Shifting Liturgy

Fifty years ago, a standard order of service in a Congregational Church might have looked like this:

Hymn / Call to Worship / Hymn / Prayer / Lord’s Prayer / Hymn / Reading / Gloria / Reading / Anthem / Prayer / Offertory / Hymn / Sermon / Hymn / Prayer / Benediction 

It is sometimes called a “sandwich” service, for all the layers! By the 1990s, about one-third of these items had been removed or merged with others. Twenty years later, in my own ministry, about half were gone -- and special items, which are virtually non-existent above, were common. In fact special items were common in early Congregationalism. OBSERVATION: I think that simplification was important to the life of the Church, as well as the added special items.