RS4Christianity: Worship, Prayer and the Sacraments

Worship means showing love and reverence to God, for example through praise, prayer, readings and music. Christians worship in different ways, and most churches mix more than one.

• Liturgy is the set pattern of a service. Orthodox and Catholic liturgy has changed very little for centuries, which many believers value as a link with the early Church.
• AQA’s vocabulary list treats non-liturgical and informal worship as close. Keep them apart if you can: non-liturgical services are still planned, while informal worship is unplanned.
• Most Christians worship together on Sunday, the day Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus said that where two or three gather in his name, he is with them (Matthew 18:20).

Three forms of public worship, and private worship

Worship

Showing love and reverence to God, for example by praise, prayer and readings.

Liturgical worship

A service with a set order and set words.

Non-liturgical worship

A service with no fixed text, planned by the minister or leader.

Informal worship

Spontaneous worship, led as people feel moved, for example in charismatic churches or a Quaker meeting.

• Readings: most services include Bible readings. Many liturgical churches use a lectionary, a set list of readings for each Sunday, often an Old Testament reading, a Psalm, a New Testament letter and a Gospel.
• The Gospel is given special honour in liturgical churches: people stand for it, and in Catholic, Orthodox and some Anglican churches the Gospel book is carried in procession.
• The sermon: a talk explaining a Bible passage and how to live it out. In many Protestant churches the sermon is the centre of the service, because they see the Bible as the main way God speaks to people.
• Psalms and hymns: many songs and set prayers use Bible words. The Lord’s Prayer comes straight from the Gospels.
• Bible study groups meet in homes or churches during the week; individuals read the Bible privately as part of daily prayer.
• Christians believe the Bible is inspired by God, so reading it in worship is a way of hearing God’s word together.

Lectionary

A set list of Bible readings for each day or Sunday of the year.

Sermon

A talk in a service explaining a Bible passage and how to live it out.

Private worship is a believer praising and praying to God on their own, usually at home.

• Forms: personal prayer, reading the Bible, meditation, listening to or singing worship music, keeping a prayer journal.
• Catholics may pray the rosary (a string of beads used to count prayers such as the Hail Mary while thinking about events in Jesus’ life).
• Orthodox Christians often have an icon corner at home, with icons and a candle, and may repeat the Jesus Prayer (‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’).
• Many Protestants follow a daily Bible-reading plan or use ‘quiet times’ each morning.
• Why it matters: Jesus taught his followers to pray privately, not to be seen by others (Matthew 6:5-6), and he often went off alone to pray. Private worship builds a personal relationship with God and fits around daily life.
• Most Christians see private and public worship as working together: one personal, the other shared with the Church community.

Private worship

A believer worshipping God on their own.

Rosary

A string of beads Catholics use to count prayers while thinking about events in Jesus’ life.

Icon

A holy picture of Jesus, Mary or a saint, used in Orthodox prayer.

Prayer is communicating with God: speaking to God and, many Christians say, listening too.

• Some teachers remember the four types as ACTS.
• Set prayers are written prayers that many Christians share, such as the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Jesus Prayer and the short ‘collect’ prayers in Anglican services. They are easy to join in with, link Christians across the world and help when a person can’t find their own words.
• Informal prayer is prayer in a person’s own words, from the heart, at any time. It feels personal and can be about anything happening in someone’s life. It is common in Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, and in private prayer.
• Why prayer matters: it builds a relationship with God; Jesus prayed often and taught his followers how to pray; Paul told Christians to ‘Pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5:17, World English Bible); many Christians find comfort, strength and guidance in prayer.
• Jesus warned against empty words repeated for show (Matthew 6:7). Christians who use set prayers say the words must be meant, not just recited.

Prayer

Communicating with God, by speaking and listening.

Set prayer

A written prayer that many Christians share, such as the Lord’s Prayer.

Informal prayer

A spontaneous prayer in a person’s own words.

Intercession

Praying for other people.

The Lord’s Prayer (also called the ‘Our Father’) is the prayer Jesus taught his followers. In Matthew 6:9-13 it is part of the Sermon on the Mount; in Luke 11:1-4, a shorter version, Jesus gives it when a disciple asks him to teach them to pray.

• It begins by calling God ‘Our Father in heaven’ (World English Bible): God is close and loving like a parent, yet also holy and beyond the world.
• It asks for God’s kingdom to come and for God’s will to be done on earth, so Christians commit themselves to living God’s way.
• It asks for daily bread: trust that God provides what people need.
• It asks for forgiveness of sins in the same way as believers forgive others. Straight after the prayer, Jesus says that people who forgive others will be forgiven (Matthew 6:14-15).
• It asks to be kept from temptation and evil.
• Many churches add a closing line of praise (‘For yours is the Kingdom…’). It is not in the oldest copies of Matthew, so some Bibles and Catholic services treat it separately.

The five parts of the prayer

Lord’s Prayer

The prayer Jesus taught his disciples (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4), also called the ‘Our Father’.

A sacrament is a holy ritual with an outward, visible sign (such as water, bread or wine) of an inward, invisible gift of God’s grace. A well-known Church of England definition puts it in almost exactly these terms.

