Nearly two decades ago I found myself as an unusual student at a religious educational institution attending a discussion on the matter of liturgy. Both then and now this was a surprising and unusual interest and yet despite the fact that it is an unusual interest of mine, I have found it to be a useful interest to have, and one that has enriched my understanding of what goes on when it comes to religious ceremonies and church services and the like. As I write this, it is the evening portion of Pentecost, and tomorrow both morning and afternoon services are planned for the congregation where I attend, and liturgical matters have been of interest not only to me but also to some of my friends who are also involved in church services.

Before church services earlier, after the end of choir practice I spoke with the person in charge of special music and she mentioned that she had spoken with our pastor and that–as I had suspected–the person who was doing songleading for the afternoon service would introduce the special music for the that service because there was no sermonette and no announcements planned. This was, of course, of interest to me because I happen to be the person responsible for songleading in the afternoon service, and the unusual nature of the abbreviated service meant that I would naturally be handling the announcement given the scarcity of people involved in such a service that was missing two of its component parts.

After church services, I was having dinner with the usual crowd (and the addition of my landlord to this), and I was speaking with one of my close friends and an adoptive father about the message that he has tomorrow morning. This message was to combine the sermonette with the offertory, as is customary during Holy Day services. The speaker had asked our pastor how long the combined sermonette and offertory message was to be, and the answer was fifteen minutes, which is roughly the length of an ordinary sermonette, rather than the 25 minutes that had been taken previously by this same speaker when he had last given the offertory message. I noted that this expectation meant that either one had to give a very brief offertory message or that one had to make one’s entire sermonette focus on the offertory. Given that he has this message to give in about ten hours as I write this, let us hope he has prepared a short and focused message accordingly.

Both of these particular conversations hinge on matters of liturgy. It is liturgy that allows one’s religious practices to go along decently and in order, especially as they relate to other people. When we are coordinating our religious practices with other people, some sort of order is necessary. We need to know who is supposed to do what, when. There are some congregations that have a very rigid liturgy that provides a high degree of stability, so that people know what they are doing without any difficulty because things are always done in a particular way. Since our congregation does not operate in this fashion, more communication is necessary to communicate how things need to be done when there are deviations from the normal procedure.

These deviations can at times be somewhat notable. Normally, I have a certain number of lines that I write to note the hymns or songs that are being performed (six, five of which are always congregational hymns and one of which may be special music), the opening and closing prayer, and the two messages as well as announcements, with names for each person involved that I am to introduce. At times, there have been services abbreviated by having fewer songs, fewer speakers–like tomorrow afternoon’s absence of a sermonette speaker or someone giving announcements–or different formats that take up time, such as split sermons or special presentations or the like. Flexibility means more things can be done, but it also means that these things need to be communicated to everyone involved. Liturgy, and its communication, is a vital need in allowing worship to be flexible enough to handle the varied needs of a congregation but also in such a way that allows everyone to enjoy the security of knowing that everything is being done in a proper and orderly manner. If not everyone is interested in these matters, an interest in seeing that these matters are done well appears to be more common, at least.