Courses

This course is designed to help you as ministry students and researchers to approach a particular kind of worship tradition on its own terms, as a meaningful theological act, in order that congregants will be allowed to engage more fully with their own worship practices. The end goal of liturgical theology is not only to understand, but to worship, and so liturgical theologians must be worshippers themselves.

Knowing

• You will become familiar with major ideas and thinkers in liturgical theology.
• You will be able to articulate how liturgical theology relates to your own worship tradition.
• You will learn and employ a basic methodological framework for research in liturgical theology.

Being

•  You will be challenged to relate your academic work to your life as a believer, taking a wholistic approach to scholarship, ministry, and faith.
• You will be challenged to approach research as a worshipper, assuming a from-the-pews perspective in your research and writing, meaning that your scholarly writing will involve personal vulnerability and theological reflection.
• You will be encouraged to reflect deeply on the Lord’s work in your life and in your congregation. While your final paper may involve recommendations for reforming worship in some way, the ideal outcome of this course would be awe and thanksgiving.

Doing

• You will learn to relate your own worship practices to those studied by leading liturgical theologians.
• You will be able to research, and discern key aspects of the theology that is enacted in your church’s worship practices, and you will be able to articulate this theology to others.
• You will be able to write in a practical and scholarly way about how you and/or your congregation might enter more meaningfully into these practices.