I don’t know exactly when it was that somebody thought it was a good idea to shift the emphasis of Palm Sunday to include the Passion of Christ.
Once upon a time, if I remember correctly, we Presbyterians had Palm Sunday to commemorate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, on the first day of Holy Week. The Passion would come later in the week, receiving full attention on Friday.
Our Roman Catholic friends had a Passion Sunday, but it was the week before Palm Sunday, the fifth Sunday in Lent. It began a two-week period called “Passiontide,” but that never caught on much for Reformed Protestants. Not long after Vatican II, the Romans put both Sundays together in what they called, “Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord.”
Along the way, Protestants invented “Passion/Palm Sunday,” compressing both the parade, welcoming the Messiah into the Holy City, and the crucifixion, marking his exit, into a single service. From what I understand, one of the reasons this took hold in many denominations such as the Presbyterians was because it was deemed to be realistic.
Here’s the problem: Relatively speaking, nobody goes to Holy Week services any more. Maundy Thursday draws a few, Good Friday even fewer. Easter Vigil is something most people don’t even know about and therefore don’t know what it is they’re missing. So, for many folks, perhaps most of the members of most of the churches, Holy Week is a complete blank. The story of Jesus, as they experience it, takes a giant leap from the celebration of his entrance into Jerusalem to the celebration of the resurrection, from one mountaintop to another. People are able to skip over the betrayal and injustice that beset Jesus, the profound agony in the souls of all who followed him to the cross, and the devastating tragedy of the whole scene.
The remedy for this unrelenting niceness is to push the Palm Sunday envelope to include the narrative of the crucifixion. That covers the territory for those who won’t be in church again until Easter Sunday. Passion/Palm Sunday, then, also becomes a “preview of coming events” for those who will show up later in the week. All bases are covered.
I concede the realism of Passion/Palm Sunday, but it’s a sorry state of affairs when the church changes its calendar to accommodate the non-attendance of the bulk of its membership. Besides, there are some drawbacks.
One is that we don’t do justice to Palm Sunday. The happy hosannas are sung with genuine joy. But that is obscured, clouded over by the gloom that lurks ahead. The day is a time set for celebration, and the church needs to raise the roof in song to proclaim the fulfillment of divine promises.
The other drawback is that we don’t do justice to the Passion of our Lord either, at least not for those who find in Passion/Palm Sunday a reason for not needing to attend Holy Week services. The one narrative section about Jesus’ trial and crucifixion, lengthy that it is, is not sufficient, even if bolstered by some of the great passion hymns and other music. It’s all crammed into one hour, and that makes it cramped.
Neither is there holy leisure for meditation, for contemplating the wonder of it all, for letting the story sink in. It takes time to worship God. We do ourselves no spiritual favors by doing condensations à la Readers’ Digest.
What needs to happen, of course, is that everyone ought to attend the full schedule of liturgical events throughout the Christian Year, and especially during Holy Week. Yet that’s not realistic. So we unhappily make concessions.
Still, maybe there are ways to convince our church friends that they don’t want to miss Maundy Thursday, that they do want to be there for Good Friday, and that surely they can’t have anything else more important on Saturday evening than Easter Vigil.
What are some of those ways? How can we educate our congregations about Holy Days?
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Creating Liturgy
In a previous post I championed the cause of moving beyond only adopting the liturgical texts of the Book of Common Worship (1993), wonderful and useful that they are, to adapting them occasionally to one’s own worship situation and setting.
Now I’m encouraging another step or two beyond that. It’s not enough just to re-work an existing text and just up-date its images or language. Creating liturgy from scratch is the goal.
In the late 1960s, I was given a chance to work on the Worshipbook. My assignment was to re-cast the prayers of the day into “contemporary language.” One of the things that meant was to change every “thee” and “thou” into “you.” It also involved relating the prayers to lectionary themes for the year, and really required in most cases a completely new prayer.
I took a week to go to Princeton Seminary and concentrate on the project, and to catch up on reading related to worship. A number of people there, when told what I was up to, took considerable umbrage at my youthful precociousness and chastised me for abandoning the King’s English for pedestrian vernacular. Even a couple of professors decried my project as mere “tinkering.” I knew the difference between “tinkering” and “re-casting,” however, and persisted in spite of sometimes strenuous objections. There was more to it than just changing “thee” to “you.”
Perhaps that’s the first lesson in learning from the liturgical models in the Book of Common Worship (1993) or any other prayer/worship book. No “tinkering.” Instead, “re-cast.” That is, you’ll have to re-write the prayer fully. Look at content and structure, and then write your own version in your own words.
Another thing to remember when writing prayers that will be spoken by the congregation is that the language has to fit relatively comfortably in their mouths. You won’t use complicated syntax or esoteric vocabulary. Straightforward expression is best.
Whatever else you do in writing your prayers for Sunday services, don’t try to be clever or cute. When preparing prayers for a meeting of the Daily Prayer task group, I was proudly pleased with one prayer in particular. It was wonderfully clever, no kidding. I couldn’t wait to read it to the group. Which I did. And when I heard it coming out of my mouth, I realized how awfully clever it was—and how really awful it was. The turn of phrase was so cute that it drew attention to itself, and the prayer itself faded into nothingness. I tore it up right then.
