The biggest thing that Evangelicals can learn from Catholics is how to worship … liturgy, when celebrated reverently, can also give worshipers a connection to the sacred that is just not available through the type of worship service … in Evangelical churches.

Several years ago, I wrote an article for HPR entitled: “What Catholics Can Learn from Evangelicals.” I argued that Evangelical Protestant churches do a better job of teaching Scripture to their congregations than most Catholic parishes. Evangelicals are also more comfortable with evangelizing their neighbors than are Catholics. These remain areas where the Catholics can learn to improve by emulating their Evangelical brethren. However, Evangelicals also have a lot to learn from Catholics.

The idea of Evangelicals learning from Catholics is not really a novel one. Many Evangelical missionaries study the history of Catholic missions to improve the effectiveness of their own missionary activity. Some Evangelicals, obeying St. Paul’s dictum to “test everything; hold on to what is good,” even study the writings of John Paul II on the theology of the body. But during the Evangelical heyday of the 1980s, it was possible for Evangelicals to view the Catholic Church as similar to the mainline Protestant churches—as an institution that was waning in influence. There was little reason to learn from a church that looked like it was losing relevance.

The intervening years, however, have shown that the Catholic Church did not suffer the same fate as the mainline Protestant denominations. Under the leadership of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the Church was able to eliminate much of the confusion that prevailed in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Rather than becoming irrelevant, the Catholic Church has continued to boldly proclaim the uncompromising Christian message to a culture that is increasingly hostile to Christian beliefs. Under these circumstances, it makes sense for Evangelicals to view Catholics as allies. Although there are many treasures within the Catholic Church, the two that Evangelicals might find most beneficial are liturgical worship and an emphasis on unity.

Liturgical Worship

The biggest thing that Evangelicals can learn from Catholics is how to worship. This might seem like an odd thing to say because many Catholics who leave the Church to join an Evangelical congregation often mention the “dead” character of Catholic worship as one of their main reasons for leaving. It’s true that a shoddy execution of the liturgy, combined with content-free homilies, and a lack of vibrant fellowship, can make a parish seem lifeless. However, liturgy, when celebrated reverently, can also give worshipers a connection to the sacred that is just not available through the type of worship service that currently prevails in Evangelical churches.

What exactly is liturgy? And why do Evangelicals avoid it? Broadly speaking, the liturgy is the way the Church consecrates time, space, and matter for the worship of God. It consists of rituals—the ceremonies, prayers, and sacraments of the Church. The Mass is the best-known example of a liturgical rite, but the Church calendar is also another expression of liturgy. For an Evangelical, the most important thing about these rituals is that they are not spontaneous expressions of the believers who are present in the worship service, as other people wrote them. The fear is that with liturgy, there is the temptation to mouth the words but not really mean them. If that were to happen, the ritual would become the “vain repetition” that Jesus warned us against. In an attempt to avoid the temptation to ritualism, Evangelicals prefer to use extemporaneous prayers. The idea is that spontaneous prayer is more likely to be from the heart and, therefore, less likely to be “vain repetition.” The other major reason for not using liturgy is that there is no positive command in the Bible that worship must be liturgical. Because there is no express requirement to worship liturgically, Evangelicals feel free to worship in the way they find most effective to achieving their mission.

The typical worship service at an Evangelical church is very sermon-centered and is, therefore, very pastor-centered. The structure involves the singing of hymns during the first part of the service. It is this portion of the service that Evangelicals equate with “worshipping God.” Music is very important to Evangelicals, and because the singing of hymns is nothing less than the worship of God, the quality of the music is usually very high. However, that doesn’t mean that Evangelicals sing classical Lutheran or Wesleyan hymns. The music is generally contemporary and upbeat; modern instruments, such as electric guitars, are frequently used.

After the singing, which lasts for approximately 30 minutes, there is a short scripture reading, followed by the centerpiece of the service, the sermon. Because such great emphasis is placed on the sermon, the better Evangelical pastors spend a lot of time in crafting them. In some of the larger churches, the Sunday sermon may be the most significant task of the senior pastor. Evangelical sermons are longer than a Catholic homily: the typical sermon averages 30 minutes.

The ideal Evangelical sermon not only teaches the meaning of the biblical text, it also applies that text to the real-world concerns that the members of the congregation face. Many pastors use expository preaching, which means the pastor will have a series of sermons on a single book of the Bible. Each week, the sermon explains another section of the book, verse by verse, so that by the end of the sermon series, the congregation has a good understanding of the main message of the book. Sadly, expository preaching is probably the biggest reason that Catholics leave the Church in favor of an Evangelical congregation. Ex-Catholics often say that they understood the Bible for the first time after regular attendance at an Evangelical church.

