Evangelical Christianity has rightly emphasized that forgiveness is grounded in the once-for-all atoning work of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:10–14), received by grace through faith alone (Ephesians 2:8–9). Yet Scripture and the historic Christian tradition alike reveal that the means by which this grace transforms believers are not purely internal or private. Confession—verbal, relational, and restorative—stands as one of the chief practices through which the gospel is embodied in the life of the Church.
For many Protestants, the very idea of confession evokes imagery of Roman Catholic practice: a believer entering a confessional booth, disclosing sins to a priest, and receiving absolution. This often triggers skepticism: “We only have one mediator—Christ—and only God can forgive sin!” Such a reaction is understandable, especially in light of historical abuses. Yet beneath this instinct lies an incomplete picture of what confession truly is and how it functions in Scripture and the Church’s life.
One of the key differences between Protestant and Roman Catholic understandings of confession lies in the theology of the sacraments. Roman Catholicism recognizes seven sacraments, including penance, whereas most Protestant traditions affirm only two—Baptism and the Eucharist—as dominical sacraments, instituted directly by Christ. However, this need not exclude other practices from being understood as sacramental—that is, as outward signs that convey inward grace—even if they are not sacraments in the strictest sense.
A sacrament may be defined as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, instituted by Christ himself, whereby God works effectively to convey and confirm that grace to the believer. Rooted in Augustine’s classic definition (De Catechizandis Rudibus 26.50) and received through the Anglican formularies (Article XXV of the Thirty-Nine Articles), this understanding was embraced and expanded by John Wesley. Wesley described the sacraments as “means of grace”—channels through which the Holy Spirit works to awaken, justify, and sanctify believers (cf. Sermon 16, The Means of Grace).
Scripturally, these means are grounded in Christ’s own commands: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19) and “Repent and be baptized… for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). The sacraments are therefore both divine acts and human responses—signs of covenantal grace that unite the Church to Christ and to one another.
At its most basic, a sacrament is an avenue of divine grace for the believer who approaches in faith. In the Anglican tradition, two sacraments—Baptism and the Eucharist—are recognized as instituted by Christ, while five additional “sacraments of the Church” (confirmation, ordination, marriage, penance, and unction) are regarded as sacramental practices that, while not dominical, still convey grace as means of grace. Through this framework, confession (or penance) can rightly be seen as a vital part of Christian life—biblically grounded and pastorally fruitful—without elevating it beyond the authority of Scripture.
Why, then, emphasize confession in particular? Because of all the “sacraments of the Church,” it is the only one largely absent from Evangelical practice. Marriage is universally observed; ordination and the laying on of hands continue in various forms; prayer for the sick remains common; and church membership often functions analogously to confirmation. Yet confession—or Penance and Reconciliation—is virtually without an equivalent in most Evangelical contexts. While believers are encouraged to confess sins privately to God or occasionally to one another in accountability settings, these practices often lack the theological depth, consistency, and pastoral intentionality that historic confession embodies. Recovering a form of confession rooted in Scripture and Wesleyan spirituality could therefore restore an essential dimension of the Church’s ministry of healing and holiness.
In Scripture, confession and repentance are rarely private matters. Sin has both a vertical dimension (against God) and a horizontal one (against others and the covenant community). For this reason, biblical confession almost always involves both acknowledgment before God and accountability or restitution before others.
In the Old Testament, confession was typically public and tied to tangible acts of repentance. Leviticus 5:5–6 commands that “when anyone becomes aware that they are guilty… they must confess in what way they have sinned,” followed by a guilt offering to make atonement. Numbers 5:6–7 likewise directs that when one wrongs another, “they must confess the sin they have committed” and “make full restitution for the wrong, adding a fifth of the value to it.” Confession here is both verbal and restorative—it seeks to repair relationships and restore justice.
Public confession also marked Israel’s communal life. In Ezra 10:1, Ezra prays, “We have been unfaithful,” prompting the people to gather and confess together. Similarly, Nehemiah 9:2–3 depicts the people standing and confessing “their sins and the sins of their ancestors.” Repentance in these contexts is not merely individual but corporate—acknowledging that sin damages the whole covenant community.
This pattern continues into the New Testament. John the Baptist’s ministry of repentance included open confession: “They were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins” (Matthew 3:6). James instructs believers, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16), emphasizing both mutual accountability and the healing power of truth-telling.
