Although rooted in the Holiness tradition, Nazarene worship has been influenced in its historical development by the revivalistic approach to worship. Revivalism has been directed toward both initial salvation and complete sanctification. Recently Nazarene worship has been moving in two directions: one segment of the church is seeking to redeem its Wesleyan and Anglican roots while another segment is striving to displace the revivalistic form with a praise-and-worship style.

Revolution has recently come to corporate worship in the American Holiness Movement. Historically, John Wesley and some of his American interpreters shaped the theology of the movement and nineteenth-century revivalism shaped its corporate worship. But lately, many have come to believe that the revivalist influence is as much a liability to the Wesleyan heritage as it is an asset. Corporate worship patterns developed under the influence of nineteenth-century revivalism provide a very effective vehicle for proclaiming the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification as an instantaneously granted “second work of grace.” But they are severely limited with respect to the other critical point in the Wesleyan understanding of Christian perfection, the point of encouraging and developing growth in grace.

Increasingly, it is being recognized that corporate worship must move beyond a solely evangelistic aim and express the basic Christian disposition to adore and praise God, to learn of God, and to learn of life in God.

Many, however, encouraged by the administrative leadership within the movement and by its corps of itinerant evangelists, retain and promote as the ideal for corporate worship a stereotype of the late nineteenth-century camp meeting service. The features of such worship include: spirited singing of gospel songs; fervent, spontaneous prayers said aloud by many; shouts of “Amen,” “Hallelujah,” and so on; spontaneous personal testimony; excited preaching that need not hew closely to the biblical text; and “altar services” in which the mourners’ bench is lined with sobbing penitents seeking either justification or entire sanctification.

The liveliness of such services is almost always attributed to the presence of the Holy Spirit, who is there, it is believed, to help people distinguish clearly between sanctity and sinfulness, to determine which class they belong to, and to act accordingly.

This boisterous ideal has tended to shut out sustained contemplation of either the divine or human nature and generally it has inhibited nurture. And, admittedly, it has tended to be susceptible to sheer emotionalism. The standard of this model is applied even to sacramental services, which are evaluated in terms of degrees of overt emotional demonstration. The safeguards against evaluating all things by emotional criteria alone are putatively located in the ultimate authority of Scripture and in rather rigorous behavioral codes. But it is true that one would seldom hear commended as a model a service characterized by a quiet, thoughtful, generally unemotional spirit.

Up until the mid-1960s the pattern of Sunday morning corporate worship varied little from congregation to congregation across the Holiness movement. That pattern is still common: opening hymn (choir and minister already in place); gospel song; pastoral prayer; announcements and offering (piano or organ offertory); choir number; gospel song; “special” music; sermon; benediction. Only one biblical passage would be read—the sermon text, immediately prior to the sermon. The pastoral prayer would be spontaneous or extemporaneous. “Read prayers” would have been considered quite inappropriate. The benediction would, more often than not, be an extension of the sermon—recapitulation, additional material, or suggested application. Seldom was it Trinitarian or even biblical; almost never was there an ascription in place of a benediction.

Processionals and recessionals were a rarity, but not unknown. However, they were simply matters of getting a choir into and out of the loft and served no liturgical function. Preludes were understood to be mood setters, but usually accompanied much socializing in the pews. The idea of silence in the moments before a service was considered to be of secondary importance, and might even be opposed. Hospitality came first and hence, socializing.

Universally until the 1960s, and still quite commonly thereafter, the Sunday evening service was constructed of the same elements as that of Sunday morning, with some exceptions: the gospel songs were chosen for their liveliness and their evangelistic content, there would often be more in the way of “special” music, and the sermon would almost invariably lead to an altar call, a call to conversion or to entire sanctification.

The heart of this model, the lively fervor or “excitement” described as the “presence of the Holy Spirit,” has remained the desideratum for the past 125 years. But since the 1960s, the means of achieving or sustaining it have changed. As the movement has become increasingly middle class, the older practices of spontaneous shouting, testifying, and praying aloud simultaneously have been curtailed. As a result, much of the “burden” for maintaining the desideratum has fallen on music, and music has also been assigned the task of mood control.

Consequently, in many places, direct congregational participation is reduced to the singing of choruses and snippets of hymns and gospel songs surrounded by elements of performance and entertainment in which members of the congregation are mere spectators. The song leader has become a sort of emcee, responsible for keeping up “a good spirit” with a line of pious commentary, observation, and introductions. The use of lush stereo tapes in the accompaniment of local musicians furthers the mood of performance and entertainment.

