Step into a worship service at Epiphany Church in Lower Greenville on a Sunday morning and you’ll smell incense, see candles and hear ancient prayers read in unison. Sermons align with the Revised Common Lectionary, and church activities are planned around the liturgical year.
All of these are trappings of a liturgical church, but Epiphany is not Catholic, Anglican or Eastern Orthodox. Epiphany is a start-up planted by an evangelical megachurch and its pastor, Kurtley Knight, a graduate of George Fox Evangelical Seminary. Epiphany is a new kind of hybrid: an evangelical church that orders its services around liturgical practices.
Liturgical practice is a growing trend among evangelical churches. Last month, one of the largest evangelical megachurches in Texas, The Village Church where more than 10,000 people attend every week, announced it would order worship around the church calendar, observing Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost.