Where do Modern Worship Practices come from?

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]Guys, you've ever wondered where our worship practices actually come from?

[00:00:03]I've got a basic rule of thumb being a worship historian in most eras, almost inevitably, the church will draw upon some surrounding [music] form of public ritual in order to shape its worship practices. And the upside is is that it enables participation and accessibility because people know how to do that. But the downside is you pick up the implicit things that come with that, too. So, in the late Patristic period, it was all this imperial court ritual that the church picked up to shape its worship.

[00:00:35]That's where all the robes came from, where candles came from, all the processions. And downside is clear stratification of people, the use of cultural hierarchies in order to separate folks. It contributed towards the distancing of the laity from the main actions of worship. Right now, a lot of contemporary praise and worship is drawing upon rock concert ritual, which in its downsides [music] is a cultural celebrity celebrity idolization. So, when we try to be relevant by adopting current cultural practices, we inevitably import these implicit cultural ideas at the same time.