Thrive

Dr. Winfield Bevins

Liturgical Mission

Today on the podcast, I’m joined by Dr. Winfield Bevins, an internationally recognized author, teacher, and coach. He is Director of Church Planting at Asbury Seminary and co-founder of Healthy Rhythms Coaching , which is a global online coaching and training platform to help leaders thrive. He has helped train leaders in over twenty nations and six continents. He frequently speaks at conferences, seminaries, and universities on a variety of topics.

His writing and research explores the intersection of tradition, innovation, and the future of the church. He is the author of several books including Ever Ancient Ever New: The Allure of Liturgy for a New Generation (Zondervan, 2019) and Marks of a Movement (Zondervan, 2019), and his most recent, which releases today Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Sake of the World .

In today’s conversation we talk about how Winfield first encountered liturgy and the journey he has been on since then, and, of course, his new book Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Life of the World.

Let’s listen!

*The views expressed in this podcast don’t necessarily reflect the views of Asbury Seminary.

Dr. Winfield Bevins

Director of Church Planting at Asbury Seminary

Winfield Bevins is an internationally recognized author, teacher, and coach. He is director of Church Planting at Asbury Theological Seminary and co-founder of Healthy Rhythms Coaching, which is a global online coaching and training platform to help leaders thrive. He has helped train leaders in over twenty nations and six continents. He frequently speaks at conferences, seminaries, and universities on a variety of topics.

He has a doctorate from Southeastern Seminary and is finishing a Ph.D. program at Aberdeen University. His writing and research explores the intersection of tradition, innovation, and the future of the church.

He is the author of several books including Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Sake of the World (InterVarsity Press, 2022), Ever Ancient Ever New: The Allure of Liturgy for a New Generation (Zondervan, 2019) and Marks of a Movement (Zondervan, 2019)Winfield’s work has been featured in various outlets such as Christianity Today, Publishers Weekly, Outreach Magazine, and Religious News Service.

Winfield is also an award-winning artist. Over the past decade, he has helped start numerous arts initiatives, including a non-profit art gallery and studio. In 2021, he was commissioned to paint an icon for the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in honor of his visit to the USA. He is the resident artist for Drinklings Coffee.

He and his wife Kay have three beautiful girls Elizabeth, Anna Belle, and Caroline and live in the Bluegrass state of Kentucky. When he is not teaching or writing, you’ll likely find him hiking, kayaking or painting.

Heidi Wilcox

Host of the Thrive Podcast

Writer, podcaster, and social media manager, Heidi Wilcox shares stories of truth, justice, healing and hope. She is best known as the host of Spotlight, (especially her blooper reel) highlighting news, events, culturally relevant topics and stories of the ways alumni, current students and faculty are attempting something big for God. If you can’t find her, she’s probably cheering on her Kentucky Wildcats, enjoying a cup of coffee, reading or spending time with her husband, Wes.

