Variety in worship

I’ve mentioned that I’ve gone to St. David’s here in Denton on occasion. But this past Sunday was my first time to make their 10:30am service. And I was surprised!

It was quite the service. There were candles in procession. There were a lot of sung prayers, which I like. The rector sang much of the Eucharist prayer. They even rang a bell at the consecration. No, these are not anglo-catholics, at least I don’t think so! And there was lots of choir and organ led music. I liked the traditional set up where the choir is singing to you from both sides as you walk up to the altar.

Now, this is the same church that had almost no music during their Ash Wednesday service. In fact, it seems every time I go there, their service is a little different. This was a fifth Sunday, so they incorporated Morning Prayer into the service. For the Fourth of July, they used the 1662 BCP! The rector clearly loves church history and liturgy, and that’s reflected in the different forms of worship at St. David’s.

But even beyond St. David’s, I’ve been impressed with the variety of worship forms and styles in Anglican churches. To be honest, a concern of mine has been that with liturgical worship, with its set prayers and such, I would eventually grow, well, bored of it. But my (albeit limited) experience has been that there is more variety and creativity of worship in orthodox liturgical churches than in orthodox non-liturgical churches.

You would think the opposite would be the case, but not so. Granted, liturgical worship is newer and more inherently exciting to me, so my perception might be colored by that.

But do you all have any ideas as to why liturgical worship often has more variety and creativity than non-liturgical worship? I’m scratching my head about this myself.