Restitution also remains integral to repentance. When Zacchaeus encounters Jesus, his faith expresses itself through reparation: “If I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (Luke 19:8). Jesus affirms this as genuine repentance, declaring, “Today salvation has come to this house.” Repentance, then, is never merely inward—it manifests in transformed behavior and restored relationships.
Even the Lord’s Prayer ties divine forgiveness to human reconciliation: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matthew 6:12). Our reconciliation with God is inseparable from our reconciliation with one another.
Thus, biblically, confession is not a private transaction between the sinner and God alone. It is a relational act—rooted in community, expressed through words and deeds, and often requiring public acknowledgment and restitution. The grace of forgiveness is never cheap or isolated; it calls us into restored fellowship with both God and neighbor, embodying the gospel’s ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18–19).
Confession to another believer is a powerful act of humility and healing (James 5:16). Yet confession to an ordained pastor carries a distinct biblical and ecclesial significance, recognizing the Church as the appointed instrument through which Christ ministers reconciliation. Throughout Scripture, God’s forgiveness is declared through authorized representatives—prophets, priests, and ultimately the apostles—to whom Christ entrusted the authority of forgiveness: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven” (John 20:23; cf. 2 Corinthians 5:18–20).
The pastor, as a steward of Word and Sacrament, stands not as a private confidant but as a public servant of Christ and his Church—entrusted to declare absolution, offer pastoral counsel, and guide the work of restitution in the name of the gospel. Confession before a pastor thus anchors repentance in the visible life of the Church, guards against self-deception, and assures the penitent that forgiveness is not merely a feeling but a divine reality—announced through Christ’s ordained minister.
Attached here is the PDF of this entire article, along with confessional rubrics and guidelines for privacy and legal requirements.
Within the spiritual framework and practice of many evangelical Christians in the United States, there exists a significant gap in our understanding and application of the historical theology and praxis of the sacraments—or, more broadly, of sacramental actions. These are actions that, while not instituted sacraments of Christ (such as Baptism and the Eucharist), still bear a sacramental quality in that they serve as means of grace: tangible conduits through which God communicates His grace to His people. In classical Methodist and Wesleyan theology, these are understood as divinely appointed channels by which the life of God is imparted to the believer (cf. John Wesley, Sermon 16: The Means of Grace).
The Modern Divide Between the Physical and the Spiritual
One of the primary roots of this deficiency lies in the modern dichotomy between the spiritual and the physical. Western thought since the Enlightenment has often driven a rigid bifurcation between the two realms, sometimes even veering toward a subtle Gnosticism—a disdain for the physical in favor of the “purely spiritual.” This worldview is foreign to the biblical imagination.
In Scripture, and in the world that birthed it, the physical and spiritual are deeply intertwined. Creation itself is sacramental in that it reveals God’s invisible nature through visible means (Romans 1:20). Humanity, made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), embodies this intersection of spirit and matter. God’s interactions with His people consistently employ physical means—anointing oil, water, bread, wine, touch, and even dust—to communicate spiritual realities.
The Incarnation as the Foundation of Sacramentality
At the heart of a sacramental worldview lies the Incarnation: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). In Christ, God sanctified matter itself, showing that the physical world can be a vessel of divine grace. To affirm this is not to drift toward superstition, but to stand squarely within the center of Christian orthodoxy.
The Incarnation declares that God does not despise material creation; He works through it. From the water of baptism (Acts 2:38; Titus 3:5), to the bread and wine of the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 10:16–17), to the laying on of hands (2 Timothy 1:6), the pattern is consistent: God uses the physical to effect the spiritual.
The Laying on of Hands: A Sacramental Action
Paul reminds Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you” (1 Timothy 4:14). Here, something more than symbolic recognition occurs—grace is conferred. The act of laying on hands is a physical sign through which God imparts spiritual empowerment and affirmation of calling. This understanding echoes throughout Church history, from the apostolic era to the present day.
John Calvin, while cautious about overextending the term “sacrament,” still recognized that God uses external signs as “instruments of His grace” (Institutes, IV.xiv.1). Likewise, Wesley emphasized that means of grace are “outward signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for this end—to be the ordinary channels whereby He might convey His grace to men.”
The Eucharist and the Sacramental Imagination
The same principle applies to the Eucharist. While we eat bread and drink wine, we do so in faith that through these elements we participate in the Body and Blood of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16). The physical act points beyond itself; it is both remembrance and participation (anamnesis and koinonia). As Jesus said, “This is my body… this is my blood” (Matthew 26:26–28).
