Alternative Worship In The Liturgical Tradition

Liturgical traditions can still offer great flexibility for integrating into worship a broad spectrum of church ministries. This entry describes a congregation in which this flexibility is demonstrated. Worship at St. Gregory Nyssen Episcopal Church in San Francisco encourages participation from everyone. Such worship has an evangelical emphasis, since it helps to spread the gospel because it shows the gospel. Participatory worship embodies Jesus' distinctive teaching that God's presence now comes to all and calls for an active response from each of us. Rather than trim its liturgical sails in order to appeal to contemporary secular culture, the church, instead, encourages its worshipers to participate in popular worship from diverse traditions, to an extent that many had thought they could not. St. Gregory's makes lay ministries accessible to all, including the elderly, the youth, the physically impaired, and people entering the church for the first time. For example, lay people r…