United Methodist Worship

Ancient-Future and Blended Worship: What Are They and What’s the Difference?

2012-01-20T12:58:00.003-06:00

Photo Credit: Ad Meskens.
Copyrighted, but may be reproduced
with credit to the photographer.

Note: The genesis of this blog post was as a response to a comment on GBOD’s Facebook Group, UMC Worship. The original question was:

I am intensely passionate about "Ancient-Future" worship a la the late Robert Webber. To my way of thinking, that is a different thing altogether than blended worship. Is that accurate? … I'm wondering if you could comment on the difference between ancient future and blended worship.

-- Taylor Burton-Edwards

Ancient-future and "blended" are very different kinds of animals, at least as those two terms are usually used.

Ancient-future reflects the work of really two separate 19th and early 20th century ecumenical movements that were mostly parallel, and then came to interact-- the liturgical renewal movement growing out of the "re-un-earthings" of a lot of early Christian liturgical materials beginning in the late 19th century (some of which were a matter of having discovered how to translate some of these early languages again) PLUS the significant turn in the larger global mission movements toward what folks like Lesslie Newbigin would popularize as "indigenous mission."

The result of the liturgical scholarship-liturgical renewal movements was we now had a much firmer handle on the basic patterns and practices of earlier Christian worship, West and East— pre-Middle Ages, pre Reformation, and in some cases pre-Constantine/ Theodosius. The discovery and subsequent publication of reams of scholarship on these texts made it clear that Christians could be worshiping now far more in line with what early Christians knew and experienced. This scholarship also made available to many, for the first time in English, the rich treasury these texts were and could provide.

Parallel with all of this was the growing awareness in mission circles that simply trying to import the ecclesiological and liturgical practices of the "mother country/church" and particularly, simply translating such texts into the language(s) of the "receiving country" was actually doing violence to the incarnational nature of the gospel itself. Not to mention, it didn't really work-- unless, perhaps, you thought having identical worship worldwide was essential to keeping your empire together (as Britain certainly thought for a time!). What was needed instead-- and so what came to be developed-- was to find ways for the local culture to DO what Christian liturgy was DOING from within their own idioms and sensibilities-- i.e., do liturgy that is deeply connected to the patterns of Christians in all times and places-- but that just as deeply reflects and expresses the lives of the people and cultures who actually offer it now in real time.

So we have beginning by the middle of the 20th century multiple instances of such "ancient-indigenous" liturgical development going on "in the mission field" (primarily among Protestants) worldwide. And we have, in the work of people like Lesslie Newbigin and organizations like the World Council of Churches, what was at the time sort of a gradual "leaking back to America" of how this was proceeding in various places around the world.

While to be fair, there were all sorts of "ancient future" experiments with liturgy happening pre-Vatican II in the Roman Catholic world, including in the United States, it was primarily Vatican II that mainstreamed the process of moving Roman Catholic worship to earlier patterns and more vernacular expression. Nearly all of the “mainline Protestants” followed suit, creating new resources for worship now with language and technologies that speak of now on the same ancient "Basic Pattern of Worship"-- Entrance, Word/Response, Table, Sending-- that early Christianity seemed to have followed nearly everywhere, despite great diversity in local expression in terms of just how they followed it.

“Ancient-Future” is the term Robert Webber used (and possibly coined) to describe this confluence of ancient texts and practices with current indigenous missiology when he sought to explain these things among primarily Evangelical audiences, particularly folks whose roots were more in the Reformed and the 19th century holiness and early 20th century Pentecostal and "free-church" traditions. These persons and traditions, out of which Webber himself had come, generally had had little if any introduction to or involvement with the scholarship on early Christian liturgies OR the more widely ecumenical (and "mainline") movement toward indigenous mission (and therefore also indigenous liturgy).

While appeals to “tradition” or “liturgical scholarship” or “ecumenical mission movements” might have little currency among his primarily evangelical audiences, the term “Ancient- Future” could ring true. Evangelicals could appreciate the value of what was ancient-- very close or at least closer to the time of the Bible-- even if they may have difficulty with the idea that liturgy might have some fixed written texts and ritual that mattered. They could also appreciate a drive toward future-- and not just present-- given the importance eschatology continued to play as a centerpiece in much of their theology and preaching, even as it was downplayed very often in "mainline" Protestant circles.

This is why one usually finds examples of what gets called "ancient-future" worship more openly called that among Evangelicals than among mainline Protestants in the US. I would also suggest that the more or less “free church” nature of many of these Evangelical traditions may have helped those who have found Webber's way of talking about these things appealing to develop worship practices that were at once far more ancient and far more innovative than examples we may more typically see in mainline Protestant contexts.

The principle here, whether called “ancient-future” or something else, is basically the same. It's about going deep and wide at once-- about profound rootedness in the ancient (connectedness) and equally profound commitments to expression here and now (indigenous). It’s about submitting to old, old patterns (including at times old, old technologies, such as candles and incense) and at being ready to incorporate bleeding edge expression at the same time.

As such, “Ancient Future” worship is more of a “discipline” than a “style.” It isn't about trying to please preferences or tastes of worshipers. It about a commitment to offering worship that is both deeply faithful and deeply relevant at onces. Put another way, ancient-future is not and done right cannot be a "consumerist" act done to "attract" others because it suits their tastes. Rather, it's a very participatory act in which the assembly and its leaders seek to go deep, following ancient practices of our ancestors in the faith, and at the same time offer the best we have of ourselves today.

There are a few instances of this in the United Methodist Church-- but they are the exception. I would observe they are also the exception in the ELCA, the Episcopal Church, and AMiA (Anglican Mission in America) as well, although the liturgies and liturgical sensibilities of these denominations are typically formed on the “ancient” side of “ancient-future” at least.

Blended worship, by contrast, as that term is most typically used, has generally been marketed (I mean that term!) as a "strategy" for worship used to try to "please" folks who "prefer" either "contemporary" or "traditional" worship, but who find themselves in congregations that may not be able to pull off either of those separately for whatever reasons. In nearly all the literature I've seen on this strategy over the years-- mostly generated from within the "church growth consulting industry”-- “blended worship” has been promoted explicitly as a consumerist strategy, a way to try to “satisfy every customer" at least a little. It has also been presented as a compromise strategy in the “worship wars” that marketers of the “brands” "traditional" and "contemporary" created and still, to some degree, sustain.

But it represents neither a cease-fire nor a real solution, long term. Nor can it, when its premises are still, all too often, about making sure different "market niches" can get some of what they're looking for OUT of worship. The Bible has a name for worship focused on something other than offering ourselves to God, as the intense focus on "preference driven worship style" has become: idolatry.
Biblical worship by contrast to idolatry focuses on helping all people (not consumers!) offer (not get and consume!) the best of all their gifts to God in worship. We are, as Paul reminds, the body of Christ, gifted very diversely, not so we can get what we want, but so that in the offering of all of our gifts, including in worship, the body functions as Christ's body to bless and transform the world.

That's why I, like my predecessors in Worship office at GBOD, Dan Benedict and Hoyt Hickman, am fairly adamant about pastors doing what they can to move congregations away from any approach to worship design and planning that is about consumerist assumptions and toward an approach to worship that helps the whole assembly offer its best gifts to God. Call it "liturgical renewal," or call it "ancient-future" or call it "connected and indigenous worship"-- this basic approach embodies far better who we are and whose we are as the body of Christ, connected in a communion of saints and offering our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God, than any labels such as “traditional,” “contemporary” or “blended,” can ever hope to do.

The Differences Congregational Worship Makes... and Doesn't

2012-01-17T18:59:00.001-06:00

Photo by David Ball. Used by permission CC-SA 3.0.

Congregational Worship May not Be "All That" for Many

The Barna Group has recently published the findings of a research project seeking to understand and name the differences attending Christian congregational worship makes in the lives of worshipers. You can read their analysis in their article,"What People Experience in Churches."

When Huffington Post reviewed these findings, their attention grabbing headline was "Churchgoing Has No Effect On 50% Of Americans, According To Survey."

HuffPo was taking liberties with the data, to be sure, but there were indicators in Barna's own article that pointed in that direction. Consider these quotes:

Nearly half said their life had not changed at all as a result of churchgoing (46%).

Even among those who attended church in the last week, half admitted they could not recall a significant insight they had gained.

Millions of active participants find their church experiences to be lacking.

In other words, if we're expecting folks attending worship in our congregations to have their lives recognizably altered by that activity alone, or even to find that worship itself gives them regularly memorable direction for their lives, we may be expecting of worship things worship is not likely to deliver for nearly half of those who attend regularly.

What Can Congregational Worship Be for Most?

"Feel part of a group that cares for each other" and "Felt a real and personal connection with God" received relatively high marks (usually well over 50%) across the board, regardless of the size, denominational family (Roman Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Non-Mainline Protestant), or generation of worshiper surveyed.

In short, the primary difference congregational worship makes for most people is a felt sense of connection with God and neighbor.

This should not be a surprising finding if we take a long view of things. The primary function of religion, captured in the etymology of the word religion itself, is "relinking" God, community, and earth. Shared ritual practices, such as congregational worship, have been in nearly every culture the primary means by which religion accomplishes its "relinking" work.

Congregational worship or its equivalent, then, across many times and cultures, hasn't been primarily about hearing new messages, or serving the poor, or even having one's own life transformed in any way. It's been much more about bringing God and community together in a living encounter here and now where we live.

So perhaps it is that felt sense of connection, more than anything else, that has the most profound impact, perhaps more unconsciously than consciously, on the lives of worshipers in congregations, even those who say congregational worship makes little or no real difference in their lives.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Where does this study suggest room for improvement? The places to look are where there are statistically significant differences on the same item being measured, especially, as I have suggested above, on the categories about feeling a meaningful connection with God and neighbors.

Since the study has an error margin of 3.2% in either direction, there is statistically significant difference between any two columns in the same row on Barna's charts only when the mathematical difference between them exceeds 6.4%. So, for example, in the chart comparing religious traditions, the only item where there is statistically significant difference between mainline and non-mainline Protestants on is whether worshipers gained some new insight in worship that week. This is likely a sign of different cultural expectations of these two traditions. Non-mainline Protestants tend to be far more "message-centered" in worship than either mainline Protestants or Roman Catholics.

On the two most important metrics for worship-- connection with God and each other-- there are two significant statistical differences to heed.

First, "Mosaics" (those aged 18-27) are dramatically less likely to experience feeling part of a group that cares for them. "Dramatically" is not too strong a word. Only 47% responded positively, compared with figures closer to 70% for every other age group tested. It's not that they are not connecting to God-- there not a statistical difference between them and Busters (28-46) in that category, though there is a difference between them and two older groups (around 70%). It really is that they are not connecting with other worshipers present or perhaps with each other.

What do we do about this? We can certainly work at forging better connections with younger adults, including in worship.

And just as important, we probably could use more research. This was a point-in-time study. It reflects a set of data collected over a short time frame. It would be wise to do a longitudinal study-- one that looks at similar data for this age group over time-- to see whether this outcome is unique for people this age right now, or whether it is not all that atypical for this age group over time. It is quite plausible, for example, that this is a more or less persistent pattern for this age group, though perhaps more pronounced now than in the past. This age group is by far the most mobile and socially unstable age group in American culture. These are persons who may be attending college, graduate or professional schools, (probably nowhere near the congregations they had some previous connections with), just starting out in a career or seeking and perhaps frequently changing jobs, moving frequently, and just beginning to create new social ties or possibly new family ties, whether they choose to get married or are "still looking." In other words, all of their community ties in this stage of life may feel a bit fractured or at least fragile, and that includes relationships with people in congregations. While congregations can and should be sensitive to these realities, there may be relatively little they can do in worship per se to mitigate them, other than finding multiple ways to keep in touch and invite participation.

Second, persons in mid-size congregations (100-299 in average weekly attendance) have a significantly lower experience of connecting with God than in either small or large congregations. On the plus side, 68% do report feeling connected to God in worship. But that's 10% less than in small churches (< 100) and 9% less than large churches (> 300). Persons in midsize congregations are also much less likely to report gaining new insights or being significantly affected by their participation than persons in either small or large congregations.

One thing this tells us is size matters! In a way it's unfortunate the attendance was broken down this way, though, because it masks where the deeper pinch may be felt, somewhere between 150-225. 150 is known as Dunbar's number, the maximum for what anthropologist Robin Dunbar refers to as "unit cohesion." Up to about 150, people in an organization can know everyone else fairly personally, and personal bonds are very emotionally strong. After 150, we really can't. This means after 150, it's no longer personal connections that hold people together-- it's more about common vision and purpose than personal ties. These can become strong ties as well, but when you're in that awkward size from 150-225, the pull back to 150 (and personal ties) can feel much stronger than the push toward 300 and beyond (and ties of vision and purpose).

I suggest we're seeing the tension of this size dynamic reflected in Barna's findings about connection with God and the effect of the congregation on people's lives.

And I also suggest there are things we can do about it. First, be aware that this tension is real and very powerful. Second, be aware that the power of this tension can diminish people's experience of God in worshiping communities of this size. It's not that God is not just as present or that there is something spiritually wrong with the congregation, necessarily. It's that the some of the ways people used to experience God with one another when the group size was smaller don't work when the group size is larger, while at the same time some of the ways people have come to experience God in worship in larger congregations don't quite work well, either-- at least not yet.

Take two practices common in smaller congregations, for example-- the passing of the peace and "joys and concerns." In smaller congregations, everyone may share the peace or shake hands with nearly everyone present. This can take quite some time. And nobody minds. Likewise, the sharing of "joys and concerns," where individuals may stand and share prayer requests and often some extended stories to surround them, is cherished in many smaller congregations. But in both cases, when the attendance starts moving above 150, neither becomes viable anymore. You don't and won't know the people you're shaking hands with. Sharing "joys and concerns" in a group this large, with people you do not know, is more threatening than supportive. And in places where the congregation may have gotten larger than 150, and then tries either to hang on to these practices or re-introduces them, attendance is likely to head back down toward 150 or less in due course.

So what to do? There is no clear blueprint for this-- and anyone who tells you there is is trying to sell you something! But there is at least a direction. Think about it as a trapeze. You will have to let go one trapeze and clasp the one coming if you want to move from one size to the next-- from small toward large. Simply hang on to what you have done in worship as a personal-size congregation, and you will stay stuck in the middle, or perhaps fall back toward the smaller size. You needn't let go all worship practices that presume face to face relationships at once, but you will have to let go some, and more as your size increases. It's a matter of wise pastoral leadership and negotiation with the congregation as the pastor and other leaders help the "post-personal congregation" embrace a vision of a different kind of connection in ministry and mission with one another and with God over time.

So if you find yourself in or leading worship in a congregation this size, acknowledge these realities. Help people understand why their experience of God in worship may seem awkward for a time. And lead well-- by noticing and helping your congregation notice the next trapeze coming, and then leading them and supporting them as they take the leap when the right time comes.

When You MUST Cancel Christmas

2011-12-20T08:16:00.002-06:00

Wesselburen in winter. Photographer Dirk Ingo Franke January 2004.
Used by permission under a CC 1.0 license

Christmas falls on a Sunday this year. Just like the last time this happened, there are a number of congregations choosing to cancel Sunday worship services. Willow Creek got the most coverage for this last time. This time around, they will offer a service Christmas morning at 10 a.m. Not everyone is following suit. Another "alternative" is happening in a few places. Instead of worship, they're gathering for a day of service projects.

Let's be honest. If it weren't on a Sunday, most United Methodists and most Protestants in the US would not be worshiping on Christmas Day anyway. So it's not like not having worship that day, even if it is a Sunday, feels like "canceling" anything. It's more like not adding one more thing to our "traditional celebration"-- a celebration which has become about family, friends, and maybe some football, and hardly at all about worship.

But this post isn't about whether congregations should offer worship on Christmas, or Christmas Eve for that matter. (Yes, we should!) It's actually about what to do when we discover we can't.

If you've lived in the "snowbelts" of the US for any length of time, you know there are times when it is simply not safe or good even to try to gather for worship, even if it is Christmas Eve and the choir, the children, the dance team, and countless others have worked hard for months preparing for the celebration of the holy night.

We Christians are part of a social religion. It just doesn't do for us to worship alone or even as families, especially on such significant occasions as Christmas. We need to be with others, even if it is only a handful of neighbors we invite at or near the last minute.

So what do you do when safety issues mean you simply must cancel Christmas? Have a back-up plan ready to go!

Here are three.