• Grace is God’s free and undeserved love and help. Christians who value the sacraments believe God gives grace through them.
• Catholic and Orthodox Christians: seven sacraments, which mark the whole of life: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, reconciliation (confession), anointing of the sick, marriage and holy orders (ordination).
• Most Protestants: two sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist, because Jesus commanded both (Matthew 28:19; Luke 22:19). The Church of England counts these two as the sacraments of the Gospel.
• Quakers and the Salvation Army have no outward sacraments. They believe God’s grace can be received directly, without rituals, and that the whole of life should be lived as a sacrament.
• Many Christians see the sacraments as a way to meet God, to receive strength for daily life and to belong to the Church.

Christian traditions recognise different numbers of sacraments

Sacrament

A holy ritual: an outward, visible sign of an inward, spiritual gift of God’s grace.

Grace

God’s free, undeserved love and help.

Baptism is the sacrament by which a person joins the Church. Water is the sign of being washed clean of sin and starting a new life with God.

• Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist in the River Jordan (Matthew 3:13-17), and after his resurrection he told his followers to make disciples, ‘baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28:19, World English Bible).
• At an infant baptism (Catholic, Anglican, Methodist): at the font, the priest or minister pours water over the baby’s head three times and makes the sign of the cross; parents and godparents promise to bring the child up as a Christian and to reject evil; the family may be given a lit candle as a sign of the light of Christ. Catholics also anoint the child with holy oil.
• Orthodox babies are fully immersed three times, then straight away anointed (chrismation) and given their first Communion.
• Meaning: Christians believe baptism brings a person into the family of the Church; many believe it washes away sin (for Catholics and Orthodox, original sin too); it is a new start; Paul taught that being baptised is like dying and rising with Christ (Romans 6:3-4).
• Confirmation: in Catholic and Anglican churches, people baptised as babies later confirm the promises for themselves, often as teenagers.

Baptism

The sacrament through which a person becomes a member of the Church, using water as a sign of being washed clean of sin.

Font

The basin that holds the water for baptism, often near a church’s entrance.

Godparents

Adults who promise to help bring up a baptised child as a Christian.

Confirmation

A rite in which a person baptised as a baby confirms the baptism promises for themselves.

• Believers’ baptism (Baptists, Pentecostals, many Evangelical churches): for people old enough to understand and choose for themselves. The person usually gives a testimony (an account of their faith), then is fully immersed in a pool called a baptistry, or in a river or the sea. Going under the water and coming up again stands for dying to an old life and rising to a new one with Christ (Romans 6:4).
• Churches that practise believers’ baptism often hold a service of dedication or thanksgiving for babies instead.

How the two kinds of baptism compare

Infant baptism

The baptism of babies and young children, with promises made by parents and godparents.

Believers’ baptism

Baptism by full immersion of people old enough to choose to follow Jesus.

Baptistry

A pool in some churches used for believers’ baptism by full immersion.

The Eucharist (from the Greek for ‘thanksgiving’) is the sacrament in which Christians share bread and wine to remember Jesus’ death and resurrection. It follows Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples, when he broke bread and said, ‘This is my body which is given for you. Do this in memory of me’ (Luke 22:19, World English Bible). Paul gives an early account in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

• Why it matters: Christians believe it unites them with Christ and with each other as the Body of Christ; it remembers Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross; many believe it gives grace and spiritual strength for the week ahead.
• For Catholics and Orthodox Christians it is the centre of worship, and Catholics are expected to attend Mass every Sunday.
• Quakers and the Salvation Army do not hold a Communion service at all.

Eucharist / Holy Communion

The sacrament in which Christians share bread and wine to remember Jesus’ death and resurrection; ‘Eucharist’ means thanksgiving.

Last Supper

Jesus’ final meal with his disciples before his crucifixion.

Iconostasis

The screen of icons in an Orthodox church separating the altar from the congregation.

• Transubstantiation (Catholic): at the consecration the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ in their substance, while still looking and tasting like bread and wine. The Mass makes present Jesus’ one sacrifice on the cross. Catholics point to Jesus’ words that whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood has eternal life (John 6:54).
• Real presence (Orthodox): Christ is truly present in the bread and wine, but this is a holy mystery that should not be explained by philosophy.
• Lutherans believe Christ is really present ‘in, with and under’ the bread and wine. GCSE books often call this consubstantiation, though Lutherans themselves don’t use the word.
• Many Anglicans and Methodists believe Christ is present spiritually to those who receive in faith. Anglicans hold a range of views, some close to the Catholic belief.
• Memorial (many Baptists and other Evangelicals): the bread and wine are symbols. The service is a way of remembering Jesus’ death, as he said, ‘Do this in memory of me’, and of renewing faith.
• These differences are one reason why Christians of different denominations don’t always share Communion together.

From physical presence to symbol: four beliefs

Transubstantiation

The Catholic belief that the bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood in substance.

Real presence

The belief that Christ is truly present in the bread and wine.

Consubstantiation

A GCSE label for the Lutheran belief that Christ is present in, with and under the bread and wine.

Memorial

The belief that Communion is a way of remembering Jesus’ death, with the bread and wine as symbols.