“Liturgy Saved Me”

Recalling Truth

“The liturgy saved me.” Recently, I was asked about my conversion to Christ. As I was sharing my testimony, I used that line—“the liturgy saved me”—(an exaggeration!) to make an important point about how God used the many Bible readings, prayers, and songs from the Sunday liturgies of my childhood to recall God’s truths to mind and eventually to work them deep down into my heart. For example, the song Sanctus (Latin for “holy”) is based on the seraphim’s hymns in Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8, along with what the crowd cried out when Jesus journeyed up to Jerusalem (Matt. 21:9, based on Ps. 118:25).

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

For the first eighteen years of my life, I sang (and heard sung) truths about God’s holiness each week. I also heard the short confession about the good news of Jesus’s salvific work (“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”), recited the early historic Christian creeds (which focus on the person of Christ), and prayed the Lord’s Prayer (which includes the petition for our need for forgiveness). Every Sunday, you might say (and I do say!), I re-learned the gospel—that God is holy, we are sinners who need our sins forgiven, and that salvation comes through the sinless Son of God, who lived and died and rose again.

That said, I must admit that soon after I was converted to Christ at the age of nineteen and within the Roman Catholic Church, I left that church, publicly disavowed key Catholic dogmas (notably the veneration of Mary and the saints), recoiled from the rote rituals of the mass, and started attending Willow Creek Community Church—the most famous Protestant church in the seeker-sensitive movement. Talk about different! At Willow, no hymns were sung, no liturgical elements were employed, and no classic creeds were confessed. But biblical truths were taught, new converts were growing hungrier for the things of God, and hundreds of unbelievers regularly found the Lord.

Daily Liturgy Devotional

Douglas Sean O'Donnell

Helping believers make a habit of daily connection with the Lord, the Daily Liturgy Devotional offers 40 reflective daily readings filled with content for prayer, worship, and Scripture reading.

I thank God for my two years at Willow! But as I began to study the Bible, theology, and Christian history at Wheaton College, I began to appreciate the liturgical richness of the Christian tradition, and I was freshly drawn to thoughtful, Scripture-saturated forms of worship—in personal prayer and corporate gatherings. I began attending College Church, a church near campus, then led by R. Kent Hughes. Every Lord’s Day, I was encouraged, edified, and equipped by Pastor Hughes’s engaging preaching and deep exegesis of the whole canon of Scripture, accompanied by the soulful singing of great hymns and the corporate recitation of prayers, readings, and confessions. I grew like a tree planted next to the mighty Mississippi (or DuPage River, in this case)! I stayed in that stream for most of my pastoral ministry years until God replanted me in the Presbyterian Church in America, a body that stands on the shoulders of giants like John Knox and John Calvin.

I share this part of my journey to say this: I am drawn to liturgy because God used it to save me, and he continues to sanctify me by it. Allow me to share four other reasons, all of which I see as benefits.

1. Liturgy gives us words to pray.

Liturgy gives us words when our own words fail us. Life is full of moments where our emotions—love, joy, sorrow, confusion, hurt, and so on—render us speechless before God. Liturgy provides structured prayers that give us a voice when our own words come up short. It helps us to communicate with God even in our moments of silence and struggle. The set prayers, drawn from Scripture and centuries of Christian tradition, help individuals and communities to approach God with confidence, knowing that the words we echo have stood the test of time. Whether in times of great need or the routine of daily devotions, the church’s liturgies can guide us, shaping our prayers and helping us express what we might not otherwise know how to articulate.

2. Liturgy rightly shapes our thoughts and words.

Liturgy is not just repetitive; it is also formative. Over time, the regular use of familiar prayers and creeds in worship shapes our thoughts, words, and actions. These forms can become a theological compass fixed in our heads and hearts, orienting us to the truths of the Christian faith. By repeating words of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication, we are reminded of the foundational truths of the gospel—the greatness of God, the depth of human sin, the grace offered in Christ, and the hope of redemption. In this way, liturgy equips us for life as followers of Christ. As we are led in worship again and again by Scripture and the well-crafted words of those who have gone before, these liturgical rhythms help us to think rightly about God and to respond rightly to the gospel even beyond the Lord’s Day. Over time and with the Holy Spirit’s help, we come to embody the words we pray as they equip us to articulate our beliefs and to live out our faith in daily life.

Liturgy gives us words when our own words fail us.

3. Liturgy reminds us that we are part of the global and historic body of Christ.

Liturgy reminds us that we are part of something far greater than ourselves. When we use traditional Christian liturgical forms and prayers in worship, we join our voices to the global and historic body of Christ in praise. Believers have spoken or sung these prayers, confessions, readings, and songs throughout centuries and across continents; when we take them up, we do so in fellowship with the universal church. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, recite the Apostles’ Creed, or sing the Sanctus, we participate in a spiritual heritage that transcends time and place. This shared experience reminds us that our faith is not lived in isolation but in unity with brothers and sisters from around the world. Whether we take up these words in large congregations or in the quiet of our homes, the liturgy connects us to the broader Christian community, reminding us that we journey in fellowship with a great cloud of witnesses.

4. Liturgy helps develop holy habits.

Lastly, the use of liturgy helps in the development of holy habits. Just as repeated physical habits shape our health and well-being, repeated spiritual practices shape our souls. Liturgical worship—with its regular rhythms of prayer, confession, Scripture reading, and so on—creates a framework for spiritual discipline. Through the habitual use of these forms, we learn to fix our hearts and minds on God. This spiritual rhythm cultivates a deep devotion to God and an attentiveness to his presence in our lives. Over time, these habits shape our desires, helping us to love what God loves and to long for deeper communion with him. Liturgy becomes not just a method of worship but a means of spiritual formation, drawing us closer to God and nurturing our growth in grace.

The Last Word on an Important Word

You may not share all of my experiences or agree with all of my evaluations regarding liturgy. But I hope you share a desire to worship God (“Lord, teach us to pray,” Luke 11:1), and I hope this short post has helped you see that Christian liturgy—with its prayers and patterns, Scriptures and songs—is a rich resource in that regard. The Greek word leitourgia, from which we get the word liturgy, is found in the New Testament and can be translated as “service,” “ministry,” or “worship.” I hope that liturgy will also serve you so that you might better worship God and minister to others.

Douglas Sean O’Donnell is the author of Daily Liturgy Devotional: 40 Days of Worship and Prayer.

Douglas Sean O’Donnell (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is the senior vice president of Bible editorial at Crossway. Over the past twenty-five years he has helped train people around the world to read and teach the Bible clearly. He has pastored several churches, served as a professor, and authored or edited over twenty books, including commentaries, Bible studies, children’s books, and a children’s curriculum. He also wrote The Pastor’s Book with R. Kent Hughes and The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition with Leland Ryken.

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Given that liturgy concerns the order of worship elements in a church service, it’s not whether a church has a liturgy; it’s just which liturgy the church has.