Transcript

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast. I’m your host Heidi E. Wilcox, bringing you conversations with authors, thought leaders, and people just like you who are looking to connect where your passion meets the world’s deep means. Today on the podcast I’m joined by Dr. Winfield Bevins, an internationally recognized author, teacher, and coach. He is director of church planting at Asbury Seminary and co-founder of Healthy Rhythms Coaching, which is a global online coaching and training platform to help leaders thrive.
He has helped train leaders in over 20 nations and six continents, and frequently speaks at conferences, seminaries, and universities on a variety of topics. His writing and research explores the intersection of tradition, innovation, and the future of the church. He has authored several books, including Ever Ancient, Ever New: The Allure of Liturgy for a New Generation, and Marks of a Movement, and his most recent book, which releases today, Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Life of the World. In today’s conversation, we talk about how Winfield first encountered liturgy and the journey he has been on since then, and of course his new book, Liturgical Mission. Let’s listen.
Winfield, welcome back to the Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast. I’m so happy to have you here today.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Hey, it’s great to be here with you. Thanks for having me, Heidi.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So it’s always good to talk to you. Today, we’re going to be, among other things, talking about your new book that releases September 20th, Liturgical Mission: the Work of the People for the Life of the World. So I’m really excited to get into that. But before we do that, just want to get to know you a little bit in case listeners haven’t listened to the previous podcast that you’ve been on as well. How did you first encounter the liturgy?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. I think some people come at the liturgy in two different ways. Some people experience it. They’ll visit a liturgical church. They’re liturgical curious, I call them. Maybe they’re coming from a low church evangelical or Pentecostal Charismatic background. And just they’re curious, and they’ll go visit a church. Others will kind of read their way into it. They’ll kind of read about liturgy, maybe stumble across it through church history or sorts.
And that was kind of my experience. I came across the Book of Common Prayer and kind of started using some of the liturgical resources, kind of my own private prayer time. And I was drawn toward the Eucharist, in particular, the Lord’s Supper. In the background I’d been raised in, the Lord’s Supper is, what, once a year, maybe quarterly or something. And I just felt like that was wrong. There was something in me that longed for regular encounter of the Lord’s Supper and the Eucharist.
And that kind of led me toward the liturgy. And in discovering, it was like, wow, there’s a whole treasure chest here of riches that actually form us for how we live our daily lives and do mission. There’s some other things, I discovered other elements like the creeds were really helpful for me in terms of succinct summaries of the Christian faith. But, yeah, kind of I would describe it as I read my way in. I’d never even really attended a liturgical service.
I will say this. In seminary, I did stumble in on a Wednesday afternoon to a little liturgical noon Eucharistic service. And there were four little old ladies in there and the minister. And I was like, what is going on? And a lady helped me kind of fumble through the prayer book. And it was kind of foreign to me, but I knew that there was something powerful happening. There was something meaningful that was missing in my kind of outward missional kind of church planting experience.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Because you’ve described yourself, I think, as from a low church background kind of. So then it’s interesting to me now, the low church background, and now you’re writing a book about liturgy. So what did you find that the liturgy had to offer you that you needed?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, I mean, it is fascinating because I’ve actually researched this. So one of my earlier books was Ever Ancient, Ever New: The Allure of Liturgy for a New Generation, which we may have done a podcast on.

Heidi Wilcox:
We might have. Yeah.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And I think one of the things I’ve discovered is I’m not alone. I think for some people it might look like an isolated phenomenon, but there are, I mean, thousands, maybe millions of people around the world, North America, that are hungering for depth and substance and formation. And like I described, maybe they’re in a low church background that doesn’t really value the sacraments, and they’re longing for all that the church has to offer.
And the way I describe people that maybe are coming from a more kind of free church, or evangelical, or even Charismatic Spirit filled background, it’s not a rejection of those things. It’s a fuller embrace for all that the church has to offer. It’s like a treasure chest that belongs to us all. It’s like, yes, let’s have the preaching of the word. Hallelujah. I’ll get happy clappy with you, but give me the Lord’s table. And I describe it in the book as a lot of people, historically, call it word and table. Where you have preaching, but then you have the Lord’s table each week and they go together. They’re not diametrically opposed. And good preaching should prepare and move people toward the Lord’s table.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. You talked about in the book too, that your own church planting experience, you were also exploring more of the liturgy with them and going on the journey with them. Can you talk to me a little bit about what that looked like?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, I mean, so that was the fun, challenging part is, yes, it kind of started with my own personal journey of longing and looking for roots. Looking for, again, kind of a more sacramental expression. So we had planted a church plant, served a bunch of surfers on an island. And all these people came to faith, and it was like what are we going to do with them? How are we going to make disciples? And so a lot of it really happened boots on the ground. The church took the journey with us, with me and my wife, and we just kind of journeyed together. And it started, one of the ways we implement, this is where I tell churches, how do we even begin if we’re wanting to engage more in liturgy, it started with the church year, the church calendar.
And the liturgy is connected to this annual rhythm that’s called the church year. So a lot of us know about Easter and Christmas, but there’s actually a season leading up to Easter and Christmas. So the season of Advent prepares you for Christmas. So Christmas doesn’t just happen. There’s a season of watching and waiting and preparing your heart. And the cool thing is for families and churches, there are practices that you can do in the home.
So the way I see the church calendar, it’s like this annual discipleship rhythm of following Jesus through the church year. In the season of Lent, it’s 40 days of fasting and praying, preparing your heart for the resurrection of Jesus. What could be better than that? Okay. 40 days, I’m going to just commit to just seeking the face of Jesus. Praise God. We can all get around that. And those rhythms are connected to the liturgy. They’re connected to kind of a more historic understanding of Christianity. One of the things I kind of argue, again, coming out of my own experience and what I’ve seen from others, is those rhythms form us for mission in a real powerful way.

