Worship is the act of paying divine honour to god particularly in religious services; an act or feeling of adoration, to show reverence with supreme respect and admiration. Worship is important because it brings Christians closer to god, some Christians feel empty inside and they feel that god can only fill this emptiness. Christians feels they can talk to god through worship, and in their acts help repay the being that gave life to us all.
It is through worship that Christians can show how much they appreciate life and they can serve god through worship, Archbishop Desmond Tutu once claimed, ‘ Sometimes they say that we all have a God-shaped space inside us and only God can fill it. ‘ He talks about the loneliness people feel before they find god, this is why worship is so important to Christians. Worship can be done in two main different types of worship, liturgical and non-liturgical, spontaneous worship is also another form of worship not as common.
St Andrews prefers to use the liturgical form of worship, which means to publicly worship. This is were the church services have a set pattern of activities, and the congregation must follow this pattern each week, the beliefs are expressed through the use of symbolic objects such as the cross, this style of worship is very formal and is the way of worship used in the Church of England.
Maghull Baptist Church prefer to use the non-liturgical method of preaching, in these services there is no formal plan laid out for the service, and there is a strong emphasise on the Bible. Maghull Baptist Church also uses technology to help aid it’s preaching such as microphones and projections. Spontaneous worship is worship that has no set pattern at all, and anyone can read out any passage in the Bible when they want, and worship the lord in anyway they see fit, commonly in song, this type of worship is common in America particularly.
Maghull Baptist Church has a much more informal type or service, which is much more open and doesn’t really follow a set plan, they use technology and music to aid the preaching’s, this is in contrast to St Andrews who have a very formal church meeting, and sing only hymns, without the aid of technology, and is a much more traditional style church service, as oppose to the more modern Baptist church. Now that I have explained what worship is and how it is used, I will look at different styles of worship between Maghull Baptist Church and St Andrews Church of England.
Both St Andrews and Maghull Baptist use song as a part of their worship, St Andrews however uses much more traditional method, they sing out of hymn books and use a organ to generate the music, and sometimes a choir is also used, the hymn’s tend to be very old and use some of the old English language. This differs considerably from the style of worship in Maghull Baptist Church, although the congregation still sing hymns, these are much more modern hymns, there is no organ to provide the music, but a band complete with guitars, drums etc.
There are also background singers as oppose to the traditional church choir. The form of prayer also differs greatly between the two different denominations of church; prayer in the Baptist church is very open and informal, anyone who wishes to pray may, and the prayers do not have to be traditional set prayers, people can pray for whatever they see fit. St Andrews however use very formal prayers, which are set and have been used for many years such as the Lord’s Prayer.
These are read out at set times and the vicar is the only one who may pray, while the congregation follow in his words. I feel that my investigation has proved that each different denomination worships differently, the Church of England being much more formal than the Baptist Church, although they all worship the same God each church uses a different method to worship the Lord. I personally have no preference on which style of worship, however I do feel that the Baptist church uses its money more wisely by investing it in the poor and needy.