Write in your own voice. Be the same person in writing a prayer as you are representing the Lord in the rest of your life. When you write, write as you speak. The advantage in writing a prayer is that you can go over it again and actually write it better than you speak. Anyway, let your written prayers be as natural and straightforward as possible. Elegance and eloquence can obfuscate (big words are hard to understand).
Notice that the prayers printed in the Book of Common Worship are formatted so that there is one phrase (or so) to a line. Writing a prayer a phrase at a time helps you write in a more conversational manner, and helps avoid lengthy prose sentences that run on and on. When you see the prayer printed this way, you can almost see how it will sound. It’s a good format to follow.
When you’ve written your prayers for Sunday, stand up and speak them out loud. Praying is a physical activity as well as spiritual, mental and emotional, so experience the prayers physically. Listen as you speak and you’ll find rhythms in your words, perhaps even music in the intonations. You’ll also hear the glitches, the parts that you want to do over.
One more thing, pray the prayers yourself. You will not just lead prayers on Sunday, you will pray them. They may be prayers of the people, but first of all they are your prayers. Your praying makes your leadership of worship authentic.
What have you learned about writing prayers? Any hints to pass along? Where do you find strong and helpful models of prayers for congregations?
Now I’m encouraging another step or two beyond that. It’s not enough just to re-work an existing text and just up-date its images or language. Creating liturgy from scratch is the goal.
In the late 1960s, I was given a chance to work on the Worshipbook. My assignment was to re-cast the prayers of the day into “contemporary language.” One of the things that meant was to change every “thee” and “thou” into “you.” It also involved relating the prayers to lectionary themes for the year, and really required in most cases a completely new prayer.
I took a week to go to Princeton Seminary and concentrate on the project, and to catch up on reading related to worship. A number of people there, when told what I was up to, took considerable umbrage at my youthful precociousness and chastised me for abandoning the King’s English for pedestrian vernacular. Even a couple of professors decried my project as mere “tinkering.” I knew the difference between “tinkering” and “re-casting,” however, and persisted in spite of sometimes strenuous objections. There was more to it than just changing “thee” to “you.”
Perhaps that’s the first lesson in learning from the liturgical models in the Book of Common Worship (1993) or any other prayer/worship book. No “tinkering.” Instead, “re-cast.” That is, you’ll have to re-write the prayer fully. Look at content and structure, and then write your own version in your own words.
Another thing to remember when writing prayers that will be spoken by the congregation is that the language has to fit relatively comfortably in their mouths. You won’t use complicated syntax or esoteric vocabulary. Straightforward expression is best.
Whatever else you do in writing your prayers for Sunday services, don’t try to be clever or cute. When preparing prayers for a meeting of the Daily Prayer task group, I was proudly pleased with one prayer in particular. It was wonderfully clever, no kidding. I couldn’t wait to read it to the group. Which I did. And when I heard it coming out of my mouth, I realized how awfully clever it was—and how really awful it was. The turn of phrase was so cute that it drew attention to itself, and the prayer itself faded into nothingness. I tore it up right then.
Write in your own voice. Be the same person in writing a prayer as you are representing the Lord in the rest of your life. When you write, write as you speak. The advantage in writing a prayer is that you can go over it again and actually write it better than you speak. Anyway, let your written prayers be as natural and straightforward as possible. Elegance and eloquence can obfuscate (big words are hard to understand).
Notice that the prayers printed in the Book of Common Worship are formatted so that there is one phrase (or so) to a line. Writing a prayer a phrase at a time helps you write in a more conversational manner, and helps avoid lengthy prose sentences that run on and on. When you see the prayer printed this way, you can almost see how it will sound. It’s a good format to follow.
When you’ve written your prayers for Sunday, stand up and speak them out loud. Praying is a physical activity as well as spiritual, mental and emotional, so experience the prayers physically. Listen as you speak and you’ll find rhythms in your words, perhaps even music in the intonations. You’ll also hear the glitches, the parts that you want to do over.
One more thing, pray the prayers yourself. You will not just lead prayers on Sunday, you will pray them. They may be prayers of the people, but first of all they are your prayers. Your praying makes your leadership of worship authentic.
What have you learned about writing prayers? Any hints to pass along? Where do you find strong and helpful models of prayers for congregations?
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Don't Just Adopt--Adapt!
I had the opportunity a while back to take a seminar with the Disney Institute. The folks from Orlando shared what they learned at Disney World that we might put to work in the variety of businesses and groups represented among those attending, everything from fire departments to colleges, from hospices to manufacturing companies.
They told us how they provide top-of-the-line customer service, for example, and suggested that we could do it too. But we could not just adopt what they do at their theme parks lock, stock and barrel. No, we shouldn’t adopt—instead we should adapt, take the concept, the idea, and recreate it so it would work in our very different settings.
Not long after, as I was using the Book of Common Worship (1993), it flipped open to a section in the Preface with the heading “Form and Freedom.” One paragraph from that section reads:
"Local pastoral concerns will determine the appropriate way to use the texts and services. Some will find strength and a sense of unity in the prayers shared in common with the whole church and so will use the liturgical texts as they appear in this book. Others will find it more appropriate to adapt the prayers for use in a particular setting. Others will be prompted to follow the structure of the services as they are outlined and use the texts as models for a free and more spontaneous style of prayer. Each of these styles is appropriate within the provisions of the directories for worship, and it is the intent of the Book of Common Worship to provide the necessary resources." (Pages 6-7, emphases mine.)
