Protestant Worship

Different Protestant denominations worship in different ways as part of their Sunday service, but there are also some common features to all. For example, worship centres on the bible and most churches include hymns or worship songs in the service. However, there are many differences. For example, Baptists believe that when they worship through praise and prayer they are offering themselves to God in thanks for His love.^[1] For the Church of England, public worship focuses on praising God through preaching, bible reading, prayer and music, especially in the Holy Communion service where people receive the bread and wine. Because this is liturgical worship, the words and actions to be followed are set out in the Book of Common Prayer. The iconoclasm that characterised the Reformation was the belief that the promise of salvation through God's gracious forgiveness is most directly and clearly communicated through the scripture—preached, taught, studied, and memorised. Protestants, believing that Roman Catholics had largely wandered from the centrality of the Bible, removed what they saw as distracting and superstitious paintings, statues, and other images that had been substituted for God's word.^[2] Protestant worship space, as a result, is in general characterised by a plainer aesthetic than the space of Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox Christians. There are differences between Protestants in this area. Protestants view the sacraments differently than Catholics, and most have just two sacraments—baptism and the communion—rather than seven.^[2] Again, this differs: some, including Baptists, do not call baptism and the Lord's Supper sacraments. They refer to them instead as ordinances.^[2]