You may have noticed one glaring omission in the description of an Evangelical worship service: there is no mention of the Eucharist or Communion. That’s because the Eucharist is normally celebrated infrequently in a special service. In Evangelical theology, sacraments are only signs; they do not actually confer grace. Instead, Evangelicals believe that it is much more important for believers to be strongly grounded in scripture, than it is to celebrate any ritual. Thus, Evangelical churches have chosen to limit the time-consuming celebration of the sacrament in favor of longer sermons. In fact, when an Evangelical speaks about “being fed,” he is probably talking about the practical knowledge of Scripture that he is gaining by listening to the weekly sermon, not the reception of the Eucharist.

There is no question that Evangelical-style worship is effective in gaining new converts, especially if coupled with well-prepared, challenging sermons. So why should Evangelicals consider adopting a liturgical style of worship?

First, Evangelicals already worship liturgically; it is just that they create their own modern liturgy rather than using the time-tested liturgy of the historic churches. Although Evangelicals struggle to keep everything spontaneous, it just isn’t possible to run a worship service without some type of form, which is liturgy. For example, the structure of the Evangelical worship service—with hymns of praise followed by a sermon—is a liturgical form. Evangelicals also use liturgical prayers: the hymns they sing are prayers written by others, and put to music. No Evangelical would charge that the hymns are “vain repetition” simply because they are written by others. So moving to a liturgy of one of the historic communions (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican) is less of a jump than first meets the eye.

Second, by adopting a traditional style of liturgical worship an Evangelical church would move closer to the style of worship of the New Testament church. In Protestant theology, the apostolic church was doctrinally pure but the post-apostolic church rapidly became corrupted by pagan influences. Protestant scholars disagree as to how quickly the alleged corruption occurred, but they agree that it is desirable to return to the purity of the apostolic age. One way to do this is by trying to approximate the style of worship of the early church.

The New Testament is silent on the exact way the apostolic church worshipped, but the evidence from early Christian writings—starting at the end of the first century with the Didache—is that the church worshipped liturgically from the beginning. Therefore, if an Evangelical church wants to follow the apostolic church, it makes sense to embrace liturgical worship.

However, some Evangelicals might object that it is possible that the early church was already corrupt by the end of the first century. If so, there is another reason to adopt liturgical worship: it is the authentic worship of the Old Testament. Recent archeological discoveries prove that the early Christians didn’t create the Eucharistic prayers ex nihilo, but that they adapted the existing Jewish liturgy. For example, manuscript fragments discovered in the Dura-Europos synagogue in Syria contain the Eucharistic prayers found in the Didache, but written in Hebrew. The proof that Jewish worship in the Old Testament period was liturgical is strengthened by the fact that Jews still worship liturgically today. In his book, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer, Louis Bouyer says the “astonishing closeness” of the ancient synagogue texts “and the texts still in use in the synagogue of our own day, attests to the liturgical conservatism of the Jews.”

A final reason for embracing a liturgical worship is that it provides a counterbalance to modern culture. In his book, Beyond Smells and Bells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy, Anglican Mark Galli writes:

{L}iturgy helps us enter a counter-intuitive story. In an individualistic culture, the liturgy helps us live a communal life. In a culture that values spontaneity, the liturgy grounds us in something enduring. In a world that assumes truth is a product of the mind, the liturgy helps us experience truth in both mind and body. In a world demanding instant relevance, the liturgy gives us the patience to live into a relevance that the world does not know.

Of course, moving from a spontaneous form of worship to a liturgical form is not an easy transition, so changes should be introduced gradually. It follows from the above that if Evangelicals wanted to incorporate aspects of liturgy into their worship, it would make sense to borrow from an established tradition rather than crafting a new liturgy. Fortunately, Evangelicals can draw from the rich sources of the Anglican and Lutheran liturgies, and still remain fully Protestant.

The Unity of All Christians

Another area where Evangelicals could learn from the Catholic Church is its pursuit of unity. This pursuit of unity was shown in Benedict XVI’s first written message as pope. Pope Benedict stated that he had as a “primary commitment” the intention “to work without sparing energies for the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all the followers of Christ.” This commitment is demonstrated by Rome’s continuing dialog with the Orthodox Churches, and in its overtures to large Protestant Churches, such as its recent creation of the Anglican Ordinariates that allow Anglicans to enter in communion with Rome while keeping their own form of worship.

The Catholic Church’s emphasis on unity does not just take the form of ecumenical dialog, it also pervades the prayer life of the Church. Faithful Catholics who pray the Morning Offering ask God daily for “the unity of all Christians.” The Church also prays for Christian unity in the Prayers of the Faithful during Mass, and in the Liturgy of the Hours.

There is a good reason for the Catholic Church’s emphasis on unity. The unity of all Christians is not some minor, nonessential aspect of the gospel message. Rather, it is a key prerequisite for the successful evangelization of the world. As Jesus prayed in his high priestly prayer after the institution of the Eucharist:

I do not pray for these {the Apostles} only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as thou Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 17:20-21).

