"Worship is central to what it means to be the church, and certainly a Reformed church. It was a chief concern of John Calvin's in Strasbourg and Geneva, a subject addressed by both the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession, and central enough to become part of the Constitution of the Reformed Church in America. Liturgy among the Thorns is the first book to examine that history, while seeking to create a framework for discussing the RCA's liturgical future." "Some of the denomination's leading liturgical scholars, including Daniel Meeter, Christopher Dorn, Kathleen Hart Brumm, Dennis TeBeest, Martin Tel, Norman Kansfield, Donald Bruggink, and Paul Janssen, examine various aspects of RCA worship life, including Baptism, the Lord's Supper, congregational song, architecture, and prayer, discuss how these have developed over the past century, and explore how congregations can address this tradition creatively and meaningfully in a time of dramatic and rapid change. Coming in response to Howard Hageman's landmark lectures on the liturgy at Western Theological seminary in 1966 and I. John Hesselink's challenge to the General Synod of 1966, this volume portrays the RCA as being of two minds about its worship and challenges the denomination, after a century of sweeping liturgical transformation, to be in constant dialogue about its worship understanding, to use its varied understandings inventively, and to grow, not into a multiplicity of niche markets, but a church worshipping God together."--BOOK JACKET.