Heidi Wilcox:
Definitely. One thing about the liturgical calendar that I learned recently was about Eastertide. So I always thought that Easter was a day, and I learned that it’s a little season.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
It’s a little mini-season. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
After Easter. And it made me very excited.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Well, you’ve heard about Christmas. Same thing is on the second day of… There’s a little mini Christmas season. So Christmas season isn’t what happens before Christmas Day. It’s Christmas Day and leading up to. And so you can celebrate the birth of Jesus… And the funny thing is the shops and the stores, as soon as Christmas Day hits, they’re setting up for Valentine’s Day or whatever.

Heidi Wilcox:
Literally.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
They’re on to the next. And what I love about the church calendar is it calls us to a different rhythm than the world.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, that’s true.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
It calls us out of secular time and it kind of sanctifies time. It kind of reminds us that we belong to the church calendar. We belong to a different kingdom, if you will.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Oh, I hadn’t thought about it that way. That’s good.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And the Eastertide, yeah, the celebration just begins on Easter. It’s like fasting and feasting. Or not fasting. You’re feasting-

Heidi Wilcox:
And I think it’s-

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
… then after going through a period of fasting.

Heidi Wilcox:
I can be wrong about this, but I think Eastertide is 50 days and Lent is 40. So to me, I was like, oh, we get to celebrate 10 days longer-

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, there you go.

Heidi Wilcox:
… than we get to fast.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
It’s a celebration. And the neat thing is when you follow those, if you really take 40 days of Lent serious, when Easter comes, the meaning, it is so profound. And it’s like you’ve been waiting. And Holy Week is the week before Easter where you’re kind of following Jesus to Good Friday. It’s all leading up to the crucifixion. And then when the resurrection hits, it’s like, wow. It’s a very cathartic-

Heidi Wilcox:
Interesting. Yeah. I’ve never done Lent. This coming year might be the… I mean, I always knew what happened, but as far as giving something up, or adding extra study of scripture. Because some people talk about maybe not give something up, but take extra time to study the Bible or something. I’m thought about doing those things. Never actually been disciplined enough to do it.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
While we’re talking, that could be the next book that I write is following the church literally. Maybe that’s the book you write is someone who’s never followed it, follows the church calendar for a whole year. All the feasts, fasts, all of it, and kind of experiences it and documents it. Maybe that’s your book.