Such an understanding guards against a reductionist view of the Lord’s Table as mere memorial. The mystery of Christ’s presence is not explained by philosophical categories but experienced by faith within the Church’s worship.
The Loss of the Sacramental Imagination
Unfortunately, in the last two centuries, the rise of scientific rationalism and modernistic philosophy has profoundly shaped Protestant imagination. Evangelicals often seek the movement of the Spirit, but only in “spiritual” ways—detached from the physical and the ordinary. We have come to expect God in the spectacular, forgetting that He often chooses the simple, tangible, and embodied.
Recovering Evangelical Sacramentalism
To recover a robust sacramental worldview is not to abandon evangelical conviction—it is to deepen it. Evangelical sacramentalism affirms that grace is not confined to the invisible realm but permeates all creation. It insists that God meets us in Word and matter, Spirit and flesh.
When we anoint with oil (James 5:14), lay hands in prayer (Acts 8:17), break bread in communion (Luke 24:30–31), or even gather in corporate worship (Hebrews 10:24–25), we participate in the mystery of a God who mediates His presence through His creation.
The Church’s task, then, is to reclaim this incarnational imagination—to see the world once again as charged with the grandeur of God (Psalm 19:1). By doing so, we do not drift into ritualism, but rediscover the very heart of our faith: that the God who became flesh continues to meet us in the ordinary, to make us holy, and to confer grace through the tangible signs of His love.
Today is World Communion Sunday—a day I honestly hadn’t paid much attention to until this week. I saw a church I follow on social media post that they would be celebrating Communion today because of the occasion. I paused for a moment and thought, That’s wonderful. A day specifically set aside to highlight and participate in one of the central Sacraments Christ commanded His Church to observe—“as often as you drink it”—is something to celebrate.
Over the past year, I’ve noticed a growing renewal of interest in the Table—whether you call it the Eucharist, Communion, the Lord’s Supper, or the Lord’s Table. In many churches, there’s a quiet but steady movement to return to the centrality of this sacred meal in worship. And it’s not without reason.
When we look at Scripture, we see that the early Church placed the Table right at the heart of their gatherings. Acts 2:42 tells us, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” The “breaking of bread” here isn’t just sharing a meal—it’s the Eucharist. The early believers didn’t treat Communion as an occasional ritual. It was a regular and vital act of worship, a visible expression of their fellowship with Christ and with one another.
And that pattern continued for centuries. Through the early Church Fathers, through the medieval Church, through the Reformation and beyond, the weekly celebration of the Eucharist was the norm. It’s still the case today in many Anglican, Orthodox, Lutheran, and Catholic churches. The Table wasn’t an optional extra—it was the very center of Christian worship, the place where heaven and earth meet in the mystery of God’s grace.
But somewhere along the way—particularly in Protestant churches in America—that rhythm changed. For many congregations, especially in non-denominational or contemporary settings, Communion is now a monthly or quarterly event, sometimes even less. It’s not that these churches don’t love Jesus or value the cross—it’s that the Table has been unintentionally sidelined.
Part of this happened out of necessity. In the early years of the United States, the Church was spreading faster than clergy could keep up. Methodist circuit riders, for example, traveled hundreds of miles to serve multiple congregations. They might only reach a particular church once a month, and when they did, that was when the Lord’s Supper was celebrated. It was a practical and pastoral reality, not a theological one—and in many places, it’s still necessary today.
But over time, this practical limitation became a habit, and that habit became a tradition. What began as an issue of logistics slowly reshaped our theology and expectations. People grew accustomed to celebrating Communion infrequently, and that irregularity came to feel normal—even spiritual.
The second shift was theological, and this one has had a deeper, more lasting impact. During the Radical Reformation, some reformers—wanting to distance themselves from perceived excesses in medieval theology—rejected the idea that Christ is truly present in the elements. They reduced Communion to a symbolic act of remembrance, a kind of mental exercise to recall the crucifixion.
Now, remembrance is indeed part of the Supper. Jesus Himself said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” But to say it is only remembrance is to strip away something sacred and mysterious. For the first 1,500 years of Christianity, believers of every tradition—East and West—affirmed some form of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They might have debated how it happens, but they agreed that when we gather at the Table, Christ is truly present among us in a unique and powerful way.
