Church Structure

Liturgy & worship didn’t always mean what they mean today

If you’re familiar with the word it brings to mind all the ceremonious details of a traditional church service—how prayers are prayed, when “communion” is taken (and who it is offered to), how many songs are song, what type of “sermon” is performed, etc.

But did you know that this understanding of liturgy (leitourgeó in Greek) is not even close to the original meaning? That it evolved primarily in three stages to become what it is today?

This word in the earliest expressions of the church (certainly for the first 150 years) was one of the primary words used for “worship.” Knowing that worship in the early church was nothing like what we know it as today, I got curious and starting digging. What did this mean to that first century Christian Jew?

Turns out the original picture of liturgy was this: to spend yourself and your resources in loving service to the people around you. To the earliest church, this expression of worshipping God meant selflessly and sacrificially loving his kids. That was what moved his heart, that was the great expression of love and worship for him.

But in time it was formalized into something else: a set of dedicated actions performed when Christians gather together. This happened most likely in response to what had historically led God’s people off track: wanting to do it how the religions around them “worshipped” through pomp and ceremony.

Fast forward a bit more to Rome’s installation of hierarchy and a new format for gathering into Christianity and it further evolved into a set of dedicated religious activities performed now by professional ministers. And that is, sadly, what it is to this day, wholly missing the original intent and the original heart of what it meant to worship God the way he wanted to be worshipped.

And it turns out the original understanding fits perfectly with what we know of the God who defends the poor and helpless, who cares for the widow and orphan, and declares that loving these is living in his name. This was what it meant to act justly in his eyes, and it was what he wanted more than songs and religious activities.

Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos 5:23-24