Heidi Wilcox:
I don’t know about that, but maybe we should co-write it?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. There you go. Yeah. That could be fun. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
So why was now the right time to write Liturgical Mission?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Honestly, the significant thing for me is, in many ways, it’s not just a book, it’s not just an idea, but I’ve written on a variety of… In many ways, this is a culmination, and maybe this sounds weird because I’m not trying to say I’m a thought leader or this old guy that has all this wisdom, but in many ways, Liturgical Mission is a culmination of several decades of doing mission and ministry, and working with thousands of leaders around the world. My personal kind of vision and theology of ministry and mission of how we are called, I believe, to live out our faith in a way that’s rooted and grounded, that’s not compromising the historic Christian faith. But we can do it in a way that’s vibrant and contextual and reaches the next generation. I tell these stories in fresh stories throughout the book, I sprinkled the book with some great stories of churches that are doing this in kind of fresh, innovative ways, that are reaching people in their local context in a way that’s liturgical, but it’s also missional and contextual.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, yes. You’re leading me right into my next question. Because I mean, obviously since I’m learning about the church calendar, I didn’t know a whole lot about liturgy. So I didn’t know that the original meaning of liturgy meant the work of the people. But now when we think about it, at least in my mind, and you talk about it in the book, it kind of refers to the corporate acts of worship. So how can we help our liturgy lead us to service in the world? Because it’s a both and.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, absolutely. Again, there’s a stereotype that, oh, liturgy’s just to some priest or somebody up on a platform kind of reciting. But it’s a back and forth. It’s a call and response. And the intent of liturgy is to where we all play a part. It’s like a divine drama where we all are called to reenact these holy moments in the life of Christ. And we hear and we’re immersed in scriptures. And the practices of the liturgy, really, they form us. That praying some of these prayers weak in and week out, they sink down into our hearts and our minds.
And when we had made this shift, there was a young couple that they’re like, “I don’t know what we think about this liturgical stuff.” And one of the ways we started was just simply we started with just reciting the Lord’s prayer every week. And for some people that’s like, “That’s Catholic. They’re like, “Why are we doing that?” I’m like, “Well, no, this is the prayer that Jesus gave.” This is the family prayer, if you think about it. The Lord’s Prayer, it’s prayed all around the world, in every continent and thousands of languages. It’s the most multicultural global prayer on the planet. And it’s a prayer that Jesus gave us.
And so this young family, I remember I had come to Asbury when we left our church, and I got a text one day with a little video of their son who, he was maybe three, four at the time. And she said, “Thank you, pastor. We get it now.” And it was a little video of their son saying the Lord’s Prayer from heart. And he had picked that up through the rhythms of the liturgy and they got it. And that’s beautiful about the liturgy. It gives us handles. It gives us prayers. Where we hear the word, we sit at the feet of Jesus, hear his word, but we also come to his table, we’re fed, and then we’re sent out on mission.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. What is the connection between liturgy and mission?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. I would say there’s a missiological orientation of the liturgy. And again, not the bore people with… But it is an Asbury Seminary Podcast. Everything about the liturgy moves us toward a mission. So there’s these four movements. All right. I kind of talk about it, the chapter, I call it, the symphony of liturgy. There’s these four grand movements where we are called from the world, wherever we live in our city, or town, or community, we gather together. And as we gather together, we worship, we pray. Then we hear the word of God. This is normal in most churches.
And the word, we’re fed, we hear the word. And then we move toward there’s a time of confession. There’s a sermon. There’s a time of confession. We will typically recite a creed. And then it moves toward the Lord’s table. And so the Lord’s table, we’re reminded every week that it’s not our table, it’s the Lord’s table. And we’re all, regardless of the color of our skin, race, nationality, we are all invited, and reminded at the Lord’s table that it’s kind of like it’s a symbol. It’s a sign of the kingdom. It’s an eschatological sign of the kingdom.
And so if we understand what’s going on, we’re reminded that the bread, the body, what we’re partaking in, we are called to take that back out into the world. And again, forgiveness of sins. The Lord’s Prayer, even if you think about the Lord’s Prayer, I have a prelude in there, which is the Kingdom Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is a missional prayer. Our father who are in heaven, hallowed be your name. And it’s our, it’s a corporate understanding. And give us this day, our daily bread. So when we’re praying that we’re praying not for us only, but for the whole world, and for other believers. So we’re being reminded forgiveness, forgive our sins as we forgive others, we’re reminded of. That’s a missional thing.
And it’s all leading toward the climax is the Lord’s table. And then at the very end, the Latin mass, the Catholic mass, it’s called mass because it comes from the term missa, which means go, you are sent. Where those early ministers, the end of the service we’ve come, we’ve heard the word, we’ve fed at the table. Then the minister in the early church would declare, “Go, you are sent on mission.” And missa is where we get our word mission. And so part of it is recovering the meaning of these movements. And so in a liturgical service, it ends with the blessing where the minister blesses and sends the church out to go in peace to love and serve the Lord. And so we’re sent back out on mission.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, that’s fascinating, Winfield. That-

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Isn’t that cool?

