Worship Matters

A Study for Congregations

Jane Rogers Vann

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780664234164
• eBook ISBN:
  9781611640892
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Rituals & Practice

Sunday worship is the central act of the Christian faith, yet few people truly understand what is happening during the service, and why, and how. Based on numerous visits with congregations of many denominations, Jane Rogers Vann examines how we can eliminate the barrier between the preacher and the people in the pew and offers practical advice directed not just toward church leaders but to worship committees and church members--all who are yearning to be fully engaged in worship. Photographs of many of the churches she visited are included.

Chapter 1

Not Talking about Worship

The sanctuary of Saint Luke’s Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, Illinois, is festively decked in red—table covering, paraments, banners—as Pastors Stephen Larson and Kristi Weber and I sit and talk about the worship life of the congregation. The pastors, educators, musicians, and lay leaders at Saint Luke’s are a great team! They work collaboratively, cumulatively, and intentionally as they invite the congregation—young and old, newcomers and longtime members, leaders and pew sitters—into the presence of God each Lord’s Day. So I am more than a little surprised that as we conclude our conversation the pastors turn to one another and say, “Gee, we’ve never really talked about worship like this together, have we?” In the midst of all their excellent collaboration, conversations about worship seldom go below the surface. As I begin a similar conversation with two longtime lay leaders at Little River United Church of Christ just outside Washington, D.C., I hear something of the same sentiment. Jane Hustveldt says, “Talk about worship? What’s to talk about? The service is the service!”

Imagine you are with my friends Chip and Paul as they conclude worship at a regional conference and move to a seminar titled “Worship Reflections.” The conference is focused on exploring the seasons of Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost, and the seminar is a place where participants are invited to explore more deeply the worship events in which they have just participated. Chip and Paul, both experienced pastors and worship leaders, introduce themselves and invite the group to begin their conversation together by naming images and metaphors they recall from the morning’s “Easter” service. To their surprise, most of the comments bypass this invitation to explore the metaphorical languages of worship and focus instead on aspects of worship that trivialize worship’s intention of inviting encounter with God (“I didn’t like the place of the announcements in the service nor the way they were done”).

It seems that Christians don’t talk much about worship and, if they do, they confine their conversations to a narrow range of, some would say, trivial topics. When I’ve asked members and leaders in congregations across the country to tell me about the conversations they have about worship, they often have a hard time recounting actual conversations, saying their congregation doesn’t really talk about worship very much. The conversations they report reveal that it is easier to talk about the pragmatic aspects of worship—who will do what when—than it is to talk about the role of worship in the life of the congregation and its deep meaning for the gathered assembly. This seems odd, given the extensive changes in worship that have been introduced into mainline churches over the past twenty-five years or so. The life of the church is grounded in its worship of the living God. Week by week, season by season, year by year, the church faithfully assembles each Lord’s Day to turn its undivided attention toward the creator of heaven and earth. Christians gather, bringing praise, thanksgiving, confession, lament, and intercession; engaging in singing, dancing, storytelling, washing, eating, and drinking. How is it that Christians find nothing to talk about?

When people confess that they don’t talk about worship, my next question always is, Why not? I’ve collected an interesting list of responses that point toward the need for more effective strategies to help congregations discuss the gathering that is the primary focus of their common life.

Congregations don’t talk about worship because …

… people are too busy

Most active members of most congregations are very busy people. Try to schedule an extra meeting, and you will know what I mean. Because worship is important in the life of a congregation, conversations about it require careful attention, and that takes time. Rather than enter into such conversations in a halfhearted way, many members step back from engaged discussions about the liturgy and let others take care of things.

When the leaders of Grace Episcopal Church in Newton Corner, Massachusetts, faced this situation, the pastors and musician saw their best opportunities for conversation within gatherings that were already going on. At choir rehearsal every week, musician Linda Clark is quick to make theological and liturgical connections between the music the choir sings and its place in the liturgy. On a recent summer Sunday, Assistant Rector Ed Pease led an “instructed liturgy.” As the community gathered to worship, each element of their celebration was explored theologically and liturgically, exposing its deeper meanings. Ed says he avoided a mechanical, practical explanation of the liturgy, opting for a deeper kind of exploration, with hopes that it would lead to congregation-wide meaning-making conversations. And it had the hoped-for outcome. In late fall when I visited them, the congregation was still talking about that Sunday, still exploring the liturgy’s meaning for their ongoing life together.

Grace Episcopal Church choir, Newton Corner, Massachusetts, with Linda Clarke, director. Photo by Carol Robinson. Used with permission.

