So, we clearly belong to a church that has plenty to say without an extra blog commentary from me. And I rarely have the time or inclination to do this kind of thing justice. BUT, I can commit to hosting a Thursday Chat right here on this here site. What’s on YOUR mind? Is there something in the news you wish one of your pastors would weigh in on?
If you’re not a member of University Congregational United Church of Christ, WELCOME! We’re glad you’re here. Come join the conversation.
Be funny. Be kind. Be thoughtful. Be random. Talk to each other and/or to me (Rev. Amy Roon, or as others might have known me; Rev. Random).*
Let’s get this conversation started. I’ll start by throwing out a question. You can answer or start a non sequitur of your own.
The prominent activity of Christian congregations has (and in most places still is) Sunday morning worship. This is no newsflash, but fewer and fewer people are participating in this form of spiritual practice. If we take as a given that human beings have NOT, in fact, lost their interest in spirituality, even a Christian identity…what is the most relevant form of Christian faith and practice for you today? Do you find worship meaningful? If so, what do you find meaningful about it?
*Please not that if you post a comment on this topic as a facebook thread I *may* take the liberty of posting it here so the conversation stays primarily on the blog.
You know, I was just starting to write a long reply on this, but upon reflection I’ll just quote something out of a book.
The book is *The Shape of the Liturgy,* by Dom Gregory Dix. Most of it is a valuable, buy very dry, exposition of the liturgies of the early church… but towards the end, he takes time out to reflect on the Eucharist. The entire passage is long (and well worth reading in its entirety — ask me sometime and I can loan you the book) but this is the first part of it… and to me, this is what is important about Christian worship:
“At the heart of it all is the eucharistic action, a thing of an absolute simplicity — the taking, blessing, breaking and giving of bread and the taking, blessing and giving of a cup of wine and water, as these were first done with their new meaning by a young Jew before and after supper with His friends on the night before He died. Soon it was simplified still further, by leaving out the supper and combining the double grouping before and after it into a single rite. So the four-action Shape of the Liturgy was found by the end ofthe first century. He had told His friends to do this henceforward with the new meaning ‘for the anamnesis’ of Him, and they have done it always since.
“Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacles of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; in thankfulness because my father did not die of pneumonia; for a village headman much tempted to return to fetish because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of Vienna; for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlement of a strike; for a son for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so, wounded and prisoner of war; while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk; while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the windows of the church; tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison camp near Murmansk; gorgeously, for the canonisation of St. Joan of Arc — one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei — the holy common people of God.”
Oh heavens, Ross.
Yes, thoroughly interesting to us clergy/liturgical junkies…but next week I’ll try posting a celebrity linked “fun” theme. I think the comments (or lack there of) kind of speak for themselves.
I’ve had the privilege (or curse, depending on the day) of being a bridge-personality all my life. I’ve been friends with the popular kids even when I didn’t feel like I fit in…and spent equal amounts of times with those who test 100% positive geek. In this case I feel very much like those of us worshipping regularly are totally into our groove and the rest of the world could care less.
Which, if it were just a popularity contest, I wouldn’t care much about. But it’s not. For that matter, it is similar to how healthy the sheer fanaticism for learning a geek may express is still perceived as something less than ideal than much of our popular culture.
Fast food spirituality. It’s about as good for a body and sadly about as appealing and addictive.
So while your post is quite interesting to ME, I’m not sure it makes a case for Christian worship to be functionally relevant to the masses. Various cultures and peoples have held traditions for over 2000 years and still they have faded from current practice…and what is it about our present time that makes religion/spirituality truly optional or just not a functioning part of a great many people’s identity?
Yeah Amy, that question is a bit intimidating, even for me. What is “meaningful” about Sunday morning worshipfor me? Well, I’m not sure I can say it briefly, but it has something to do with being in community, and, being reminded on a regular basis of what is most improtant to me, whether that reminder comes from within or from something I experience during the time we are gathered. And it has something to do with having a planned and regular spiritual practice where I try to say Thank You to the Mystery of life, and am surrounded by other people who are trying to say thank you too.
So, next week, who’s the celebruty?
Ok, ok, maybe I was a bit too far into my own head when I posted that question. But we do have quite a few pocket theologians/church junkies reading this blog…I thought it might be interesting to SOMEONE beside Ross and myself. 🙂
I guess it is no surprise that there are fewer people are coming to Sunday worship. I’ve certainly seen declining numbers over the about 30 years I’ve been ushering. I wonder if people feel more comfortable with church informal activities…after church…like the church picnic…or lectures… or other weekday church activities.
