H. Stephen Shoemaker

Worship and Sacred Actions Throughout the Year in Southern Baptist Convention Churches

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Observance of the Christian year has been on the increase in the Southern Baptist Convention since the 1960s. Civic and denominational calendars have greatly influenced Southern Baptist worship in the past, but many congregations are turning toward the Christian year because of the vivid way it involves the worshiper in the biblical narrative and deepens spiritual life. It also provides an especially meaningful context for the ordinance of believer’s baptism.

Historically, Southern Baptists have observed parts of the Christian calendar, including Sunday as the Lord’s Day—the Christian Sabbath set aside for the worship of the risen Lord, and Easter Sunday. Special seasonal services, mostly of a musical character, have been customary at Christmas time, but there was no set liturgy for Christmas services or for a season of Advent. Another annual tradition was the spring revival—preaching services with evangelistic intent.

Gradual Advances

Interest in the Christian year has surged during the past few decades among a significant number of Southern Baptist congregations. In the 1960s many congregations enlarged the scope of their observance to include Holy Week. Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday services were established. In some churches, the spring revival gave way to a series of preaching services during Holy Week.

In the 1970s new interest emerged in the observance of Advent, with four Sundays devoted to preparation for the birth of Christ. Advent banners, wreaths, and family devotional books came into use. Crescent Hill Baptist Church became a leader in Advent observance. The congregation prepared an Advent book of devotions. Visually and liturgically the Sunday worship services took on a new look. Evening services began on the first Sunday in Advent with a Hanging of the Greens service, and each Sunday evening service afterward took on a special character, such as a Moravian Love Feast, a Christmas choral service, a drama, or a Lessons and Carols service.

Increased observance of other seasons of the Christian year has come about in the past two decades, roughly in this order of introduction: the full Lenten season, Pentecost Sunday, Epiphany as the manifestation of Jesus’ glory in his earthly ministry, and Eastertide as a season rather than Easter Sunday alone. Other dates such as World Communion Sunday and Reformation Sunday have also come to be observed.

Also during the 1970s through 1990s, the use of the Common Lectionary has been introduced in Baptist worship. The regular reading of two or three texts and sermons based on the prescribed texts has encouraged an emphasis on the Christian year in preaching.

Benefits for Baptists

About a third of Southern Baptist churches now observe all the aspects of the Christian year referred to above. They have experienced worship renewal through such practice for several reasons.

(1) The Christian year invites the congregation to enter more fully into the narrative world of the Bible and the life of Christ. The year revolves around Christ’s entrance into the world, his ministry, death, resurrection, and presence in the church through the Holy Spirit. The life of the people of God called Israel is integrated into Advent and Lent and through regular lections in the Common Lectionary.

This narrative world of the Bible is a much more spiritually powerful way of structuring the year than other calendars that tend to dominate in its absence: the civic calendar with July 4th, Memorial Day, Mother’s and Father’s Days, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, etc.; and the denominational calendar of program promotion.

A vigorously promoted calendar from denominational headquarters in Nashville became dominant in Southern Baptist life during the twentieth century. Nearly every Sunday was designated for emphasis on some program or offering. The calendar included, for example, Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for Foreign Missions, Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for Home Mission, Cooperative Program Sunday, Race Relations Sunday, Baptist Men’s Day, World Hunger Sunday, Senior Adult Sunday, Women’s Missionary Union Focus Week, and Thanksgiving Offering for Children’s Homes. The denominational calendar had a remarkable effect in building programs and raising offerings, but worshipers often lost sight of their yearly pilgrimage within the story of the Bible and the life of Christ. Churches introducing the Christian year had to use sensitivity in negotiating competition with the denominational calendar.

(2) The Christian calendar emphasizes our human role in preparation for the birth of Christ and then his death and resurrection. Advent and Lent encourage intense spiritual focus and preparation.

(3) Recovery of the Christian year unites Southern Baptists more closely with the larger ecumenical fellowship of Christians and involves them in learning from that larger fellowship.

(4) The Christian year gives vivid visual, narrative, and experiential context for the teaching of major Christian doctrines like Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, and the Holy Spirit.

(5) Spiritual disciplines at home which correspond to what is going on at church can be developed. The use of family Advent wreaths and devotions is a prime example of this benefit.

(6) At Crescent Hill, the Christian year provides the context for the ordinance of believer’s baptism by immersion. We always baptize persons on Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday. The meaning of the seasons interacts in a powerful way with the personal decision to follow Christ and be baptized. Sometimes we also have Pentecost Sunday baptism. The Lenten season has become for us a season of baptismal renewal culminating in the renewal of baptismal vows on Easter Sunday morning following the baptism of new Christians.

(7) The seasons of the Christian year have awakened Southern Baptist churches to the full use of all their senses in worship. Symbols and visual arts, drama, and pageantry are now used to greater effect and were introduced first as parts of the Christian year.

Response and Prospects

Pastors, ministers of music, and lay worship committees are increasingly making use of the Christian year. The response has been mostly positive in most Southern Baptist churches that have introduced the church year. There has been some resistance from people who were devoted to the denominational calendar and were afraid it would be displaced, or who were afraid their Baptist church was becoming “too Catholic” or “too Episcopalian.” Overall, the introduction of the Christian year has been greeted with acceptance and joy.

I see an increased use of the Christian year in a certain segment of the Southern Baptist Convention, particularly among congregations that are ecumenically oriented and open to the use of arts and liturgy in worship.

In an increasingly secular society, the Christian year is a substantial help in creating a narrative world that can inform and shape the lives of Christians.

Sunday Worship in Southern Baptist Convention Churches

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Because of its congregational polity and the wide diversity in the social status of its membership, Southern Baptist worship today takes place in a wide variety of styles. As one Baptist pastor put it, “Some burn incense, others bay at the moon.”

