Have you noticed....

what do you mean by FBC churches? Faith, Fellowship, First, Fundamental.........?

I think I know what you mean if you are talking about First Baptist Churches. Seems to be a common name for those who are more formal, if thats what you mean by liturgical.

 

Saggywoman,

I have noticed that. It seems that many Baptist have been moving in that direction. There are some that celebrate advent (with the candles) and have gone to the "high church" model. To me it leaves me empty and ritualistic instead of experiencing the presence of the Lord. JMHO

Bro Tony

 

I have found very few FBC churches (in the SBC) that I would call high church, since I have seen some Episcopal, ABC, CBF, and others that would be charismatic if they were as "high church" as some FBCs :smilewinkgrin:

Nothing wrong with Advent and the like, by the way. You can celebrate these things and not be liturgical or life-draining. Baptists neglect the coming of our Redeemer and his atoning death by neglecting Advent and "Holy Week", giving only a Sunday each to the birth and resurrection of Christ (most Baptist churches barely mention the crucifixion around Easter). :tear:

 

Bro Tom,

You can't be serious? "Most Baptist Churches barely mention the crucifixion around Easter." I hope your wrong, if not God help us!!!!

Bro Tony

 

I like advent.. along with maundy thursday... of course there are a few months between them....:tongue3:

Seriously, I grew up in shotgun churches... churches where the pastor thought that he didn't have to prepare a sermon ahead of time... that God would put the words in his mouth when he got behind the pulpit... I now look back and see laziness...

These churches had no form or order.. so I welcome a slight form of liturgy. It directs the worship to God.. I like high church style.

Just my opinion.

 

I'm totally serious. I'm in a predominately IFB area, and most of the SBC churches are just IFB churches that give to the CP. No Baptist church within 20 miles of my home has a Good Friday service. Out of the 350 or so within 30 miles, probably only a couple do. Most might mention the cross, but Palm Sunday is largely ignored, but Easter Sunday focuses on the tomb without the reason for the tomb.

I have visited two Baptist churches that did not even mention the resurrection on Easter Sunday. I wish I was lying. Not one mention. Sermons (and some Baptist churches around here don't do those either) from 2 Chron 7:14, and Josh 24:15. God help us indeed.

 

Thanks for sharing Bro Tom. This that you have shared is much more important than whether any Baptist churches are moving toward being liturgical. I am always amazed at what is not being taught in churches claiming to be Bible believing churches. I guess it is true, we are in the apostacy and sadly its not all found on TBN.

Bro Tony

 

Tom, I would urge you to keep an open mind about some of them. For instance, we do our Resurrection services as close to the actual dates as we can, instead of Easter. (This year, we did both.) But in past years, if someone came in on Easter, they would not have heard a resurrection message, but we spent 3-4 weeks of Resurrection messages running up to the correct date. Perhaps these other churches aren't avoiding it; perhaps they are simply trying to do it on the correct date. (We also do a "Good Wednesday" service, so you wouldn't find us there on Friday, either.)

Also, many people avoid calling it "Easter" intentionally, since the day is remembering the resurrection.

 

Sometimes it is because they are trying NOT to be apostate. They see special mention of Christmas and Easter as pagan/apostate/Catholic empty rituals.
Lots of very fundamentalist Baptists have passed through the BB who do not observe Christmas or Easter in any form. I disagree with them and am a member of a church which does both, but they are not apostate.

 

My church is not very liturgical, but I am with tinytim on this. I would like to see more. What I consider properly done, I find worshipful, not draining.

 

Not just liturgical but progressively 'liberal' as was the last one I was a member of! I actually prayed for the Lord to guide me to a 'real' church that focused on His word and taught only His truth! He did exactly that! I thank Him!

 

As a former North Carolina resident, I can relate. FBC Greensboro, FBC Raleigh, FBC High Point, FBC Winston Salem, FBC Asheville, et al, are liturgical churches. As far as non-FBC churches you can add congregations like College Park (Greensboro)and Hayes Barton (Raleigh), to name a few, to this list.

 

I was pastor of a church that was not a First Baptist of anything, but which had developed a liturgical style long before I arrived. Because I had had some background in liturgy, having learned to play the organ in a Lutheran setting, I was able, I believe, to deepen, extend, and bring life to the liturgical style without in any way compromising our evangelical posture.

We did observe the liturgical seasons of Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter (note ... Easter is a season lasting several weeks, not just one day), and Pentecost/Trinity. We had services on the special non-Sunday occasions of Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve. To all of this we added special days of our own making -- like Church Anniversary, Days of Prayer for Home/Foreign/National Capital Area Missions, Day of Prayer for World Peace, and so on. We also observed Mother's Day, Father's Day, Youth Sunday ... well, you get the picture. I never felt constricted with these observances. I took them as opportunities to preach significant truths that I might not have addressed without this prompting. But liturgical did not mean, for me, adherence to a lectionary. I always did my own Biblical work.

The other aspect of this is, however, is that it can become very wooden and ritualistic if it is nothing more than a series of things for people to read at each other. The joy and energy comes when there is both a spontaneity (like calling for testimonies or sentence prayers) and a sense of structure and emotional flow in the service. We used, for example, quite a few well-known choruses or hymns for responses, to punctuate and act as transition points in the service.

I might mention that our church expected its ministers to officiate wearing a robe and stoles of the proper liturgical colors, and I did so, happily, but found that a robe neither helped nor hindered my preaching! I can tell you stories about how on occasion I used that gear to make a point of one sort or another.

Now did you want to hear about the children we used as acolytes, robing, lighting candles, and praying over the offering? No, I guess not .... <grin>