Worship in the Western Church

I. Introduction.

Worship is something a lot of us do without giving it much thought. Even worship planners don’t always give it the thought it needs or deserves. How does what we do in worship connect us to God? How does what we do retell and remember the mighty deeds of God? In our market driven society where the consumer is king, worship has became a smorgasbord with a little of ‘that’ and some of ‘this.’

In our drive to get people in the doors of our churches we have allowed the consumer mentality determine the content of worship. Our rally cry has been: “Give them what they want.” But should ‘what they want’ be the determining factor of worship? Is what they want what they need? It is the responsibility of worship leaders to make sure that what they need is what we give them. The church desperately needs to recover from the consumer mentality.

In the Western Church worship has gone through several major upheavals and dramatic changes. In the Eastern Church there has been considerably less change. The Orthodox liturgy looks much the same as it did a thousand years ago.

In part 2 of this paper I will try and track the history of worship in the Western Church.

II. A brief history of worship.

A. The Early Church— AD 50-100

The early church had many characteristics of late Judaism. They believed that God was active in their history and their organizing philosophy was holistic thinking. To that belief the early Christians added the belief that God’s action had culminated in Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection.

B. The Ancient Church— AD 100-600.

Worship in this period was characterized by the concept of mystery brought about by their platonic philosophy that this world was a shadow of the tru...

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... of the Christus Victor pays closer attention to the whole scope of the Christ event. Redemption in the Reformation, and since, is more about the personal forgiveness of sin and a person’s right relationship with God. While personal salvation is certainly important and a vital belief, a critical aspect has been lost. Christ’s death not only forgave the individual’s sins, but also was the renewing of all of God’s creation. Christ accomplished that renewal, which is ongoing, by his cross. Paul wrote: “There (the cross) he disarmed the cosmic powers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, leading them as captives in his triumphal procession.” (Colossians 2:15 [Revised English Bible]). Romans chapter 8 gives further evidence of the cosmic nature of Christ’s death and resurrection.

“The God who created becomes incarnate in order to re-create.”