1. Create and send home "neighborhood Christmas service packs" for your members to use with folks on their street or neighborhood on Christmas Eve night or Christmas morning. If you have to cancel services, chances are good that many other churches did, too. So you're not the only person or family around missing a worshipful celebration of the night (or day). Include in the pack a service that can be led in homes by laypeople (such as the one below) complete with public domain Christmas hymns and accompaniments (provided in the links). Oh, and don't forget food and warm beverages!

2. Encourage folks to invite neighbors over for the ReThink Church online Christmas Eve service (6 p.m. ET, Christmas Eve) and to share some treats before, during or afterwards.

AND

3. Reschedule the corporate celebration. It's important to gather as the whole congregation to celebrate God becoming flesh and dwelling among us in the season, and to do so as lavishly as we can. It's also important that we honor the preparation many have put into a significant celebration on Christmas Eve or Day. So, rather than "giving up" on what was prepared, reschedule it. Remember that Christmas is not one day, but a season of 12 days, culminating in Epiphany on January 6. So if Christmas Eve or Christmas Day weekend won't work, consider the following weekend. Or even later if you have to. When you have your biggest celebrations is less important than that you actually have them! If your region is particularly snow-prone, build at least 2 or 3 fallback dates into everyone's schedule so the corporate celebration (with communion!) can still happen.

So even if you must cancel a scheduled service, never, ever, actually cancel Christmas!

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

Director of Worship Resources

The General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church

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A Suggested Order for a Neighborhood Christmas Service

ENTRANCE

Leader: Christ the Savior is born!

People: Come, let us adore him!

Hymn: O Come, All Ye Faithful (Piano Accompaniment)

1. O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, 
 O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem. 
 Come and behold him, born the King of angels; 
Refrain:
 O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, 
 O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

2. True God of true God, Light from Light Eternal, 
 lo, he shuns not the Virgin's womb; 
 Son of the Father, begotten not created; 
 (Refrain)

3. Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation; 
 O sing, all ye citizens of heaven above! 
 Glory to God, all glory in the highest; 
 (Refrain)

4. Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning, 
 Jesus, to thee be all glory given. 
 Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing: 
 (Refrain)

Scripture: Isaiah 9:2-4, 6-7 (KJV)

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:

they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death,

upon them hath the light shined.

Thou hast multiplied the nation,and increased its joy:

they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest,

and asmen rejoice when they divide the spoil.

For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden,

and the staff of his shoulder,

the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.

For unto us a child is born,

unto us a son is given:

and the government shall be upon his shoulder:

And his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor,

The mighty God,

The everlasting Father,

The Prince of Peace.

Of the increase ofhis government and peacethere shall be no end,

upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,

to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice

from henceforth even for ever.

The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Hymn: Joy to the World, The Lord Is Come (Piano Accompaniment)

1.      Joy to the world, the Lord is come! 
 Let earth receive her King; 
 let every heart prepare him room, 
 and heaven and nature sing, 
 and heaven and nature sing, 
 and heaven and nature sing. 

2. Joy to the world, the Savior reigns! 
 Let all their songs employ; 
 while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains 
 repeat the sounding joy, 
 repeat the sounding joy, 
 repeat the sounding joy. 

3. No more let sins and sorrows grow, 
 nor thorns infest the ground; 
 he comes to make his blessings flow 
 far as the curse is found, 
 far as the curse is found, 
 far as the curse is found. 

4. He rules the world with truth and grace, 
 and makes the nations prove 
 the glories of his righteousness, 
 and wonders of his love, 
 and wonders of his love, 
 and wonders of his love.

Gospel: Luke 2:1-14 (KJV)

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And thisshall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Reflection/Sharing: The Joys and Promise of Christmas

Say: Today, the feelings of Christmas are often located in joys of family and friends, and perhaps joys of sharing gifts as well.

Ask: What do you find joyous about this season?

Say: The scriptures for this day promise much more. Listen to these words again.

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:

they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death,

upon them hath the light shined.

Thou hast multiplied the nation,and increased its joy:

they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest,

and asmen rejoice when they divide the spoil.

Ask: What reasons for joy do these scriptures suggest? How are you seeing signs of these joys in the world around you? How do you identify these joys, too, with the promise of Christmas?

Prayers of the People:
For all who have walked in darkness and seen the great light,

Glory to God in the highest.

For all who still walk in darkness because of poverty, violence, abuse, war, disasters, discrimination and all forms of sin:

(pause to add names, silently or aloud)

Peace, good will toward all.

For all who have been set free from captivity to tyrants, traffickers, addictions, and every form of enslavement,

(pause to add names, silently or aloud)

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!

For all who still await a harvest of freedom, power and love:

(pause to add names, silently or aloud)
Make your blessing known far as the curse is found.

For all who care for the sick, the prisoners, the poor, and the grieving,

(pause to add names, silently or aloud)

Glory to the newborn King!

For all who are sick or in prison, all who are needy, and all who weep this night:(pause to add names, silently or aloud)

Rise with healing in your wings!

We offer our thanks and our prayers in the name of Christ, the newborn King, who has taught us to pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come,

thy will be done on earth

as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

and forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Hymn: Hark, The Herald Angels Sing (Piano Accompaniment)

1. Hark! the herald angels sing, 
 "Glory to the new born King, 
 peace on earth, and mercy mild, 
 God and sinners reconciled!" 
 Joyful, all ye nations rise, 
 join the triumph of the skies; 
 with th' angelic host proclaim, 
 "Christ is born in Bethlehem!" 
 Hark! the herald angels sing, 
 "Glory to the new born King!" 

2. Christ, by highest heaven adored; 
 Christ, the everlasting Lord; 
 late in time behold him come, 
 offspring of a virgin's womb. 
 Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; 
 hail th' incarnate Deity, 
 pleased with us in flesh to dwell, 
 Jesus, our Emmanuel. 
 Hark! the herald angels sing, 
 "Glory to the new born King!" 

3. Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! 
 Hail the Sun of Righteousness! 
 Light and life to all he brings, 
 risen with healing in his wings. 
 Mild he lays his glory by, 
 born that we no more may die, 
 born to raise us from the earth, 
 born to give us second birth. 
 Hark! the herald angels sing, 
 "Glory to the new born King!"

Sending:

Christ the Savior is born.

Christ the Savior is born.

Go in peace, rejoicing in the good news.

Thanks be to God!

Pondering the "Purple Seasons"

2011-11-29T17:12:00.001-06:00

As most of us begin this "purple" season of Advent, I find myself pulled into contemplating the other purple season: Lent.

It's an occupational hazard, partly. As someone who works somewhat ahead in the church calendar to provide resources for others who are also planning ahead, I find myself just now about to develop weekly planning helps for this coming Lent. In fact, I've already posted the updated "seasonal planning article" for Lent on the GBOD website.

Each of these purple seasons is troubling. Advent is unrelenting in its focus on the judgment of this age. The readings are week after week of harsh visions of the future for those who now tend to run the show, while also joy for all those "martyrs under the altar" on earth and in heaven. Lent is unrelenting in its call for us to take discipleship to Jesus seriously, a call that escalates to demanding nothing less of us than that we be prepared to die with him. Neither of these seasons comes across as particularly comforting news to most folks, it seems, packaged though they be in lovely purple wrappings.

Perhaps that is why I see so many of us finding so many ways to evade just how troublesome these purple seasons are. We replace the harsh visions of judgment that attend the second coming of Christ with a manufactured sense of preparing ourselves "to welcome the birth of the Christ child in us again" at Christmas. And we turn Lent's demands for mature, clear-eyed commitment to Christ here and now, no matter what, into an extended exercise of making ourselves feel sorry for what humans long ago did to make Jesus suffer so. Perhaps the impact of focusing on the suffering of Christ so intensely during Holy week is too much for us, if we do it at all, so we extend it to seven weeks in effect to to "thin out" what might otherwise threaten to devastate us-- as perhaps it should!

But that other purple season, Lent, isn't about devastating us. It's about getting us in shape. It's boot camp for the Christian soul. It's demanding, disciplined, stark, clear. It presents us with Jesus who requires things of us we may not have known we had. He sets the highest possible bar and not only dares us, but actually prepares us to leap it-- if we will cooperate with him.

Perhaps part of our difficulty with the purple seasons is that they are not intended for just anyone to appreciate. They're intended for disciples of Jesus and those actively seeking to become his disciples. Disciples of Jesus do not seek escape from the cries of the suffering, but like their master, hear them, join them, and in them find the promise of God for healing, deliverance and justice. Disciples of Jesus may never know all they have gotten themselves into, but they know whom they follow, and they will follow him to the end.

So for disciples of Jesus the purple seasons are ultimately joyous.

Advent is joyous for disciples, because suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope-- just as the apostle wrote long ago. In that hope is joy, because we discover anew how powerful and real and enlivening the second coming is, already now!

And Lent is joyous for disciples, because in and through its demands and disciplines our death into Christ becomes more fully known. We count such death all joy. To be more and more absent from this body of sin and death is to be present with the Lord even in this earthly tabernacle.

But neither Advent nor Lent is joyous for disciples or those seeking to become Christ's disciples if instead of them we are only offered what is thought to comfort or sustain or please those who may have peripheral interest in Christ's way. To put it plainly, Advent as "getting ready to welcome the Christ child" feels insipid to us, if not obscene. We hear the cries of the poor. Our longing, with theirs, is for no baby but nothing less than Christ in all his glory to rend the heavens and come down! Lent dragging on for weeks as "look at all he suffered for you" feels boring, if not insulting. We who seek to follow Jesus do not expect him to protect us from suffering, shame and death, but to lead us into and through death's very heart to life.

These seasons are purple for a reason. They speak of Christ's crowning glory, and so ours in him when we walk as he still walks-- by the Spirit's power and the Father's love.

Disciples of Jesus know the pressure pastors and worship leaders are under from the congregations you lead to mitigate the threats and demands the purple seasons bring. We know most people attending worship do not seek or want what these seasons offer us. We also get it that they pay the bills more than we do, if only because there are more of them, at least for now. We love you, and we love all those who do not yet seek what we seek.

So, we understand the evasions. We accept they may be necessary.

We only ask this. For our sake-- for those of us who seek Christ in the power of the convicting and cleansing Holy Spirit in the purple seasons with all their threats and demands-- provide some path, some set of disciplined relationships, at least, so we may know in them and share in them with others more and more the way that leads to Life.

Or give us room to forge such paths ourselves.

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

Prayer with the People of Southeast Asia

2011-09-30T16:08:00.001-05:00

Nesat,
typhoon whose winds and floods have wracked
Manila, Vietnam, and Hainan,
with more before slamming
India, Thailand, Pakistan and Japan,
and Nalgae and yet nameless others yet to come:
Be still!

Jesus, speak your word.
Tell these and every storm,
each new disaster,
to sit down and shut up
if they ever start to brag their power supersedes
your power of love.

Jesus, speak your word,
rouse your body
in every nation,
of every tribe,
of every hue and tongue,
no longer to allow storms to define our lives
by the deaths they cause,
but that our lives,
emboldened by your Life,
may rename each storm
by the love we share,
the prayers we pray
and the hope we offer
now and in years to come
to all whose lives they try to shatter.

Amen.

Ua Tsaug Rua Yexus Rooj Mov (The Great Thanksgiving in Hmong)

2011-09-10T20:05:00.001-05:00

(A first draft, released for testing, developed by the Hmong Writing Group of the Open Source Liturgy Project, meeting 9/10/2011 in St. Paul, Minnesota)

Nyob zoo ib tsoom kwvtij neejtsaa nkaujmuam nraugnug

hab phoojywg txhua tug.
Nyob zoo.
Vaajtswv Yexus nrugnraim mej nyob.
Hab nrugnraim koj nyob.
Caw peb lug qhuas Vaajtswv.
Haleluyas.

Qhuas Vaajtswv tug kws tsim ntuj tsim teb,
tug tuav lub ntuj tsi pob,
tswj lub teb tsi nphau,
hab tuav peb tuabneeg txujsa tsi tu.

Koj tsim txhua haiv tuabneeg nyob nplajteb,
hab Koj tau tsim peb haiv Moob lug nyob rua lub nplajteb.
Zoo le Koj haiv tuabneeg YiIxalasyees,
Koj foom koobmoov rua peb tau nyob lub tebchaw nuav
hab ua koob ua moov rua lub tebchaw nuav.

Yog le peb nrug rua Koj cov tuabneeg nyob sau ntuj
hab huv nplajteb uake hu nkauj qhuas Koj:

Dlawbhuv! Dlawbhuv! Dlawbhuv!
Vaajtswv tug kws muaj Fwjchim Luj Kawgnkaus.
Koj yog tug dlawbhuv!
Koj tug tshwjchim ci ntsaa ab thoob plawg qaum ntuj hab nplajteb.
Huxanas rua tug kws nyob sab kawg nkaus.
Tug kws tau koobmoov yog tug kws lug ntawm Vaajtswv lub npe.
Huxanas rua tug kws nyob sab kawg nkaus.

Koj yog tug kws dlawbhuv,
hab tug kws tau koobmoov yog Koj tug tub Yexus Khetos.
Lug ntawm Koj txuj kev hlub hab Koj lub fwjchim,
Koj tau cawm peb dlim ntawm Dlaab Ntxwjnyoog txhaisteg,
Koj tau pub peb muaj lub neej tshab lug ntawm
dlej hab Vaaj Ntsujplig.

Mo kws Tswv Yexus muab
Nwg tugkheej lug tuag theej peb,
Nwg muab ib lub ncuav lug,
Nwg ua Vaajtswv tsaug,
Nwg muab lub ncuav ntawd ndlais,
cev rua cov thwjtim, hab has tas,
“Txais. Noi. Nuav yog Kuv lub cev kws Kuv muab rua mej.
Mej yuavtsum ua le nuav ua kev ncuntsoov Kuv.”

Thaum noj mo taag,
Nwg muab ib lub khob lug,
Nwg ua Vaajtswv tsaug,
Nwg muab rua cov thwjtim
hab has tas,
“Mej ca le haus.
Nuav yog Kuv cov tshaav ntawm txujlug cogtseg tshab.
Txhua zag kws mej haus,
mej yuavtsum ua le nuav ua kev ncuntsoov Kuv.”

Yog le ntawd, Tswv Yexus,
peb ncuntsoov txug txhua yaam
kws Koj tau ua rua peb,
peb fij peb tugkheej taagnrho rua Koj.
Hab peb yuav qha txug
Koj txuj kev cawmdlim rua tuabneeg nplajteb,
thaum peb tseem ua neej nyob
moog txug nub kws Koj rov qaab lug.

Thov Koj tug Vaaj Ntsujplig lug nrug peb nyob
hab lug nrug rua lub ncuav hab lub khob nuav.

Thov foommoov kuas lub ncuav hab lub khob nuav
yog Tswv Yexus lub cev hab cov tshaav,
kuas peb yuav ua tau Tswv Yexus lub cev rua tuabneeg nplajteb.

Thov Koj tug Vaaj Ntsujplig coj peb
hab paab peb kuas peb ua tau Koj teg dlejnum
moog txug nub kws peb nrug Koj koom uake
sau Koj lub Ntuj Ceebtsheej.

Lug ntawm Koj Leej Tub Tswv Yexus,
nrug rua Vaaj Ntsujplig tug Dlawbhuv,
huv Koj lub Tuamtsev Dlawbhuv,
peb thov qhuas Koj, Vaajleejtxiv.
Taagnrho fwjchim meejmom yog Koj le,
nubnua hab moog ibtxhis.

Asmees.

Contributors: Daniel Yang, Shine Vang, Pha Her, TsuKer Yang, and Lao Moua, with Taylor Burton-Edwards

Celebrating an Extended Advent at Epworth UMC, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

2011-09-07T14:43:00.000-05:00

Jesse Tree. Used by permission CC 2.0.

by Suzanne Wenonah Duchesne

In an article by Taylor Burton-Edwards, Safiyah Fosua, and Dean McIntyre it was proposed that we worship leaders and pastors might want to consider trying something different for Advent this year. Take it from two who tried it last year when we say a change such as they proposed can be very meaningful. Let me back up a bit.

As a pastor, I often found myself in a liturgical dilemma during the Advent season. I wanted to extend the tension of waiting until Christmas Eve and yet other worship leaders thought it best to begin Christmas earlier. Usually it began with at least one Christmas hymn the first week of Advent slowly building the repertoire until Christmas Eve. These songs would be interspersed with Christmas Cantatas, Christmas Plays and Christmas themed children’s events. "It comes but once a year and these songs are beloved,” they would tell me. "It comes but once a year and these texts are beloved too,” I would think to myself. So how can we be sensitive to the needs of a congregation and yet present the prophetic texts and mystery of incarnational waiting that so many people actually long for?