I suspect that many pastors and worship leaders who have the book follow the first alternative, at least most of the time. The material is of such high quality, it hardly seems worth the effort to try to do better.
Pastors are busy people, as we all know, and fulfilling the responsibilities of preaching every week occupies not only lots of time but energy as well. A liturgical resource as complete and of high quality as the Book of Common Worship is a boon and a blessing worthy of using with enthusiasm and joy. It is readily adoptable just as is.
So I became only one of many who learned how to “cut and paste” from the book to construct the liturgy Sunday after Sunday. Ready-made prayers and responses worked so very well from the beginning that their use became habitual rather quickly.
Having been part of the process of the book’s development, however, I knew full well that this was not the only way to use it—maybe not even the best way.
It seems to me that the time has come, and perhaps is long gone, when we should move beyond primarily adopting texts from the Book of Common Worship (1993) unchanged. Rather we should at least sometimes adapt them to our own particular situation, and this for several reasons.
First of all, every liturgical circumstance is different: different settings, people, times, locations, expectations, etc. Even if all the different factors appeared to be repeated another time, they would not be exact duplicates. Liturgy requires a certain amount of fine-tuning and finesse at the least. We can hardly expect the same prayer to satisfy every disparate need time after time.
If there are exceptions to this, they would be the durable prayers that have stood the text of time and hold up well through repeated use. Yet even these require some adapting over the years—witness the Lord’s Prayer re-worked in an “ecumenical version,” and hymns with alternate wording for some lines or even new entire verses. Even Holy Scripture appears regularly in new translations.
Furthermore, pastors and worship leaders need to learn how to create and construct liturgy, and the best way—maybe the only way—is to do it. Adapting, not adopting, is the method. The Book of Common Worship (1993) is, among other things, an educational resource. The prayers and other liturgical forms are models of structure and style from which pastors and others can learn to craft their own quality versions of corporate worship.
It’s only when we do this kind of work that we begin, for example, to learn how a Eucharistic prayer is constructed, or what the Psalm Prayers contribute to the Psalter, or what all is involved in the Prayers of the People, and so forth. It’s work that pays off in more thoughtful and sensitive worship leadership, and richer participation of those in the pews.
How much of your Sunday liturgy is entirely original to you and your congregation? How do you modify prayers of confession, for illumination, of the people, week to week?
They told us how they provide top-of-the-line customer service, for example, and suggested that we could do it too. But we could not just adopt what they do at their theme parks lock, stock and barrel. No, we shouldn’t adopt—instead we should adapt, take the concept, the idea, and recreate it so it would work in our very different settings.
Not long after, as I was using the Book of Common Worship (1993), it flipped open to a section in the Preface with the heading “Form and Freedom.” One paragraph from that section reads:
"Local pastoral concerns will determine the appropriate way to use the texts and services. Some will find strength and a sense of unity in the prayers shared in common with the whole church and so will use the liturgical texts as they appear in this book. Others will find it more appropriate to adapt the prayers for use in a particular setting. Others will be prompted to follow the structure of the services as they are outlined and use the texts as models for a free and more spontaneous style of prayer. Each of these styles is appropriate within the provisions of the directories for worship, and it is the intent of the Book of Common Worship to provide the necessary resources." (Pages 6-7, emphases mine.)
I suspect that many pastors and worship leaders who have the book follow the first alternative, at least most of the time. The material is of such high quality, it hardly seems worth the effort to try to do better.
Pastors are busy people, as we all know, and fulfilling the responsibilities of preaching every week occupies not only lots of time but energy as well. A liturgical resource as complete and of high quality as the Book of Common Worship is a boon and a blessing worthy of using with enthusiasm and joy. It is readily adoptable just as is.
So I became only one of many who learned how to “cut and paste” from the book to construct the liturgy Sunday after Sunday. Ready-made prayers and responses worked so very well from the beginning that their use became habitual rather quickly.
Having been part of the process of the book’s development, however, I knew full well that this was not the only way to use it—maybe not even the best way.
It seems to me that the time has come, and perhaps is long gone, when we should move beyond primarily adopting texts from the Book of Common Worship (1993) unchanged. Rather we should at least sometimes adapt them to our own particular situation, and this for several reasons.
First of all, every liturgical circumstance is different: different settings, people, times, locations, expectations, etc. Even if all the different factors appeared to be repeated another time, they would not be exact duplicates. Liturgy requires a certain amount of fine-tuning and finesse at the least. We can hardly expect the same prayer to satisfy every disparate need time after time.
If there are exceptions to this, they would be the durable prayers that have stood the text of time and hold up well through repeated use. Yet even these require some adapting over the years—witness the Lord’s Prayer re-worked in an “ecumenical version,” and hymns with alternate wording for some lines or even new entire verses. Even Holy Scripture appears regularly in new translations.