However most Baptist churches contain architectural clues that mark common characteristics in worship. The central pulpit predominates; Baptist worship has been characterized by the centrality of preaching. A prominent baptistry built into the wall behind the pulpit just above where the altar stands in many other communions is used in Baptists’ most distinctive worship rite—believer’s baptism by immersion. The placement of the Communion Table is in front of and below the pulpit. A prominent choir loft behind the pulpit and in front of the baptistry is a sign of the importance of music. The pews have no kneeling benches indicating that worship is more horizontal (with other believers) than vertical (a private worship of God). A scarcity, if not absence, of symbol in reaction against the heavy use of symbolism by Catholics and Anglicans is evidence that the ear is the most important organ in Baptist worship (the sanctuary is an auditorium).

Baptist worship began in the Puritan movement in England during the seventeenth century that sought to reform the Anglican Book of Common Prayer according to the “pure” Word of God. The earliest Baptist worship was held in homes and consisted of prayers, singing, and multiple sermons (by minister and lay people). There was no worship book. Worship was free, led by the Spirit. As Baptist worship developed its own standard form, these distinctives were maintained: the use of spontaneous and extemporaneous prayer (as opposed to set prayers), the centrality of preaching (as opposed to short homilies), and fervent hymn singing.

Charleston and Shady Creek

The Charleston and Shady Creek influences are the key influences shaping Southern Baptist worship. The Charleston tradition, closely tied to Baptists’ British roots, had a set order of worship. The preachers, usually highly educated, sought to combine learning and piety. Services combined orderliness and stateliness with evangelical warmth. The primary thrust of worship was vertical—toward God.

The Sandy Creek tradition began in the revival fires of the eighteenth-century American frontier. Informality, fiery preaching, spontaneous amens and shouts, gospel music, extemporaneous prayers, and personal testimonies marked revivalistic worship. It was more emotional than intellectual. Its thrust was more horizontal—toward a communal experience—than vertical. Its focus was more subjective than objective, stressing the faith and feeling of the worshiper more than God’s nature and activity. The main goal of worship was the conversion and transformation of the worshiper.

Southern Baptist worship today bears the influence of both traditions. Charleston influence can be seen in the set order of worship, formality and dignity, hymns focusing on God, and sermons characterized by learning and piety, head and heart. Sandy Creek influence manifests itself in gospel hymns and songs focusing on the spiritual state of the worshiper, extemporaneous prayers, folksy informality, and fiery evangelistic sermons that leave ample room, even if carefully prepared, for spontaneous improvisation prompted by the Holy Spirit.

A typical (if there is such a thing) Southern Baptist worship service in the mid/late twentieth century would look like this:

Prelude

Call to Worship (choral or spoken)

Hymn of Praise

Invocation

Welcome and Announcements

Scripture

Pastoral Prayer

Offering

Anthem or Solo (instrumental or vocal)

Sermon

Hymn of Invitation

Presentation of “Decisions”

Benediction

Postlude

Contrasting Renewal Movements

The last ten years have seen two major developments in Southern Baptist worship. The first movement, found mostly in Charleston-tradition churches, has begun to draw upon the worship tradition of the larger ecumenical church. The congregations in this movement celebrate the major seasons of the Christian year (Advent, Lent, Easter, Pentecost). They make considerable use of symbols and other visual enhancements in worship such as banner art and sacred dance, celebrate Communion more often, and often include two Scripture readings. While the sermon is still central in these congregations, other features of worship take on an inherent importance rather than being simply “preliminaries” ancillary to the sermon.

The second movement is found mostly in conservative churches of the Sandy Creek tradition. It has been influenced by televised religion, the praise-and-worship movement, and the church growth movement. Worship is comprised of the song service, which includes the singing of many choruses and gospel songs as well as solo performances, and the preaching service, which includes the sermon and the invitation. Overhead projectors and other visual media are used to project song texts and sermon outlines. Hymn books are little used; set liturgy is nonexistent. The worship is performance and entertainment oriented, the solo and sermon being the main attractions. This movement seeks to make worship “user-friendly”—accessible and enjoyable to anyone who comes regardless of religious background. Denominational distinctiveness is minimized.

Both movements are considered “renewal” movements by their practitioners. Both are a response to a changing American religious culture where denominational lines are being blurred by social mobility. Both are trying to breathe new life into Baptist forms, some of which are becoming as ritualized as the Anglican worship that Baptists first sought to reform.

The ecumenically influenced movement responds by becoming ecumenical or multi-denominational. It also entails a recovery of the historic roots of Christian worship in the New Testament and early church period. Its weakness is a tendency toward aestheticism and theological obscurantism.

The praise and evangelism movement responds by becoming post-, non-, or anti-denominational. It is fueled by intense desire to reach the unchurched and those disaffected by mainstream religion. Its adherents try to eliminate the “strangeness” of liturgy that becomes a barrier to the visitor and seeker. Its weaknesses are a proneness to reduce worship to entertainment and accommodate worship to the whims of American consumer culture. Worship then becomes a blend of Christianity, patriotism, self-help psychology, and self-help and feel-good religion.

Possibilities for furthering worship renewal in Southern Baptist congregations include the following:

•     Increasing emphasis on the Table.

•     Greater attention to baptism. As primary as believer’s baptism by immersion is to Baptists, it is woefully neglected as a central dramatic act of worship. There are few baptism hymns and little baptismal theology.

•     Greater use of Scripture; often one short reading connected to the sermon is all worshipers hear.

•     Creative interaction with worship renewal going on in other denominations.

•     A refocusing on God as the first audience of worship and worship as a dialogue with and offering to God.

•     Continued exploration of the ever-important dialectic in worship between liturgy and liberty, order and ardor, set form and spiritual freedom.