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In an old gothic church in South London, images of the city are projected on white sheets that surround a worship space. The images are gritty and urban - towerblocks and street scenes. On the floor is a huge map of the city made out of pages of a London A-Z map. Bread and wine rest on a holy table – in this case a concrete slab on the floor. Encircling the concrete are words of scripture in a circle projected from above. An urban crowd, age range 20-40ish gradually drift in. A DJ is quietly spinning tunes that evoke an atmosphere. There are no pews just a hard floor to sit on. It is a fantastic space. This is part of a series called concrete liturgies by a Christian community Vaux – where they are exploring what it means to express faith and worship in the language of the city. One wonderful unforgettable moment is when everyone is invited to draw on the map a journey they have made in the city that week. The ink is pretty thick and stands up from the paper. The lights are turned out and a UV light is turned on. The effect is magical – the journeys that weave across the city glow in the dark. We listen to scriptures on the incarnation, that God loves the city and the people who live in the city, that Christ is in us and where we have been in the city Christ has been. It is a simply stunning moment. A few minutes later we are invited to interact with some prayer stations for the city that have been set up at various points around the worship space. One involves kneeling at a side chapel and praying intercessions for the city which are recorded onto a cassette tape. When we gather back together the prayers of the people for the city on the tape are taken and embedded in a concrete slab that is made there and then. This will no doubt become the table on which bread and wine are placed in a future worship service. We share a liturgy ,the urban mass, that has been crafted in such a way that it connects with the tradition of the church and yet the language has been remade to connect with the city. We remember Christ and eat drink his body and blood which becomes part of us as we are blessed and disperse to our homes in the city. This is an example of ‘alternative worship’, a creative movement that has quietly grown in the UK amongst young(ish) adults over the last twenty years.
In most of the Western world there are basically two types of worship you’re likely to find in churches. Liturgical worship that follows a set pattern or structure in a prayer book led by professional clergy is the basic diet of mainline denominations. And blocks of singing led by a keyboard player, guitarist or worship band are the staple diet of worship in charismatic/evangelical/pentecostal churches. On the one hand, the liturgy has depth but repeated week in week out can become very dry and formulaic, seems to reflect a bygone era, and makes very little connection with contemporary life. But on the other hand, worship led by a band whilst it can be exciting isn’t without its problems – a cult of the worship leader as a sort of guru has emerged, worship easily gets trapped into performance mode, and the range of theology in the songs is often pretty thin. It seems to suit an adolescent stage of faith which is brilliant if that’s where you are at. But when you have been a Christian for a few years, your faith is equally as real but you probably have a different set of questions and struggles. When a friend is diagnosed with cancer, raising kids is a challenge, God is distant, or life is hard this kind of worship can seem irrelevant and disconnected from everyday life. Themes that are commonplace in the hymnology of the psalms – anger, lament, disorientation, exile – just don’t seem to fit with this modern worship culture.
I meet increasing numbers of adults who are struggling with this dilemma. Alternative worship has ploughed a third way, a way that embraces contemporary (postmodern) culture but whilst re-engaging and reframing tradition at the same time. It’s creative, liturgical, contextual and passionate.
We need a baptism of imagination about worship. It is too often predictable, uncreative and stuck in a rut. Part of what it means to image God is to be creative. We need to develop communities of worship that celebrate and invite creativity. I was amazed when I discovered that the word liturgy actually means at its root ‘the work of the people’. In this sense rediscovering liturgy will mean that we develop worship that comes out of a worshipping community’s life rather than worship that is served up by experts or professionals. Something happens when the worship is ‘our’ worship that we have dreamed and made however raw, gritty and real it is. And the range of possibilities for worship is only limited by our imaginations – let loose the DJs, photographers, digital artists, story tellers, film makers, liturgists, painters and so on.