Heidi Wilcox:
… really is. That’s really cool. And it makes things so much more meaningful, I think. Even just listening to you talk about it. Yeah.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And that’s what I’m trying to do in the book. But I’m trying to explain what those movements are for people. And if you think of it, and again, I’m not anti any type of church or denomination, but most very contemporary services, big box services, you come, you hear kind of a rock show concert, then you hear a fabulous sermon. “Wasn’t that sermon so great?” “What’d the preacher preach on?” “I don’t know, but it was awesome.” “Did it have anything to do with the Bible?” “I don’t know. There was a verse.”
Well, in a liturgical service, you get five passages of scripture. You’re getting the Bible crammed down your throat. It’s not watered down. You’re getting the Old Testament. You’re getting a psalm reading. You’re getting in a epistle. Then it climaxes with a gospel reading every Sunday. Five. You’re getting the word. And the sermon may or may not have been great, but you’re going to get Jesus at the table. And again, if you think of a lot of big box contemporary services, you get a great laser light show service. You get a great sermon, and then boom, you’re gone. Like, “All right, we’ll see you next week.” It’s all about the Sunday show. Whereas in a liturgical service, it’s all moving toward mission and being sent back out into the world.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. So you talk about living kind of the sacramental life once we’re sent back out into the world and developing that rhythm in our daily lives. There isn’t a one way to do this, but what can that look like? How do you incorporate the liturgy into the daily ebbs and flows of life?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. Again, well, there’s several things that I could say here. One, I could talk about actual practices of prayer. Morning and evening prayer is connected to these liturgical rhythms. So you could pick up a Book of Common Prayer. There are various versions. Other traditions will have books. I’ve got a little thing that I’ve done that it’s done really well with Seedbed. It’s a field guide to daily prayer.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. Yes, I remember that.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And it’s a nice little cardboard, it’s kind of a little scout book. It’s inexpensive. But it’s just a simple little intro. But those rhythms of morning and evening prayer throughout the week are connected to the weekly liturgical calendar scripture readings that are connected to the annual cycle. So it’s all interconnected. So I wear an old school kind of Timex watch. And I remember when I was a kid, I had a watch, and I ripped the face of it off. And the cogs of the watch, you have all these little cogs working together. And that’s kind of how the liturgy is. There’s all these interconnected things that are all moving us toward following Jesus. So our daily worship practices are connected to a weekly rhythm that’s connected to a seasonal rhythm that’s connected to these annual rhythms. So that’s kind of one way to look at it.
The other kind of thing is, again, by feeding at the Lord’s table every week, it reminds us of the sacramentality of our own dinner table, and our own call to hospitality. So Jesus is inviting us to come around his table. And I think that’s a metaphor for, if you look at how the early church did evangelism, and I look at this in the book, where hospitality was evangelism in the early church. That’s how they did it. They weren’t doing street crusades. You have these passages on the day of Pentecost, Peter’s doing this thing.
But if you look at these numbers being added daily, the meeting in the believers’ homes, breaking of bread, the Apostles’ Doctrine, the prayers, this stuff’s happening around people’s dinner tables in the home. And that’s how they did mission. And so I think I have a chapter on the sacramental life. The sacraments actually inspire mission. And so even our own baptisms, it’s kind of like in a lot of low church traditions, kind of like, “Well, I was baptized 20 years ago, or whatever.” Well, what’s neat in the liturgical churches, they’re like Easter and there are certain times where the minister will come out and he’ll sprinkle people with water and say, “Remember your baptism.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, that’s really cool.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
To remember that, and kind of renew those baptismal vows. And in many ways, I’ve heard it said that our baptism is every believer’s great commission. We’re all kind of set apart in our baptism for ministry and mission. So anyway, in the sacraments, there’s a lot of mission stuff you just don’t know about it. And it’s there and I’ve been fascinated digging into it. Like wow, the meaning of this, it all points toward mission.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. How is kind of that digging in, how has it deepened your own faith?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
I mean, yeah. That’s the neat thing about why I write books. And if you’ll see my books, all my books are about different stuff. I’ll just become fascinated about something that is changing my life. And I’ll study it, and I’ll pray about it, and it’ll be transformative, and I’ll end up writing a book about it.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s so cool, Winfield. That’s so cool.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
So I just write about what I love and I’m passionate about at the time. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. One of the things, there were several things, but one of the things that stood out to me in the book that I read, you said, “Additionally, this formation of going to church, engaging with the body of Christ, engaging in the sacraments, it’s not contingent on our mood or temperament when we enter the service.” That I was like, oh, that’s key for me. Because I’ll be honest, I’m not always in the best mood on Sunday morning, because I’m getting up a little early. Anyway. I’m not super early. But I’m not always in the best mood. And it was just encouraging to me that it didn’t depend on me. And I mean, yes, it can help.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
It’s big.

