Liturgy

A prescribed habitual form for a public religious service; these formal, ceremonial rituals of rehearsed repetition are the opposite of spontaneous services. While the Bible does not have a set or approved format for services, there are several ingredients that a healthy local church will embrace including: praise and worship of God, clear relevant teaching from the Bible, prayer, baptism of believers, celebrating communion, evangelism and discipleship, with each person contributing to the overall vitality, together with true fellowship with other ‘family’ members. Although some church services are traditionally more formal and predetermined in the format they follow than others, ideally, in all there should be freedom to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading to bring in His agenda and allow people to really worship God from the heart (1 Cor 14:40; 1 Thes 5:19).

Tradition can stem from man's humanistic approach in how they perceive to worship God, yet He has said the worship He requires is in spirit and truth (Jn 4:23,24).   In spirit refers to not depending on carnal external forms of pomp and human actions for acceptance. In truth is being in harmony with the nature and will of God inferring our submission, sincerity and integrity of heart.

A good question to ask is, if God withdrew His Spirit would we notice the difference in our spiritual practices?

Our focus is to endeavour to live our whole life in harmony with His standards and principles, not our concepts of what we think is acceptable to Him, His ways are so much higher than ours (Isa 55:8).

See also: formality, ritual, tradition.