These questions followed me throughout my pastoral ministry and into my work as a Liturgical studies student. They came once again to the fore when Jill Burnett Comings spoke in the spring of 2010 at a small gathering of students at Drew Theological School to tell us about an ecumenical project she was working on which would expand Advent from four to seven weeks. The project is known as The Advent Project. My husband, also a UM pastor, and I discussed the possibility of trying this in our church in Bethlehem, PA. Epworth UMC already valued keeping Advent so we hoped that matching the music to the prophetic texts already in the lectionary would be attractive to them. I presented the idea at a worship planning meeting on a warm day in September long before anyone was thinking about Christmas.

Each member got a copy of the article written by Dr. Comings titled "Culmination in the Communio Sanctorum: Celebrating The Feast of All Saints as Completion of the Liturgical Year" that explained some of the rationale behind the expanded Advent project. Many in the room had not heard the historical reasons for ending the liturgical calendar year on Christ the King Sunday. However, it didn't take much for them to grasp that stressing the future coming of Christ as the height of our Christian year distorted our Wesleyan understanding of kingdom life. Their understanding of the Kingdom of God is not only a future event but also here and now. Epworth lives into that tension every day. They value their surrounding community and understand their kingdom participation through their works of mercy. By extending Advent, the culmination of the liturgical year would be All Saints Day. Now, they could end their year by honoring those who labor for Christ and encourage each other in the kingdom work they have been called to do. As for those of us who are preachers, we could connect the prophetic texts together over the seven weeks, weaving a wide and deep tapestry of the expectation surrounding Jesus' Messiahship.

The team embraced these theological concepts but the practical concerned them. How do we communicate the Advent theme without alarming everyone and raising anxiety in the congregation? Another value of this congregation is creating caring communities. We decided that instead of eliminating anything we would add. Because of the importance of the Advent Wreath ritual to this congregation, we left that intact at four Sundays. However, the week after All Saints Sunday, we began a ritual of a Jesse tree trimming during the children's sermon. A different presenter gave weekly lessons based on the genealogy of Jesus. The children made ornaments in the Sunday school classes to be placed on the tree. As a ritual it was similar to trimming a Christmas tree but different enough to expand the Advent theme. Every week members would add evergreens to the sanctuary as a sign of building anticipation. Because of a long-standing tradition, the congregation fully decorated the sanctuary at a special gathering just after Thanksgiving.

For the services, we kept communion on the first Sunday and wrote a Great Thanksgiving prayer that highlighted the Advent themes. We gathered materials from the expanded Advent work group such as Antiphons and Advent collect prayers that enumerated the weekly themes throughout the season.

As you can probably tell it was important that we honored the values of the congregation. We had spent a year in discernment discovering our common values. So it was important that the team listen to the congregation and what they thought about the idea and how they were experiencing worship together. After I presented to the worship team, they in turn presented the idea and rationale to the SPRC, the choir, and the small groups of the church. The choir director and pastor wrote articles for the newsletter and the webpage throughout the season. Communication was a key component. The first Sunday of the extended Advent the pastor made a special announcement inviting the congregation to enter into the expanded season.

Because this is still a developing ecumenical project, we were asked to survey the congregation. People responded that they had a deepened experience of Advent and the focus of the expanded season shifted from an end times (eschatology) to a Bethlehem (incarnation). The small groups related how they had begun to reflect on and understand more fully that the culmination of Advent would not be fulfilled on Christmas morning but rather on a hill called Calvary. It is interesting to note that this opened up many conversations on messiahship, atonement, and sanctification that have continued throughout Lent.

As the first United Methodist Church to try this, there were some learning curves. Many worshippers remarked positively about the creativity in the worship but found the antiphons and the Advent Prayers of the People frustrating. They missed sharing joys and concerns in a livelier manner as they were accustomed to and found the plainsong used for the antiphons difficult to manage. Half said they would try it again and the other half said they would be glad to try it again with the antiphons and prayers adjusted.

With this in mind, we plan to expand our Advent season again this coming year. We are talking about using "O come, O come Emmanuel" for our antiphons to provide the same frame but with a familiar hymn. Furthermore, we are considering how we might incorporate the themes through other liturgical forms rather than formal collect prayers. Perhaps in the Call to Worship or in the prayers but with a more extemporaneous form. This is an evolving group effort based in our context so I offer you what we learned and encourage you to delve into your own context to discover the richness such an expanded Advent might afford you.

One thing I will admit to you. With our focus on the waiting for such a substantial amount of time, we didn't experience our usual disappointment when the choir director approached us about the children's choir singing a Christmas song the week before Christmas. The theme was Emmanuel. What else could we do? That is what being incarnational is all about.

Suzanne Wenonah Duchesne is an elder in the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference, currently completing a doctorate in liturgical studies and serving as a teaching assistant part time at Drew University School of Theology. Her husband, Rev. Dr. Timothy Duchesne, is the appointed pastor of Epworth UMC in Bethlehem, PA.

Restoring Advent and Christmas

2011-09-07T14:00:00.000-05:00


"The Lord Jesus Christ Will Return." CC 2.0 License.

The Need

Over the past 5 years, our three worship staff at GBOD have offered a variety of solutions to help our congregations and ministries celebrate both Advent and Christmastide in the ways each season has historically been intended to be celebrated.

Why? To some degree the picture at the right tells the tale. The key message of Advent is, as this man's sign says, "The Lord Jesus Christ Will Return." Advent has been a focused time at the beginning of the Christian Year to contemplate and respond to this great truth. It is the one time of the year we do so.

But look at the picture. No one is paying attention to this man's sign except the photographer. Everyone else is walking on by, as if the sign means nothing. The sign is there, yes. But it makes no difference in people's lives. Well, at least not that April day at this market in Norwich, England in 2010.

I recently received an email ad from a major Christian publisher, promoting resources for Advent studies. From a brief review of them, however, not one of these actually dealt with Advent in a thorough way. All of them treated Advent either as a "contemplative time" or a time for simplifying (somehow related to winter, perhaps?) or as an extended "pre-Christmas" season.

When we turn Advent into an extended "pre-Christmas" season, or only actually use the Advent readings for perhaps the first or second week of December, we keep Advent from making the difference in our lives as congregations it is designed to make. We have a compelling story to tell and celebrate about how Christ redeems and recreates all of creation, yet we barely begin to tell it, if we tell it at all. Perhaps we even feel embarrassed about telling it in December, when we think or feel we should be focusing on the "babe in the manger."

Of course, even that story isn't the point, but is rather one point, of Christmastide. The birth matters, to be sure, but what matters most in Christmastide is not the birth. What matters most is what the Incarnation of God in Jesus begins to unleash in the cosmos, starting here on earth with us.

Thus, in a very real sense, it's not just Advent, the culmination of all things in Christ, that we ignore or diminish. We also tend to truncate Christmas, the celebration of the mystery of the Incarnation.

Let's be honest here. For many of our congregations, Christmas effectively begins and ends in a single Christmas Eve service celebrating the birth and that alone.

And this year (2011) may bring an even bigger challenge. Christmas Day will be on a Sunday. The last time this happened, in 2005, a number of very large and prominent congregations (Willow Creek notably among them) cancelled worship altogether. Many others experienced a "low attendance Sunday," and some even lower than they would normally experience if it were the Sunday after Christmas Day.

Christians need time to celebrate and contemplate both great truths, the culmination of all things in Jesus and the mystery of the Incarnation of God in Jesus. Advent and Christmas historically have been those times. But both have been deeply compromised in many of our congregations to the point that neither of these great truths receives anything like the attention each deserves.

Three Proposed Responses

In our article, A Modest Proposal for Advent/Christmas Peace, Safiyah, Dean and I suggested starting the singing of Advent music two weeks early, and to start singing Christmas music beginning with what is now the third Sunday in Advent. This would give four full weeks of Advent focus, at least musically, plus up to four full weeks for Christmas (counting Epiphany Day or Sunday), giving each some significant time and focus. This wouldn't require changing lectionary readings at all.

In my article, ReThink Christmastide, I offered a more radical solution, one that would re-arrange the readings and the calendar substantially. Start Advent two weeks early, and celebrate it for four weeks. Then, on what used to be the Third Sunday of Advent, start celebrating Christmastide by using the readings for Epiphany. For what had been Advent 4, use the readings for the Sunday after Christmas. (In 2012, there would be no Advent 4 readings because the first Sunday after Christmas-- January 1-- is also the only Sunday before January 7). For Christmas Day and Eve, use the established readings. Then, for the next two Sundays, use the readings for Advent 3 and 4 as further reflection on the implications of the Incarnation and as lead-ins to Baptism of the Lord Sunday (first Sunday after January 6). When I re-issue that article for 2011, I'll include a listing of the lectionary texts to accompany that plan for this year.

I acknowledged in "ReThink Christmastide" that what I'm proposing there is problematic on a number of fronts. It seriously messes with the calendar and the order of the lectionary we have and share with many other Christians worldwide. It may be too much of a concession to the pressures of US culture. And because it is such a radical change, it may also be very unwelcome, even as it addresses our theological, liturgical and cultural needs for giving serious attention to both seasons.

A third approach is offered by The Advent Project. Developed by Rev. Dr. Bill Petersen, Episcopal priest and liturgical scholar, together with a seminar of other scholars and practitioners in the North American Academy of Liturgy, The Advent Project also suggests changing the liturgical calendar, but not the lectionary at all. Petersen and company note that Advent used to be a season of seven Sundays until Pope Gregory VI shortened it to four in the eleventh century.

While Pope Gregory VI shortened the celebration, he actually didn't change the lectionaries. This meant that the readings appropriate for a seven-week celebration of Advent were still being read for seven weeks, starting with the first Sunday after All Saints Day (November 1). The current lectionaries Western Christians now use, both Roman Catholic and Revised Common Lectionaries, have preserved that pattern as well. So the Advent Project's proposal, already tried in a number of Episcopal, Lutheran and United Methodist congregations, actually aligns our celebration of Advent with the lectionaries we already have. Nothing else changes. Just the starting date for Advent, and, perhaps, as the project notes, the number of candles that might in included in an Advent wreath (seven plus a central candle, rather than four).

The Advent Project website has not only rationale, but also a rich set of resources including suggested prayers and "O Antiphons" (related to verses for "O Come, O Come Emmanuel") for each Sunday to help congregations who want to try it get started with solid support.

The Advent Project proposal also seems also be to gaining some wider ecumenical traction. This year, United Methodist, United Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church USA, Anglican Church of Canada, and several other denominations will be at least raising awareness of this possibility through their websites. The Consultation on Common Texts (developers of the Revised Common Lectionary) will also host a forum on the topic at their next meeting in New York in March, 2012.

A primary plus of The Advent Project proposal to me and to worship staff in other denominations seems to be that it stands as an actual restoration of an earlier Christian practice.

Many of us recognize at the same time, however, that while this proposal would restore a longer time of Advent celebration, it may not yet directly address what for nearly all of us remains a serious truncation of actual Christmas focus simply to the birth of Jesus. Somehow, there remains a need to help congregations more fully address the wider implications of the Incarnation, and the reality of absences and much travel at this time of the year remains a serious challenge.

How Will You Respond?

Your congregation, like all Christian congregations, needs to celebrate both Advent (the culmination of all things in Jesus) and Christmas (the mystery of the Incarnation of God in Jesus) fully and well. The end and the beginning of our story in Jesus matter deeply. You know that. Maybe you do get in a full four week Advent, but even then people may be either absent or so distracted from December 25-January 6 that Christmastide is physically and spiritually a "low season" when it should be a high point of extended rejoicing and wonder.

So let me suggest you prayerfully consider how you will do something to ensure your congregations have a richer celebration this year than last of Advent and Christmas.

Pick one of these proposals, and give it a serious try. Or try something else, such as a full regular celebration of Advent and Christmastime using the calendar and readings we already have, celebrating Advent for a full four weeks beginning November 27, 2011, and then a full Christmastide beginning December 24-- finding some way to keep the energy of Christmas going well after Christmas Eve and its focus well beyond the babe in the manger.

The time has come, clearly come, to restore both Advent and Christmas in the lives and worship of the Christians called United Methodists.

Why Should United Methodists Have a Season of Saints?

2011-08-09T08:46:00.025-05:00

Bonhoeffer as Martyr

In 2008, The General Conference of the United Methodist Church passed a non-disciplinary resolution recognizing Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a "modern day martyr for the cause of Christ." That this resolution was approved is certainly understandable because as the author of the resolution suggested, Bonhoeffer "rose above our basic human instinct to proclaim a love that is worth dying for." However, this action of the General Conference also prompts an important question from us as United Methodists: So What?

What does it mean, if anything, for United Methodists to confer the status of "martyr" on someone? I would answer that part of the answer to this question relates to the reception of such an action. Essentially, how does recognizing Bonhoeffer as a martyr affect weekly worshiping United Methodist Christians?

The action taken by the General Conference was a non-disciplinary resolution, meaning that action is printed in The Daily Christian Advocate, the official record of the General Conference. Therefore, except for the United Methodist News Service Article about the action, Bonhoeffer's martyr status is not printed in any other United Methodist doctrinal materials: not in the Book of Discipline, The Book of Resolutions, The Book of Worship, The United Methodist Hymnal, etc.

If the rightful intent of the Resolution was to lift up Bonhoeffer as important exemplar of the Christian faith, where are United Methodists exposed to such an exemplar?

Martyrs and Saints

Before we answer this question, you may be asking the question, "The General Conference Action was about martyr status. Aren't we are talking about saints?" The reason that the Bonhoeffer resolution has importance for the "Season of Saints" is that the two are intimately related.

Essentially, a martyr can and usually is understood as a saint, but a saint does not have to be a martyr.

The development of the early church's understanding of saints developed out of their experiences of martyrdom. "Martyr" literally means witness, and those who gave their life because they confessed Christ as a Lord were understood have received a special "Baptism" by blood. Therefore, for The United Methodist Church to proclaim someone a martyr is, in many ways, to recognize them as a saint, a witness, an exemplar.

Reception

We now return to the "so what?" question. If the General Conference's action simply named Bonhoeffer a martyr, but Bonhoeffer's example never makes it into the worshiping life of United Methodists, who might be edified by their connection to him in the Communion of Saints, what is the point? A well-known principle in the realm of ecumenism is that any action of the church ultimately must be received by the faithful.

Up until now, there have only been a few resources for those interested in trying to help United Methodists revive a deeper sense of our connection with the Communion of Saints, most notably the helpful sanctorale, For All the Saints: A Commemoration Calendar for United Methodists, by the Order of Saint Luke. However, the challenge still remains even with such a good resource because so few United Methodists have had the opportunity to engage it.

The "Season of Saints" being proposed enables this kind of work to be brought into the weekly worship life of United Methodists who might otherwise never encounter many of the important figures that OSL names. Further, it may lead to a larger consideration of an official sanctorale for United Methodists, in accordance with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with whom we recently entered into Full Communion, as well as the Episcopal Church, USA, with whom we are in Interim Eucharistic Sharing.

A larger consideration would be the possibility of more voices entering into the conversation. Such conversation might ultimately be able to come under the official voice of the General Conference. After all, the major question that revolves around OSL's work is teaching authority. Who is the judge of such work?

If the General Conference speaks for the UMC, then the General Conference should speak officially about who we understand to be important examplars from the communion of saints. An important resource in the work are those named as saints by our closest ecumenical partners.

Further, as Geoffrey Wainwright has noted in his article "Wesley and the Communion of the Saints," to recognize the saints of other our brothers and sisters is a critical ecumenical move that will draw us more deeply into relationship with Christians in other communions (in Methodists in Dialogue, p. 248). To recognize a saint named in another communion can be an avenue for United Methodists to engage and receive the ecumenical work being done at the General Church level.

For the General Conference to declare that Bonhoeffer is a martyr may very well be an important step in that direction, and this "Season of Saints" may help to further the reception of such an action. Ecumenically, this is significant because Bonhoeffer is on the sanctorales of both the ELCA and the Episcopal Church. I believe it will be significant for me to name that the General Conference has officially named Bonhoeffer as a martyr when I celebrate him during the "Season of Saints" in my own congregation.

