Great question!
This Sunday, instead of a usual sermon, we'll be pausing before each piece of our worship to talk about why we do it and where it comes from.
The form of worship that we use can be traced all the way back to the ancient church. In English, we call our form of worship liturgy which comes from the Greek word λειτουργία meaning literally the work of or for the people.
In Roman society it was often used to mean public service. Before the Christian church, liturgy was the word used to describe projects to build pieces of infrastructure for the sake of the common good. For instance, they had liturgies (public service projects) to build bridges and roads.
In the same way, our liturgy is meant to serve the common good. Our liturgy forms us for public service. Worship transforms our lives for the sake of a transformed world.