Heidi Wilcox:
But it was a real encouragement that it didn’t depend on me. It was still the power of God and the power of story of the liturgy and of the service could still connect with me no matter what. And so then your quote went on to say, “Simply by agreeing to participate and join with the existing structures and rhythms, liturgy has the power to change us.” And that was part of the chapter that was talking about liturgy as a story. Yeah. And so my question then is what is the power of the Christian story, and then why is rediscovering that so important?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Honestly, if I could redo the book, I would’ve put that as chapter one, not chapter two.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, okay. Why?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Chapter one ended up being an overview of the movement of the recovery. Because that is what’s missing in most low church contemporary worship services. It’s so disjointed. Every song’s about whatever the song’s about, the sermon’s about whatever the preacher wants to preach about. The scripture, it may change from week to week, or if there’s a series, it’s whatever the preacher thinks he should preach on. Hey, we’re going to talk about X this week.
Whereas like I mentioned, what’s missing is a lot of Christians have lost their place. They don’t know the narrative. I mean, statistics show this. If you look at Barna’s research among kind of emerging adults, you have a lot of young adults do not know the gospel story. And therefore they don’t know their place in God’s story. And what worship does, what liturgical worship does, it re-narrates us. I mean five passages of scripture every week. And they’re all kind of moving with a general rhythm. It immerses you.
So an Easter vigil, you come in, and the minister, now this is high church stuff, but they’re going to light the Christ candle, and you’ll come into the church. Everyone kind of files in together silently, and the church is dark. And the scriptures, it’s a long service. This is the evening before Easter. And the scriptures are all kind of moving from creation, fall, moving toward redemption. And then gradually the lights begin to rise, and then comes the Easter story. And then the hallelujahs kind of come out.
And at that point, the celebration. You’ve walked through this narrative, this grand narrative. Here’s what I love about the liturgy. Each week, you’re getting the Lord’s table, regardless of what the preacher preaches on. How many of us have been to churches where the sermon series is on, I don’t know, you tell me. It could be on anything. It could be on basket weaving. But we’re going to take a break from the sermon series next week, and we’re going to preach on the resurrection. And then it goes back to tithe and offering or whatever the sermon series was on. But by following the church year, by following that whole season, there’s a narrative. You’re being reminded that you belong to this larger narrative, which is the story of God. And each week, regardless of the sermon, you’re getting the gospel presented at the Lord’s table. Every week, you’re reminded that Christ has died for you.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. And that you’re part of a bigger story.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
The creeds. What the creed is, the Apostle Nicene Creeds, these are the earliest, the early church, especially the Apostles’ Creed. People argue over the Nicene Creed. The Apostles’ Creed was developed by the early church. It’s factual. And these were agreed upon by early Christians as the authoritative core doctrines in the Bible. So it’s the summary of the story. And every time you recite that week in and week out, you’re joining your voice with millions and millions of Christians throughout the ages to say this is what we believe. This is the story that I believe in. And I think that’s powerful. And I think that’s something we need to regain.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s beautiful. That really is beautiful when you think about all the history that has gone into the creeds, to the Lord’s Prayer. I mean the Lord’s Prayer is from Jesus. So there’s that.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. But it’s been passed down. And this stuff is multicultural. All of this predates any “Western captivity” of the church. The Lord’s Prayer, the creeds, this came from the ancient Near Eastern world. This is before there were any European Christians. I mean, think about it. There were no Americans. These early doctrines and practices were developed in the early church, which was ancient Near Eastern. And that’s exciting. I did a thing last year for the Evangelical Mission Society where we did two liturgies for mission, and I’ve got one in the back of the book. And one of the cool things that we did was we had, I believe, there’s seven lines in the Lord’s Prayer, and we had two services with seven different languages spoken in each service. So the Lord’s Prayer was done in 14 languages.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. That’s really awesome.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Isn’t that awesome?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. And that’s a picture of the vastness and the unitive possibilities of recovering liturgy, which have a chapter on unity and mission.

