I grew up and spent most of my adult life in a church tradition (GARBC and Independent Baptist) that, at best, frowned on the word “liturgy.” The only time I heard it used was negatively.
“That’s a liturgical church, not a biblical one!”
“Liturgy is just cold, dead, formalism!”
And the like.
To be sure, there can be some truth to those characterizations. I eventually came to learn, however, that the problem wasn’t with the word “liturgy,” but with those who allowed their liturgy to be mere words and formal actions, a formulaic approach to the divine, if you will.
Technically, “liturgy” is “a series of events a church follows throughout a service, such as teaching, fellowship, communion, and prayers.” Our church follows a “liturgy”—as did the churches I grew up in. We just call it the “Order of Service.”
I also follow a certain “liturgy” in my daily morning devotions. The typical order is 1) Prayer (for insight/instruction/challenge/blessing) in the reading of the Bible; 2) Bible reading (including writing insights); 3) Hymn; 4) Prayer of thanksgiving, supplication, and intercession.
With all that as background, Jonathan Gibson’s Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship (Crossway Publishers, 2021) intrigued me and I secured a copy late last summer and began using it shortly thereafter.
The volume offers a liturgical structure for thirty-one days, but also provides other helpful material.
Gibson begins by laying a “Scriptural Foundation for Daily Worship.” He acknowledges that “there is no explicit command to have a daily time of worship as an individual or a family,” yet points out that “the habit is certainly assumed or implied in a number of places.” (p. 28) The practices employed in those places include “hearing from God in Scripture and responding to Him in prayer” and even rising early in the morning for such practices, as Jesus and others did.
With that as a very basic starting point, the bulk of Be Thou My Vision consists of the daily liturgies, following the same outline each day, but with different material. The outline is as follows:
Call to Worship: Hear God call you to worship through His Word
Scripture text
Adoration: Say or sing this praise to God
Either a form of the Doxology or a prayer of adoration
Reading of the Law: Hear God’s law as His will for your life
A brief passage of Scripture
Confession: Confess your sins to God
A written prayer of confession as a suggestive starting point
Assurance of Pardon: Receive these words of comfort from God
A brief passage of Scripture promising mercy, forgiveness, restoration
An Orthodox Creed of the Church: Confess what you believe about the Christian faith
For example, the Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, etc.
Praise: Say or sing this praise to God
For example, the Gloria Patri:
Glory be to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning,
is now and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Catechism: Receive this instruction from one of the church’s catechisms
In an appendix, Gibson provides both the Heidelberg and Westminster Shorter Catechisms. The reader, of course, could use one from his own denomination.
Prayer for Illumination: As you read His Word, ask God to enlighten your mind and heart.
A brief written prayer is offered, providing suggested content.
Scripture Reading: Read a portion of God’s Word
In another appendix, Gibson provides the M’Cheyne Bible Reading
Plan for reading through the Bible in a year.
Prayer for Intercession: As you make your requests to God, pray this prayer
A brief written prayer is offered, again providing suggested content.
Note: I’ve found reading—and even praying—written prayers to be helpful in broadening my prayer horizons, enriching my prayer life.
Lord’s Prayer: In closing, pray the words that Jesus taught us to pray.
While this can become mere rote recitation (each day’s liturgy ends
with the Lord’s Prayer), it doesn’t have to be if the different general categories
of request in the prayer stimulate you to offer specific requests.
Evaluation
I used Be Thou My Vision every day for a month and found my devotional time greatly enriched. After going through the volume once, I now use it in my Sunday morning devotions. I intend to return to daily use eventually, but I’ve avoided making repeated use of it month after month—I do not want the material to become so familiar that I simply read through it thoughtlessly.
Following up on the publication of Be Thou My Vision, Gibson has produced two similar “liturgy” volumes.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel: A Liturgy for Daily Worship from Advent to Epiphany came off the press in late autumn 2023, in time for the Christmas season. I greatly enjoyed the blessing of extending the spiritual celebration of Christmas beyond December 25 and will surely use the volume each year.
One of the delightful elements of this volume was discovering many hymns that had never been part of my Christmas celebration. I enjoyed searching for videos of these hymns and singing along—at least in my head!
More recently, Crossway published O Sacred Head, Now Wounded: A Liturgy for Daily Worship from Pascha to Pentecost. With a few minor variations, this volume follows the same format as the other two, but for 42 days. In addition, it offers suggested worship elements for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Resurrection Sunday, Ascension Sunday, and Pentecost. I will begin using O Sacred Head, Now Wounded the day after this review posts—and I’m greatly looking forward to it!
If you find your devotional time to be a bit stale and routine, I would recommend Be Thou My Vision to enliven the daily season with the Lord and His Word. I am confident you, too, will find it beneficial, enriching, and rewarding.
Each of these volumes is available from the following sources:
Christianbook.com (best price at time of post)