Even the early Reformers like Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer held to this conviction, each in their own language. The Anglican tradition developed a rich understanding that Christ is “really and spiritually present” in the Eucharist, not in a crude or mechanical sense, but through the mystery of the Holy Spirit. The Wesleys inherited this view, and through Methodism, they brought a renewed emphasis on the Eucharist as a means of grace—a channel through which God works to strengthen, renew, and sanctify His people.
But over time, the symbolic-only view spread widely, especially through revival movements and the broader Evangelical world. Many sincere and faithful believers came to see Communion as little more than a memorial, a time to think about what Jesus did for us. And while that reflection is good and necessary, it misses the deeper truth that the Supper is not just something we do for God, but something God does in us.
In much of Evangelicalism today, even in denominations that officially affirm the Real Presence, the practice of Communion has been shaped more by the radical reformers than by the classical Christian consensus. Part of the reason is the proliferation of evangelical publishing—books, study guides, and devotional materials that are biblically faithful and orthodox in many ways, yet often reflect a theology of the sacraments that is thin or incomplete. These materials have shaped generations of believers who, though belonging to liturgical or sacramental traditions, now think and practice more like Baptists or Zwinglians when it comes to the Table.
I don’t say that to criticize—it’s simply the reality of how ideas spread. People need good content to learn and grow from, and for a long time, most of what was available leaned toward a non-sacramental framework. That’s why I’m so encouraged by organizations like Seedbed, which are creating thoughtful and engaging resources from a Methodist and Wesleyan perspective—resources that help reclaim a fuller, richer understanding of grace and sacrament.
So here’s my plea to the Church: let’s come back to the Table. Let’s make the Lord’s Supper central again. Not as a token observance, but as the heartbeat of our worship. When we gather around the Table, we don’t just remember Christ’s sacrifice—we receive it afresh. We are nourished by His grace. We are united with one another. We are strengthened for mission. The Eucharist is not an empty symbol—it’s a living encounter with the risen Christ who meets us where He promised to be.
And this isn’t something that only large or liturgical churches can do. Whether you worship with a guitar and projector or a choir and organ, whether you meet in a cathedral or a rented school gym, Christ’s Table fits every context. The meal He gave us isn’t bound by style or size. It’s the meal where He Himself is both the host and the feast.
If we long to see revival in our churches, renewal in our lives, and transformation in our communities, we won’t find it through better programs or slicker production. It starts where the early Church started—with the breaking of bread, with the Word, with prayer, with fellowship around the Table.
Because when we gather there, Christ Himself is in our midst.
I remember I was standing at the counter of a gun store in Athens, PA talking to the owner. At the time I was attending a Bible school in the Southern Tier of New York, and there wasn’t really anything to do. This particular store was the closest location to the school I went to, and while I never bought anything, I would browse, and eventually struck up a friendship with the owner. After the first visit she talked about being a Christian herself, so theology and the Bible were regular parts of the conversation when I would come visit.
Then one day she said something that was really strange. “Our pastor is talking about Genesis 6, and how angelic beings came and created hybrids that eventually became demons.” I was kind of shocked and didn’t know what to do with this information. I had never heard of such a thing before. And while I had read the Bible a bunch of times (I was in Bible school after all), this particular episode was nothing I had ever heard of. I then started digging into the resources I had available to be at the school, and when I presented her with the explanations that these books (now looking back on them poorly researched commentaries on the Bible that was more personal opinion than grounded interpretation), she quickly and expertly took apart the thin arguments I presented her. That conversation particular ended, and I continued on with life.
Several years later my brother started talking about this book called The Unseen Realm, and this guy Michael Heiser. At this point, I was slowly being dispelled of the fundamentalist underpinnings of Biblical interpretation, my mind was now open for serious scholarship on Scripture, and I started watching videos and listening to podcast episodes from this Heiser guy.
I was immediately captivated. His basic premise was, “if it’s weird, it’s important.”
The Bible, whether we acknowledge it or not is full of a lot of weird stuff that we simply can’t just explain away. We like to try, to may our interpretations of the Bible fit our neat evangelical, contemporary, post-enlightenment categories of theology and the world. But, as Heiser points out, if we take the Bible seriously, as it was meant to be taken, we get dispelled of that very quickly.
