In New Book, Ed Phillips Offers Method for Assessing Order of Worship

Associate Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology L. Edward Phillips has published his eighth book. 

In The Purpose, Pattern, and Character of Worship (Abingdon Press), Phillips acknowledges that within the broad range of Christianity there are diverse understandings of what makes for “good worship.” He further notes that many Protestant denominations’ lack of an overall authority for the structure of worship—such as the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer—has led congregations to develop a “conflation of patterns,” which often creates incoherent worship. By identifying discrete characteristics and expressions of contemporary western Protestants, Phillips develops a typology of Christian worship to provide a method of assessing the decisions of congregations and leaders in forming and changing their orders of worship. 

Phillips is editor of the journal Liturgy and an ordained elder in the Memphis Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.