A Protestant Worship Manifesto

This manifesto summarizes the themes of twentieth-century worship renewal and calls the Protestant community to action around twelve themes acceptable to the majority of worship leaders in the mainline Protestant tradition. A new Reformation of Word and sacrament is occurring in North American Protestantism. Yet so unnoticed has this movement been that it lacks a name. This inconspicuousness contrasts with the highly publicized liturgical reforms within Roman Catholicism since Vatican II. My purpose in this discussion is to delineate the contours of the movement, in the conviction that, although they are unpublicized, the goals for the reform of Protestant worship have reached a stage of consensus. In the absence of a document such as the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican II, this Protestant consensus is elusive. Indeed, it could be argued that the Constitution itself has provided the agenda for Protestant as well as Roman Catholic reform. But the Constitution dealt wit…