Here is a resource/idea I have been using to engage with congregations as they think through their menu of worship services, create new services or what to do with merging congregations who run very similar services. The pdf to use with your group is below and the idea goes a little something like this….
During my twenty years of ministry I have engaged the so called ‘worship wars’. My wonderings about worship options have come from experiencing and leading a variety of worship styles from congregational based to alternative worship spaces such as installations, cafe church and pub based gatherings. My role has involved assisting congregations whether these be established or merging congregations and groups to think about worship in their contexts. This has led to re-organisation of worship services and considerations of the potential menu of worship styles that are appropriate to the context. One evaluation note I received when feedback was requested about a pub based church simply had a question “Can you find awe in a pub?”
This paper has attempted to pull together these ideas and wonderings. I hope this can be a resource to assist groups to think through worship in their context.
Firstly, the words traditional & contemporary are minefields best left out. If your worship service is ‘Christian’ then it will be representing the ‘Tradition’ of our faith and therefore be ‘traditional’. If you are breathing then your worship service is ‘contemporary’ as in happening now. These terms cause conflict and long meetings with no real benefit to your community, your faith life or the gospel.
My greatest insight into negotiating ‘worship wars’ of a congregation was that it is not just about the music. The music represents and reveals something else. It is the theology underpinning the dominant approach to God.
What I mean is that those wanting to attend a service that approaches God with ‘Awe’, look for a form that is expressed in order, reverence and often a polished presentation of the service itself. The resistance to changing this existing worship form is not about the music but that their theological value of ‘Awe’ may be compromised.
For those wanting a more relaxed, informal communal even messy worship experience, their theological value tends to have a dominant approach of God as ‘Emanuel’- God with us. That is, finding God in your neighbour, in the conversations or experiences of those attending with you.
Obviously both are Christian approaches and theologies but once you shape a worship service you have chosen an approach. It is a continuum between ‘awe’ and ‘emanuel’ not ‘traditional’ and ‘Contemporary’. In fact I would place the ‘Hillsong’ charismatic worship on the awe end of this continuum because it is about reverence and polished presentations. However, the energy of this type of service is about ‘celebration’ as apposed to ‘reflection’.
On sheet 1 you will see we have two crossbars in my little idea. Awe to Emmanuel and Reflection to Celebration. The Reflection/Celebration bar denotes the energy of the service as in quieter, reflective, less energy to the celebration end which is high energy, more loud and upbeat.
It is important to note the shared commonalities of all parts of this window- the context. All can be both communal or individual, take place inside or outside, will have people with different learning styles and personalities attending and leading the worship services. The people and place (physical location of service) are contextual compasses with all sorts of preferences.
All congregations and worship service options will need to understand it’s context. What are the preferred worship styles & learning styles among your people? What personalities are in the group? What cultures are present? What are the preferred styles of prayer? See Sheet 2. The physical location of the service will influence the styles. Can you find awe in a pub? Is it your space? Are you the guest or the host? The place could be welcoming, formal, communal or individual; inside, outside, noisy, quiet in a rich part of town or a poor part. See Sheet 3.
On Sheet 4 I have tried to plot various service styles. There are many more than two choices and foci for any section of this window. You will see that ‘vintage worship’ as I like to call it is on the Awe and Reflective corner of the window, while the ‘all age’ ‘charismatic’ ‘youth’ ‘children and family’ services are the opposite window of Celebration and Emanuel. These clash over approach and energy. Services focus on the particular needs and preferences of the group. Insisting that one service focuses on everyones needs may only recognise the dominant cultures preferences and fuels conflict. Aiming for the middle leaves all wanting.
The style of a worship services does not suggest hard and fast age based divides. Taize is very popular with younger people looking for reflective and awe focused worship. Cafe churches attract both older and younger people because of the reflective nature of the space as do sacred spaces.
Sheet 5 is an example of guidelines which assisted worship planning teams to plan for differing styles of worship for a night service in that congregation. The ‘liquid church’ and punk reflection are resources that I have used to assist congregations/groups in their discussions about being the church in worship.
I hope this fuels new energy for your community.
Age