Therefore, I invite you to consider joining in on the "Season of Saints." And for those who might want to raise objections to such activity, I leave you with a final rebuttal from John Wesley,

How superstitious are they who scruple giving God thanks for the lives and deaths of his saints! (From Wesley's Journal, All Saints Day, 1756)

Cheers,

Alan Combs

Note: A large share of the research for this blog came from my Th. M thesis, Methodists and the Communion of Saints.

"And I Mean to Be One, Too": Stories of United Methodist Saints

2011-07-26T16:00:00.000-05:00

Orthodox All Saints Icon. Public Domain.

"They lived not only in ages past;

there are hundreds of thousands still.

The world is bright with the joyous saints

who love to Jesus' will.

You can meet them in school, on the street, in a store,

in church, by the sea, in the house next door;

they are saints of God, whether rich or poor,

and I mean to be one too."

Verse 3 from "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God," UMH 712.

So we're trying an experiment at the GBOD Center for Worship Resourcing, and I'm inviting you to join in.

Here's the experiment-- what if we keep the weeks of October, starting with World Communion Sunday and concluding with All Saints Sunday (November 6 this year) as a "Season of Saints?"

In other words, we'd get five or six weeks (depending on the number of Sundays in a given October) and not just one Sunday a year, or perhaps two (if you count or celebrate "Heritage Sunday") to focus on the praise of God for the lives of persons past and present who make the world "shine" because "they love to do Jesus' will."

Think of the fun this could be! Really... fun! Telling stories, doing saints parades, maybe making saints videos, singing saints music of old and writing and sharing new songs of saints today. This wouldn't have to involve just worship, but could take in lots of groups in the life of the congregation-- Sunday Schools, youth groups, mission teams, caring ministries, small groups, and of course the choir and/or praise team!

I'll provide more specific ideas for saints to focus on each week-- saints in our United Methodist traditions and the larger Christian tradition-- in the weekly worship planning helps at GBOD.

Now, this would not have to involve changing any of the current lectionary readings, or even any major change in the color of the paraments usually used, though you could add some gold in with the green to catch the color of All Saints Sunday (White and Gold).

When I first shared this idea on the UMC Worship Facebook Group, one of our members there suggested we make room for folks to tell stories of saints they know in worship. I thought that was a great idea as a response to the word-- part of a kind of testimony time-- and suggested one way to help that happen through this blog.

Here's my suggestion: don't tell just one story, tell two. Tell one from your congregation (with the person's permission) plus one from another congregation to enhance our sense of connection in the living communion of saints.

That's where you come in-- and this blog comes in.

In the comments below, share a brief story of a saint you know or have known in your local United Methodist congregation or ministry. This blog can then become a resource for others to find their story from another congregation to tell each week.

Are you up for this?

I can't wait to see the saints stories you will tell!

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

Director of Worship Resources

GBOD

Worship on September 11, 2011

2011-07-26T14:52:00.001-05:00

Credit: Jeff Kubina. Creative Commons License 2.0.

For citizens of the United States, September 11, 2011 is US Patriot Day, and the 10th anniversary of terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C., one of which was foiled when a passenger uprising led to a plane crash landing instead near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. A coat from the fire department that responded to the crash is pictured at right.

Ten year multiples of anniversaries tend to be significant in people's minds, at least in cultures whose numbering system is base 10. There is no doubt that this day will command significant attention in the lives of those of us who are citizens of the United States, as well it should. There is no doubt, too, that for people who live in or simply were present or came to New York City, Washington D.C. or the region of Shanksville, PA at the time or shortly after the attack may find this day either profoundly helpful or profoundly painful, or some combination of both, especially those who lost loved ones and colleagues in the crashes and the rescue efforts, or who were on hand to be part of the clean-up and rebuilding that followed.

But how should the call to remembrance for this event in our nation's or families' recent history be incorporated into the worship of Christians, and especially for Christians, such as United Methodists, who are part of a global church and whose baptismal vows call us to serve Christ "in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations and races?" (The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 34)?

Where is the line between appropriate remembrance in the context of worship of our Triune God and inappropriate focus on mere patriotism?

And how might we offer due recognition of this day, honoring those most directly affected, without causing more pain by the re-opening of wounds at least resolved to scars if not entirely healed?

What Not to Do
My guess is we can all recognize the "outer limits," things we all would agree should not be done. We should not design worship on this Sunday primarily in praise of America or its "ideals." That turns into idolatry of the nation. We should not take this as an opportunity to support fears about or raise new fears of Muslim people in our midst, as the recent terrorist attacker in Norway has sought to do. The diverts worship that should glorify the God of all creation into a kind of "my people only" solidarity rally.

We probably should not show footage of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers or the Pentagon, or even the wreckage in the field near Shanksville, PA. We've all seen those images hundreds if not thousands of times. No doubt the media will be replaying them frequently in the lead-up to this day. Such images now probably do more to harm than to heal, if they ever did much to heal in the first place.

Finally, something you may rarely hear me suggesting. If you follow the Revised Common Lectionary, as the vast majority of our congregations in the United States do, either heavily edit the selection for the Old Testament reading (the crossing of the Red Sea) or do not read it at all. Why? A good number of the verses included in this reading extol the deaths of the Egyptian soldiers, mired in the mud and then drowned in the Red Sea. Egypt today is a primarily Muslim nation. Rejoicing in the deaths of ancient Egyptians on this day is a bit too close to wishing harm or worse to our Muslim neighbors and Muslims around the world, and would easily be read and understood that way by many Muslims, even if that may not in any way be the intent (conscious or otherwise) of Christian congregations. If your congregation has been focusing on the Exodus narrative prior to this day, and so there is a reason to continue doing so, strongly consider reading and preaching from only these verses: 19-22, 27a, and 29-30a. What matters from this narrative on this day is that God made a way where there was no way and led the people through it to safety-- not that the Egyptian army was drowned. We can and should rejoice this day in God's deliverance. We should not rejoice this day, of all days, in the deaths of enemies.

What to Do?

If the first reading from the Revised Common Lectionary is problematic, the other two may be very, very helpful. Romans 14 focuses on showing respect and honor to persons whose cultural and even religious principles may be very different than your own. People were coming to Christ then and there, as they do here and now, from a wide variety of cultural and religious traditions. This was especially true in Rome, a hub for many cultures because of its political and economic influence in the Mediterranean world and beyond. It's also the case today in many American cities, and across the nation generally, as the diversity of our peoples continues to increase. Paul writes here to a church that needed this message then, and we are a church in a place that needs it now! The church that sought to help these diverse people live as one body in Christ with many members (Romans 12) needs to find ways to live with and respect the diversity of those who come to it, and indeed, of all people everywhere, as Rome itself attracted people from nearly every nation! There is much to explore here about building a continuing movement of mutual love that respects diversities in your congregation and the wider community.

Matthew 18 addresses what it means to forgive those who have sinned against us. The work of forgiveness is essential work, Jesus reminds, essential not only for the healing of others but for our own forgiveness from God as well. Forgiveness does not mean "forgetting." Nor does it mean that persons who have harmed the wider community or people in it do not have to face the consequences of their actions so that safety can be assured and some measure of the damage done to the community and those involved can be redressed. But it does mean, as Jesus concretely addresses in the story he tells here, that we as his disciples no longer hold a debt sheet on those who have harmed us. We are to do for others who sin against us as God has done for us. So the questions on this day become, "Whom do we, individually and as congregations, still need to forgive? How will we do that? How will we show we have done so?"

Respect or forgiveness-- two strong ways forward on this day.

You should also sing at least one song as a prayer for your nation. The United Methodist Hymnal has two songs that may be particularly appropriate: "God of the Ages" ("God of our Fathers," in previous editions, #698) and "This Is My Song" (#437). You will find an array of others listed under the Remembering 9/11 resources on the GBOD website.

And as a response to the Word, let me suggest "A Litany of Grateful Memorial."
The point of this litany is what it says-- to remember with gratitude, rather than with lament, the people who were involved in the events of that day or in the days that followed it.

How would this work? If it's part of morning worship, you will already have read the texts you need for this. Exodus 14 (as edited) provides a basis for giving thanks for acts of deliverance, such as were offered by thousands of rescue workers who came from around the nation, and some from around the world, to assist just after the plane crashes. Romans 14 points to respect for all these diverse people who were in harm's way on the day of the attacks, including again the diverse population of workers who came united in the causes of rescue, help, and rebuilding. And Matthew 18 addresses the need some of us may still have as we remember not only those who suffered, but those also who caused their suffering or deaths, and anyone else who may have sinned us in any way.

As a response to the word proclaimed, begin a reading of names of persons involved as victims, rescuers, or others who came to help (which may include some of them!) known to members of your worshiping community personally. This should include names not only of the deceased or injured, but also those who are alive and well. If your congregation sent a work team to New York City, for example, list the names of the people who were part of that work team. As each name or group of names is read, ring a bell and either say, "Thank you, God, for the memory of these good people" or sing a brief song or chorus of thanks, such as "Thank You, Jesus" from The Faith We Sing (2081) or "Thank you, Lord" from The United Methodist Hymnal (84).

In the confession of sin that may follow, especially if you focus worship on Matthew 18 this day, explicitly invite people to confess any unforgiveness that remains in them, and then to forgive these persons from the heart. In the sharing of the peace that follows, invite persons to go first to anyone they have just forgiven or recently forgiven, as well as any they may have offended, and offer a sign of forgiveness and love. Then let communion be a celebration of life and deliverance. Consider using "The Great Thanksgiving for the Season after Pentecost" (The United Methodist Book of Worship, 70-71) because of its expression of great hope for justice and peace to come.

If you have a very large list of folks you personally know, but only an hour of worship time (perhaps folks might be willing to make an exception on this day?), strongly consider offering a briefer version of this "grateful memorial" (perhaps limiting the list to nearest relatives, closest friends and church members) and then offering a fuller version as part of a community-wide service, and perhaps an interfaith service, later in the day.

Many other worship resources-- preaching, worship elements, and songs-- are available on the GBOD website, especially our Remembering 9-11 section, and more will be coming in the following days and weeks leading up to September 11.

May good neighbors, great conversations, loving memories and the promptings of the Holy Spirit guide you and your worshiping community as you prepare to celebrate this day with solemnity, integrity and grace.

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards
Director of Worship Resources
GBOD

Contemporary Worship Wisdom from a Medieval Rhetorician

2011-06-14T18:35:00.003-05:00

13th C Madonna, Assisi. Public Domain.

"Permit an old word to regain its youth by giving it a home in another situation where it can be a novel guest, giving pleasure by its strangeness."

-- Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria Nova, translated by Kemper Crabb in his essay, "A Manifesto: Making the Beautiful Strange"

I received this quote today, and the brief manifesto in which it appears, from a colleague in another denomination (the Rev. Dr. Duane Arnold, an Episcopal priest) who is working on a significant musical project with a colleague in our own, a deacon in Iowa, The Rev. Michael Bell. That project embodies this quote from another longtime friend of Duane, Kemper Crabb, who is doing something along similar lines.

Duane and Michael are working on recording musical settings of prayers of a number of the church's martyrs, from Thomas a Beckett to Oscar Romero, with others between and before. These are ancient words or words from settings of martyrdom, far removed from much we know of Christianity in American, now being clothed in a variety of contemporary musical idioms and made singable for individual or corporate prayer. Having heard a sampling of these pieces, I can tell you they fulfill Geoffrey's ideal. The unfamiliar words are truly novel guests, giving pleasure in their strangeness.

Kemper Crabb's project is the revival of medieval western music, but not as it has usually been done. As a student of medieval music myself as an undergraduate (and my favorite Western musical period remains late medieval, early Renaissance-- go Harmonia!), I'm well acquainted with and even love the efforts to recover and perform medieval music as authentically as possible (auf Alten Instrumenten, as we say auf Deutsch!).

But Kemper Crabb is right. As he writes in his manifesto, "a brute retrieval of these songs is not enough.... Those vital things which have been allowed to sink into obscurity must be resurrected, though in a fashion which renders them accessible and attractive to an age which has forgotten them."

And that's what he does. Here's a sample.

Ever heard of John Dunstable? Guillaume Dufay? Johannes Ockeghem? Josquin des Prez? Can you sing a single phrase from any of their works? I can. But most folks I know can't. For them these names are unknown, lost, or perhaps at best forgotten.

Forgotten maybe. But not finished. The poetry and music of these composers can still sing, and not just in academic institutions funded to preserve the relics as they were.

Let me bring this home a bit more though. How many different Charles Wesley hymns do you still sing? He wrote hundreds of hymn texts. We have a bit over 40 in the current United Methodist Hymnal. The Music and Worship Study we conducted in the last quadrennium showed we United Methodists in the US tended to sing perhaps 1 or 2 Charles Wesley hymns per month. We don't know this, but based on observation, we think this may amount to perhaps 6-8 different Charles Wesley hymns per year. As for the rest of the corpus? Probably like Dunstable, Dufay and the rest, unknown, lost or forgotten.

To be sure, there are composers who are bringing Charles Wesley hymns back with new tunes. Mark Miller's 2000 "Azmon's Ghost" sets "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing" as the first piece in the new collection of congregational songs for United Methodists, Worship&Song. Old words, new tune. Carl Thomas Gladstone and Jackson Henry, among others, are doing the same with other Charles Wesley texts.

But generally not the forgotten words. Not the lost texts, those we've never sung and perhaps never even knew existed.

What will it take to resurrect those... not simply retrieve them by brute force, but actually experience their unique life and life-giving power here and now?

Ancient Future Here and Now

The challenge is not unique to whether we United Methodists recover more of our Wesleyan texts or even tunes. ("Love Divine," for example, was written to a Henry Purcell aria, and in fact is a parody of its text. Charles Wesley was the superior poet!).

No, the challenge, and the opportunity before us, is nothing less than to dwell in all the riches of prayer, music, art, and the drama of liturgy and ritual itself of the entire church in every place, riches all ours to learn from and share. And as we do so not simply retrieve them by brute force, but truly resurrect them, as Kemper Crabb says.

The Madonna from Assisi, pictured above, for example. Look at it closely. What happens if instead of seeing this as a medieval fresco belonging on the ceiling of an Italian church (which it is), we place it alongside works of painters like Pablo Picasso or Paul Klee? What do we beauty can we see and rejoice in that we might otherwise have overlooked were it not keeping such strange company among us here and now?

Now think of lost practices of worship where you are. The saying of a creed, for example, or the singing of the Gloria in Excelsis (or the Gloria Patri, for that matter!), or the chanting of the Psalms. What about the use of the ancient sign of the cross? What about kneeling?

What might it be like, as Geoffrey of Vinsauf reminds from eight centuries ago, to let these some of these or other old gifts regain their youth by making their home among us as novel guests?

How might we revel and rejoice in the Triune God who inspired them all through the beauty of their very strangeness?

Surprising Hope in United Methodist Funerals? (Conclusion)

2011-06-07T08:12:00.005-05:00

Image: Viking Karwur. Used under CC 2.0.

Final installment of a series of entries from an essay by Dr. Heather Josselyn Cranson, Associate Professor of Music and Director of Music Ministries at Northwestern College in Orange, Iowa. The full essay may be downloaded from the GBOD website, here.

New Creation and the Renewal of All Things

N.T. Wright, with much of historical Christianity, is clear about this: God's goal for all things will be accomplished not by removing what is salvageable from "this present darkness" into some ethereal (and perhaps even Lethean) state, but rather by a new, physical creation in which sin and death are no more.

Only two biblical texts included in the Services of Death and Resurrection point in any way to the new creation and the renewal of all things. The more explicit is Revelation 21:1-7, which clearly describes a new earth taking the place of the former one and records the words of the Enthroned One, who says “See, I am making all things new” (UMBOW 146). Isaiah 40 proclaims that even the features of the earth itself, valleys and mountains and uneven ground, will be remade as God’s glory is revealed (UMBOW 144). However, the use of Isaiah 40 in this context seems to be primarily as a comfort and hope for the grieving, that they may be raised from their grief in this life, rather than a more concrete hope (as in Revelation) for a new creation.

On balance, then, while the Services of Death and Resurrection embrace bodily resurrection (as we have seen, in Part 2), they seem to do so primarily as a hope for individual believers rather than as part of a comprehensive vision of new creation and the renewal of all things.

This is, perhaps, understandable: mourners come to a funeral or committal or memorial concerned over the fate of a particular friend or relative. While grieving, they may not consider the wider implications of Christ’s resurrection and God’s ultimate plans for all of creation.

At the same time, it may be lamentable. Resurrection of individuals leaves us hoping for a solely human future. What of the rest of the created order? Indeed, how can humans even be humans apart from our connections with the environment and the other creatures with whom we live and move and have our being? If bodily resurrection is proclaimed in our services without sufficient attention to new creation, can we be said to be proclaiming bodily resurrection at all?

