the function of liturgy?

I met with Spanky Moore the other day to talk about my research on worship with young people in an Anglican setting. There is other stuff about that on this blog. I was trialling the interview schedule.

One of the things we came to was the need to be a whole lot more specific about the functions of liturgy, and not just about the form. So I had questions about the structure and about the use of liturgy, but nothing about the function, partly because I had not so clearly thought or read about that. So I am learning about the need to do all this together: read, shape the question, interview and research, read more, work on the questions more etc...

So what did we see the function of liturgy to be?
1. To provide a framework to gather people, tell the biblical story, and send people out to join with God in mission.
2. To provide a way to form the character of the whole community and the individuals involved to have an incarnational approach to God and mission.
The heart of Anglican liturgical tradition is to meet a missional God and to be shaped and changed by that God so that we might become a people of mission. I would welcome comment and critique

Comments

Anonymous said…
Can you define 'mission' - I think it would help being very clear in what that would mean in today's world. Only once that is clear we can then move on and talk about liturgy's function in sending 'people out to join with God in mission.'
7:29 pm
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