While I grew up in a Charismatic and Pentecostal background, which assumes the reality of angels, demons and the like, in reality the understanding was very flat and two dimensional. A standard dualism was baked into the cake, and much of what I thought was found in the Bible, later turned out to be stuff from Milton’s Paradise Lost, that had simply been subsumed into the Biblical narrative, without actually being found in the text itself.
But then I started to see the big picture that Heiser was starting to present. And once I got my hands on a copy of The Unseen Realm, so many different pieces started to fall into place.
This idea of a Divine Council Worldview, which predominately is derived from Psalm 82, and Deuteronomy 32 (though is thoroughly replete throughout Scripture) fleshes out the truly supernatural worldview of the authors and recipients of the Biblical text. And what was most captivating, was that this understanding of Scripture was holistic in taking into account all the weird stuff that we find, without having to bend over backwards to make other data points fit. More than that, it wasn’t just coherent with the Gospel message, it actually strengthened the mission of Christ, and what our role as the Church is in the world.
Sadly, Michael Heiser passed away in 2023 from cancer. Though, throughout his entire time of treatment, he kept making content, and writing. Since his passing, much of the content that he had been working on has been compiled and been rolled into his original magnum opus; The Unseen Realm: Expanded Edition. The additional 20,000 words of content help flesh out, and further contextualize the Divine Council Worldview.
For anyone who has not read the book, or is familiar with the concept of the divine council, I highly recommend that you take the dive. When we take seriously the context the Scriptures were written in, we begin to see how everything falls into place, where before some stuff might seem weird or untoward to our modern sensibilities.
For those who have already read Heiser, the expanded edition is well worth getting as it adds additional notes, context & application of the expansive content already found in the book.
Heiser has had one of the greatest impacts on my understanding of God, and His work in the world. and for that I am eternally grateful. I hope you will come to see the blessing that Heiser was and is to the church as his legacy lives on through The Michael S. Heiser foundation, run by his widow, AWKNG School of Theology, The Divine Council Worldview Podcast and so many other resources.
The Unseen Realm: Expanded Edition releases on October 1, but early shipping is available if ordered through Logos.
I grew up in Canada, so I didn’t get the experience of saying the pledge of allegiance every day. But as in the US we did sing the national anthem every morning, facing the national flag in the room as part of our daily routine. Every morning we sang the words, “God keep our land, glorious and free!”. While Canada certainly could learn a thing or two from that line right now, I’m not here to comment on that. Nevertheless, we all have these common things that bind us together in a certain identity. We know that they know, and because of that there is a shared understanding of who we are.
Then we get to the world of Christian worship, and the plethora of styles that exist in the world today. This isn’t wholly a bad thing. Before becoming a lead pastor, I led worship in a contemporary context, and there were certain things I loved about it. But one thing that nagged at the back of my head was, “what is the connection with what we are doing with the rest of the Church?”.
For most in the modern American evangelical world, more traditional styles of worship can often be looked at with suspicion (often being suspected of “being too Catholic”), or maybe kind of laughed at as antiquated. But there are many things that we in evangelicalism can learn from the faithful worship of our brothers & sisters in ages past.
One of these key elements of worship is the reciting of an ecumenical creed. Even since the earliest days of the Church, a variety of concise statements of belief have been used as a part of preparation for baptism, and in worship. The two main creeds that are often used are the Apostle’s Creed, or the Nicene Creed. Both of these creeds accepted by all orthodox Christian throughout history, contain the core truths of the Christian faith.
Why is reciting a creed even important?
First, historically the creeds have been placed in the order of worship for churches as a check on the clergy. In Anglican liturgy, the creed follows the sermon. This is placed there as a statement and question, “does what was just preached line up with what we just said?” In many churches there can be problematic theology that is presented from the pulpit, and having the core creed of Christian doctrine help work as a ruler that the sermon can be compared too. Though sadly this is not a sure fire way, because there are many more traditional denominations and traditions that are wholly caved the liberal and woke ideology, despite saying the creeds weekly.
Secondly, creeds provide a foundation of right belief, and an inoculation against bad ideas. A good friend of mine was raised Roman Catholic. He learned the creeds from a young age, and even during his teen years when he wasn’t really following Christ, he encountered a preacher who was sharing aberrant theology. Despite not actively living the Christian life, my friend was still inoculated from these ideas, because he instantly recognized that what was being said did not line up with the creed in certain areas. Now again, as stated above, this is not a 100% sure thing. You can know the creed, and choose to ignore what it is actually saying. But, I would argue that for most Christians, knowing the creeds would be a beneficial thing.
