How about asking people to keep pre-service conversation in the foyer, and borrow the liturgical practice of entering the church in silence? Silence fails your “normal and natural” criteria, but I do not know of a better way to prepare the heart for worship.

The way you phrased your comment makes me want to ask you for a word count: How many words about church is it acceptable to write before explicit mention of the eucharist becomes mandatory? 850? 225? And can this rule of liturgical corrrectness be imposed retroactively on the reformers, the church fathers, and the apostles, or is it just for blogs?

But snark aside, I did have some comments on the eucharist in the first draft of this post. I cut them in the interest of making it a more focused contribution about style, not content. The actual Sursum Corda is of course part of the western anaphora, the eucharistic preface. “How to do communion appropriately” is a classic focal point for being intentional about how a service is conducted.

But I was talking about something else, and I think such talk is permissible, not a sign of “how far Protestantism has fallen.”

Then I had a number of years with a much more liturgical form in a Presbyterian Church, with lectionary and seasons of the Church year and confession and responsorials. We read our “joy” of a sheet of paper, monotone and in unison, “We rejoice today that …”

I’ve experienced and enjoyed chanting psalms in the choir stalls with the Cistercian brothers at Monastery of the Holy Spirit, in Conyers, GA.

Then I spent a number of years in a WillowCreekSaddleback “seeker sensitive” style church.

And for the past 10 years, I’ve been in lot of charismatic worship where we like to “jump in the river of joy, drink of the Holy Ghost wine” and “dance like David.” If there were chandeliers, we would be swinging from them. IOW, very expressive worship, very participatory. On Sunday mornings, I’m all over the room, spinning and jumping and shouting, dancing with Jesus and the angels; my wife sits quietly in one place, sings softly and receives wonderful visions of heaven. The worship flows. There is no set length of time for each song. Often, people come up with a Scripture, an exhortation, a prophecy, or a tongue with an interpretation.

I do not miss the Baptisty worship, or the “seeker sensitive” days. But sometimes I do miss the liturgy and the lectionary and the Church year, and I hope to go back to the monastery again and chant psalms with the brothers there. But if I went back there to live, I would miss much more the worship I have known these past 10 years. In the liturgy, sometimes we did lift our hearts to the Lord, and occasionally I even experienced my heart being lifted up by the Lord (I like how Dale drew that distinction). But not like I’ve experienced in these latter years.

I am not making a judgment on any of these forms; I am happy for Christians to practice all of these, and some others I know of as well. But I am merely speaking of how I have experienced worship.

I appreciate the accent on the different sounds. Serious business can at times be taken as a reference to somber, quiet, “ordered.” It is a high-culture European way of thinking about what should happen in my view, and it has very little to do with formal or informal liturgies.

In many Pentecostal communities, or even in African-American churches, seriousness means dancing, lifting one’s hands, running, waving flags, shouting, spontaneous response to a sermon, testifying aloud, etc. It’s not terribly different from what I read recently in the 14th-century priest William of Pagula’s handbook for priests in which he tells priests to instruct the faithful to genuflect and say the Lord’s Prayer, or “Glory to you Lord who is born,” or “Hail salvation of the world, Word of the Father. . .” when the host is elevated. Like Catholic worship in Latin American or Africa, it’s not always so tame.

The point is that when Christ is present in the power of the Spirit there is a desire to get to the lover of one’s soul. The heart does not lift itself up so much as it is lifted and compelled to move toward the triune God. Worship ultimately is about ecstatic embrace regardless of the particular human response to such an embrace. The Eucharist simply underscores presence and encounter.

I personally think at least part of the problem is time. It takes time. . .more time than most North Americans want to give these days.

I myself see little edification in mere chattiness in the worship service. It does nothing to focus our hearts on Christ and his word. I find it an irritating distraction at best. Better to begin with a passage from a Psalm, e.g., 124:8: “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.”

How far Protestantism has fallen.

“There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen. This word Amen answers in the Hebrew language to genoito [so be it]. And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion.

And this food is called among us Eukaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone.”

The funny thing is, the balance only tips strongly toward the professionals in churches *without* traditional liturgy. That’s where you get to watch the professional singers, the professional guys in the polos, and the professional everybody else, while you sit back and listen, and once in a while get to sing along — frequently to songs that were mainly written for professionals to sing.

Conversely, the more formal liturgy there is, the bigger the participation of the congregation, in hymns, responsive readings, unison prayers, recited confessions, prayer responses, and so forth. Only in the sermon (and in some churches, a single choir anthem) does the congregation because listeners rather than participants. So I never got the tacit equation some make with informal, less “liturgical” worship, and making worship less one-sided. In my experience, it’s precisely the opposite.

1) How thick of a liturgy, i.e. how many elements, should our services have? I and many of my evangelical peers (college and post-college age) who grew up in churches with rather thin liturgies get EXCITED to see responsive readings, creeds, catechism, and weekly communion in the churches we now attend.