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But there are no gimmicks. Priestly leadership is not a set of learned theatrical skills. As pastor-priest, we bring to the congregation the glory of our encounter with God. Having spent long, enduring time in the Lord's presence, we speak to our congregations out of those encounters. As I think carefully how I translate the elements of this encounter to my people, I create forms that express where I have been. A friend described to me his experience worshiping at All Souls Church in London when John Stott was preaching. For the entire service until the sermon, Stott was on his knees in prayer. And then when he spoke, he brought to his leadership the freshness of being in God's presence.

Evangelical exhortation and ethics now demand a supplement through worship that facilitates divine encounter. It must evoke deeper mysteries. It must lift us. And as we worship, liturgists and leaders become a priesthood, mediating God, showing the depth of their own experiences, radiating God's glory, pointing weary souls heavenward.

But I think there is another element to this worship experience that cannot be missed. Our evangelical tradition has taught us to champion spontaneity and to make a virtue out of informality. Some of us are sure that God cannot hear written prayers. Corporately spoken creeds, prayers, and liturgies stifle us and the Lord, or so the argument runs.

Here I have again changed my mind. Yes, there are liturgies that are memorized and meaningless. But what I have in mind are repetitive speech-forms that accompany every service. That is, when I introduce worship, when I offer the Eucharist, when I baptize, even when I bury, I employ familiar, dignified forms that evoke a history and an importance among my listeners.

I have noticed, for instance, that both the marginally churched and the faithful Christian want to hear the Twenty-third Psalm recited at a funeral and 1 Corinthians 13 at a wedding and the hymn "Amazing Grace" sung at thresholds of crisis. There is something reassuring in this recitation of old things, something that links us with history and tradition. It is like holding a book well worn by your grandparents' fingers. In some mysterious way, we feel strengthened.

I recall a pastor who created his own liturgy for every infant baptism. He would hold the child aloft and introduce him or her to the congregation, saying, "This is your new family." But then he would begin to recite an artful, dignified paragraph about this child's vulnerability and God's love. He spoke about how God loves us before we are even able to know him, before we can see beyond our own fingers. He recited this verbatim for every baptism, and each time it sounded as if it was his first time. Imagine the wedding of imagery and theology here! People looked forward to these baptisms, for they spoke not just of cute babies, but of us, our vulnerability and our near-sightedness, and God's redeeming, forgiving love.

The same is true for benedictions. Recitation is a reminder of what is profound and important. Recitation assures us that we are where we should be. Recitation carries us with familiarity when sometimes we cannot carry ourselves.

I started a tradition in one of my theology classes that now won't die. I learned that our students had never heard of Israel's great Shema Isra'el: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deut. 6:4-5). So we began reciting it in Hebrew at the start of each class period. At first they thought it was odd. Then they knew that they had inherited it. And then they would not let me begin class without it. Was it novelty? Not by the twelfth week. It set the rhythm, it moored us theologically, it centered us in a tradition as old as Moses.

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October 6 1997, Vol. 41, No. 11