While very few in the Holiness movement would want to discard evangelism as an essential purpose of corporate worship, the dominance of the evangelistic model has met with increasing resistance. In many places there is a revolutionary concern to make a place for adoration, contemplation, and nurture. This concern, often only dimly perceived and poorly articulated, has not yet universally removed evangelism from its place of priority, but it has in some places and is showing signs of doing so quite widely.

Here the historical tendency of the Holiness movement to reject out of hand any worship patterns and perspectives other than its own (even failing to recognize its indebtedness to Methodism and Anglicanism) has generally left it without the basic experiences and perspectives that would permit and encourage careful discussion of change. On the one hand, it has been sharply critical of the freedom of the Pentecostals, and, on the other hand, it has declared the traditional forms to be “cold, dead, and formal.” Even where it has retained older rituals, as in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, it has developed a studied offhandedness in celebrating them, for the worst of all sins in public worship is “formalism.”

So it is that two distinct new approaches to worship have been developed, in addition to the older pattern and its modern mutation, already noted. Perhaps most common are those approaches for which the word contemporary holds high value, and which are concerned primarily with psychological or aesthetic satisfaction. The language and experience of the social sciences and the entertainment industry are given high credence. The patterns chosen are those of the gospel sing or those of the televangelists, in which the aim appears to be an emotional tone—a sense of having “gotten in touch with God” or a sense of having “refocused life,” not usually evangelism. The music, especially, is turned toward self-affirmation.

In these patterns, the choir will often begin the service with a rousing contemporary chorus of praise which often repeats a biblical verse and in which the congregation will be asked to join on a second go-round. This will be followed by an informal word of greeting from the pastor or the song leader and often an invitation to “turn around and shake hands with those near you.” Then will come another chorus or a gospel song, or even one of the livelier hymns, followed by yet another chorus or gospel song, a “prayer chorus” and “prayer time.”

“Prayer time,” which is usually directed by the pastor against a background of “mood music” is principally given over to petitions, most of them having to do with physical and emotional health and material desires. It is usually closed with the choir or the choir and congregation singing a chorus.

The mood then rapidly shifts as visitors are greeted, announcements are made, and various activities are vigorously promoted. The offering is then taken as an offertory is either played or sung. The offertory prayer is quite informal. It is always spontaneous and is usually prayed by one of the ushers. This is usually followed by a “choir special,” which, in turn, is followed by a chorus or a verse or two of a hymn or gospel song by the congregation. If the offertory music was instrumental, there will now usually be a vocal “special.”

Then comes the sermon, almost always delivered in conversational tones. While there is some tendency now among those following this model to attempt to fit the music to the theme of the sermon, ordinarily it will not show any clear relationship. In fact, ordinarily the text will not be known until the pastor reads it as a preface to his sermon. The service is closed according to the pattern set much earlier, but the aim will not be clearly evangelistic. There is often no clear aim beyond the psychological one of feeling affirmed.

At the same time some are reaching back to the Methodist and Anglican roots of the Holiness movement and seeking to reclaim more traditional forms of worship. These give high credence to the language and experience of the historic traditions. They choose patterns that aim at recognition of the sovereign God and at thanksgiving for the redemption brought to us, in our unworthiness, by Christ. They emphasize the dialogical character of worship, with the use of spoken and sung response to Scripture reading, to prayer, to the sermon, and to the offering.

Especially noteworthy is the increasing use of the lectionary for both public reading of Scripture and sermon text, of the Lord’s Prayer, and of congregational response to prayer and Scripture reading. All of this, in turn, has led to more careful observance of the high holy days in the liturgical year besides Christmas and Easter. It has also led to a redirecting of the role of music—from mood-setter and means of personal testimony to a form of active participation in worship itself.

The order of service itself is essentially a simplified form of the older Anglican service of Morning Prayer with sermon. Also characteristic is a return to more frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The ritual followed here is usually a simplified version of that devised for the American Methodists by John Wesley, with strong emphasis on penitence now being replaced by an emphasis on solemn celebration and thanksgiving. For all of this, the twentieth-century hymnody of the Holiness movement has proven inadequate, so it is quite common to find bulletin inserts containing older hymns, especially those of Charles Wesley.

Almost all of the major Holiness denominations are currently creating new hymnals. This is being done with careful attention to “what the people [seem to] want,” and only minimal consultation with theologians and biblical scholars. This very deliberate policy can only strengthen the so-called contemporary style of worship and further move the unique theological and experiential identity of the Holiness movement in a mainline evangelical direction. On the other hand, the publication of the Wesleys’ hymns and worship aids point to a reviving of the liturgical spirit that gave birth to Wesleyanism.

The Holiness movement has not been self-critical or reflective concerning its patterns of worship, and has therefore not established worship commissions or even mandated courses in corporate worship for its clergy. And, at the moment, the signs of change are to be seen in local congregations, not denominational offices or schools.