Your experience with liturgical worship probably depends on the denomination you are part of. Liturgy is probably associated with high church in Presbyterian, Lutheran and Methodist denominations, less so with Baptists. When I say probably I mean chances are, in most cases, all other things being equal, the odds are in favor of what I’m saying… but it all depends. Style of worship and what constitutes worship are highly subjective to individuals and individual congregations. When we start generalizing about denominations there are so many flavors within each and there is bound to be some bleed through around the edges, to mix metaphors.

Reading scripture, singing, giving, preaching and the response to preaching are all acts of worships. There are certainly others. I am most qualified to speak to Baptist, specifically Southern Baptist worship practices in the (mostly rural) southeast United States. While you may not hear the word liturgy used at all the Baptist Hymnal has a section of responsive readings in the back and several others scattered throughout the book itself. We may not recite the Apostles Creed together but some things become extremely routine. At one church in Kentucky it was standard operating procedure to sing the Doxology before collecting the offering on Sunday morning. Singing the same worshipful hymn ever week was fine but if someone jokingly referred to it as “Baptist liturgy” suddenly people talked about doing something different. We weren’t doing anything radical like serving wine at communion or scheduling a dance but just calling the thing we were already doing liturgy made some people leary.

There are two passages of scripture, one in Isaiah 6 and the other in Revelation 4, that describe visions of God sitting on his throne. The scenes are very similar despite being written 800 or 900 years apart, one in Hebrew the other in Greek. Both describe six winged seraphim/living creatures that fly overhead and endlessly repeat a refrain: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” in Isaiah and “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty” in Revelation. I’m not saying you need to add liturgy to your order of worship if you don’t have some in there already. I’m saying that repeating a statement or creed, especially listing God’s virtues, is definitely worship. If you don’t believe liturgy has a place in your church, it certainly has a place before God’s presence in heaven itself. Just something to think about.