In his book, Beyond Smells and Bells, author Mark Galli unpacks the rich purposes and meaning behind one of the Church’s oldest traditions: the liturgy. Throughout the book he address several different claims that show the reason for liturgies. He acknowledges how the many modern churches have turned away from following the tradition liturgy, but he argues that we should reevaluate the use of them in church today. He highlights how liturgies apply to our calendar or time, our community, what’s relevant, our approach to God, and more. He wants the reader to more fully understand the kind of worship liturgies lead us into.
Coming from a non-denominational church background, I was fairly unfamilar with liturgies prior to reading this book. This allowed me to really start fresh with my ideas of liturgies and begin to understand the purpose. I think what stood out to me the most from this book is the rich beauty of liturgies. Chapters that focused on how litrugies engage the whole Body of Christ and expands our ideas of grace really touched me in ways I wasn't expecting. Passages like, "The liturgy has been meaningfully prayed by bakers, housewives, tailors, teachers, philosophers, priests, monks, kings, and slaves. As such, it has not been shaped to meet any particular group's needs. It seeks only to enable people - people in general - to see God," or "The liturgy is the plave where we wait for Jesus to show up. We don't have to do much," opened my eyes to see that liturgies are not inherently dry or lacking. Instead, they carry so much spiritual goodness that can often times be lost in the deep theologically heavy words.
Reading this book definitely opened my heart to the truths that litrugies hold. Before this, I would often times close off my heart and mind to recieving liturgies as worship. Reading this book has showed me how God works in details, tradition, and language. God is not a God who only works in the spontaneous and new, but he continues to work through the historic and repeated. I learned that even if it is not my normal or even perferred way to worship, it is wrong (and even puts me at a disadvantage) to disregard traditonal liturgies as influential worship. After finishing the book, I feel challenged to keep opening my heart and mind to new, or at least new for me, ways to worship, starting with liturgies.
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