Explain the meaning and significance of Sabbath worship for Christians today.

        The first kind is ‘liturgical worship’ and is celebrated by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Church of England and Lutherans. These Christians see the Eucharist as central to their act of worship and faith and they celebrate it every Sunday and often during the week. ‘Eucharist’ is a Greek word – meaning ‘Thanksgiving’. Some denominations call their services ‘Holy Communion’, but for Catholic Christians this service is called a ‘Mass’. The Mass is a great act of worship and thanksgiving; it is split into two parts. i) Liturgy of the word – a time when God is thanked and praised, where there are readings from the Bible, a creed, sermons and prayers and ii) Liturgy of the Eucharist. This part is when the bread and wine are brought up, words and actions of Jesus from the Last Supper are said (including “consecration”) and communion is given to everyone. Every Sunday is marking the resurrection of Christ, like a weekly Easter and is remembering Jesus’ words and actions “Do this in memory of me”. The altar is central to this kind of worship, the bread and wine are unleavened and the priest is ordained and wears vestments. At the end of the mass, the worshippers are sent too love and serve the lord, which means their lives are affected in the way that Christ is a part of their lives and they are sharing this by putting other people before themselves.

        The second kind of worship is pulpit-centred and is celebrated by groups like Methodists and Congregationalists. This is a longer sermon and a very prominent pulpit, with more Bible readings and less communion services than the liturgical worship. They believe that God is speaking to his people telling them how to live their lives through the bible. They see the Word of God as central to their belief and this is what the significance of their worship is based on. The minister may often make up the prayers and there is much more hymn singing. The minister doesn’t wear any vestments, there are real bread and individual cups. Inside the Church itself, there are no statues or flowers and basically it is very plain.

The third and final type of worship is based upon the Holy Spirit and his work. This again, is very different to liturgical and pulpit-centred worship and is called ‘Waiting on the Spirit’ worship. It is much less structured and informal and set actions and prayers are minimal. For example, Quakers wait for God to speak through a member of the group while they all sit in silence. This is not Eucharist based but spiritual based (hence the name). There are no priests, few communion services (none at all for the Quakers) – although the Bible may be read and the elders of one church lead the service. Another example is the Pentecostals. They wait for Gods spirit to move in their group; through songs, readings from the Bible and gifts of Gods spirit like prophecy, healing, tongues and knowledge.

In conclusion, we can see that different denominations have different ways of worshipping with different significance’s and meanings. The three different types of groups all centre on different aspects of the Christians faith. However, all Christians come together in their communities on Sundays to worship and give thanks to God, observing the forth commandment and keeping the day holy.