Christian Reformed Churches

Worship in the Christian Reformed Church centers on the sermon but also emphasizes metrical psalms and the participation of families in worship. Worship renewal draws from Catholic, evangelical, and charismatic sources. There is a growing concern to celebrate Communion more frequently and to incorporate praise music at appropriate places in worship. The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) began in 1857 as a small group of Dutch immigrants with a worship style inherited from the sixteenth-century Dutch Reformed leader Peter Datheen. Today there are approximately 300, 000 members in 900 congregations. The psalter, to which were appended the required liturgical forms for the sacraments, was the effective worship book for these churches. The Dutch Genevan Psalter was used until 1914, when the 1912 Psalter was adopted. The CRC has never officially adopted any one form of worship. Considerable discretion has always been left to the elders of each congregation. Yet for the first hundred years…