What Can Evangelicals Learn from Catholic Worship?

On Good Friday, I visited my son, a sophomore at Notre Dame. We went to the Good Friday service at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, on Notre Dame’s campus. It was packed, standing room only, fifteen minutes before the service started. I was struck by several things that Roman Catholics do in their worship services that evangelicals could learn from.

(Keep in mind, over the past fifteen years of being an author and speaker, I’ve attended worship services in literally hundreds of churches, somewhere between four and five hundred in all, so I think I have a pretty broad understanding of evangelical worship. When I make generalizations about evangelical worship, I’m not referring to just one or two churches.)

One of the first things that struck me took place in the first ten seconds. Just about every evangelical church worship service—even on Good Friday—begins with a guitar. This may be a matter of personal preference, but I think the singularly worst way to start a Good Friday service is by strumming a guitar. Because most worship leaders are musicians first, it rarely occurs to them to start out with something that doesn’t have them front and center, and second, doesn’t have them holding their instrument of choice.

At the basilica at Notre Dame, the “worship leaders” began in the back, slowly making their way up front, holding a cross, with a deep bass drum keeping pace. It was an appropriately sober and somber beginning that took you out of your day and thrust you into the reality of the sacredness of Good Friday. Nobody was focusing on any worship leader; our thoughts were drawn to the cross making its way forward.

Secondly, I was astonished by the breadth of Scripture shared during the service. Various people read, chanted, or sang at least four, and possibly five, full chapters of Scripture. Evangelicals take pride in our stance on the authority of Scripture over tradition, but most evangelical worship services barely reference Scripture at all. Instead, we are beholden to cliché-ridden songs, often written by the worship leader him/herself. There is a commendable humility in a form of worship that assumes God’s thoughts are more powerful and more important than our own.

Third, the priest gave a homily that was precisely 12 minutes long (yes, I timed it). I couldn’t tell you what his point was. The language was flowery, delivered dramatically, but if there was a compelling thread, I couldn’t find it. What I found tremendously refreshing, however, is that the priest’s name wasn’t listed in the bulletin. He wasn’t even introduced. I’ve told my son that I may be held account on the Day of Judgment for all the time wasted on this earth as church members had to listen to me being introduced. I always tell churches that shorter is better, but the fact that the priest’s name wasn’t mentioned at all spoke of how the message is more important than the messenger. That’s another refreshing change.

Other elements were singularly Catholic—venerating “the wood of the cross,” making the Mass the center piece, but here’s the thing: when we left, our minds were filled with what Christ did on Good Friday. We weren’t impressed with any individual’s musical talent or any speaker’s oratory. The only one who impressed us was Christ.

In evangelical worship, two individuals are almost solely responsible for a “good” service (as defined by those who attend)—the worship leader and the teacher. If one or both are “on,” people will be satisfied. At the service at the basilica, no one individual could either make the service succeed or doom it to fail. There really wasn’t a central worship leader, not in an evangelical sense, and the teaching time was only 12 minutes out of 100.

Personally, I like a longer sermon—especially, one with a clear point. And of course, as evangelicals, my son and I didn’t participate in the Eucharist. But here’s what evangelicals can learn from worship, Roman Catholic style:

• Let’s break out of our guitar rut, if only for one week out of the year. It’s possible to lead worship without strumming six strings.
• Is it always necessary to have the worship leader front and center, all eyes focused on him/her? Can’t we find a way to facilitate a focus on Jesus?
• Isn’t it possible that hearts would be informed, transformed, and blessed by more Scripture, and less bad poetry put to music?
• Has the teaching aspect of evangelical worship created a problem of personalities, in which the success of the service is largely dependent on one individual?
• How can we model more humility in our worship so that, when people leave, they think more about God and less about his servants?