As someone who has been mostly in churches that don’t employ traditional liturgy since I’ve been a Christian, I would go even a little further, however, and argue that ALL worship styles use liturgy; we are, by inescapable fact, creatures of routine and habit. This is liturgy. For one congregation, it might mean using the Book of Common Prayer. For another, it might mean singing the chorus to cheesy praise songs 4x each time through. But we all do the same things over and over again each week. Therefore, I’d contend that the choice is not between liturgical vs. non-liturgical. Rather, it is between good, biblical, helpful liturgy, and cheap, unedifying liturgy! Now, just to be clear, I’m not saying Anglican/traditional is always the first, and contemporary style is always the second–I do in fact think that spontaneity should be included often. But perhaps a category shift here might help in the debate. Also, the “boring” factor you allude to–the same words over and over each week–could probably be avoided with some simple creativity (i.e. include the congregation, have different readers each week, have several liturical formulas to shuffle between, etc.)

Great post!