Furthermore, pastors and worship leaders need to learn how to create and construct liturgy, and the best way—maybe the only way—is to do it. Adapting, not adopting, is the method. The Book of Common Worship (1993) is, among other things, an educational resource. The prayers and other liturgical forms are models of structure and style from which pastors and others can learn to craft their own quality versions of corporate worship.
It’s only when we do this kind of work that we begin, for example, to learn how a Eucharistic prayer is constructed, or what the Psalm Prayers contribute to the Psalter, or what all is involved in the Prayers of the People, and so forth. It’s work that pays off in more thoughtful and sensitive worship leadership, and richer participation of those in the pews.
How much of your Sunday liturgy is entirely original to you and your congregation? How do you modify prayers of confession, for illumination, of the people, week to week?
Sunday, March 7, 2010
It's a Mystery
“The view from the pew” which I currently enjoy most of the time, opens my liturgical eyes to some issues I’ve previously overlooked.
One thing I’ve begun to notice more and more is how devoid of “mystery” Protestant worship so often is. In particular, we of the Reformed Clan must have it in our genes to explain everything, and in so doing, we bleach out what cannot be explained but only experienced. On the other hand, a casual, folksy style can quickly chase away any sense of awe.
At the same time, we all know that the “mysteries” of God defy explanation and that worship itself is audacious if not preposterous. Yet we do it anyway. Mystery is at the heart of our faith and in the soul of our worship.
God resists being packaged according to our understanding. Our faith is not dependent on what we know and can explain; it depends on who we know and can experience. Therein lies the mystery of it all.
From the top, we are drawn to worship by some sort of divine magnet pulling on our souls, attracting us into a community of God’s people. We may think we come of our own will and accord, but it’s God’s call that summons us. We don’t really volunteer to worship and serve God—we are recruited. The gathering of which we are a part, the church, is a mystery too.
We are invited to confess our sinfulness in public, “before God and one another,” and if we are at all serious about that, we bare the mysteries of our souls. Such confession is accompanied by a grief for which human language is inadequate. Equally mysterious, even more so, is the forgiveness from God that floods our souls with an exquisite joy.
When words fail, as they do more often than we like to admit, music lends a helping hand. Hymns, psalms and songs, old and new, can sing what we cannot say, maybe even things we cannot bear to say. Music can engage our emotions and allow us to feel what we think we already know, that God’s grace is overwhelming, that Christ’s love makes us disciples.
The responsibility of the pastor or presider in worship is paramount. According to the Presbyterian Book of Order (G-0202a), insofar as the pastor “dispenses the manifold grace of God and the ordinances instituted by Christ, he or she is termed steward of the mysteries of God.”
Anyone who has ever stood at a pulpit to dispense the manifold grace of God knows how utterly impossible it is, but also knows the God-bestowed compulsion to try. The danger is that we preachers might slip into acting like we are the experts, like we know all the answers, when in reality we’re just trying to figure out the right questions. The truth is that we fumble for words, and never quite come up with the best ones. The mystery of preaching is that even so the Spirit speaks through the preacher’s verbiage.
Just as mysterious is the awesome calling to be the steward at the Lord’s Table. That Christ is really present in the breaking of bread and sharing the cup of wine is a mystery beyond compare. Our Lord is the host, and the pastor is his servant, the “waiter” (read “deacon”) who does the Master’s bidding and serves all who spiritually hunger and thirst.
So how do we allow the mystery of our faith to show through in our worship? What can we do, if anything, to let awe and wonderment that their places in our worship? Here are a few thoughts.
The setting of worship can undergird the sense of mystery, or can work against it. The room ought to look like it is to be used for worship, a place where ordinary people come to be engaged by God, to meet in person the risen Christ. In a word, it should look like a church, not a theater or classroom. The décor should offer iconic art, symbols that speak wordlessly of truths that defy speech.
The congregation, therefore, is not a class or an audience, but something closer to a family newly united in this place. I understand that architecture can limit options, yet it would be nice if seats could be rearranged perhaps at angles rather than in parallel rows so worshippers could see one another’s faces.
Leaders of worship should be aware of their own experience of awe, and let it find a natural expression in their tone and decorum. They will be careful, of course, to avoid preacher-y tones and speech patterns that come off forced and phony.
Significant periods of silence for everyone to personally absorb spoken and sung corporate prayers will help. In quiet reflection, the prayers take root in the depths of our souls where the mystery of God’s love is most desperately needed.
Where do you experience the mystery of God’s grace in worship? What helps and what hinders that experience?
One thing I’ve begun to notice more and more is how devoid of “mystery” Protestant worship so often is. In particular, we of the Reformed Clan must have it in our genes to explain everything, and in so doing, we bleach out what cannot be explained but only experienced. On the other hand, a casual, folksy style can quickly chase away any sense of awe.
At the same time, we all know that the “mysteries” of God defy explanation and that worship itself is audacious if not preposterous. Yet we do it anyway. Mystery is at the heart of our faith and in the soul of our worship.
God resists being packaged according to our understanding. Our faith is not dependent on what we know and can explain; it depends on who we know and can experience. Therein lies the mystery of it all.
From the top, we are drawn to worship by some sort of divine magnet pulling on our souls, attracting us into a community of God’s people. We may think we come of our own will and accord, but it’s God’s call that summons us. We don’t really volunteer to worship and serve God—we are recruited. The gathering of which we are a part, the church, is a mystery too.