Conclusion – Hope for Future and Present

We see that the Services of Death and Resurrection are better aligned with some of N.T. Wright’s points about resurrection than others. The official United Methodist liturgy firmly announces a bodily resurrection, may posit (but if so only tepidly) that the deceased are in an interim state of rest until the resurrection and new creation, remains relatively non-commital on the questions of the location of heaven, and says little about new creation as the ultimate and comprehensive purpose of God’s salvation.

Does this mixed record matter? Why should pastors pay close attention to such theological and eschatological “technicalities” in the face of the grief and loss? Wright maintains adamantly, and convincingly, that these are no technicalities, but bedrock of Christian teaching. What we believe and proclaim about the resurrection matters enormously, especially at times of death and grief:

The point… is that a proper grasp of the (surprising) future hope held out to us in Jesus Christ leads directly and, to many people, equally surprisingly, to a vision of the present hope that is the basis of all Christian mission. To hope for a better future in this world – for the poor, the sick, the lonely and depressed, for the slaves, the refugees, the hungry and homeless, for the abused, the paranoid, the downtrodden and despairing, and in fact for the whole wide, wonderful, and wounded world – is not something else, something extra, something tacked on to the gospel as an afterthought. And to work for that intermediate hope, the surprising hope that comes forward from God’s ultimate future into God’s urgent present, is not a distraction from the task of mission and evangelism in the present. It is a central, essential, vital, and life-giving part of it (pp. 191-2).

A robust proclamation of resurrection and new creation, in other words, can heal the Church of false decisions between healing bodies and saving souls. It can help Christians see our calling to work for God’s kingdom both in the here-and-now as well as in the age to come. And it gives a much-needed correction to our habit of seeing religion, faith, and death in terms of the individual rather than in terms of God’s entire cosmos.

While Christians are to announce the fullness of the Bible’s eschatological claims always and everywhere, there may be no better place or time to proclaim this surprising and challenging good news than at funerals, memorial services, and committals. If we can boldly and rightly affirm the goodness of God’s creation, the truth of a bodily resurrection, and the comprehensiveness of God’s redemption and renewal of the entire creation, we can help each other live as those aflame with hope for the future and with purpose in the present. We can get about the business of being the Church: offering a living witness to God’s kingdom, begun through the death and resurrection of Christ and coming into being with our own participation. United Methodists, with our proud history of passion for social justice and activity in providing relief to those in need, ought especially to be able to hear and respond to Wright’s call.

Postscript: Making Our Rite More [W]Right

We’ve noted in this review where United Methodist Services of Death and Resurrection embrace, remain non-committal, and sometimes even resist a full proclamation of all that the resurrection entails. It’s time now to take the next steps. We have the opportunity to make our witness to this “surprising hope” substantially richer and more orthodox, especially within our ritual responses to death.

Theologians and liturgists, artists and musicians, preachers and poets, consider this your call! Summon the gifts of understanding and artistry the Spirit has given you, and begin crafting more biblically-informed responses to death for our churches and the wider church as well. We do have a surprising hope to proclaim in the face of death, and in the midst of this life. Help us sing, proclaim, pray, and reflect on the surprising hope of God’s kingdom now and for the day of resurrection and new creation in which sin and death shall be no more!

Editor's note: As you respond to Dr. Josselyn Cranson's call, we invite you to share what you craft with the world through the GBOD website and this blog. Send them to worship@gbod.org.

The Revolutionary Nicene Creed

2011-06-02T16:05:00.002-05:00

Nicene Creed from Bach's Mass in B Minor.

The Nicene Creed as revolutionary? A creed that got its start because of one imperial order, and was later adopted because of another one? A Creed that seems full of technical language few purport to understand these days?

These things are true about the Nicene Creed. But it is no less revolutionary!

When we take a closer looks at this creed, it reveals a revolution alive and well-- regardless of whether Constantine or others knew it or wanted it to be so.

One God, Father Almighty, maker of all things seen and unseen... This precludes the notion of any power higher than God, including Caesar, or any identification of the state with God.

One Lord, Jesus Christ... eternally begotten of the Father, begotten not made-- This encodes incarnation even before we get to the article that makes it explicit -- that Jesus Christ is true God with us, and we as Christ's body, the one holy catholic and apostolic church-- have a continuing call, empowerment and responsibility to incarnate him and his ministry in the world. This is no passive retreat from the world, but marching orders into it. The Father begat and enfleshed Self in the Son. That's what we are to continue to be and do in the world. Jesus Christ alone is the coming judge-- no earthly ruler has the final say. He alone sits at the Father's right hand-- he's calling the shots right now in ways no earthly ruler can or does.

One of the more common critiques raised against all the major creeds (Apostles, Nicene, Athanasian) is that they do not take the earthly ministry of Jesus seriously. If one is depending on the creeds alone, or this creed in particular, to carry all the weight of all the doctrine of the church, its actual teaching ministry, that is, that's not an unreasonable criticism.

But what we know about the teaching ministry of the church in these early centuries is that it intensely focused on the life and ministry of Jesus and the implications and expectations for Christians as a result. Christians were not proclaiming his incarnation, death, resurrection, and coming again as disembodied beliefs about him. Not even at Nicea!

Indeed, the Council of Nicaea strongly reaffirmed a three year catechumenate as the norm for Christian formation and actually strengthened that practice in a number of ways. And what we know of the catechumenate is that it was deeply focused on the way people embodied Christ's ministry and calling. Indeed, during the three years, very little doctrine was taught. That would come later, after baptism. But for starters, what mattered was learning to live as Jesus taught-- to love neighbors and enemies, to serve the poor and the frail, to make peace with all.

So why isn't this in the Nicene Creed? Because none of this was controversial! The reason Constantine and later Theodosius called bishops into Council was in part to create a document that could settle what was controversial. When it came to life and ministry of Jesus and its importance for the lives of Christians-- everyone already agreed on that, and practiced that. There was nothing more that needed to be said!

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life... who has spoken through the prophets.... That statement alone signals its time for the establishment to start looking for cover! What did the prophets speak? End all idolatries and make society just-- interpersonally, in families, in economics, in politics. When we read the prophets, identify God's voice, and follow through on what we hear, the revolution cannot but be rekindled. This may be one of the most explicitly kingdom of God oriented and establishment-denying affirmations in the entire creed.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins... It is in baptism that forgiveness of sins is established-- not in any pardons from the state for acts done on behalf of the state. With forgiveness grounded in baptism, which by this time was often near the beginning of physical life (usually within 8 days of birth), and which functioned as initiation into the church regardless of when one entered it-- forgiveness becomes a defining standard of the life of the whole Christian community. Mercy and forgiveness were central in the "way of life" questions in the early catechumenate. The primary qualification to become a bishop in late 4th century Syria was that the candidate be merciful, always ready to forgive sins and restore the community. Forgiveness embodied in Christians can leaven the world as long as we in the Christian community continue to live this way.

I believe in the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come... Resurrection and the life of the world to come is no form of escapism. Rather it was empowerment for bold action in Christ's name in this life with no fear of death. This is about fearless love and bold mercy. The martyrs of the church prior to Nicaea as well those who had gone through great suffering and were present at that council were clear about this. No escapism, just fearless love of God, service to Jesus Christ, and mercy toward every neighbor in the power of the Holy Spirit even if it meant we may die.

Sounds like a revolution to me...

Surprising Hope in United Methodist Funerals? Part 3

2011-05-31T16:29:00.001-05:00

Early Christian grave marker. "Here rests in peace Maxima, handmaid of Christ..." CC 3.0.

Third in a series of entries from an essay by Dr. Heather Josselyn Cranson, Associate Professor of Music and Director of Music Ministries at Northwestern College in Orange, Iowa. The full essay may be downloaded from the GBOD website, here.

What's happening with the dead? And where is heaven?

These are two questions United Methodist Services of Death and Resurrection seem not quite as clear or confident about as our hope in the resurrection of the body.

Waiting for the General Resurrection... Or Walking With Jesus?

The Services of Death and Resurrection appear to be either non-committal or inconsistent about the current state of the dead in Christ. Some elements in these services seem to follow Wright's assertion (and that of many Christians for centuries) that they are “in God’s keeping” until a general resurrection at a later time. Others imply they may have already reached “the other shore.” And still others may be open to either interpretation.

The wording at the placing of the pall leaves open when the appearance of Christ may be: “Here and now, dear friends, we are God’s children. What we shall be has not yet been revealed; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (UMBOW 141). When is Christ thought to appear? Will those praying this prayer imagine this appearance within the narratives of the biblical accounts of the second coming of Christ, or rather as a “less than Grim Reaper” who meets them at death? Likewise, in one of the prayers previously cited (UMBOW 143), we pray “bring us at last with them into the joy of your home…” (italics added). When is at last? Does it point to a period of waiting from now until the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead? Or might it instead be heard as pointing to the end of our own lives as individuals, after which we (as souls separated from dead bodies) may be immediately taken up to our final reward?

The way Psalm 130 appears in this ritual could point to two different outcomes as well. If the Psalm is interpreted as the prayer of the deceased, then “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word do I hope” (UMBOW 144) could be understood as a confession by the deceased that the promised resurrection is yet to come. However, if it is understood primarily as a prayer of the living acknowledging their grief, then the living may simply be confessing that they are waiting for the end of their present grief in this life. This reading, which seems more likely in the context of the ritual, does not address the current status of the dead in Christ at all.

As we have seen already, the Gospel lesson (John 14) may or may not place the resurrection after Jesus’ return. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself” (UMBOW 148) could be understood to point to a time of waiting between our deaths and the return of Christ in glory. But for those who believe in the immediate translation of the soul to heaven, the “coming again” in this text may just as easily be understood to occur at each person’s death.

The Commendation grammatically separates death from resurrection in two separate sentences placed on two different lines.

“Receive Name into the arms of your mercy.

Raise Name up with all your people” (UMBOW 150).

This grammar and formatting could imply a separation in time between these two things, but need not do so. Persons who may be unfamiliar with or unconvinced by the idea of waiting before resurrection may not hear or see any affirmation of such waiting in such subtle wording.

Several places in the services refer to a “state of peace.” But who is at peace? What that peace is for? How long does that peace last? Answers to each of these vary widely in these services. The post-Greeting prayers praise God for those who “now rest from their labor” and ask God to “grant… peace” to them (UMBOW 143). Here the dead are pictured in a state of rest for which we ask God’s peace. However, it is unclear whether this state of restful peace is understood as transitional or final. In the confession of sin that follows, the living ask “that we may end our days in peace” (UMBOW 143). What does this mean? Does it refer to the process of dying itself, to a peaceful attitude as we face our own deaths, or perhaps to being at peace with God and others when we die? At the commendation, the pastor, with hands upon the coffin, prays “Receive Name into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace…” (UMBOW 150).When does the “receiving” happen? Or perhaps more pointedly, are “the arms of your mercy” (which might point to a period of waiting prior to the resurrection and new creation) a state preceding “the blessed rest of everlasting peace,” or is the latter simply another name for the former? In this case, not only the intermediate state of waiting, but even resurrection and new creation as the ultimate state may seem to be denied. Finally, at the Committal, verses from Revelation promise that “the dead who die in the Lord… will rest from their labors” (UMBOW 156). The context of Revelation makes clear there is an intermediate state for the dead in Christ prior to the resurrection, but in the context of a confusing set of references to rest and peace in this liturgy, the scripture itself could be understood to say the final destiny is this very rest and that the dead in Christ immediately attain it.

Several places in the Services of Death and Resurrection seem more clearly to reject Wright’s description of a time of rest preceding resurrection. The petition that God would “enable us to die as those who go forth to live” following the Greeting (UMBOW 142), implies an active existence more in line with Wright’s conception of post-resurrection eternity than the peaceful rest of an interim period. Similarly, the pastor’s prayer during the Committal asks “Receive into your arms your servant Name, and grant that increasing in knowledge and love of you, he/she may go from strength to strength in service to your heavenly kingdom…” (UMBOW 156). This petition also points to an immediately attained energetic and dynamic existence for the dead rather than the rest and peace of the deceased before resurrection.

On balance, the ambiguity of some prayers and readings combined with a few that more clearly suggest the immediate translation of the dead in Christ to their final reward tilt United Methodist ritual at least somewhat away from Wright’s interpretation and toward the more “popular” teachings he rejects.

The Location of Heaven

Where is heaven? Ultimately, Wright reminds, heaven is joined to a new earth in a new Jerusalem in the new creation. In this new creation, heaven descends to earth, rather than humanity floating up to the clouds and abandoning the earth entirely. God’s home comes fully among resurrected humans and other creatures dwelling in the new earth. New creation with heaven coming down into our midst is the ultimate fulfillment of the Incarnation. The Services of Death and Resurrection, however, include over 20 uses of “rise,” “risen,” “raise,” and other “upward” verbs, as tends to befit metaphors of resurrection, if not of heaven. Still, this may create at least a subliminal clash between the eventual "upness" of resurrection and the "downness" of heaven coming into a "new-created world," especially for those whose chief imagination of the afterlife is “going up yonder.”

The images offered in some of the selected passages from the New Testament may also be confusing on this point.

Revelation 21 is clear enough:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among [people]. He will dwell with them as their God” (UMBOW 146).

The gospel reading from John is less than clear. John seems to waver between assumptions that heaven is “up and away” and implications that it is “among people.” “And if I go and prepare a place for you [up and away], I will come again [among people] and will take you to myself [up and away], so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going [up and away]. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you [among people].”

I Peter 1:3-9, including in the Committal (UMBOW 158), includes a line that is confusing enough that Wright gives it particular attention. What does “an inheritance… kept in heaven for you” mean? Wright notes that many believe that this phrase implies that our inheritance is being kept safe in a heaven above earth, so that once we have died we may go to that lofty place to receive our “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” inheritance. But Wright suggests an a different interpretation with a clever analogy. If Wright were to tell a friend he had invited over for a drink that he had kept some beverages in the refrigerator, he wouldn’t insist that his friend climb into the fridge and remain there while drinking them. Nor, likely, would he expect the friend to serve himself. The refrigerator is not the destination, but the storage facility. A good host keeps the beverages chilled, then goes and brings them to the guest. Likewise, he says, God will bring our inheritance kept in heaven for us down to us, resurrected and living in the new earth in the new creation.

How might typical attendees at a United Methodist funeral make sense of this? Where would they understand heaven to be? If Revelation 21 is included among the readings, they might understand heaven, ultimately, to be among the dwellers of a new earth in a new creation. With that text omitted, however, popular assumptions of heaven being “up there” or “the place we go when we die” might easily trump the biblical proclamation of God making God's final home among us.

Part 4-- New Creation and Other Conclusions-- is coming soon! Watch for it!

Surprising Hope in United Methodist Funerals? (Part 2)

2011-05-25T16:15:00.000-05:00

Icon of the Resurrection. Public Domain.

Getting the Ritual (W)Right

Second in a series of entries from an essay by Dr. Heather Josselyn Cranson, Associate Professor of Music and Director of Music Ministries at Northwestern College in Orange, Iowa. The full essay may be downloaded from the GBOD website, here.

N.T. Wright’s argument and concern in Surprised by Hope are not limited simply to what the churches teach about the meaning of death, life after death, resurrection and new creation. Ultimately, he hopes, that

“those who take seriously the argument of this present book will examine the current practice of the church, from its official liturgies to all the unofficial bits and pieces that surround them, and try to discover fresh ways of expressing, embodying, and teaching what the New Testament actually teaches rather than the mangled, half-understood, and vaguely held theories and opinions” of the current culture (p. 25).

For Wright, it’s not enough to focus just on what we say. It may be even more important to focus on how we put these ideas into action when we gather in ritual. Why? Because what we do in ritual-- through singing, actions and prayer-- shapes us even more deeply than what we say in our teaching. Indeed, ritual may shape how we even hear what is being taught in the first place.

Unfortunately, Wright laments, these biblical, Christian affirmations are rarely embodied in typical Christian funeral services. And where they are, they are too often buried and disfigured by incompatible teachings and practices.

Sometimes, denominationally approved liturgies or resources are at fault. As often, however, the fault lies with improvised rites, impromptu statements made by pastors or funeral home directors, or the choice of music or poetry made by families or others planning the service.

How, then, might the United Methodist “Services of Death and Resurrection” in The United Methodist Hymnal (UMH) and The United Methodist Book of Worship (UMBOW) fare under Wright’s scrutiny? Do United Methodists have the “[W]right stuff?”

