faith.
Whether such a liturgy is / conveys truth, or the spirit of truth, is neither here and there. It’s a matter of acceptance, communal, choice.
Returning to the early point that we might have taken too strongly an alignment between our liturgical choices and our own manners of faith: an illustration is that one could be angered by the lack of direction in the homily, sermon, or the worship service itself; while another might feel much was said was too much of being told that they “should” do so and so.
It’s certainly easier said than done. Our individual differences might have been used as “walls of separation” between individuals in the congregation, and between churches. To say that it is our liturgy that separates us is, for one, a very sad and disappointed thing, for another, what appears to be common occurence in and across churches. What should we do?