For myself…there’s very little in the church service I can relate to. I like hearing the sermon, the time of silence, some of the prayers of the congregation, the part of the service where we read the uhh…what’s it called…what we commit as individuals of the church to each other…support… I like the blogs…they somehow seem more real. I don’t like most of the words to the hymns…in fact I’ll just hum the tune or change the words entirely. Sometimes I feel like a church subversive doing that. I see the liberal churches as having some of the same judgemental problems as the conservative churches…but I don’t feel inclined to speak out about that…because many will have a well thought out argument against that…and the exact fallacy of my thinking. I don’t want to sound negative, but I think church is about truly connecting with others, caring, listening, doing. It’s not something you do once a week, it’s something you should try to do throughout the work week. I think the major weakness of our church is that we talk but don’t act…and I include myself in that problem. Why do we as an intellectual group and as individuals feel the needs to prove ourselves? To me, church takes place at anytime of the week when we show love and compassion for each other through our actions.
Speaking as a professional pocket theologian, a former chaplain, I believe that the 1AM service is a hold over from the time when everyone farmed and had to do daily chores early in the morning. Only after time to clean up, and put on their Sunday best, was there an opportunity to go to church.
I believe that this is both the strength of the church, and its greatest weakness. The strength of this reluctance to change is in continuing to present a tradition of faith. Today, where tradition is measured in minutes or hours, this is a quaint practice.
The answer, I think, is to return to the kind of itinerant ministry Jesus carried out. It is in Olympia, Wa, that I have connected with many people outside of the church in this way. In Cambridge, MA, where I lived many years, the gaps between affinity groups were just too wide for meaningful relationships of any kind. There was an ideology of diversity presented publicly, but after school, or Sundays, for that matter, everyone went on their separate ways.
oops! I meant to say 11AM, not 1AM!!! However, 1AM could be one of those synchronous times after people party Saturday night, go to church to repent of their excesses, then sleep in
Sunday morning! I’m just saying…
# 2: My blog address http://www.makingsenses.net, NOT .com…. Sheesh! That’s what I get for posting early Saturday morning!!! In the future I will wait until I have a chance to wake up. (Oddly enough, I don’t have any posts yet on the blog, but I promise I will, as soon as I wake up…)
I find worship terrifically meaningful as it invites me into community with a sharing of bread and wine, prayer and reflection, music and dance, laughter and tears. It asks me to take at least one hour each week to simply be in the presence of the holy in ways I cannot create on my own. It nurtures me and, on good Sundays, it invites me to deepen into important questions around my faith journey and the meaning of being a Christian. Hopefully, it will evoke wonderful discussions with my husband afterwards.
At the same time, I feel that we are missing reaching a lot of people who might be better served in smaller groups, in classes, in Bible study, in walking the labyrinth, and in other forms of worship. What might we do to draw people in by creating a wider variety of offerings? We are terrific at outreach through our work with the homeless and endless activities along those lines. I’m not sure that we are as terrific with “in reach.” hmmmmmmmmmmm
Excellent point Carol! Although, here on the relative quiet of the blog, I may be so bold as to suggest that what we call “Outreach” *is* in fact “Inreach” in that what it most does is fulfill the calling of many to serve those in need. Since many other non-profits do similar work I think it’s somewhat fair to say that what we most do in our Social Justice programs is to empower our members to respond to those in need within the context and community of their own Christian environment and calling.
Which is not to say this is wonderful work and well worth doing, I’m just suggesting that we should accept that it does as much for our own members as it does for those they serve.
One of the things I’m interested in terms of “outreach” is how and what we’re doing to reach out to those outside of our community with the understanding that we are here to help them find their Christian identity, calling and ministry; to help equip them for their discipleship and to support them in growing other ministries…and here’s the kicker…whether or not they continue to identify specifically with UCUCC or not.
In other words, how do we do “outreach” as evangelism; as a practice of sowing seeds *everywhere*?
And, to bring it back to our original question: how do we differentiate what is worship that feeds us and nurtures the current community to do the work of nurturing and maintaining their own spiritual lives and communities from worship that feeds and nurtures those who are completely outside of our current Christian life and community?
This, of course, assumes that we 1) believe there are spiritual conversations happening outside our community and 2) we want to be a part of them.
I say, “Bring on the celebrity!”.