We live in an age with a million messages hitting our brain every singly day. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Youtube and the list goes on and on…not to mention traditional advertising on billboards and TV commercials. We are constantly being messaged to.For us as followers of Christ, the creeds provide to us messaging that we can get on board with. Something that we can remember and look to, as a sure thing as to the truth of the Christian faith.
Below is a photo showing the Scriptural references that are found in the Nicene Creed. The creeds are not just “concocted words of men”, but are synthesized and condensed truths from Scripture, organically presented to systematically present the truths of, and the general flow of the Gospel message. The creeds help ground and center us in a crazy world.
The creeds help provide a guard rail against bad theology. You see, the tricky little secret that many don’t think about, is that heretical ideas use the same Scripture. Yes, ideas are over weighted in their importance, or incorrect translations or ideas are added to the text, but nevertheless the Bible is used as a proof-text for bad ideas. The creeds help us in telling us that as we read God’s holy and inspired Word, the correct interpretation and understanding of them will be found inside of the bounds of the creeds.
But how can all of this work in a contemporary setting? Good question!
As I had mentioned, I had been leading worship in a contemporary worship setting up until the beginning of 2025. For the entire last year I led worship, we recited the Apostle’s Creed every single week as part of our time of worship. And other than a little confusion about the word ‘catholic’, it integrated really well.
It can, and I would argue should be done. As Christians we have a beautiful and rich heritage in the creeds, but for many Christians there is complete ignorance that they even exist. But so much benefit is being missed out on. There are so many different ways for contemporary worship settings to use the creeds.
In recent years there have been a bunch of fantastic contemporary worship songs coming out based on or directly quoting the ecumenical creeds of the Church. I Believe by Phil Wickham, We Believe by the Newsboys, The God We Love (Nicene Creed) by CityAlight, This I Believeby Hillsong just to name a few. Use these songs, often! If a worship leader or pastor doesn’t feel that reciting a creed regularly can work for some reason, sing these songs.
But in the end, I believe firmly that EVERY church should in some way shape or form should recite a creed every single week. I always led it at the beginning, before going in to the worship set. But that is just one example, there are a multitude of ways that they can be added in, and practically it can take 30 seconds. The Apostle’s Creed is an easy one because it is shorter, but for most the Nicene Creed is the “gold standard” that the Church historic has used.
In our day and age having a good handle on the truths of the Christian faith is more important than ever, which means we need the creeds more than ever. Their usage will be enriching for all, because not only are we being taught and reminded of the Gospel, and the work of Christ, but we are being connected to Christians all around the world, and throughout history. There is continuity, there is connection, there is family.
The last 3 years as I have made my journey into a historic approach to Christian worship, Winfield Bevins has been one of the most influential writers, especially as I started the journey. His book Liturgical Mission: the Word of the People for the Life of the World does more than just look at the benefits a liturgical approach to faithful Christian worship has, but expounds on the holistic and all-encompassing nature that it has when looking at the role of the Church in the world.
The first major aspect Bevins looks at is how liturgical worship helps the Church recover the big story of Scripture, and applies it to the life of the Christian. Through the rhytms and movements of the liturgical calendar, we are constantly reminded and participating in the story of Jesus as we move from nativity to resurrection. In our bustling world of a million stories and sub-plots we as people are disenchanted and disenfranchised. Whereas the Christian story can give us something better to be apart of, helping us be on task for what Christ has called the Church to be.
Through the movements of gathering, word, table and sending, liturgy provides to Christians an all encompassing time of worship that ensures all part of our being are worshipping God, and that we are being equipped to be sent out to mission in the world.
The next major section is the idea of sacramentality. In a world where many in the west presume a form of scientific naturalism that has invanded the imaginations of many in the church, sacramentality restores the relationship between physical and spiritual, acknowledging that God works through more than just the immaterial, but that He can be and is amongst us. The Eucharist is of course one of the first things you think of when talking about this. But more than that, if we look at the world more of how God is working actively in even physical actions, we can see how we are called to be His actors in the world.
Finally, Bevins calls the Christian not just into orthodoxy, (right belief), but also into orthopraxy (right actions). What liturgy provides is not just a historic and faithful was of worship, but an integration to urging the Christian to not just take, but to also do. We are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to go spread the Kingdom, and be an ambassador of Biblical justice in a broken world.
