Presbyterian Church (usa)

The Presbyterian Church (USA) is heir to a formal worship style based on Calvin's worship reforms and a more free worship style based on seventeenth century Puritans. This mixed heritage has allowed the Presbyterian Church (USA) in its 1989 Directory for Worship to recover many ancient sacred acts while allowing for expressions from ethnic sources. The Presbyterian Church (USA) view these sacred acts or sacraments as demonstrating to the worshiper that all time, all space, and all matter are potential vehicles of God's grace. The entire worship service is filled with praise for God and with the presence of Christ. The worship of the Presbyterian Church (USA) traces its lineage back through John Calvin and the Genevan Reformation to the early church. The rather formal worship of Calvin, which included the singing of psalms, canticles, the creed, and the Lord's Prayer, was joined by a free worship style of the seventeenth-century Puritans and free-church Independents. These two traditi…