We are invited to confess our sinfulness in public, “before God and one another,” and if we are at all serious about that, we bare the mysteries of our souls. Such confession is accompanied by a grief for which human language is inadequate. Equally mysterious, even more so, is the forgiveness from God that floods our souls with an exquisite joy.
When words fail, as they do more often than we like to admit, music lends a helping hand. Hymns, psalms and songs, old and new, can sing what we cannot say, maybe even things we cannot bear to say. Music can engage our emotions and allow us to feel what we think we already know, that God’s grace is overwhelming, that Christ’s love makes us disciples.
The responsibility of the pastor or presider in worship is paramount. According to the Presbyterian Book of Order (G-0202a), insofar as the pastor “dispenses the manifold grace of God and the ordinances instituted by Christ, he or she is termed steward of the mysteries of God.”
Anyone who has ever stood at a pulpit to dispense the manifold grace of God knows how utterly impossible it is, but also knows the God-bestowed compulsion to try. The danger is that we preachers might slip into acting like we are the experts, like we know all the answers, when in reality we’re just trying to figure out the right questions. The truth is that we fumble for words, and never quite come up with the best ones. The mystery of preaching is that even so the Spirit speaks through the preacher’s verbiage.
Just as mysterious is the awesome calling to be the steward at the Lord’s Table. That Christ is really present in the breaking of bread and sharing the cup of wine is a mystery beyond compare. Our Lord is the host, and the pastor is his servant, the “waiter” (read “deacon”) who does the Master’s bidding and serves all who spiritually hunger and thirst.
So how do we allow the mystery of our faith to show through in our worship? What can we do, if anything, to let awe and wonderment that their places in our worship? Here are a few thoughts.
The setting of worship can undergird the sense of mystery, or can work against it. The room ought to look like it is to be used for worship, a place where ordinary people come to be engaged by God, to meet in person the risen Christ. In a word, it should look like a church, not a theater or classroom. The décor should offer iconic art, symbols that speak wordlessly of truths that defy speech.
The congregation, therefore, is not a class or an audience, but something closer to a family newly united in this place. I understand that architecture can limit options, yet it would be nice if seats could be rearranged perhaps at angles rather than in parallel rows so worshippers could see one another’s faces.
Leaders of worship should be aware of their own experience of awe, and let it find a natural expression in their tone and decorum. They will be careful, of course, to avoid preacher-y tones and speech patterns that come off forced and phony.
Significant periods of silence for everyone to personally absorb spoken and sung corporate prayers will help. In quiet reflection, the prayers take root in the depths of our souls where the mystery of God’s love is most desperately needed.
Where do you experience the mystery of God’s grace in worship? What helps and what hinders that experience?
Sunday, February 28, 2010
More Bulletin Bullets
The bulletin bestowed upon me at the church I attended a while back prompted me to fire off a few more bullets about bulletins. This one was 20 pages (including the front and back covers, and one inside page with church information), worthy of being called a booklet. Why was it so bulky when four pages (including front and back covers) usually suffices? The answers are found in the following bullets:
n Much of the copy that filled the pages was text to be read by the worship leader(s), prayers (including the Great Thanksgiving in full, a lengthy series of intercessory prayers with responses, and a several other shorter petitions) and other liturgical pieces. This created problems.
For one thing, it was totally unnecessary. People do not need to read along that which someone else is verbalizing. Save the space and save the paper. Leave it out. People can listen.
If they have the text in front of them, however, they will read along. I took a gander around at the congregation and, sure enough, every head was bowed and every face was buried in the bulletin/booklet. Most everyone but me was looking at pages of print instead of at God’s people, brothers and sisters. So much for community.
Furthermore, if everything the worship leader says is in print, and everyone is reading it, the worship leader is off the hook. He or she doesn’t need to work very hard to communicate orally what is in print to the hearers, because they aren’t listening anyway; they are reading what he/she is saying. So, the whole liturgy gets unbearably dull.
In the matter of prayers to which or within which there are responses (such as the Great Thanksgiving and intercessory series) print only the necessary cues to the congregational responses.
In the interests of good liturgy,* let’s cut down on the printed verbiage rather than waste paper and cut down more trees.
n Another several pages of the bulletin/booklet included the texts for the day, when only the Psalm needed to be there to be read responsively. In addition, each text had a brief introduction giving some background or highlight.
Unfortunately, there were no Bibles in the pew racks as I am convinced there ought to be in every church. If there are Bibles at arms’ reaches to the worshippers, then there is no need to print the lessons—anyone can simply look them up. If your church has no pew Bibles, a full complement makes a wonderful memorial gift.
The added benefit would be that over time worshippers will learn where things are in the Bible in case they ever want to find something. Also, looking up passages is a fun thing to do with the kids in church as a learning experience.
About the brief intro for each text: skip it. The Scripture text should be presented to speak for itself. Interpretation comes in the sermon. Readers’ Digest introductions often add very little and more often just get in the way of what is to come.
n The third large block of space in this bulletin/booklet was taken up with what is called service music, notes and words. I almost wrote “melody line,” but didn’t because some of the lines had no melody that I could find. They were difficult to sing, and I can read music. I wondered about those in the room who couldn’t, and when I looked around, I saw them silently staring straight ahead. The good thing was they didn’t have their noses buried in the pages like the rest of us did.
