I believe many consistories and members of the church rue the day that synod ever appointed a standing Liturgical Committee, and gave it an almost unlimited mandate. I really believe that much of their effort is a waste of time and money. I believe it’s time the members of this committee get their walking papers. Not only are we being bombarded with an almost endless list of forms which results in mass confusion as far as the pew is concerned, but one also wonders where all this is going to end up. When I look at the Report of the Liturgical Committee in the 1981 Agenda for synod, then I start wondering if we’re high Anglican rather than Reformed. And one wonders how much time there is left for a sermon after going through this endless liturgical ritual. I dare to venture a pretty reliable guess that the Liturgical Committee is out of touch with the majority of churches and church members when it comes to liturgy. The majority of church members simply don’t go for all this malarkey. They prefer the simplicity that has always characterized Reformed worship.
One also wonders how this so-called responsive reading is supposed to fit in with the “dialogic” nature (between God and His people) of the Reformed worship, as the Rev. L. Verduin pointed out recently in The Banner. Note this:
Minister: You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain.
People: I say to you, do not swear at all . . .
Minister: You shall not kill.
People: I say to you, Love your enemies . . .
Minister: You shall not covet.
People: Take heed and beware of all covetousness . . .
What the people say is part of God’s command to His people. It is in no way a response to what God is saying. I don’t see the liturgical sense of this. I also wonder about the exchange of greeting between minister and people: The Lord be with you (minister) and the Lord be with you too (people). Boaz and his workers greeted each other in that manner (Ruth 2:4), but I don’t quite see how that fits into a worship service. Is worship a meeting between the minister and the people, or between God and His people? And it doesn’t make sense to say to God, “The Lord be with you,” does it? Just what is the logic behind this?
I know from experience that if you want trouble in the local congregation, then appoint all kinds of committees (music, worship, greeting, etc.) They all start feeling important and in order to justify their existence they have to “create” work by coming up with all kinds of new–fangled ideas. So it is on the denominational level too: the more committees, the more problems. We are becoming far too organized a church. It’s time to disband several committees and thus to decentralize the church. For the good all.