WorshipHelps

I love singing with children - (well, most of the time, but that part doesn't come into this story). They soak up words and melodies like sponges, storing them away and pouring them out at every opportunity, “in season and out of season” - as the parents in our church ruefully attest.

What makes a good children's hymn? Or a good song for young people? Nobody I know, and no-one I've ever read, has ever come up with the formula.

The problem is compounded by the fact that children will gleefully and confidently sing a song that is not at all what we think of as a “children's” hymn. Three-and-a-half year-old Joseph in our church can sing “Kwase, Kwase/Be Like Him” by Kirk Franklin, or join his (younger) brother Benjamin in a duet of “U ya-i mose” from Zimbabwe. (Two-year old Benjamin sings the bass part.) And, while I'm thinking of it, I remember 11- and 12-year-olds singing - lustily and with good courage - Charles Wesley's “And can it be that I should gain” at every opportunity at summer camp.

Then there's the practical challenge. In the classic worship situation, children troop up to the front for the Children's Sermon while we adults sing verse 1 and 2 of a hymn that mentions children. Then, as they head off to Sunday School, we sing the 3rd and final verse. We might be singing a worthy hymn, but we are really using it as walking music, a sung processional and recessional to frame the children's time up at the front.Continue reading...

Are we losing our sense of “awe”? I find myself overwhelmed by rocketing gas prices, by the helplessness I feel as I pass a group of homeless men sleeping in the 99 cents store parking lot late at night, and the discontent I feel as I watch my two brothers debilitated by cancer…both with young families. Where is God? Does He care?

Then I happened upon Don Saliers’ book, Worship Comes to Its Senses (Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1996), which makes me come to my senses, changing my vantage point, to God’s perspective. I realized that my problems were larger than life because I did not think "highly" of God, I had lost my sense of awe. In Matthew 9, some friends bring their paralyzed friend to see Jesus. Jesus said to the man, “Get up, take your mat and go home” (Matt. 9:6). Then in verse 7, the crowd was “filled with awe, and they praised God”. The crowd's view of God was enlarged! They praise God with awe.

Saliers encourages us to reconnect real life to the worship of the God of the Universe!

He accents Jaroslav Vajda’s new hymn “God of the Sparrow God of the Whale” which crosses generational lines and is a contemporary way to express to our awe in biblical tradition.  Lyrics after the jump...Continue reading...

Paul’s sermon in Athens (Acts 17:22-31) is substantially different from any of his other sermons. While his other sermons are identifiably Pharisaical and present the gospel in a way that would be accessible to a predominantly Jewish audience, the Athenian sermon employs patterns and concepts which were common to first century Athens. It is a significant and noteworthy accomplishment on Paul’s part and it may be taken as a mandate to subsequent Christians always to be prepared to articulate the gospel message using new and distinct cultural patterns. While the content of the Gospel is always consistent, the form in which the good news of Jesus Christ is presented should always be flexible. What follows are excerpts from a somewhat playful worship service that was designed to illustrate to a worshiping community the issues and possibilities involved in attempting to articulate a Christian worship service in a particular context.   College students, youth, and children are often engaged by this way of distinguishing between what is essential and what is negotiable in worship.   Read the liturgy after the jump.

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SCRIPTURE LESSON AND PROCLAMATION—

Luke 10:30-37 and Horton Hears a Who (Theodore Geisel, 1934)Continue reading...

While planning a worship service at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, one student said, “If we’re going to do the Kiss of Peace, can we play Spin the Bottle?” Although her comment was intended as a joke, she and the other students—with the encouragement of the college chaplain—developed a version of “Spin the Bottle” as an appropriate and authentic part of our Christian communion service.

After the Invitation to the Lord’s Table, Eucharistic Prayer, and Words of Institution, a worshiper who was chosen before the service began, took an empty water bottle and spun it on the floor of the Chapel. When it came to a stop, the first worshiper and the worshiper toward whom the bottle was pointing met in the middle of the Chapel, exchanged the Mar Thoma Kiss of Peace, and then went to the communion table and served the Eucharist to each other.

Then the next worshiper spun the bottle and met the person toward whom it pointed in the middle of the Chapel. They exchanged the Mar Thoma Kiss of Peace and went to the Table and served the Sacrament to each other.Continue reading...

Music adds many layers of meaning - subtle or obvious - to the drama of scripture.

Take Pentecost for example. The story in Acts 2 is rich with allusion, imagery, history, narrative - all of which have filled many books and many sermons. If we frame the reading of the story with a musical response sung by the congregation, we encourage the worshipping community to glimpse more of those layers. More than glimpse: experience.

It is the prophet Joel's story: though he'd lived long before New Testament times, his presence continued to be felt. Repeating the refrain reminds us of the prophetic witness that informs this account of the event.

It is a Jewish story: there were many Jewish renewal movements before, during and after Jesus' time. The events described by Luke took place during Shavu'oth, the harvest festival, with Jewish pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem from all over the known world. The music below is in the form of a hora, a Jewish dance of celebration. Even though the composition is modern - and we of course do not know how the music of the time of Jesus sounded - the music itself can give us a flavour of the times.Continue reading...