If the service music is singable by the average congregation, it needs only words for everyone to match up with the tune. If it isn’t singable, notes won’t help most people anyway. Leave out the notes and save the space.
How full of text is your bulletin? Do you have pew Bibles? What service music does your congregation know without the music in front of them?
__________
* “Good liturgy” in my definition is worship of the people, by the people, to the glory of God. It involves the whole people together and whole people individually, body, mind and spirit. It reeks of joy and enthusiasm.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Other Corporate Worship
When you and I talk about “corporate worship,” it’s a safe bet that we are referring to what takes place in a church on Sunday morning. That in itself is a sign of how the other tradition of corporate worship—daily prayer—has been neglected, at least by the likes of us.
Sure, there are monks and nuns and a few others out there who gather morning, noon and night for prayer and a psalm or song. But they have time for such piety; their whole lives are devoted to it.
As for the rest of us, it isn’t so easy to find the hours, or even minutes, to give to the practice of prayerful disciplines. It’s difficult for us to carve prayer time out of our busy schedules individually, much less find a time to gather a group of people.
Nevertheless, the Book of Common Worship (1993) includes within its covers (and under separate cover as well) Daily Prayer, a full-blown book dedicated to day-by-day group worship. It is an all-out effort to reclaim what some of us Christians have lost, yet what others have retained, preserved and nourished over centuries.
While Lord’s Day worship follows the cycle of the Christian Year, Daily Prayer tracks the cycles of days and weeks. Occasionally the two converge in themes, but most of the time run on parallel tracks. For example, on any given Lord’s Day, there will also be worship according to the hours of the day. In any event, Lord’s Day worship and Daily Prayer are mutually supportive.
The “hours” observed in Daily Prayer are Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer, Evening Prayer and Prayer at the Close of Day. The traditions behind these services are rich. Here are just a few observations:
Morning and Evening Prayer, the principal hours, obviously follow the course of sunrise and sunset. The image of light is strong in the evening as darkness falls and candles are lighted alluding to the coming of Christ as Light for our darkness. Following natural rhythms of the day connects our prayers with the reality of our lives.
Midday Prayer arrives in the thick of the busy day, offering us a chance for prayerful reflection on the grace of God, as well as on the opportunities and challenges we face in discipleship. Prayer at the Close of Day comes just before we go to sleep. It is, in a way, a rehearsal of our funerals, as we give ourselves utterly to God’s care and keeping.
Daily prayer is established firmly on the Psalms, which are to be sung. Chanting is a lost Presbyterian art, one, it is hoped, to be resuscitated. Some psalms are set to be repeated often, as are the New Testament songs (Morning: Canticle of Zechariah; Evening: Canticle of Mary; and Close of Day: Canticle of Simeon). Repetition is valuable in that changing circumstances call forth new insights from the repeated texts and prayers.
The hours of daily prayer have different emphases on different days of the week. Fridays, for example, cannot come without remembrance of Good Friday. Saturday is a relatively low-key day, reflecting the “silence” of Holy Saturday. Sundays, of course, are celebrative.
The daily services are intended to be led not just by clergy, but by the participants as well. The services are also very flexible and adaptive to different groups in different settings, and can be lengthy or brief. Therefore, they lend themselves to use at family gatherings, governing body meetings, retreats, mealtimes, and other groups, large and small.
What is more, the Daily Prayer book is a valuable asset for one’s individual prayer times. Using it reminds us that even our prayers when we are alone are not private, but corporate, joined to the prayers of the whole church.
Even though the resource may be used individually, it is still a communal resource in that others are joining in the same prayers, praying the same psalms, on the same schedule as everyone else. The community may be scattered, but individuals are not isolated from one another. In fact, the use of daily prayer in concert has a cohesive effect for all who pray.
In one church near me, the session has provided the Book of Common Worship—Daily Prayer for the whole congregation, and presents a copy to each new member. It is their common resource for corporate daily worship, together or apart.
Still there is an issue of time—how do we find time for any of this?
Take a trip up into the mountains near Cambridge, NY, and you will find New Skete Monastery, part of the Orthodox Church of America. I’ve worshipped with the monks there not nearly as much as I’ve wanted, but often enough to learn from them an important insight. Prayer is not an item on your daily agenda for which you must find time—it is the frame for your daily life, into which everything else is inserted.
The Common Worship—Daily Prayer resource, as other similar resources published by other denominations and in other traditions, helps define that framework of the hours of the day. As I have come to understand the prayer times of morning and evening, midday and at going to sleep as circumscribing all I am and what I do, I have been surprised to find myself praying at all odd times during the day and night. “Praying without ceasing” is not the impossibility I once thought it was.
Do you use a particular resource such as Book of Common Worship—Daily Prayer? Do you observe hours of daily prayer in your church? Do you follow a personal prayer discipline? How do these enhance your Lord’s Day worship?
Sure, there are monks and nuns and a few others out there who gather morning, noon and night for prayer and a psalm or song. But they have time for such piety; their whole lives are devoted to it.
