After several months at a great, large non-denominational church in the area, Kelly and I have been visiting a smaller church plant called All Saints, an Anglican Mission in America Church. My guess is that we'll join very soon.
The biggest change for me is the liturgical nature of the worship service. We recite the creeds each week, take communion each week, kneel (or sit) at certain times in prayer. There's lots and lots of reading, lots and lots of words.
In my old age, I'm really enjoying much of it. I especially appreciate communion each week. It anchors me in the core reality that informs all of my life, or at least should: Christ died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
However at points the amount of words and reading and recitation that we do gets to me. Liturgy literally means "work of the people." It's pretty clear that this "work of the people" service has been developed over the past several hundred years by over-educated white guys who really liked words. A lot.
Now as an over-educated white guy myself, I can really appreciate the power of the liturgy. Especially in light of my systematic theology professor's deep appreciation for the historical creeds--I learned to see the beauty and power of what's been handed down.
But ere's my primary issue to this point: if you are illiterate or just struggle to read, you are de facto un-invited into worship. So we're working through the Sermon on the Mount in the Scriptures and the reality is that the type of people Jesus was mostly talking to in giving that powerful address would feel extremely uncomfortable in our worship service.
Does this mean that we simply "chuck" several thousand years of rich Christian tradition? Does that mean that lowest-common-denominator should dictate what we do or don't do in worship? I don't think so. But does that mean that we just do what we do and ignore the needs of the people that Jesus spent most of his time with? I don't think that, either. Where does that leave us? Beats the heck out of me.
6 comments:
I actually think long-term, liturgy is better for the illiterate. It's really easy to memorize the whole structure of the service and the liturgy itself, especially if you are used to relying on your ears. For example, our young two year old quickly learns every element of the service she's exposed to.
Initially it might feel uncomfortable, but I don't see how it would be much more uncomfortable than a normal evangelical service. At least there is a pattern to learn and many elements that stay the same.
But, I am a high church presbyterian and other than our year at WEPC (when we went to a weekly communion service at an ECUSA church when we could) we've always attended churches that were more liturgical and had weekly communion.
Steve Breedlove's pastoring that church, right?
I agree in part with what Kristen said. The liturgy is really good and after a while, it would be easier. I'm sure it would be uncomfortable at first, but I think that is where the real character of the Church should come in. We should reach out and welcome people and make an effort to make it clear that it's fine if they don't know the order of the service. It is our job to show them that we came into this not knowing the order of service, either. That's how we all come to God. As sinners, not knowing how it all works. This could be a really good way to show that.
Kells and I receive communion every Sunday at our PCUSA church's early service.
It's my favorite part of the service.
Or, as you Anglicans might say, it's my favourite part of the service.
In response to the last paragraph ... perhaps this leaves us with the necessity to have churches that differ in their styles of worship. Perhaps it means that we as individual churches need to not quibble on non-essential matters and unite on the essential ones ( Christ died, Christ is risen, Chris will come again ). Perhaps we need to learn about other churches in our area so that when someone comes to Christ we can help them find the church community where they will be comfortable and grow. People are not all the same, why should churches all be ?
That would be Christ ... not Chris ... will come again !! :) ha ha. Gotta love typos !
One thing to keep in mind Alex is that the liturgy itself was crafted in a time where a huge portion of the people were illiterate. This is part of the reason why we read four large portions of scripture each service - for many people that was all of the Bible they ever got to hear. The readings were chosen so that, over a three-year period, all of the key portions of scripture were read, even if they don't actually get to every single word of it.
When I first started attending a liturgical service, the first thing I did to try to help myself engage in worship more fully was to memorize the liturgy. I felt at least that so long as I was reading, I wasn't really worshiping. Once I knew the words by heart I could concentrate on directing my spirit toward the lord through the words. Of course, this is reinforced best by the congregational parts being consistent (at least across seasons).
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