Whether you grew up in a church environment or not, the concept of liturgy and worship may feel ambiguous. The way that the church handles worship has certainly changed over the years. So to dial in our understanding, we caught up with Vinnie Zarletti, D.W.S. and Associate Professor in the College of Fine Arts to learn more about what liturgy is, corporate worship, corporate lament, and more.
What is liturgy?
“Liturgy is a scary word. We think it is scary because we think it is an ancient religious word that has this bad, empty, rote, and vain reputation. But I like to tell students that liturgy is not a bad word, it is a bible word, and it means “the work of the people.”
“Now in common usage, when we say liturgy, we generally mean an order of worship. Technically speaking, any worship that is participatory is liturgical.
“There are biblical instances like Romans 12 ‘this is our act of worship’ but the word worship is connected with the word liturgy. The word that is translated as “worship,” is from the same Greek word that the word liturgy comes from. It is a concept that has unfortunately been regulated to a style. So we hear ‘liturgy’ we think of a style.”
Zarletti proceeded to explain that when people claim that their church doesn’t do a “liturgical” style of worship, they’re often misunderstanding the meaning. What we might refer to as a normal worship service (one the opens with a few songs then proceeds to announcements, an offering, preaching, and a response), or a service that has a consistent format that we use week after week, is actually taking on a very specific liturgical order.
Because the word “liturgy” is related to the word “worship” some will state that just as we seek to worship God through all that we say and do, therefore everything that we say and do is liturgical. Zarletti responded, “If we dig into biblical worship and realize that all instances of the word worship are participatory—there is literally no such thing as passive worship—from a scriptural perspective, then all worship is liturgical if it is genuine.”
What then is corporate worship? And what is corporate lament?
“The psalms are a great place to start for Christian worship there are 150 psalms that have been a part of worship for thousands of years. And there are many lament psalms. It’s a really great conversation to have because lament is missing in so much of our contemporary modern worship. I ask students ‘how many of you attend a church where you regularly lament together, or take intentional time where we recognize things aren’t going so well in certain areas.
“Anything that comes across that way seems reserved for funerals or a good Friday service once a year, but on a Sunday morning you do not generally really gather together and say ‘how many feel far from the Lord? Let’s sing about it!’ [We also see this in] the way the Christian media, or Christian radio calls themselves positive. Positive media, positive radio, is not complete. It is not a complete expression of who we are as a people, and it is not a complete expression of biblical worship.
“Psalms is an entire book of lamentations, but we don’t go down that road very often. Or even when we do, it always seems that everything buttons up real nice by the end of the story, which doesn’t tend to resonate with the real-life experiences of non-believers or believers for that matter.
“This makes believers feel like they are doing something wrong, or maybe there is sin in their life they need to work on so that they too can have a happy ending. It often makes unbelievers look at what we’re doing as fake because we’re not honest about the things we’re struggling with or dealing with. Resting in God’s faithfulness, knowing that he has brought us through before, and he will do it again, is a great way to end corporate lament, not just celebrating because you got what you wanted.”
How do we balance positivity with lament?
“I think we just need to be willing to be honest with ourselves. We need to start there. I think [when we aren’t] we limit the gospel. We don’t want to downplay our need for what God is offering us. It is a big deal. I think if we really understood the hope that we are given in Christ then we would not have to be afraid of those things because [the lament] is not the end of the story.”
Download a free worship single
If you’re looking to kick off your personal time of worship, do so with Breath of Heaven, the worship single created by North Central students.