Bodily Resurrection

When it comes to affirming the bodily resurrection as the core of Christian hope, the answer for our ritual is “Yes, mostly.” The given name of these services is a strong starting point: “Services of Death and Resurrection.” The words at the Gathering and the Word of Grace each cite the physical death and bodily resurrection of Jesus as the basis for Christian hope in bodily resurrection (UMBOW 141). All three of the suggested epistle readings (I Corinthians 15, Revelation 21, and Romans 8, UMBOW 145-147) explicitly locate Christian hope in the resurrection of the body and the new creation. The prayer of commendation likewise points not to “heaven” but to resurrection: “Raise Name up with all your people” (UMBOW, 150). And the Committal at the grave site reiterates the hope in resurrection with readings from Romans 8:11 and I Corinthians 15:53.

In addition to offering prayers and texts in support of faith in a bodily resurrection, the Services of Death and Resurrection refrain from including words which directly undermine such faith by suggesting that only the soul of a person is raised. On the contrary, the images of resurrection and life after death found in these services are boldly physical, from the slaked thirst of Revelation 21, to the fragrant oil of Psalm 23, to the bodily activity and strength of Isaiah 40.

Still, hope in the resurrection of the body is not the only possible way one may read these services, especially given that many of our clergy choose not to use all of the readings and may focus instead solely on Psalm 23 and John 14. Those who use only these two texts may seek to comfort those who find themselves in the valley of the shadow of death with the hope that “in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places” (John 14), and giving assurances that their loved ones are in those dwelling places now and for all eternity.

Either of the options for the opening prayer (UMBOW 143) can also be used to underwrite such a view. The conclusion of the first prayer, “that nothing in life or death will be able to separate us from your great love in Christ Jesus,” can be interpreted to support the immediate transit of the soul to God and heaven at death. So can “bring us at last with them into the joy of your home not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens” (UMBOW 143). The problematic words are “at last,” and “your home not made with hands.” These could make it appear that our final hope is in a disembodied state far from earth.

Still, the vast preponderance of prayer and biblical texts in the United Methodist ritual clearly affirms bodily resurrection as the core of Christian hope for the baptized. To use this ritual in a way that would affirm primarily a disembodied existence in heaven would require removing or ignoring most of what the ritual provides.

Stay tuned for part 3-- looking at the status of those who are dead and the nature of "heaven"-- coming soon!

Surprising Hope in United Methodist Funerals? (Part 1)

2011-05-23T14:24:00.002-05:00


Hieronymus Bosch. Ascent of the blessed.

This marks the beginning of a series of entries from an essay by Dr. Heather Josselyn Cranson, Associate Professor of Music and Director of Music Ministries at Northwestern College in Orange, Iowa. The full essay may be downloaded from the GBOD website, here.

N.T. Wright believes that many Christians have it wrong about life after death. In his 2008 book, Surprised by Hope, the Bishop of Durham (England) and noted Biblical scholar argued that many Christians have allowed a fuzzy mixture of more contemporary teachings about life after death, reincarnation, and Stoic and Gnostic ideas of body/mind dualism to weaken if not replace what he sees as the clear witness of scripture and the teaching of the church. So pervasive is a non-biblical vision, Wright asserts, that “most people have little or no idea what the word resurrection actually means or why Christians say they believe it.” (Surprised, p. 12)

Christians are partly to blame for this state of affairs, notes Wright. Too many Christian hymns, stories, and sermons perpetuate reassurances that death happens only to the body, not the “important” part of a person. Wright maintains that Christians are called to correct such views and confess a biblical understanding of resurrection.

Getting the Theology Right

A biblical, Christian understanding of resurrection begins by affirming bodily resurrection. The body of Jesus is raised from the dead, not just his soul. After the resurrection, his body has some unusual abilities to interact with his environment (appearing inside locked rooms or suddenly disappearing, for example), but he remains physically embodied in every way. Jesus eats, drinks, walks, talks, breathes, retains the scars from his crucifixion, and even cooks a breakfast for his disciples. Wright confidently asserts that such a mysterious yet very much physical resurrection is at the core of the true hope awaiting Christians, as individuals, after death.

But not immediately at death. Rather than moving from this life to the resurrection, Wright asserts, “all the Christian departed are in substantially the same state, that of restful happiness… firmly held within the conscious love of God and the conscious presence of Christ,” awaiting resurrection (pp. 171-172). We are resting in God’s keeping, but this “waiting state” is not “heaven,” nor is “heaven” the name of our final destiny. Rather, citing Revelation 21 and 22, Wright notes that earth is heaven’s destiny. We do not go there. Heaven comes and dwells among us, raised and embodied, here, as part of the remaking of all things including a new heaven and a new earth.

And the new earth and new heavens are part of an entirely new cosmos. God’s intention in salvation from the beginning, says Wright, is nothing less than the rescue and recreation of all things, including but not limited to humans or earth. “The wrath to come,” to use John Wesley’s phrase, is not primarily about destroying sinful humans, but rather about a remaking of all things, restoring them, with the redeemed in Christ, to God’s purposes from the beginning.

This, then, says Wright, comprises a biblical, Christian vision of life, death, resurrection and the new creation. We die and are buried. We are held in God’s keeping. God renews and restores all things, the whole universe, wedding a new heaven with a new earth where all those raised with Christ dwell in resurrected bodies.

Worship: Mirror and Model

2011-05-18T16:41:00.001-05:00

Mirror (with model). Used by permission, CC 3.0.

by Ron Anderson

Contemporary discussions of the function of worship in the life of the church tend to focus on the ways in which worship serves as a means to reach out to the unchurched, as a tool for evangelism, as the central practice for church growth, and as a set of products shaped by consumer desires. (The recent Call to Action report in the United Methodist Church provides only one recent example of these tendencies.) But what if we began to think about worship from a different perspective? What if we began to think of worship as a kind of mirror and model for the Christian community?

Worship as Mirror

We know what mirrors do; they reflect back to us an image. Some mirrors are shaped in ways to help focus images (even images at great distances, like telescope mirrors), some to expand our field of vision (like side mirrors on semis), and some distort images (like the “Bean” at Chicago’s Millennium Park). Some of these reflected images are helpful, some are simply fun, and some are harmful.

Worship can do all of these things. It can distort our vision and be harmful when we expect worship to look exactly like us, when we expect worship to express our particular feelings, sensibilities, and tastes. In this sense, worship becomes a kind of “looking glass”—the kind of mirror we use for personal grooming and self-adoration. You might say that such a mirror prompts a kind of narcissism, a loving gaze at our selves.

But the mirror that is faithful worship sharpens and expands our vision. This mirror reflects back to us the brokenness of our lives and brings us to self-examination. It helps us look more closely at our lives, our blemishes and our wrinkles, helping us see that we are not quite as kind, as just, as attentive to the poor, or as welcoming of those who are different from us as we think we are. Yet, as it reflects this reality to us, it also reveals that we are more than we can see. This mirror shows us, even in our brokenness, an image of redemption, healing, and love. It shows us that we bear the image of God.

Worship as Model

A model is something used to represent something else—whether that representation is of something concrete, like the plan for a church building, or something conceptual, like our understanding of the universe. Models can represent the actual “state of affairs” in our world or they can represent an idealized state, such as John’s vision of the heavenly city in Revelation 21-22. Models provide frameworks that help us understand things, ideas, and relationships.

When worship primarily models the actual conditions of our world, it is affirming and forming us in the values, prejudices, and behaviors of the dominant cultures in which we live. That the “worship hour” remains the most racially and economically segregated hour in our public lives is but one example. Another is the way in which many growth-oriented models for church life look increasingly like models for shopping malls, with specialized shops (worship services and musical styles) catering to every taste and level of income. A third example, especially in North American protestantism, is the way in which some of our worship practices reflect confusion between our allegiance to God and our allegiance to nation.

In contrast, the model of faithful worship enables us to encounter God’s vision and plan for the world. Worship, more than anything else, should model for us (even provide the place in which we practice) the ways in which we, in all our difference and brokenness, can become a community beloved in that difference, encounter a prophetic and caring word, and be drawn to a common banquet table. Faithful worship models for us the ways in which we bring lament and praise to God, intercede for those close to us as well those to whom we are strangers, and learn to blend our diverse voices into a harmony worthy of a generous and merciful God.

What is the mirror and model of worship showing you? How is it shaping your life as a Christian community?

E. Byron (Ron) Anderson is the Styberg Professor of Worship and director of the Nellie B. Ebersole program in Music Ministry.

Fast Food at the Table of the Lord....

2011-05-09T22:37:00.004-05:00

Well, that's one way to talk about Fast Food (or in this case, Junk Food, plus a healthy dose of consumerism!) at the Table of the Lord.

But we have another way, don't we. We may actually serve the usual items-- bread and grape juice or wine.

The "food" may be regular.

But for any number of reasons, our approach to how we celebrate the sacrament as whole is focused on the "fast" part. We feel some compulsion, or under some compulsion, to speed it up and get it over with.

Why Fast Food at the Table of the Lord?

We have our reasons.

But when push comes to shove, let's be honest about the primary reason.

Celebrating communion with our full text takes sooooo... lonnnng.

But does it, really?

From Long to Timeless: Praying The Great Thanksgiving Well

A group of some of the finest worship scholars in the UMC met at Don and Jane Saliers' home in Vermont in the summer of 2006 to develop what would become our downloadable resource, Living into the Mystery: A United Methodist Guide for Celebrating Holy Communion. Part of what we were talking about during this gathering (and reflected in the introduction to this resource) was time. But we wanted to do more than just talk about time. We wanted to answer the concern that the Great Thanksgiving in Word and Table I may be "too long."

So we ran an experiment. We timed ourselves celebrating it at a reasonable rate, no rushing-- and even using the sung responses.

Guess what. Total time was 4 minutes.

We re-ran the experiment.

Same thing.

The whole Great Thanksgiving, with sung responses, in 4 minutes.

That is on the low end of the length a congregation stands (or sits) to sing the average hymn. It's way less than the length of a sermon. Or the typical "worship set" in contemporary worship. It's shorter than the average "pastoral prayer." It's also shorter than announcements, children's moments, or prayer request times in congregations that do these.

Yet time after time it's the Great Thanksgiving that becomes the candidate to be shortened.

Why?

Maybe, we thought, it's not because it IS longer.

Maybe, it's because it SEEMS longer.

Why? A number of recent studies of brain function and time perception have begun to suggest some reasons. Basically, the perception of time appears to relate to the speed at which memory is being encoded by the brain. When the brain, body and emotions are more fully engaged, the hippocampus (a region of the brain that looks sort of like a seahorse and is especially important for memory formation) tends to encode more memories with less latency, so time seems to move more swiftly. If there is less going on, less body motion and less at stake emotionally, the brain encodes less, and time seems to slow down. However, if something frightening or disorienting happens, such as falling from a great height, or being just about to crash the vehicle you are driving, time seems to stretch out. Why? The hippocampus seems to kick into overdrive and you record way faster than usual. When you play back the memory in "real time" it seems stretched out, just like playing back the footage from a high-speed camera in real time.

Put in more common terms. Time flies when you're having fun. Time slows down when you're bored. And time stretches when your world seems to be ending or at least going seriously awry.

Of course, it's not time itself doing any of these things, but your perception of time.

Which brings us back to why the Great Thanksgiving can seem longer than a hymn that is actually longer.

It comes down to boredom.

A good hymn or song engages the body in making and sensing vibrations and possibly dancing or keeping beat. The melody evokes emotional responses and feelings. And, though probably least significant of all, the language centers of the brain help you form and make cognitive sense of the words. Singing is a memory bandwidth hog! Which means time can seem to move more quickly (or at least less slowly) when you sing.

What about the Great Thanksgiving? It all depends on how it is performed!

What are you are presider doing with your body? Do you look like a robot? Or a limp noodle? Or do your posture and motions reflect your competence to lead the assembly in this prayer? Body language matters maybe most of all!

Where are your eyes? In a book? Looking all over? Or focused on each moment, rapt in wonder, love and praise?

What are you doing with your voice? Reading through the text rapidly? Or praying these words intently? Stumbling around, or moving with the cadences of grace?

What is the pacing? Do you say every part of the prayer at the same rate? Or do some parts move more swiftly, while others move more slowly, drawing attention to more dramatic moments, such as the build-up to the great Amen that concludes the prayer?

Where is the emotion? Do you pray with a flat affect? Or, just as problematic, are you "hamming it up"? Or does what you are praying inform the emotion with which you pray it and lead others?

And what is the congregation doing? Are they just sitting there? Or even just standing or kneeling there? Or are they consciously and bodily engaged, perhaps joining you as presider in the same postures of prayer?

How and how often are the congregation involved in praying this prayer during the prayer? Do you only say the words, or do you and they also sing them? Do you as a presider "hog" the limelight, praying in long monologue (and maybe even monotone!) while the congregation watches? Or do you see and embody your role as prompting their sacrifice of praise and thankgiving? The Great Thanksgiving is primarily their prayer, and your role is to lead them to pray it.

The point of all of this? You and your congregation can make the Great Thanksgiving feel slow, or you can make it feel timeless-- either outcome in the same four minutes!

The solution is not to cut it short or rush through it! The solution is to pray it better and help your congregation do the same!

From Awfully Slow to Awe-Filled: Sharing the Bread and Cup

Okay, we've all been there. The Great Thankgiving may have been a wonderful experience-- timeless, even! There was a strong sense of the presence of the Spirit moving in your midst as you prayed. And then--

First, there may be another word of assurance that in the United Methodist Church everyone can receive who wants to. We're friendly that way.

Then, there's often some sort of complicated explanation about which aisle you come down, and how to do intinction, or where you can get your little cups, and where to put them afterward, and...

And then, to add insult to all this ritual injury (I mean really, to go from a high point at the fraction to these mundane and unnecessary explanations?) there are the lines.

Long lines.

Sure the choir may sing something. Yes, there may be something for you to sing, too. But what really can take forever in a service of Holy Communion is waiting to receive the bread and cup.

There's a very, very simple solution to this.

First, no more "second" invitations. If you did the invitation to the Table prior to the Confession and Peace, you've done the invitation. Any more is redundant.

Second, no more explanations. Don't spoil these holy moments with too many words. Just say, "Come," or even simply gesture in silence. You can print more elaborate instructions in the bulletin if you must. For now, just get folks moving to or around the Table.

And as you get them moving, don't make them wait in long lines. Create more stations. If you have two stations, adding a third increases the rate of receiving by 50 percent, and you haven't rushed or "herded" anyone at all. In fact, if you don't have a time problem now, adding more stations means you actually give people more time to taste, see, and give thanks for the goodness of the Lord in the sacrament without having added a single minute to the service. You might even be able to free up enough time to add a station for healing prayer, or a set of prayer station with a guided meditations for persons to visit on their way back to their seats.

And again-- it will have taken no more time at all.

But even if it does, time spent like this seems not awfully slow, but awe-filled.

Fast food at the table of the Lord?

If you rush people, they'll feel rushed. If you bore people, they'll feel bored. If you dread celebrating, they will too.

But if you love the Lord and help the congregation love the Lord in praying and receiving around the Table, they'll feel love-- and loved! And you can do that in nearly the same amount of actual time. Maybe even less, depending on the number of stations you offer.

I've always found snacks a poor substitute for a meal, and fast food a poor substitute for a home-cooked dinner.

What if...

What if we remembered that here at Christ's table, his greatest desire is truly to feed us, his flock, and welcome us home?

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

No More Summer Worship Multi-Tasking: Use the Lectionary to "Think Series"

2011-05-09T11:20:00.000-05:00

In the U.S. in particular, we live in a distracted and distracting world. Multitasking seems required of us all the time, but what we know is that our brains are simply not set up to make that work.

In fact, as significant research at Stanford University has shown, much to the surprise of the researchers, the more we multitask at things such as email, Twitter, documents we are writing, and the like, the worse we get at multitasking and the worse our capacity to filter out irrelevant information and remember and keep track of important things becomes.

What's even worse, people who do such multitasking over time believe and feel they're getting better and better at it, and they crave it more and more!

There's a reason media multitasking feels so good but works increasingly poorly. Our brains reward us with "dopamine blasts" when we encounter something new. The brain apparently does that so we have the incentive to deal with the new thing in a focused way, once we can focus in on it. But that's the key. This dopamine-reward mechanism was not designed to be stimulated again and again in rapid succession. Keep stimulating it, and we become "high," rather than more focused. Literally high. In reality, such constant task-switching may be measurably damaging our brains.

