Worship in the United Methodist Church draws from both the Catholic and Protestant heritage. The denomination contains both strong liturgical and charismatic movements. Worship today is characterized by emphasis on the Christian year, frequent Communion, use of the arts, and commitment to inclusive language and women in liturgical leadership.

The United Methodist Church has a complex heritage that has predisposed it toward an eclectic style of worship and given it an openness to influences from many Christian traditions and contemporary worship renewal movements. The denomination was formed in 1968 by the union of the Methodist Church with the much smaller Evangelical United Brethren Church, the latter having been formed in 1946 by the union of the Evangelical Church and the United Brethren in Christ.

The Methodist Church arose from a movement within the Church of England led by a priest named John Wesley (1703-1791). When this movement took root in America and organized itself as the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, Wesley sent an adaptation of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer that he entitled Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America. In a letter accompanying this service book he wrote, “I also advise the elders to administer the supper of the Lord on every Lord’s day” (John Wesley’s Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America, with intro. by James F. White [Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House and United Methodist Board of Higher Education, 1984], ii)—this at a time when quarterly Communion was the norm in Anglican parishes. On the other hand, Wesley frequently led informal services characterized by hymn singing and extemporaneous prayer and testimonies. In the letter with his Sunday Service he also wrote that the American Methodists “are now at full liberty, simply to follow the scriptures and the primitive church. And we judge it best that they should stand fast in that liberty, wherewith God has so strangely made them free” (Ibid., iii).

In 1792 the American Methodists, led by Francis Asbury (1745-1816), officially abandoned Wesley’s Sunday Service as the norm for weekly worship, substituting a simple set of directions for a Service of the Word that reflected the Puritan and free-church worship style of the American frontier. The texts in the Sunday Service were, however, retained with adaptations for the Service of the Table, baptism, matrimony, the burial of the dead, and ordinations. The Lord’s Supper became an occasional service, sometimes monthly and sometimes quarterly. This reduction in frequency was due to a severe shortage of ordained elders that caused most services to be conducted by lay preachers, the influence of Puritan worship patterns prevailing in America, and the uncongeniality of the printed text used for the Service of the Table to frontier worship.

At about the same time movements similar to Methodism were arising among German Americans. The Evangelical Church was formed under the leadership of a Lutheran lay preacher named Jacob Albright (1759-1808). The United Brethren in Christ organized under the leadership of a Reformed pastor named William Philip Otterbein (1726-1813) and a Mennonite preacher named Martin Boehm (1725-1812). These denominations adapted their inherited traditions to the Puritan and free-church worship styles of the American frontier.

The specific historical context of the traditions represented by the United Methodist Church is highly significant, for in it one can see the basis of the varied influences on worship in the denomination today. Each tradition arose as a reformation within Protestantism in the eighteenth century rather than as part of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. They give United Methodists roots in all four major branches of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation—Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptist/Mennonite. All were shaped in their formative years by Puritan and free-church traditions that had grown up between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, while at the same time inheriting Wesley’s desire to follow the early church and broader catholic traditions.

In the early nineteenth century the churches that now form the United Methodist Church generally worshiped in a frontier style; but during the century that followed they increasingly worshiped in church buildings, with organs and choirs, and with orders of worship that included acts such as anthems, recitation of the Apostles’ Creed, and responsive readings.

From the 1920s through the middle years of the twentieth century pulpit-centered auditoriums designed for preaching evangelism gave way to altar-centered nave-and-chancel “sanctuaries” designed for the worship of a God who was “high and lifted up”; and services increasingly became free adaptations of Episcopal Morning Prayer and Sermon—a relatively formal service of praise and prayer followed by announcements and offering and concluding with the sermon (framed by hymns).

Since the union of 1968 the United Methodist Church has moved dramatically in the direction of the ecumenical worship renewal. Its Commission on Worship (after 1972 the Section on Worship of its General Board of Discipleship) conducted twenty years of study and development that led to the adoption of The United Methodist Hymnal: Book of United Methodist Worship in 1989. The Sunday services in the hymnal follow the ecumenical pattern of Entrance, Word, Table, and Dismissal. The full eucharistic pattern of Word and Table is treated as normative, but provision is made for the great majority of congregations that do not celebrate the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s Day. Within this pattern, there is a wide choice of old and new prayer texts and hymns, with encouragements given for extemporaneous and spontaneous praise and prayer. The new texts for the Lord’s Supper are far more joyous than the old ones and celebrate all God’s mighty acts in Christ rather than Christ’s death alone. The services of daily prayer, baptism, marriage, death and resurrection likewise follow ecumenical worship patterns and understandings.

Whereas lectionaries were rarely used a generation ago, now the ecumenical Common Lectionary is officially endorsed and is used at least some of the time in the majority of congregations.

Also in the last generation there has been increasing affirmation of the diversity within the denomination. Patterns representing every period of the denomination’s history survive and often flourish. A growing number of congregations celebrate the Lord’s Supper weekly, though usually not at the main Sunday service. There is both a strong liturgical movement and a strong charismatic renewal movement. Such practices as spontaneous thanksgivings and intercessions, clapping, hand-raising, the exchange of the peace, chanting, drama, sacred dance, and use of visual arts are found in many congregations. African-American, Asian-American, Native American, and Hispanic worship traditions are encouraged. Sensitivity to women’s concerns is growing under the leadership of an increasing number of female pastors. All this is affirmed and facilitated by the new hymnal and also by a supplemental book of worship for planners and leaders of worship published in 1992.

As the denomination looks to the future, there is widespread openness to the leading of the Spirit. An increasingly large proportion of pastors have studied and been trained in worship in seminary. Additional resources and training opportunities are offered each year. Joy increasingly pervades worship services, reflecting a firm trust in the living God through the risen Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.