Heidi Wilcox:
You mentioned it in your book, some people say that the liturgical movement is more of a white phenomenon. But why does liturgy interest all people?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, I mean, this is what’s exciting is I documented… Part of my own personal research is looking at multi-ethnic and global churches that are engaging in liturgy and sacraments. And there are movements in North America, for instance, of leaders. I tell one story of one church up in New Jersey that I’ve looked at in the book. Mia Chang’s the pastor. She’s a first generation female Asian American Christian. First generation Christian. And ended up her family came to faith, she planted a church, and she has 20 something nationalities in the church.
And the words of the liturgy, they’re not comfortable praying in their own language because they’re not really comfortable typically, even because English isn’t their first language, but these liturgical prayers have been really powerful for them to bring people together. I tell the story of there’s a whole movement of these Afro Latino Pentecostal churches that are the preaching’s gospel oriented. The music’s going to be upbeat tempo. But when it comes to the Lord’s Supper, you’re like, wow, am I in a Catholic church? It goes high church all of a sudden. And it just breaks all categories.
But those fourfold structures that I mentioned earlier, those rhythms, these churches are going to have those same rhythms in their worship service. But they’re going to contextualize that. That’s the beauty of think of liturgy, now not everyone’s going to agree with what I’m saying. You’re going to have high church snobs that are going to be like, “Well, that’s not correct. It has to be this way.” Kind of the King James only argument. But what I would kind of say is the liturgy’s kind of like a structure, not a straight jacket, to quote myself. It kind of gives you a framework that this framework is how the early church worshiped. And if those elements are there, I believe that there’s a lot of room to contextualize and to be creative within the framework of the liturgy. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Sometimes there’s a bifurcation, I like that word, of the gospel in which we have evangelism over here and then social action over here. How does the liturgy help us understand in a new way what it means for the church to be the church?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yes. Yeah. I do a little piece on word and deed. And I think that’s one of the beauties of the liturgy is, again, these words shape and form us. And oftentimes, the liturgical prayers can be powerful ways to shape and reorient us toward gospel centered justice issues and holistic mission. We’re reminded, again, even in the Lord’s Prayer, are confessions of the needs of others and the injustices that are in the world. And so liturgy can be a powerful tool to name systemic evils and to pray against unjust structures.
And it gives us language that oftentimes we don’t have. For instance, just in my own tradition, the Book of Common Prayer, there are prayers for social justice. There are prayers for government. There’s a prayer for, and I forgot the right word, but through seasons of social unrest. And I remember a year into the pandemic was like, is the world going to end? Oh my God, there’s a pandemic. And then everyone’s so divided politically and all of these things.
And there were prayers that actually helped me pray these prayers to be like, oh wow. If you get to 1662 prayer book, Book of Common Prayer, there are prayers about pandemics in there because those were normative. And for a lot of us in contemporary society, we’re like, “What is a pandemic? Isn’t that something that happens somewhere on the other end of the world?” No, this a global pandemic, we’re all a part of it. And there are prayers that have been written that give us language for these difficult moments.
I think that’s what I would say is a lot of contemporary worship is happy clappy, everything’s good, everything’s going good. I’m feeling good. Jesus is my boyfriend. And no. If you look at these great prayers, and I have some of them, the church is divided. Let’s be honest. And there are prayers for the unity of the church. And there are things that I think can unite us.
I believe the recovery of liturgy, I’m throwing my cards on the table, here’s my bias, I think that the recovery of liturgy holds a promise to bring Christians together from across traditions and backgrounds. If we could have some common language, some common frameworks. Doesn’t mean we all have to do the exact same thing and we all have to dress the exact same way. But I think by recovering some of these historic elements, it can create a genuine ecumenism. My friend, Emilio Alvarez, calls it an ecumenism of the spirit.
And I love that because I think the Lord is doing something in our day through the recovery of liturgy and sacraments. There’s a hunger. I think it’s not just some isolated phenomenon. I think the Lord is doing something in it. And it’s global, it’s multicultural. This is what I love about it. It does not matter the color of your skin. Liturgy, I think, is for everyone because it points us to Jesus.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Well, I love the hope in what you just said too. The hope for the church. But I also love thinking about some of the justice issues, how it connects to creation care, racial justice issues.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Absolutely.

Heidi Wilcox:
All those things. And I just, yeah.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
It’s there. And the liturgical traditions, they’ve not shied away from these things.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Which I think sometimes today, we’ve put everything in this little box. I mean, you talk about the fundamentalist versus modernist controversy a little bit in your book. And to me, that’s putting things in a box a little bit. So we’ve divided things instead of unifying things.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. I mean, once you dig into that, it helps you understand why Christians are so divided, especially in North America, over these issues. The fundamentalist modernist controversy stuff really kind of drove a deep, deep division. And that’s where I get at some things that I think can, one, help bring Christians together, but also help create a deeper, more profound awareness of issues of justice, climate change, women’s rights around the world. I think the rights of women and children is a global issue of tremendous proportion that the church should care about. I have a whole section on creation care because God is the creator. And as Christians, we’re creatures created in the image of God, not at the expense of creation. We are a part of creation.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Right. Yeah. For sure.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Anyway, I’ll-

Heidi Wilcox:
No, no. I’m here for it. But yes, I totally agree. We have dominion, but it’s a caretaker type deal.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
I think Christians, not even farmed out, we’ve given up our social responsibilities to secular movements and organizations. Oh, to care about creation means you’re some crazy liberal. No, we should care about creation because God cares about creation. Oh, justice issue is just for this movement. It’s a secular… No, the Bible actually, look at the concordance in the back of your Bible, and justice is everywhere.