Worship planners are often tempted during this period of unrelated texts after Pentecost to "multi-task" worship after Pentecost, jumping around the lectionary texts or topics from week to week, or even changing up the order of worship each week for the sake of variety. We justify it to ourselves that variety is good. We may think we should give folks a "break" since choirs, Sunday school, and other programs may be off for much of the summer vacation season in the U.S. and Europe. We may follow suit, offering a more low-key, casual feel.

The more casual approach and variety may feel good. Likely it will. But given the fact that worship happens and folks generally hear these texts and a sermon only once per week, you may very well be reducing their biblical memory and enhancing their biblical illiteracy by changing up the worship order too much or by jumping among the texts or topics rather than diving deeply into them from week to week.

Instead, "think series."

And think series, not only in terms of texts for focus, but the basic patterns of your worship as well.

Pick one stream of texts to focus on for several weeks on end. Read them all in worship if you can.

And accompany that series of texts with repeated elements of worship that help all who worship with you enter these texts and the work of the Spirit through them in a more profound way.

So plan intently -- not casually! Plan with the end of what God can do with us, with the particular brains we actually have, in mind.

Quit multitasking during these months-- and see how the people invited into practices of worship that reinforce the message of scripture may actually grow, rather than decline, in the intensity of their love for God and neighbor.

For the rest of the GBOD worship website article from which this is excerpted and adapted-- including more specific reflections to guide your discernment about which series to use and when this summer-- click here!

For another take on the dangers of multi-tasking, from Harvard Business Review, click here.

Image credit: Christine de Pizan, Multi-tasking. Used by permission under a Creative Commons License.

No More Dry Confirmations!

2011-05-03T10:14:00.014-05:00

As most folks do their confirmations during the Easter Season or on Pentecost, it seemed a post about confirmations might be appropriate. It has been my practice during my ministry to baptize and/or confirm the members of our confirmation class during worship on Easter Day. One issue I ran into as I worked on the service for this year was that I wanted to make sure I used all of the proper parts of Baptismal Covenant I with the Confirmands.

I think often when we work on such a service there are at least two tendencies. The first is that because there are 16 sections, there is the sense we may be free to pick and choose the elements that we think are important. The other tendency is that since there are so many churches out there doing so many different things, it is not always clear which elements in the covenant are appropriate and/or necessary. In my case, my hunch was that they needed to go through all the elements of the service, but I wanted to make sure I was doing things right. I had a conversation with Taylor Burton-Edwards, Director of Worship Resources at the GBOD, and his urging to put an end to “dry confirmations” seemed to be just the right answer.

It is important for Confirmands to take part in the renunciation of sin and profession of faith because these were promises that were reaffirmed by their sponsors at their baptisms if they were baptized before they could answer for themselves. This is their opportunity to “own” the baptismal promises, to take responsibility for their faith, and ask the Holy Spirit to help them in this endeavor.

In my case, I was pretty sure that all of the sections needed to be carried out, but the part that tripped me up the most was the Thanksgiving Over the Water and the opportunity for the Confirmands to remember their baptisms and be thankful. How could this be accomplished in a way that made sense, when we really weren’t prepared for a congregational reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant?

What Rev. Burton-Edwards suggested, and what I found easy to accomplish, was to have the congregation join me in the Thanksgiving Over the Water, and then have the Confirmands all dip their fingers into the font and make the sign of the cross on their foreheads. We then followed this act with the prayer to the Holy Spirit as we anointed them. This worked extremely well. We were then able to move on to the reception in The United Methodist Church and the local congregation, and finish up with the commendation and welcome.

What is important to me from all of this is the way in which our whole ritual is useful, appropriate, and meaningful, even if there are no baptisms during the service. “No more dry confirmations!” helps to make the relationship between baptism and confirmation clearer to all involved, it resists the temptation to pick and choose from the liturgy, and it offers yet another visual and sensible sign of what is happening during the ritual.

Peace,

Alan Combs

New Resource: Osama bin Laden Is Dead

2011-05-02T21:22:00.001-05:00

Osama bin Laden is dead.
My countrymen killed him,
men who went to his home
with the purpose of killing him,
in cold blood.

Osama bin Laden is dead.
I am sad that my country could do such a thing,
even though it was in response
to his ordering the killing of thousands of people,
in cold blood.

Osama bin Laden is dead.
Now he will plot no more.
His death was preventive medicine:
he would no doubt have eventually planned more terrorist acts
which would have killed more of our friends and neighbors,
in cold blood.

Osama bin Laden is dead.
He was a child of God,
who wandered far away from God's will
that all humans love and cherish each other.
But as a child of God,
he was my brother.
He did not know this.
Shouldn't we have told him?
He was one for whom Christ died,
in cold blood.

Osama bin Laden is dead.
We must pray for the cleansing of humanity,
that no more shall die,
in cold blood.

Lucy Hook Porter

May 2, 2011

Lucy Hook Porter is a retired United Methodist pastor and hospital chaplain, currently residing in New York City with her husband, Scott. Together they currently offer a traveling ministry of humor and music, "Locally Famous Lucy and Scott."

New Resource: A Prayer Poem upon the Death of Osama bin Laden

2011-05-02T11:21:00.003-05:00

Relief, release,

for ten years awaited

by all whose lives ceased

in planes and towers,

or battlefields, caves or roadways far from home

in these succeeding years:

The dead must have their voice.

So, too, the living,

those whose mourning could not reach full closure

until this news:

Osama, too, is dead.

In these United States some celebrate

a victory long sought,

an objective long elusive:

To find and bring this man to trial,

or to visit on him

what he had visited on far too many

in far too many places

for far too long.

Some also sigh, or sob,

or cry with groans that beg,

"Can this one death atone for all our loss?"

And others start to ask,

"May this one death unleash a thousand more?"

Relief and fear,

wonder and sorrows relived, renewed:

This is where we are.

This news of death as justice

cuts all ways,

leaving us with wounds that heal

and fester,

all at once.

And so we pray:

Jesus, risen,

Conqueror of Death,

heal us.

Jesus, risen,

Great High Priest,

hear our cries as prayer.

Jesus, risen,

Redeemer of the World,

deliver us from temptation.

Jesus, risen,

Judge of living and dead,

have mercy upon us and all whom you have made.

Jesus, risen,

Prince of Peace,

show us the paths of Life.

Amen.

Taylor Burton-Edwards

May 2, 2011

Copyright 2011, The General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church. This may be reproduced by any means, anywhere, but not sold, provided the copyright citation is noted: "Used by permission. Copyright (c) 2011, The General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church." For any other uses, contact worship@gbod.org.

Bearings, Part III E: Between Table and Sending

2011-04-29T15:55:00.001-05:00

Number 608 miniature bearings. Used by permission.

This is part 5 of a five part miniseries. Part 1, introducing this miniseries, is here.

If the bearings between Word/Response and Table have been the hardest for most Christians over time, the bearings between Table and Sending may be a close second.

This is in part because for most Christians in the West, at least, the framing of the end of worship as Sending rather than Conclusion or Closing is a relative latecomer.

Sendings in Early Christianity

To be sure, the roots for this movement of Sending are ancient. But those ancient roots became obscured as the other "sendings" (or dismissals) which had been part of Christian worship in the earliest centuries fell away.

In addition to the final Sending from worship, we know of three other kinds of dismissals/sendings in the second through fourth centuries. All three appear to have happened just before the "prayers of the people."

The most commonly recorded dismissal was the dismissal of catechumens (persons preparing for baptism). In Orthodox liturgies, a deacon still must say "The doors, the doors," a vestige of the ancient practice of actual dismissals.

In Sarapion's Prayer Book (ca 356, Thmuis, Egypt), we also have record of a dismissal of "energumens" (persons possessed by an evil spirit, baptized or otherwise). This dismissal is accompanied by a prayer blessing them and praying for their full healing and deliverance.

And in Syria, there was a dismissal of persons who were in conflict with others (Didascalia, 230 and Apostolic Constitutions, 380). These persons would be escorted out by deacons who would then represent their "cases" on Monday morning to the bishop. The bishop would judge the case and offer remedies to help the aggrieved parties repair damage in their relationships and move toward reconciliation with God and each other.

All of these dismissals were "missional." "Missional" comes from the Latin mittere, "to send." (We get our English word "Mass" from this word as well!). They weren't simply told to go away. They were sent for a purpose-- to experience God's mission at work in their lives in their particular circumstances. For catechumens, the purpose was continued learning of the way of Jesus and preparation for baptism. For energumens it was healing and deliverance. And for persons it conflict, it was to make progress toward genuine reconciliation.

From Sendings to Endings

In the West, all of these Sendings all disappeared fairly rapidly by the middle of the fifth century. The catechumenate had all but collapsed, so there weren't catechumens to dismiss. Energumens never seem to have had a special place in Western liturgies. And by the late fifth century, the Syrian "bishop's court," whose original purpose was primarily to find practical ways to support reconciliation among the laity, had already begun to morph into what would later be called the Roman Curia, a court for dealing with discipline of the clergy.

So by the sixth century all that was left of actual dismissals was the final dismissal-- the sending into the world to live as missionaries of Christ in the world.

But even that had begun to change. It was starting at about this time that the words of the dismissal in the West had become almost cryptic: Ite, missa est.

Ite, missa est is nearly untranslatable. The first word is clear enough: "Go." Missa est is more problematic. Something is missing. We do not know what noun or pronoun missa refers to. Missa est could mean "it is sent" or "she is sent" or "these things" are sent. There are arguments offered for each and more beside. I tend to lean toward an original reading of something like [Ecclesia, tu] missa es "Church, you are sent" or [Ecclesia] missa est [in mundum], "The church is sent [into the world]." But there's just not sufficient textual evidence to reach any conclusive answers.

Whatever the words Ite, missa est originally may have meant, there is little debate that they quickly came to have a different meaning in actual use. They were no longer understood to be about sending so much as ending, with the perfect passive verb (missa est, "having been sent") now functioning as a noun and a present tense verb. "Go. The mass (missa) is [ended] (est)." Put in more common parlance, the message was, "It's over. We're done here. Let's play or sing some nice closing music and go home."

When worship was work in which the gathered people were actively engaged, the final action involved sending the people to continue to live as Christ's representatives in the world. And so they would actually process into the world, rather than recess from worship.

But by the late sixth century at the latest, in many places in the West, worship had become more of a ritual drama performed by expert actors and singers on behalf of the people. People don't get sent sent from a drama. The drama ends, usually with some music (postlude) and maybe a recessional from the stage. Then the people leave, perhaps offering a word or two to the director or a few actors about how they thought the performance went.

One finds similar patterns in most Protestant Sunday morning worship forms through the mid-20th century as well. The sermon often concludes with a prayer summarizing its main points. The congregation sings a closing song. The pastor offers a closing prayer. Then the choir offers a quiet "sung benediction" or Amen that finalizes the closure. Show's over. Energy winding down. Denouement and ending, not Sending.

Recovering the Sending

Vatican II and the ecumenical work on early Christian liturgy that had been underway for nearly a century helped change that. The Sending of the assembly to be the body of Christ in the world was recovered, first by Roman Catholics, and quickly in the revised prayer and worship resources of Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, United Methodists, United Church of Christ, Reformed Churches and many others beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The final actions of the service would no longer be determined by the denouement of either sermon or communion. There would now be a distinct, energetic movement again, a clear Sending. Those who who had offered themselves fully to God in Entrance, Word and Table were now sent as Christ's body renewed, fed, and empowered by the Spirit.

For Sending to be sending in its own right, though, we need bearings between the end of Word (in services without the sacrament) or Table and the Sending itself.

Why? It's about the energy. Both Word and Table can easily move toward denouement left to their own devices. In most mainline "preaching" services, the energy at the end of the sermon is often more about creating a satisfactory conclusion-- intellectually or emotionally-- than moving the people to much further response. And the time after receiving communion is itself largely devoted to personal acts of quiet, often introspective prayer.

The energy of Sending, however, is extroverted, active and expressive.

So what functions as bearings to redirect energies of denouement toward the final, active movement of Sending?

In contemporary worship, it's usually the music. As we've seen with bearings between other movements, it's usually music whose dynamics and texts capture two things at once. The spoof video Sunday's Coming accurately described it this way: "This is the closing song, with strings that'll make you cry."

If you listen to the music of the video, you know just what the narrator is talking about. The music itself, its form and format, raises the emotional energy from conclusion to catharsis. The text being sung in an actual service of this kind typically connects with a major theme of the sermon (or communion, when celebrated) and transforms it to an act of commitment. Singing such a song means participants speak a commitment to God with passion on the lips and in their hearts.

For some of the contemporary services Michael Eldridge visited in his research on megachurch worship, this song functioned as both bearings and Sending at once. For others, however, there would be an additional word from a pastor, reinforcing the act of Sending, and then a reprise of the chorus to enact the Sending more fully. Either way, Sending has its own integrity in such settings, and this "closing song" functions as bearings.

For Episcopal and "traditional" United Methodist worship alike, the Prayer of Thanksgiving after Communion forms the bearings between Table and Sending (see UMH, p. 11). For both denominations, this is a unison prayer. Even if there is provision for congregational singing during communion, my observation in a variety of congregations in both denominations is that most people do not sing, or if they do, they sing more quietly, more as if to themselves, than they do for a "regular" congregational hymn. Instead, they are engaging in a variety of individual actions, whether waiting to receive, receiving, or praying or reflecting quietly in their seats after receiving. Corporate energy is waning. Worshipers in this state are not yet primed to be sent.

This is why the unison prayer at this point is so important as bearings, and that it matters that it is unison! The unison nature of the prayer, whether offered while kneeling (Episcopal) or likely sitting (United Methodist), regenerates flagging corporate energy. It immediately re-syncs us as "body of Christ" acting together. The text of these prayers provides an act of thanksgiving for what has just happened (participating in "this holy mystery") and a prayer for what is about to happen-- the Sending itself.

Both denominations also have essentially the same actions in the Sending itself, even if in a different order: a Trinitarian blessing, an hymn of sending (which may also be accompanied by a processional), and words of sending proper. All three are energetic. All three are focused outward. All three reinforce not only with words, but with action and emotion, that we have been empowered and sent by the Holy Spirit to live out our discipleship to Jesus faithfully in the world.

And here, as with the transition from Entrance to Word, it is an act of prayer that helps that sense of empowerment both emerge from Table and come to full fruition in a natural, fluid way.

Bearings!

What do you do where you are to create the bearings between Table and Sending? How might you do this even more effectively?

Bearings, Part III D: Between Word/Response and Table

2011-04-28T14:24:00.001-05:00

Illustration of self-aligning roller bearings. Used by permission.

This is part 4 of a five part miniseries. Part 1, introducing this miniseries, is here.

In my direct observation of worship over the years across many styles, cultures and denominations (United Methodist, Baptist, Mennonite, Episcopal, Lutheran Roman Catholic, and several Reformed and non-denominational churches, African-American, Asian (in the US and Asia), Spanish-speaking, whether "traditional," "indigenous," "contemporary" or "emerging/emergent"), fluid motion between Word and Table has consistently been the most challenging, and often the least well-executed.

What I've often observed in Roman Catholic settings is that the ministry of the Word, especially in preaching, is downplayed and, in effect, turned into an adjunct to the Table, rather than having its own integrity that stands in constructive juxtaposition with the Table.

In many Protestant settings, the Table functions as an "add-on" to the "regular" service, something that doesn't quite fit, and often that has been "squeezed in." In order to "squeeze it in," many other things, including the liturgy of the Table itself, are also shortened, though very often the sermon is not. And even then, it's not uncommon to see these shortened prayers and the distribution to follow rushed through.

But when worship is compressed and rushed, even if there are working bearings between Word and Table, everything, including the sermon, is shortchanged. The feeling of rush pervades all, and that feeling never seems fulfilling.

Michael Eldridge noted in the contemporary mega-churches he visited that communion was rare, if celebrated at all. He saw it only twice in the course of about six months of visits. Here's how he described each:

In one, as the elements were being distributed, the choir began to sing, which continued until the minister gave an extemporaneous prayer, followed by extemporaneous words of institution. The Eucharist was a common form based on a memorial view, and the minister briefly explained the symbols of bread and wine before people ate and drank.

At the other, they distributed the elements in the rows of chairs, with one tray per row. This reduced the time to distribute the elements. It took four minutes to serve the 3,000 people in attendance. The minister prayed extemporaneously, first declaring, “We accept your forgiveness,” and then reiterating the sermon in the guise of praying. The Eucharist was cast as a symbol of how God comforts us, blesses us, and helps us in our grief (the main point of the sermon). Clearly the Eucharist had become a prop for the sermon.