As for the rest of us, it isn’t so easy to find the hours, or even minutes, to give to the practice of prayerful disciplines. It’s difficult for us to carve prayer time out of our busy schedules individually, much less find a time to gather a group of people.
Nevertheless, the Book of Common Worship (1993) includes within its covers (and under separate cover as well) Daily Prayer, a full-blown book dedicated to day-by-day group worship. It is an all-out effort to reclaim what some of us Christians have lost, yet what others have retained, preserved and nourished over centuries.
While Lord’s Day worship follows the cycle of the Christian Year, Daily Prayer tracks the cycles of days and weeks. Occasionally the two converge in themes, but most of the time run on parallel tracks. For example, on any given Lord’s Day, there will also be worship according to the hours of the day. In any event, Lord’s Day worship and Daily Prayer are mutually supportive.
The “hours” observed in Daily Prayer are Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer, Evening Prayer and Prayer at the Close of Day. The traditions behind these services are rich. Here are just a few observations:
Morning and Evening Prayer, the principal hours, obviously follow the course of sunrise and sunset. The image of light is strong in the evening as darkness falls and candles are lighted alluding to the coming of Christ as Light for our darkness. Following natural rhythms of the day connects our prayers with the reality of our lives.
Midday Prayer arrives in the thick of the busy day, offering us a chance for prayerful reflection on the grace of God, as well as on the opportunities and challenges we face in discipleship. Prayer at the Close of Day comes just before we go to sleep. It is, in a way, a rehearsal of our funerals, as we give ourselves utterly to God’s care and keeping.
Daily prayer is established firmly on the Psalms, which are to be sung. Chanting is a lost Presbyterian art, one, it is hoped, to be resuscitated. Some psalms are set to be repeated often, as are the New Testament songs (Morning: Canticle of Zechariah; Evening: Canticle of Mary; and Close of Day: Canticle of Simeon). Repetition is valuable in that changing circumstances call forth new insights from the repeated texts and prayers.
The hours of daily prayer have different emphases on different days of the week. Fridays, for example, cannot come without remembrance of Good Friday. Saturday is a relatively low-key day, reflecting the “silence” of Holy Saturday. Sundays, of course, are celebrative.
The daily services are intended to be led not just by clergy, but by the participants as well. The services are also very flexible and adaptive to different groups in different settings, and can be lengthy or brief. Therefore, they lend themselves to use at family gatherings, governing body meetings, retreats, mealtimes, and other groups, large and small.
What is more, the Daily Prayer book is a valuable asset for one’s individual prayer times. Using it reminds us that even our prayers when we are alone are not private, but corporate, joined to the prayers of the whole church.
Even though the resource may be used individually, it is still a communal resource in that others are joining in the same prayers, praying the same psalms, on the same schedule as everyone else. The community may be scattered, but individuals are not isolated from one another. In fact, the use of daily prayer in concert has a cohesive effect for all who pray.
In one church near me, the session has provided the Book of Common Worship—Daily Prayer for the whole congregation, and presents a copy to each new member. It is their common resource for corporate daily worship, together or apart.
Still there is an issue of time—how do we find time for any of this?
Take a trip up into the mountains near Cambridge, NY, and you will find New Skete Monastery, part of the Orthodox Church of America. I’ve worshipped with the monks there not nearly as much as I’ve wanted, but often enough to learn from them an important insight. Prayer is not an item on your daily agenda for which you must find time—it is the frame for your daily life, into which everything else is inserted.
The Common Worship—Daily Prayer resource, as other similar resources published by other denominations and in other traditions, helps define that framework of the hours of the day. As I have come to understand the prayer times of morning and evening, midday and at going to sleep as circumscribing all I am and what I do, I have been surprised to find myself praying at all odd times during the day and night. “Praying without ceasing” is not the impossibility I once thought it was.
Do you use a particular resource such as Book of Common Worship—Daily Prayer? Do you observe hours of daily prayer in your church? Do you follow a personal prayer discipline? How do these enhance your Lord’s Day worship?
Sunday, February 14, 2010
User-Friendly Worship
Hospitality, as properly understood in the Christian sense, is a radical virtue. It’s not just welcoming friends into our homes. It’s the warm embrace for the stranger, the one who is different and therefore “strange,” the alien, foreigner, unbeliever, even sinner. It’s the hospitality Jesus showed to just about everybody.
When we gather in his name on his day, we aspire, it is hoped, to display something recognizable as being akin to Jesus’ hospitality. It will take some effort.
The idea is for us to make the Lord’s Day worship service as welcoming and user-friendly as possible to anyone who might wander in, not knowing a single member, but looking for something or someone to bring some meaning and purpose to life.
Here are a few thoughts:
Every church member should obey this absolute commandment: “Thou shalt not leave anyone standing alone before service or afterward.” Go introduce yourself and welcome the person. “But what if he or she is a member too? I’ll feel silly.” Then laugh and say, “It’s about time I met you.” Ignoring a visitor is a rejection unworthy of Jesus’ people. Ignoring a solitary fellow member is just as bad.
A couple of years ago, I was to participate in one of our grandchildren’s baptism. My wife and I arrived at the church, me with my robe and stole draped over my arm. We stood alone in the small vestibule as people walked back and forth past us without a word. It was an intolerable length of time before the pastor’s wife happened by and rescued us. It is not a good feeling.