… Worship belongs to the pastor (and maybe the musicians)

Most mainline denominations have produced materials related to the liturgy during the past decade and have made strong systematic efforts to expand each congregation’s participation in and understanding of their liturgical heritage and practice. Nevertheless the assumption persists that liturgy is something best left to the “professionals.” It is easy for people to come to the conclusion that they shouldn’t understand. People say they don’t know anything about worship so they shouldn’t comment. They just want someone to tell them what to do. That’s good enough. If they’ve gotten the message that worship belongs to pastors and musicians, they are not motivated to become curious and ask questions, and that’s too bad. It does make life easier for pastors and musicians. It is easier and more efficient to plan worship themselves and leave the “amateurs” out of the process. Unfortunately this keeps most lay leaders and members at arm’s length from opportunities for learning about the liturgy and from the kind of theological reflection it engenders. And the people in the pews are quick to get the message that their role is to become spectators and do what they are told.

In many congregations laypeople often take active parts in Lord’s Day worship, but without much preparation for their roles. I have said (loudly) for decades that, as an educator, the task I would most gladly undertake in my congregation would be to help prepare worship leaders—greeters, ushers, lectors, crucifers, acolytes, leaders of prayers—for their roles. Recently I was able to work with my colleague Ronald Byars to help the lectors at our church understand and carry out their role as readers of Scripture. We began with prayer for the presence of the Holy Spirit and then moved to some of the practical aspects of their ministry, but before long a conversation about a theology of Scripture began to emerge, and the connections between these lectors’ tasks and their own spiritual formation were evident. These longtime lay leaders had never before been given the opportunity to develop sufficient confidence in their task so that its inherent spiritually formative qualities could be explored. They were eager for the opportunity and grateful for the spiritual fruit it could bear. The word liturgy means “the work of the people.” In order for this to become a reality for the church today, pastors, musicians, lay leaders, and all other members are called to share responsibility for worship in new and different ways that include preparation, full participation, and reflection on their roles.

… Worship leaders don’t want questions

I’ve known congregations, and perhaps you’ve known them too, where pastoral, educational, and/or musical leadership is not receptive to questions about worship. Sometimes leaders are distracted by other issues or programs. Perhaps they view such questions as a challenge to their authority. It may be that leaders make some of the same assumptions as members of congregations, assumptions reflected in this list. Whatever the cause, there are subtle signals that let members of congregations know that their questions about worship are not welcome.

… Worship is too controversial

Much has been written about the worship wars and congregational conflict centered around worship style. Many people have been left with the twin impressions that worship is all about style and that disagreements about style are much too painful to get into. These conflicts have taken place during one of the most broadly experimental periods of recent church history and have resulted in both heartbreak and spiritual deepening. Often liturgical experiments are initiated by small cliques of would-be worship leaders whose enthusiasm outstrips their understanding of the congregation’s worshiping traditions. Those outside these cliques know from bitter experience that trying to talk through different hopes and expectations is risky indeed. Sometimes the only question people know to ask one another about worship is, “Did you like it?” This immediately makes worship a matter of personal preference. In my experience “Did you like it?” is the wrong question. Church architect E. A. Sövik takes note of this question, saying, “The questions some people put to themselves when they encounter a new architectural form, or any new art form, are, ‘Do I like it? Does it please me?’ The questions are the same as one asks oneself about a new flavor of ice cream or a new brand of cigar. … It cannot be right to judge Chartres Cathedral and a piece of pie by the same criteria.”¹ One of the aims of this book is to offer different (better) questions to ask when inviting discussion about worship.

Christ Lutheran Church, Richmond, Virginia. New paraments, tablecloths, and banner. Photo by Dave Swager. Used with permission.

When the altar guild of Christ Lutheran Church in Richmond, Virginia, began to consider the worship environment of their church, they started with questions about the liturgical year: What are the origins and meanings of the liturgical seasons? What images and metaphors are found in the Scriptures read during each season? How might those images and metaphors become a part of our liturgical environment? What difference might their presence make for our worship? With these questions in mind, the altar guild held a lengthy conversation with a fabric artist and a theologian/biblical scholar. Out of that conversation the artist designed a tablecloth, paraments, and banner for the congregation to use during the season of Pentecost. The questions they asked had more to do with the centrality and meaning of the liturgy than with personal preference and opinion. Questions like these can lead to conversations about worship that bring controversial issues to light but help to avoid disagreements over likes and dislikes.