Evangelicals argue that the unity that Jesus speaks of here is only a spiritual unity, not a visible corporate unity. But, in order for the unity of believers to be an effective sign to nonbelievers, it has to be a visible corporate unity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the bonds of this visible unity as:

Charity, which “binds everything together in perfect harmony;”

the profession of one faith received from the Apostles;

the common celebration of divine worship, especially of the sacraments; and

the governance of the Church by bishops ordained in apostolic succession.

It is Jesus’ desire that Christians be united not only in the profession of faith, but really united into one body. It is this visible, bodily unity of Christians that renders the preaching of the gospel effective.

Evangelicals have as their primary goal the preaching of the gospel; yet, they do not seem to be very concerned with the unity of believers. How do they miss the connection between unity and evangelization?

They miss it, in part, because of their truncated understanding of what constitutes unity. For an Evangelical, it is sufficient if there is agreement on a core set of beliefs, including: the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, sola scriptura, and salvation by faith alone. This set of core beliefs aligns roughly with what C.S. Lewis called “Mere Christianity.”

However, not even C.S. Lewis thought that a minimalist Christianity was sufficient. Lewis argued that one must make a stand on other important doctrines by choosing a denomination:

I hope no reader will suppose the “mere” Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions—as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism, or Greek Orthodoxy, or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall, I shall have done what I attempted. But, it is in the rooms, not the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in…

Of course, Evangelicals already know this; so why do they choose to hold to an attenuated understanding of unity? The Evangelical churches do this out of necessity because their organizational structure does not allow for any unity beyond mere assent to a core set of beliefs. This was always true with the wide variety of Protestant denominations, but it has been exacerbated in the past 25 years by the development of the mega-church.

Mega-churches are frequently completely independent. They are unaffiliated with any governing church body. The fortunes of a mega-church rise and fall with its ability to attract and retain a charismatic pastor. The incentives for the pastor are to grow the individual church so the tendency is to focus on gaining new members. To do this, the most important thing is to make the worship service appealing, and to provide a vibrant social scene to congregants. This explains why the mega-churches have moved away from traditional Protestant worship, to high-energy, high-tech productions that share more resemblance to a rock concert than to the Christian liturgy.

The need to get new members also drives the topics of the sermons. Although these sermons always have a strong biblical touchstone, they also have to be relevant to the lives of the members. This means the emphasis is on things like relationships, and there may be a heavy dollop of pop psychology included in the mix. Difficult theological concepts may have to be relegated to Sunday school classes (that are attended by both children and adults) or just ignored entirely.

Finally, Evangelicals, by definition, emphasize the preaching of the gospel. Their goal is to get as many people “saved” as possible. The mainstream of Evangelical thought teaches that once a person is saved, he has eternal security. While the believer should ideally grow in the knowledge of Christ, it is not, strictly speaking, a necessity. Therefore, if doctrines involving the sacraments, church authority, and worship receive little emphasis, it doesn’t jeopardize the effectiveness of an Evangelical church’s mission.

In this type of environment, the topic of corporate unity necessarily takes a back seat. Evangelical leaders tend to view any denomination that preaches the “essential doctrines” of Christianity (such as the divinity of Christ, the repentance of sins, and faith in Christ) as falling within the pale of orthodox Christianity. Evangelicals reason that because the Christian churches share this fundamental agreement, there is unity, even though it is not corporate unity. While this approach provides a fig leaf for the lack of unity of Christians, it puts Evangelical leaders in the precarious position of having to decide which of the doctrines taught by Christ are essential. It also fails to create the kind of unity that is necessary to win the world for Christ.

Despite the hurdles to unity that Evangelicals will have to overcome, there actually has been significant progress toward unity as well. The most notable is the 1994 document, “Evangelicals & Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium.” The document, signed by American Catholic and Evangelical leaders, is groundbreaking because it actually recognizes fundamental agreement on the doctrine underlying the Protestant Reformation, the doctrine of salvation. The Catholic and Evangelical leaders agreed that “we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ.” While this might appear minor, it is a major step toward unity because it means that Evangelicals recognize Catholics as brothers in the faith. We can hope that the Evangelical and Catholic leaders of today will continue to build on the foundation laid by the authors of “Evangelicals & Catholics Together.”

Of course, when it comes to unity, the entire burden isn’t on Evangelicals. Catholics, too, have a significant role to play. Catholics must continue to evangelize and catechize other Catholics. The most potent motivation to unity is the witness of Catholics that are on fire for Christ. Similarly, the most powerful reason for Evangelicals to adopt liturgical worship is the example of Catholics who participate in the Mass with their whole heart. If Catholics and Evangelicals both continue to grow in Christ, the unity that today seems remote will one day become a reality.