I recently went to a worship service in Bangalore India. The building was like an English castle, the liturgy was spoken in English, we sat on pews, the hymn tunes were Western and played on an organ, and the priest wore long robes. In fact I could easily have been in a Cathedral in London a hundred years ago but I was in India! This is the opposite of what I mean by contextual. Worship that is contextual is expressed in the language, signs and symbols of that culture so that it feels authentic and doesn’t alienate people by seeming foreign. Too often church feels foreign to those outside it because of the cultural forms of worship. Alternative worship has intentionally made worship out of the stuff of everyday life and popular culture to help bring the real world into church and help people relocate God back in the real world. The heart of the Christian story is the Passion – Christ’s self giving love supremely shown in his death on the cross. Following in the way of Christ calls us to be passionate (self giving) people. True worship according to Romans 12:1-2 is precisely that - our whole selves offered to God as living sacrifices which is why this connection with the real world is so important.
I am involved in an alternative worship community in London, Grace, that has been going for about 13 years. We recently had a service we called simply ‘slow’. The worship space was divided into two halves by back to back projection screens. On one side a VJ mixed slow images and the other fast images. People sat whichever side they related to most. We took about 10 minutes in contemplative prayer to quiet down in God’s presence. All the while ambient tunes were played by a DJ. A glass jar with sand in was shaken and placed to settle down as picture of what stilling our hearts might be like. An image of the jar was projected on the screens while we listened to Radiohead’s The Tourist with the lyric ‘hey man slow down’ projected over the image of the jar. The story of Mary and Martha was used as the basis for thinking about the pace of our lives and whether we are naturally more commuters or contemplatives and what pace God might be calling us to. The service had been inspired by Asian theologian, Kosuke Koyama who suggests in ‘The three Mile an Hour God’ that God’s pace is walking pace. A couple of chants were sung over chilled electronic tracks and we made prayer bracelets and used the Orthodox Jesus prayer as a way of asking for God’s mercy in our lives. In response to the service we were invited to take away a boiled sweet to suck on slowly if we want to ask God to help us slow down or a soft sweet to eat quickly if we felt the need to speed up.
In one short article it’s hard to capture a movement but I hope it gives a bit of a flavour. I am of course completely biased – I love this kind of worship. I find it connects me afresh with God and fires me up to re-engage with the real world. However, it would be a mistake to think that it is a new solution to be copied. The important part is not the sylistic aspects of worship – different music, video loops, and so on, i.e. another consumer choice. The real gift and challenge that alt worship makes is for us all to get creative and contextual and grow worship that is truly the work of the people in our own communities.
Over the last 15 years the movement that has been called 'alternative worship' has ploughed a furrow in worship coming up with inspiring new songs, liturgies, rituals, visuals, installations, artistic creations and worship experiences. I personally have found it incredibly exciting, renewing my faith and sparking my imagination in all sorts of ways.
When the movement began it was shocking. Visual projections, new technologies, DJ music, and so on all seemed out of place in church. The re-theologising that went with it to contextualise the gospel in a postmodern world was also perceived as threatening. However the climate has now changed and many of the discoveries made in alternative worship don't seem so shocking any more - many of the creative practices have crept into the mainstream and actually they hold some clues for how to renew worship in many of our churches. Alternative worship groups were simply early adopters on the front edge of what was to come.
False Dilemma
In worship there seems to be a choice between the liturgical tradition which is served up in a very similar fashion each week. Whilst it holds the potential for depth it can easily dry up for people and seem very samey. On the other hand the more charismatic tradition in worship has created space for free expression in singing intimate songs of praise and worship, along with ministry. But this worship often dries up for different reasons - it lacks depth and has ended up being very predictable in its own way as well. The range of themes and language in the songs and prayers simply doesn't address all the issues of life. After a few years people want something more. Alternative worship looked for a third path that broke that false dilemma. In doing so it turned back to the liturgical traditions of the church but reframed them often in simple but imaginative ways, making connections with everyday life and popular culture. This is why I think many of the groups found a home in Anglican churches, because they were finding ways to make the traditions live again rather than turning away from them. It is common to find groups working with the seasons of the church calendar, using basic structures of services as building blocks for liturgies, finding forgotten treasures in the tradition such as the labyrinth and reinventing them, taking communion back into the context of a meal and so on.