Heidi Wilcox:
For sure. And I think I want to expand on the fundamentalist modernist controversy because I read the book, so I understand it. But yeah, just kind of wanted to have you explain it a little bit for people who are maybe a little lost right now on what that means.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. I mean, at the turn of the century you had growing leaning toward science. There’s a funny quote in a movie, Nacho Libre, where this one character says, “I don’t believe in God. I believe in science.” It’s kind of a funny. And you had this growing division, and you had Christians kind of arguing it’s the Bible or nothing essentially. I’m just trying to be black or white. It’s either this or that.
And your fundamentalist movement created deep separations in the church, and separated themselves from the world. The Scopes Monkey Trial was the lightning rod, kind of the catalyst, if you will. And so what happens is you have Billy Graham and others come a little bit later on, and kind of helped start kind of this neo-evangelical movement that wasn’t so fundamentalist, but it’s still kind of coming out of that early fundamentalist movement. And I think since then, the ’60s were a very divisive era, obviously. So I kind of trace in some of those chapters how we got so divided, and then how we can make our way back.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. And using the liturgy to make our way back together again and bring hope.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. Hope, and yes. So I believe we need a realistic hope. A realism. Like this isn’t just blind optimism where can’t we all just get along? No, there are deep issues we got to work through. But I believe we are called as Christians to have a realistic hope. Jesus had realistic hope. The world is fallen. Yes. There is sin in the world. There’s crazy stuff happening in our lifetime. However, Jesus is still Lord, and he calls us to believe in the hope of the gospel. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Absolutely. Winfield, this conversation has been just a delight. I have one question that I ask everyone before I wrap up the show. But before I do that, is there anything else you’d like to mention that we didn’t already talk about?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
No, that’s it. No, I’ve enjoyed it. Always enjoy doing the podcast. Thanks so much for highlighting the book. Again, it’s something that I deeply believe in, and I think is for everyone. It’s not just for those with a liturgical background. I tell in the introduction, I say, “It’s going to make everyone uncomfortable.” It’s that type of book that hopefully stretches people from non-liturgical backgrounds to engage in the history of the church and their practices more. And for those in liturgical traditions that may have forgotten the missional context of the liturgy. So that’s kind of the hope. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. No, I think after reading it, I think you did it.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. Thank you.

Heidi Wilcox:
We’ll definitely link to that in the show notes so that people can be sure to grab a copy if they’d like to do that.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Great. Thanks so much.

Heidi Wilcox:
So the one question we ask everyone that comes on the show, because the show is called the Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast, what is one practice that is helping you thrive in your life right now?

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
It’s a great question. Honestly, I’ve had a profound, this past year, really the past few months, the Lord’s kind of just called me to slow down and to be mindful and to really be more present. Because of our smartphones and our technology, we’re living at a unsustainable speed of life. And to be honest with you, I think I kind of reached a point of burnout. And I feel like the Lord said stop. And so I’ve been trying to just be present to my family. My oldest daughter just went to college last week, which is crazy.
So I’ve got 18 year old, 16 year old, and 10 year old daughters. And they’re all at important different seasons. And I don’t want to miss it. And I’m giving up a lot of stuff to be present and to be mindful and to live in the moment. And because we don’t know. We don’t have the promise of tomorrow. We don’t. I don’t know. I might keel over with a heart attack this afternoon, God forbid. But you know what? I want to live in the moment and I want to be with the people I’m with in that moment, and have no regrets. Does that make sense?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Total sense. It’s beautiful. Thank you, Winfield.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Thank you, Heidi. Appreciate it.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. You’re welcome back anytime.

Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Thanks so much.

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for today’s conversation with Dr. Winfield Bevins. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did, and that learning more about the history of the liturgy and what it means for us today will help you as you pursue God’s mission for you in your story in the world. If you see Winfield or know him, be sure to thank him ever so much for taking the time to be part of the podcast today. And if you haven’t already done so, be sure to pick up a copy of his new book, Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Life of the World. As always, you can follow us in all the places on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @AsburySeminary. Until next time I hope you go do something that helps you thrive.

 

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