… “Fad-o-phobia”: Fear of blindly following the latest trends

When the contemporary and seeker-friendly worship styles emerged a couple of decades ago, congregations began a broad range of experiments, some of which were appropriate to their congregational life and heritage and some of which were not. Even people who were not opposed to such innovation were wary of just following current fads. Congregations and their leaders found themselves without adequate resources for charting the direction of changes in worship. Without opportunities for constructive conversations, experiments in many places were tried for a short time and then set aside as the congregation went back to its customary patterns.

At Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, worship traditions provide a stable foundation for a wide variety of experiments and innovations in worship, most notably a weekly Celtic evensong service. Within the ongoing life of this traditional congregation, a variety of kinds of music, liturgical action, storytelling, and prayer have been introduced. Pastors, musicians, and worship leaders draw on a broad range of resources, all the while staying within their own deep theological traditions. Thus their worship is always fresh and lively, never trendy or faddish.

… We don’t want to be labeled “narrow minded”

At the other end of the spectrum from the need to have worship “the way I like it” is the notion that only the narrow-minded are reluctant to accept innovative worship practices. Sometimes conversations about worship are undermined because of an implicit message that if someone else likes worship this way, who am I to disagree? Being a moderate or liberal congregation seems to mean “we accept everything.”

Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia. Baptismal font. Photo by Sarah Bartenstein. Used with permission.

First Congregational United Church of Christ, Asheville, North Carolina. Photo by Christopher Oakley. Used with permission.

At First Congregational United Church of Christ in Asheville, North Carolina, which recently moved into a historic downtown church building, conversations about worship began to center around inclusive language. For some time, members and leaders had been sensitive to issues of language in worship, but suddenly these issues began to take on heightened importance. When it came time for open, compassionate, honest conversation, the pastors invited the gathered participants to tell stories. They asked members, “Describe the times and places when you became aware of inclusive language as an important element of worship.” “Tell us about those persons who have been important in shaping your understanding of inclusive language.” These and questions like them led the group into a level of mutual understanding and generosity that allowed them to grapple constructively with more controversial aspects of inclusive language. Rather than “accept everything,” they heard stories of how deep meaning is made and have come to respect differing viewpoints.

As a recent church advertisement puts it, the church is a “come as you are” but not a “stay as you are” kind of place. The church exists within a broad and deep stream of history where the purposes and practices of worship can be clearly discerned. Though there is generous latitude for variety and local practices, worship is not, at its heart, about personal preferences. Members of congregations are called to move beyond both polarization and giving in for the sake of personal preferences. Congregations are called to move toward worship’s central norms, uniquely embodied in each community. In this book those central norms are expressed as “Ideals” at the end of each chapter and lead to questions for discussion.

… The church has too many other concerns, and Worship is not at the top of the list

Every congregation must balance its activities with its energy and resources. There is usually more to do than the congregation can get done, so choices must be made and efficiencies must be introduced. Under these common circumstances, it is easy to set aside the demanding practice of talking about worship and focus the congregation’s energies on more pressing needs. It is easy to “streamline” conversations so that precious time and energy can be spent elsewhere.

At Spanish Springs Presbyterian Church in Sparks, Nevada, an eight-year-old congregation meeting in a suburban strip mall storefront, careful allocation of energy would seem natural, given all that needs to be accomplished in this young congregation. But members of this congregation are hungry for conversations about worship. They understand its centrality to their life as a congregation, and they are eager to understand why their worship is different from the many megachurches that surround them. The energy they give to exploring the meaning of worship actually increases the energy they have for community outreach and mission.

… There are not a lot of venues for talking about worship

Sometimes the places where one would expect to overhear probing conversations about worship turn out to be the last places where such conversations actually occur. I’ve been to many worship committee meetings, governing board meetings, and staff meetings where worship is discussed only in terms of its mechanics and logistics, with never a mention of worship’s deeper meanings. For many of the reasons listed above, pastors, educators, and musicians are reluctant to create opportunities where a deeper level of discussion might be possible, but the consequences of suc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Not Talking about Worship
• Chapter 2: The Symbolic Languages of Worship
• Chapter 3: Gathering God’s People: A Place for Worship
• Chapter 4: Dressing the Space: Making the Unseen Visible through the Arts
• Chapter 5: Enacting Worship: Using Our Bodies in Worship
• Chapter 6: Timekeeping: Liturgical Days and Seasons
• Chapter 7: Proclaiming God’s Praise: Liturgical Speech
• Chapter 8: Lifting Our Voices: Liturgical Song
• Notes