And simply thrusting a paper order of service/bulletin into the visitor’s waiting hand with a cheery “Good morning” falls short. There’s more to be done.
Here’s a bit of good news. I visited a city church a while back solo, got my bulletin and took a seat in the middle of the room. I hadn’t been there a minute when a lady sat down next to me, introduced herself, said that I looked to be new to the congregation—which I acknowledged. Then she went one step further. She offered to sit with me to help me find what I needed to participate in the hymnal and worship book as the service went along. While I managed well enough on my own most of the time, there were a couple of places I’d have been lost without her tutelage. She made the experience user-friendly.
It’s a lot to ask, I know, to have a cadre of companions to guide newcomers through worship step-by-step. But it is possible, at least, to welcome the person, invite him or her to join you in a pew, and make introductions all around afterward.
It’s also a hospitable thing for instructions to be concisely and strategically placed in the bulletin so everyone knows when to stand or sit, when to sing and where to find the song, how communion will be served, names of worship leaders, and so forth. Without some basic information, the newcomer is left to the device of imitating some other worshipper.
Hospitality is particularly important at Communion time. The liturgy is broadly embracing:
“This is the Lord's table.
Our Savior invites those who trust him
to share the feast which he has prepared.”
Yet many assume that it is really only for folks in the church or denomination. They make that assumption because it so in many churches and denominations. So perhaps we should be more specific with a few words in the bulletin, stating that all are welcome regardless of church affiliation. It is the Lord’s Table, not the church’s, and it’s an open invitation.
The risk of neglecting hospitality is that the congregation ceases to be the community of God’s people and becomes a club. Christian hospitality is generous in the extreme. It must go beyond being merely polite and courteous. Anyone can do that. The disciple of Jesus knows without thinking to receive strangers as brothers or sisters and to rejoice in their presence.
This hospitality will be genuine—if it’s not, the stranger will spot it as fake right away. The Christian virtue of hospitality is uncalculating and without guile. But it can be learned. With constant practice, it becomes a natural talent, like riding a bike. You don’t have to think about it, you just do it.
How does hospitality play out at your church? What might you do to improve it?
When we gather in his name on his day, we aspire, it is hoped, to display something recognizable as being akin to Jesus’ hospitality. It will take some effort.
The idea is for us to make the Lord’s Day worship service as welcoming and user-friendly as possible to anyone who might wander in, not knowing a single member, but looking for something or someone to bring some meaning and purpose to life.
Here are a few thoughts:
Every church member should obey this absolute commandment: “Thou shalt not leave anyone standing alone before service or afterward.” Go introduce yourself and welcome the person. “But what if he or she is a member too? I’ll feel silly.” Then laugh and say, “It’s about time I met you.” Ignoring a visitor is a rejection unworthy of Jesus’ people. Ignoring a solitary fellow member is just as bad.
A couple of years ago, I was to participate in one of our grandchildren’s baptism. My wife and I arrived at the church, me with my robe and stole draped over my arm. We stood alone in the small vestibule as people walked back and forth past us without a word. It was an intolerable length of time before the pastor’s wife happened by and rescued us. It is not a good feeling.
And simply thrusting a paper order of service/bulletin into the visitor’s waiting hand with a cheery “Good morning” falls short. There’s more to be done.
Here’s a bit of good news. I visited a city church a while back solo, got my bulletin and took a seat in the middle of the room. I hadn’t been there a minute when a lady sat down next to me, introduced herself, said that I looked to be new to the congregation—which I acknowledged. Then she went one step further. She offered to sit with me to help me find what I needed to participate in the hymnal and worship book as the service went along. While I managed well enough on my own most of the time, there were a couple of places I’d have been lost without her tutelage. She made the experience user-friendly.
It’s a lot to ask, I know, to have a cadre of companions to guide newcomers through worship step-by-step. But it is possible, at least, to welcome the person, invite him or her to join you in a pew, and make introductions all around afterward.
It’s also a hospitable thing for instructions to be concisely and strategically placed in the bulletin so everyone knows when to stand or sit, when to sing and where to find the song, how communion will be served, names of worship leaders, and so forth. Without some basic information, the newcomer is left to the device of imitating some other worshipper.
Hospitality is particularly important at Communion time. The liturgy is broadly embracing:
“This is the Lord's table.
Our Savior invites those who trust him
to share the feast which he has prepared.”
Yet many assume that it is really only for folks in the church or denomination. They make that assumption because it so in many churches and denominations. So perhaps we should be more specific with a few words in the bulletin, stating that all are welcome regardless of church affiliation. It is the Lord’s Table, not the church’s, and it’s an open invitation.
The risk of neglecting hospitality is that the congregation ceases to be the community of God’s people and becomes a club. Christian hospitality is generous in the extreme. It must go beyond being merely polite and courteous. Anyone can do that. The disciple of Jesus knows without thinking to receive strangers as brothers or sisters and to rejoice in their presence.
This hospitality will be genuine—if it’s not, the stranger will spot it as fake right away. The Christian virtue of hospitality is uncalculating and without guile. But it can be learned. With constant practice, it becomes a natural talent, like riding a bike. You don’t have to think about it, you just do it.
How does hospitality play out at your church? What might you do to improve it?
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