Liturgy

Many Presbyterian churches are becoming more liturgical in their worship, and one Presbyterian pastor I know has wondered if in the new hymnal it might be possible to include more liturgical material (as is found in the first 271 pages of the 1972 Worshipbook). In the 1990 hymnal there are only 5 pages of "Aids to Worship" in the front, but there are 564 hymns, and 41 pages of "Service Music". In contrast, the Missouri Synod 1982 "Lutheran Worship" has some 360 pages of liturgy, including music for the responses. In spite of that, there is still room for 520 hymns. I assume that the liturgical material in the Worshipbook was scrapped only after some serious discussion, but the issue might well be raised again. In another example, any person from a non-liturgical background who has worshipped in an Episcopal church has encountered the difficulty of going back and forth between prayer book and hymnal, and back and forth within in the prayer book. Indeed, despite the Worshipbook's many responses, there are frequent places where there are several alternatives separated by "or". The result is that it is not practical to ask a congregation to follow an order of worship directly from the Worshipbook. I do know from personal experience that what may appear to be a fairly complicated liturgy can be made simple and much more effective when the complete service - including musical responses - is printed in one sequence and put in the hands of the congregation. Again, electronic technology may offer some help. Individual responses (including the musical score) in .jpg (or other) format can easily be inserted into a Word (or other word processing) document; their availability via download would simplify the process greatly. Further, one does not need music writing software (such as Finale) in order to do this.