I would observe that in the first service Eldridge described, the double-action of the choir singing and the distribution of elements may well have functioned as effective "bearings," much as the double-action of video and collection of offering does for the movement from Entrance to Word/Response. The choir's singing could reflect themes of the sermon before and communion to follow. The movement of the persons distributing elements signals that the congregations will be moving soon, as well, to take and eat these elements when cued. With only a single observation of communion at this congregation, though, Eldridge could draw no conclusions about whether this was the intent or a usual pattern.

In the second, Eldridge was able to confirm from others that what he observed was a typical pattern. Here, instead of Word "taken over" by Table (as in some Roman Catholic examples noted above), Table is "taken over" by Word. There is no juxtaposition, and so no bearings. What occurs here is an expression and extension of Word by other means.

Episcopalians have faced a different challenge. For Episcopalians, a long pattern of infrequent (monthly or less) celebration of communion was dramatically changed by the adoption of the new Book of Common Prayer in 1979, accompanied by action of their General Convention requiring weekly celebration. While the 1928 Book of Common Prayer also included services of Word and Table, the most common Sunday morning pattern offer morning prayer with a sermon included. When Eucharist happened, they might use the fuller rite. But since it happened relatively rarely, that was the exception.

I was a student at Kenyon College and active in the parish choir as these changes were occurring in The Episcopal Church in the early 1980s, so I speak here from first hand experience. My first year there (1982-1983), the basic pattern of worship was still Morning Prayer. This would be concluded with the Peace as a sort of dismissal from Morning Prayer, and then announcements. The announcements were placed here, after the peace, in part to allow those who didn't want to receive communion to leave without calling a lot of attention to themselves. The effect was essentially to drain a lot of the energy and momentum out of the service-- so it really could feel like it was over for those for whom it actually would be. When it was clear to the priest that those intending to leave had done so, he would end the announcement period, and, in effect, start up the service again, with the words announcing the offering, "Ascribe to the Lord the honor due his name. Bring offerings, and come into his courts." Then he would immediately turn to head to the Altar table to begin preparing it for celebrating the Eucharist.

By fall 1984, as it had become clear that the parish had gotten accustomed to weekly Communion and fewer and fewer were leaving at the Peace/Announcements, the basic order of service was changed from Morning Prayer (Rite II) to the full service of Word and Table each Sunday (Holy Eucharist, Rite II). Though basic order had changed, the practice of Peace/Announcements as a marker of the end of the Word section continued. Nor did the practice of effectively "re-starting" worship with the words of the offertory change. In many Episcopal congregations I have visited to this day, including where my wife now serves, this pattern is in still place.

What we have here is not so much "bearings" enabling fluid motion between the juxtaposed movements of Word/Response and Table, as it is nearly a full stop--breaking the link between the Peace, the Offering and the Eucharistic prayer -- and a full restart. Having lived in the Indianapolis area since the late 1990s, I might also describe this as the "Word/Response car" going in for a "pit stop," getting more gas, new tires, and a different set of decals, and going out again as the "Table car" for the laps ahead.

Does this work? For Episcopalians, perhaps so. I can say I've gotten used to it over time, being married to an Episcopal priest, and I can deal with it. But from the standpoint of what is happening liturgically and ritually, I find this still a "suboptimized," even if contextually understandable, solution.

Here, I think we United Methodists have something to offer that can function as actual bearings and keep the motion from Word/Reponse to Table flowing smoothly: The Invitation to the Table (UMH 7).

The typography in the The United Methodist Hymnal and The United Methodist Book of Worship still groups this action within "Response to the Word," along with the Confession, Pardon, Peace and Offering that follow it.

But both in terms of the history of the development of the Sunday liturgy in general and the logic of the movements of Word/Response and Table more specifically, the function of this brief act is far better understood as bearings between Word/Response and Table.

The action of Word/Response reaches its conclusion here. The action of Table begins here.

This may seem counter-intuitive to those who have grown accustomed to look at the confession of sin and the Peace as responses to the Word.

William Willimon noted in his classic book on the then "new" United Methodist liturgy, "With Glad and Generous Hearts," that we really should confess our sins later in the service, not earlier, because we may not really know what our sin is until we have heard the scriptures which remind us of it. Willimon thus linked, and for some, including myself for a while, cemented, the notion of a Confession of Sin, Pardon, Peace and Offering as elements of Response to the Word.

In working closely with some of the earliest Christian liturgical texts for my dissertation on the teaching of peace in early Christian liturgies, however, I started to come to a different conclusion. What appeared to me to be evident in these earliest texts was the actions of confessing our sins to God, experiencing God's pardon, and then extending that pardon and hope for reconciliation and forgiveness with others were integral, indeed essential pre-requisites for these Christians to even think about celebrating at the Table. To offer ourselves as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving worthily, we must ourselves be pure, and a whole offering. We become pure through the acts of confession and pardon. We become whole through the peace. Pure and whole, we are now as ready as we will ever be to move straightway into the celebration at Table.

What I've later come to see is that some voices in the ecumenical liturgical scholarship over the past century have reached a similar conclusion. Confession-pardon-peace, as a unit, have their chief value more in immediate proximity to Table than to Word.

Which brings us back to the bearings in the United Methodist service of Word and Table: The Invitation to the Table. How does, or how might, this action function as bearings between Word/Response and Table?

In the order of service provided in The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 7, any of a variety of prayerful actions immediately precede the Invitation to the Table (bidding prayer, litany of intercession, prayers of the people, or a pastoral prayer). Praying together, in whatever form, culminates the Response to the Word. Here the assembly, as a whole, responsively with a prayer leader, or in the person of the presider, engages the baptismal priestly ministry of interceding for the church and for the world in general with attention, as well, to scripture read and preached. The Amen at the end of these prayers is rightly a significant one. We have prayed for much together, offering our hearts and minds and voices to God. In the Amen, we pray, "Let all we have offered before you, O God, be done!" Amen!

Do you hear and feel the energy offered and released in that single word? It is at once a juxtaposition, an energy that could continue moving forward on its own trajectory, perhaps overwhelming or creating friction with the movement around the Table, and a release that could lead to a rapid denouement that dissipates the energy we need to offer our "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" around the Table.

We need bearings here. And bearings is what we find in the Invitation to the Table.

The Invitation to the Table picks up on the release of energy from the congregation at the Amen and does not, just at that moment, ask them to enact anything. The presider, not the congregation, speaks these words. At the same time, these words are a prompt that redirects the energy flowing out of the prayer both toward the Table (as goal) and to the next congregational actions necessary to achieve that goal (confession, pardon and peace). Simple, quick, elegant and powerful. Verbal bearings at their best.

And verbal bearings, by the way, that could easily work in any style of worship, moving the people from prayer (and so Word/Response) to Table.

How have you developed bearings between Word/Response and Table? What struggles have you had with this? What have you found that works? How does it work where you are?

Bearings, Part III C: Between Entrance and Word/Response

2011-04-27T13:14:00.000-05:00


Differential with gears and bearings. Public domain.

This is part 3 of a five part miniseries. Part 1, introducing this miniseries, is here.

The "contemporvant" order of worship presented in "Sunday's Coming" doesn't move from Entrance directly into a period of focus on proclamation and response.

But many actual contemporary worship services do.

Michael Eldridge, a PhD student at Fuller Theological Seminary, presented a paper this past January at the seminar I lead at the North American Academy of Liturgy ("Exploring Contemporary and Alternative Worship" is the seminar title). His paper was called, "The Micro-liturgy of the Mega-Church." In it, Eldridge reflected on his direct observations of contemporary worship at the fifteen largest mega-churches in the US and provided a historical narrative of developments in US Protestant worship that made sense of what he observed.

Eldridge found a striking similarity in the order of worship in all of these churches. Indeed, it was nearly identical. "Band blast" is followed by a brief welcome, and then a set of two to six worship songs led by the band and sung by all. This is the Entrance with its "worship set."

What typically happens next, he found, was a simultaneous two-fold action: an offering is collected while a video presents announcements and often the scripture or questions related to the sermon for the day. The collection of the offering captures, dissipates and refocuses some of the kinetic energy of the worship set. The video announcements and scripture redirects attention from the active participation of the worship set toward the listening participation required for the sermon which immediately follows.

In both Episcopal and United Methodist "traditional" worship, there is also a two-fold action that functions as bearings between Entrance and Word/Response.

For Episcopalians, it is the collect of the day.

The processional hymn has just completed, the choir has fully processed and in place, all are still standing. In this way the kinetics of the Entrance are still in play.

Except for one.

Only the priest offers the collect. Solo.

The text of the collect typically relates to the season of the year and/or or the readings for the day. That text thus points directly to the kind of content that is coming next, the reading of scripture.

But perhaps at least as important, and maybe more so, is that shift from collective action (all singing, with a choir processing) to the solo voice concluded by the assent of the people with the collective Amen. This exactly anticipates the actions that will happen next. More solo voices will read scripture. And three times (after Old Testament, Epistle, and both before and after Gospel, as well as after sermon) the congregation will offer a collective response. ("Thanks be to God," "Glory to you, Lord Christ," "Praise to you, Lord Christ," and "Amen").

All of this-- text and actions-- both moved to and foreshadowed in the words and actions of the Collect of the Day: Bearings!

For United Methodists who use the "traditional" format outlined in The United Methodist Hymnal on page 3 and fully expressed on page 6, the Prayer of Illumination carries the same function but in a different way.

We have entered, singing, We have offered other acts of praise, likely still standing. My observation of our worship across the US and in Southeast Asia is that after these acts of worship, we generally tend to sit. We then pray the Prayer of Illumination seated.

The change in posture for this prayer connects us to the seated posture we will assume for much of the Word/Response section (though we may stand for further hymns or for the gospel). The unison praying carries the kinetic energy of our prior unison singing and/or praying. And the words of the prayer, the same every week, move our "working memory" toward what is coming next. Six lines, spoken in unison, verbatim, seated: Bearings.

What functions as bearings between Entrance and Word/Response where you are?

New Resource: Remembering the Flood 2010

2011-04-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

by The Rev. Debra Tyree et al.

Flooding in Nashville, Tennessee. May 2010. Photo by Kaldari. Public Domain.

But now thus says the Lord,

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

We remembered that we are yours, O Lord,

as we saw the waters rising,

as we became cut off from one another,

as we faced destruction around us.

And in that remembering,

we found Your strength and love.

When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and through the rivers,

they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire

you shall not be burned,

and the flame

shall not consume you.

Almighty God, we thank you

for your powerful presence in our lives

as we remember the days following the flood…

Reader 1:

For times of uncertainty:

destruction and darkness,

sirens and silence,

and trucks with debris.

Reader 2:

For mold and mud,

wet dogs and wet clothes,

tetanus shots and breathing masks,

the lack of communication and information,

and an overwhelming concern for others.

We give you thanks, loving God,

for the power of your love

as found through our members, neighbors, friends, and strangers.

We remember the days following the flood…

Reader 2:

For the gift of tears and a hug, for miles of carpet pulled,

for helping hands and self-sacrifice, for hammers and volunteers,

for hospitality and bridge building, for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,

and for a sense of humor.

Reader 1:

For new relationships and new friends,

for cots and shelter, clothes and furniture,

for UMCOR, the Red Cross, and FEMA,

for having the exact thing that someone else needed,

for flood buckets and health kits,

for flowers growing up through hardened mud,

for pictures saved and hands that scrubbed,

for boats and police,

for home-cooked meals and hundreds of bottles of cool, cleansing water,

and for miracles and abundance.

We continue to live out what it means

to be a part of a connectional church

as we offer hospitality and shelter to UMCOR teams

serving in our community.

We commit to continuing to serve our neighbors.

We pray

for those who have not yet returned to their homes

and for those who are struggling to make their house

a home again.

For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… 

because you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you.

We will continue

to heal, hope, and serve others

because God’s Spirit of love

is in this place.

Alleluia! Alleluia! ALLELUIA! (Scripture reference: Isaiah 43:1-3a, 4a)

The Rev. Debra Tyree is a United Methodist deacon appointed to the General Board of Global Ministries and Bellevue United Methodist Church in Nashville, TN. She composed this litany using a collection of thoughts and prayers from people in her congregation and community about the massive May 2010 flood of the rivers in Nashville and throughout the mid-South. Nearing the first anniversary of this flood, daily severe storms and new threats of flooding are igniting new fears in the region.

She offers the prayers to be used and adapted for any persons, anywhere, facing similar situations in their lives and communities. Copyright on the biblical text does not permit adaption of the biblical texts (New Revised Standard Version).

All scripture quotations are taken from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Copyrights administered by Harper-Collins. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Bearings, Part III B: Bearings before the Entrance

2011-04-26T10:55:00.001-05:00

This is part 4 of a seven-part miniseries. Part 1, introducing this miniseries, is here.

Worship that engages the whole gathered community does not and cannot begin arbitrarily. Those who compose the worshiping community are asked move from whatever they've been doing before they arrived to "full, conscious, and active participation" in the act of the Entrance.

That's a big ask!

It's a huge shift for bodies, minds and spirits, and the opposing forces are significant. People enter worship with what could be hundreds or thousands of preoccupations or distractions, large or small. Against all of those individual forces, somehow we are trying to arrive collectively at a singular focus on offering ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as the body of Christ in the presence of the Triune God.

Sound or music can be a very effective bearing to carry this shift in forces. A prelude alone, in many cases, doesn't quite accomplish this. More often the prelude functions more as an instrumental accompaniment to what happens before worship-- conversations, acts of personal preparation, people still arriving from a variety of different places and often through a variety of entrances. This isn't he same as creating an actual, clear and effective shift point between the body not yet at worship and now fully at worship.

What is usually needed to create that shift is something more dramatic, some other sonic, musical or kinetic event that immediately dissispates, interrupts or overwhelms personal, individual energies and creates a singular "whole body" experience of being the worshiping assembly at worship.

In contemporary worship settings, this is often accomplished through what some call "the band blast." The band blast is a very loud, familiar (sometimes secular!) song with driving rhythms, a strong vocal lead, and a chorus that all can join and sing. In last year's spoof video, "Sunday's Coming," the makers of the video referred to this as "Opening song, lights and big drums-- you know it's cool because you've heard it on the radio." Call it what you will, it works! Bearings. Distraction ends. Focus is achieved. Worship begins.

My wife is an Episcopal priest in Indianapolis. At her parish, the sonic event is simpler, but no less effective. At Trinity Episcopal Church, many people arrive early to remember their baptism at the font, pray in the pews, have brief conversations, look over the worship program and announcements, and listen to the prelude (if they're not otherwise occupied). But all of these are what might be called "warm-up" or "cool down" activities. No one of these actually functions as bearings between their individual arrivals and the corporate act of Entrance. All of them are more like "pre-lubrication."

The bearings at Trinity are the ringing of a bell.

The prelude stops. There is a brief silence. A bell rings. Immediately everyone stands, and just then, as the bell is still resounding, one of the priests offers the greeting that kicks off the entrance: "Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit," to which the people respond in unison, "And blessed be God's kingdom, now and forever. Amen." The collect for purity follows (see UMH 6), the organ plays the introduction to the processional hymn, the choir starts moving, the thurifer starts swinging the incense (on major holy days), and the people all sing.

Before the bell, all kinds of distractions. After the bell, total focus by all. Bearings at work-- simple, elegant, effective.

At Christ Deaf Church (UMC) in Baltimore, Maryland, the bearings are also sonic, but for most participants there it is more sonic-tactile than musical. A lay leader strikes a large gong, and announces, with loud words and large, dramatic signs, "In the name of the Father" (gong), "and of the Son," (gong), "and of the Holy Spirit," (gong) "Three-in-One!" Not just the sounds, but the vibration of that gong can be felt in the floorboards and pews where all are seated. All kinds of texting, signing, or various stages of preparation are happening in the room before that gong. But immediately, at the first strike, all comes to focus on why we've gathered and in whose Name. Bearings at work.

In all three of these contexts, words alone couldn't do this as effectively. Nor would simply starting with a hymn. A powerful sonic or sonic-tactile-musical effect makes the shift to the Entrance both smooth and complete.

Can you identify the bearings before the Entrance where you worship? If not, what sort of event, sonic, musical or other, might you consider to create bearings there?

Image Credit: Ball Bearings, Image by Zephyris. Used by permission under a Creative Commons License.