Creativity
At the heart of alternative worship is creativity and imagination. I am a member of Grace, an alternative worship community that is a congregation of St Marys in Ealing. The creative ideas that have come out of a small group of people there is amazing – I so enjoy the creativity in the group. Our best worship services always have revolved around good ideas. Executing them is the easy bit usually. There are several myths around creativity. One of the myths is that it is a gift that some special people have. If we don't think we have the gift we shrug our shoulders and say 'I'm not creative'. According to a survey the difference between someone who is creative and someone who is not is that people who are creative think they are! So one of the challenges in our communities is to encourage an environment where people believe that they are creative because they are made in God's image. This also has to be an environment in which failure is acceptable and we as leaders let go of control – if we can’t fail and haven’t got permission we won’t risk being creative.
Participation
The root meaning of the word liturgy is 'the work of the people'. How can we recover the notion of worship as liturgy in this way? We live in a consumer culture and we easily get trapped in provider/client relationships in churches. We the leaders are the providers who serve up worship for our congregations. Alternative worship communities have shared out the production of worship in radical ways. To be involved means to participate and create. It's hard to just be passive. We recently had a service in lent that was a 'bring your own station' service. We gave people the theme and some suggested passages such as Jesus journey into the desert and people then had to come with something to set up in the worship space. In the end 14 people brought things ranging from an icon and candle, reflections for prayer, original film/animation sequences, readings, and so on. After a brief introduction and opening prayer, the worship service was simply to walk round and interact with the stations while music was quietly played in the background. We then concluded with a final prayer together. It was stunning. It could also have been a disaster if no-one brought anything and we genuinely had no idea what people were going to do in advance. Two people did things at that service who had never contributed before which was especially pleasing. Also in lent we ran a lent blog – a web site where a different member of the community can post a reflection each day to help us reflect on our discipleship through lent. Both these things were highly participative. A key task of leadership is to shape the cultural environment. How can we shape that environment to be one of creativity and participation?
Risk
I have learned that when we have a planning session with free flowing ideas it is often the most crazy ideas that end up being the best things we have done. I can think of a Grace meeting where someone suggested getting a huge block of ice to suspend off some scaffolding, or another where we floated the notion of text message confessions where people would send their confession as a text message and receive an absolution in reply, or the use of a parachute in worship or recording meditations for a narrated labyrinth journey where we gave people individual CD walkmans. All of these notions were absurd at the time but we ended up taking the risk of pursuing them and have done those and many more. Tony Campolo tells of a survey amongst old people where they are asked to reflect on their lives and think what they would do differently. One of the things that came out is that they would risk more. Our next worship service at Grace is walking an outdoor labyrinth - we have got to mow it in the grass at the front of the church. When we came up with this idea we didn't know how to mow a labyrinth and didn't have a mower. Now we have borrowed one and think we can do it with some careful planning with string, some tent pegs, and sticks, and fine weather - it should be fun. This is to celebrate the coming of the Spirit so we will anoint people with oil and pray for the filling of the Spirit in the centre. Then we are having storytelling around a firewok (a portable fire). It's a risk but I am sure we won't regret it.
Engagement
One of the brilliant things about alternative worship has been its engagement with everyday life and popular culture. The music, images and rituals often make connections that engage in this way. A track played in a service may well be heard on the radio in the week. A visual projection (trafiic for example) may remind you of the worship as you drive through the city. This incarnational instinct is really important in mission. Use the stuff of everyday life as the building blocks for worship. This brings the real world into our worship and enables God to be relocated in everyday life. The other aspect of engagement is to take the creative worship and spirituality out into the cultural market place rather than just doing it behind our four walls. Just recently I have taken part with some others in running a stand at the London mind body spirit festival which has all sorts of alternative spiritualities. We set up some prayer stations and offered foot massage and prayer for healing with the laying on of hands and anointing with oil. It was incredible how open people were and wanting prayer. But these people would never have come to one of our worship services. So a question several alternative worship communities are wrestling with is how to take the best of what we create, and engage out there rather than expecting people to come to us.