Last year we used this Mother's Day liturgy and it received a warm reception. It's inclusive of women in all stages of life.

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Mothers’ Day Liturgy

Lord, on this day set aside to honor and remember mothers, we give you thanks for our mothers. We are grateful that you chose to give us life through them, and that they received the gift of life from your hands, and gave it to us. Thank you for the sacrifices they made in carrying us and giving us birth.Continue reading...

In addition to our recent post on Mother’s Day I would add a few more seeds for thought.  During the season of Easter it is appropriate to remember our baptism each Sunday service.  In re-membering our baptism we are re-minded that God has claimed us as children and we have made promises to God to live into the life of Christ.  This means promises to serve others (especially the “least of these”), to be faithful to prayer, breaking bread and taking care of the community of faith as any has need (yes, I’m evoking the last part of Acts chapter 2).  During the rite of baptism the community also makes vows to love, care and nurture those God is claiming through water and the Spirit. We are also called to nurture each other in the faith.

Remembering our baptism this Mother’s Day may be a way to honor both the season of Easter and mothers.  You may begin the service standing by the font, giving thanks for water, God’s promises to us and reminding the community of the promises we make to each other during the time of baptism.  One resource for remembering baptism can be found from the ELCA’s Holy Baptism and Related Rites.  Perhaps on this day we can accentuate the vows to love and care for one another.  This is a way you can talk about how mothers, at their best, who live into these promises of baptism through their care and nurture of children (not just their own but all children of the community).  In this way mothers, and Mother’s Day points back to baptism and a life in Christ as opposed to the worship pointing to a cultural holiday.

The picture is of a baptismal font from a mosaic on the floor of Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, England.

I’ve been reading lately about how our consumer culture tempts the Christian with a competing and compelling way of being in the world.  It even has its own calendar, featuring economic “holy days” in which we are encouraged to engage in ritualized pagan practices.  This upcoming Sunday, Mother’s Day, notwithstanding its ostensibly Christian origins, is one such day.

Not surprisingly, many churches participate in the cultural holiday by having special “Mother’s Day” worship services.  This is not in itself a necessarily bad thing.  The church excels at baptizing culturally suspect practices and turning them to God’s good ends.  And I love my mother, I love my wife, and I happen to be a huge fan of motherhood and know well the spiritual value that being a parent can bring.

But we’re on dangerous ground when the Church’s worship on this day turns away from new life in Jesus Christ, and turns rather into a slightly veiled civic celebration of the “traditional” family and the woman’s often subservient role within it.  We are on slick footing when we plan services that have less to do with engaging a triune God and more to do with handing out a bit of instruction regarding our own preferred parenting methods.  We risk pastoral malpractice when we put a certain type of woman on a pedestal, take a soft-focus picture, and offer bland, if well-meant praise, all the while ignoring the pain and the gifts of other types of women in our congregations: unwed mothers, women who have had abortions, women who have suffered from undesired childlessness, and women, both single and wed, for whom God’s call does not include children at all.

So this Mother’s Day, make use of the counter-cultural liturgical calendar, and follow the lectionary readings for your service planning. And then let the struggles of family life and motherhood inform a rich pastoral prayer, like one of these from the Lutheran Church in Australia:Continue reading...

In a class I'm teaching on Crafting Language for Worship, we recently had a discussion about the value of significant words and repeated phrases in worship.  Some of my students from evangelical and free-church traditions reported with delight the value they have discovered in the the persistent Easter season call-and-response "Christ is risen!  Alleluia!/He is risen indeed, Alleluia!" They report that using this refrain now is profoundly formative, reminding them of the catholicity of the church, and connecting them with the faithful of so many times and places.

All of this reminded me of a time when my congregation practiced a fast from the use of the word "Alleluia" throughout the season of Lent in anticipation of its exuberant reintroduction to worship on Easter Sunday.  Throughout the forty days, we still sang songs with "alleluia" in the lyrics, but self-consciously hummed "mm-mm-MM-mm" instead.

Meanwhile, the young children of the church spent one of their education hours creating colorful construction paper butterflies, decorated abundantly with the word "Alleluia."   These were then crafted into a beautiful mobile, which debuted on Easter morning hanging high over the communion table, pointing to new life in Christ.  Alleluia!  He is risen!

I've been using a tool for small group worship that has helped bring a fresh twist to 'plain ol' strumming and singing.

I print out twently-four, 8.5 x 11 sheets that each have an artfully fonted, black and white excerpt from the Psalms or some other praise text.  If the room is large, I print out double-copies.  Before leading, I hang these sheets on the walls of the worship space using scotch tape.  Some I hang low on the wall, some eye-level, and some higher.  Some sheets, I scatter on the floor.  It is best to have the sheets three to five feet apart from each other.

Typically, as I did early this morning for a Fuller D.Min. class, I begin with one song of declaratory praise, sung together.  After that song is finished, I play quietly as I explain the worship excercise, saying:Continue reading...