These four words - creativity, participation, risk and engagement are actually the ethos of Grace, the alternative worship community I am part of. We identified these values as part of a weekend reflection last year on where we were headed as a community.
First Steps
Sometimes if you visit a service of an alternative worship group it can be intimidating so how do you begin to incorporate new ideas into worship in your church? There are two routes I think. The first is to start something parallel to your existing services. In this case I think you should pull together a small group of interested people. If there is anything close by go and visit and evaluate. Greenbelt is also a wonderful place to visit. Then pick a festival in the church calendar, dream some ideas together and plan something not in the main morning service. Invite other people and see where it leads. The second is to change the culture of worship production and consumption in your church one step at a time. Incorporate the gifts of the community in worship so that it truly becomes the work of the people. Again start small - begin with the prayers that often have space for ritual, trying new things and so on and build up until people from the community are leading lots of aspects of the worship and suggesting ideas and creating things in ways you never imagined.
The recent English Church Attendance Survey confirmed with hard evidence that church attendance has declined drastically over the last 20 years. The
decline is particularly bad in the main denominational churches. The Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church have each seen Sunday
attendance drop between 40 and 50% in the last two decades. It is worst amongst the young. The number of young people under 15 leaving the church
each week is 1000; the number under 19 has halved; the number in their twenties has declined by 45% (Brierley 2000).
This confirms what many other writers have been saying - the church seems increasingly outmoded and irrelevant. The tragic irony is that this is at a time
when spirituality is very much on peoples'; agenda and part of their lives. But they are not looking to the institutional churches or the Christian faith
to meet their quest for spiritual meaning and experience.
Paradigm thinking is one way to make sense of what is taking place. This posits that the history of the Western church fits into six discernible paradigms
of time. In each of these periods Christians struggled to incarnate the faith in that particular culture. However ';a style of Christianity successful in
one era changes as another era begins. Those who remain committed to the old style of faith freeze that style in the particular culture in which it
originated'; (Webber, 1999). This process accounts for much of the diversity in the world-wide church today. We can see the different styles of
church from different eras continuing in the present. In the current time of transition from modernity to postmodernity, we see this process taking place
again. Several writers have made the same observation ';A number of the deeper difficulties we face are because the forms of our common life have,
over recent centuries, become wedded to modernism…… Now that the times are changing the form of the church needs to change with
it.'; (Riddell, Pierson and Kirkpatrick, 2000) There is a need for new plausibility structures (Walker, 1996) and a renewal of imagination concerning
the form of the church (Cray, 1998, p24).
One strategy for incarnating the Christian faith in the present postmodern era is what has become known as ';alternative worship';.
Alternative worship has been around for over a decade now. There are several groups around Britain and several others in New Zealand and Australia (for a
list of groups and their stories see the CDrom in Riddell et al, 2000). Alternative worship ';arises from the need for the church to engage with a
culture shift, from the patterns of Christian life which took shape in modernity, to a faith which brings the authentic message of Christ to bear on life in
postmodernity'; (Roberts, 1999).
Alternative worship is much more than a cosmetic change to the style of church. It really has a different plausibility structure with its own authenticity
(Two summaries of what characterises alternative worship or gives it authenticity can be found in Riddell et al, 2000, p79-80 and Roberts, 1999, p5, 14).
One way in which alternative worship is deemed to be authentic is if it resonates with the curators of the worship and with the culture outside the church. I
want to suggest that the use of popular culture in the worship is one of the ways in which this resonance is established. It is this aspect of alternative
worship that I will discuss.
Popular culture features in a myriad ways in alternative worship. The space itself is likely to be marked out by televisions with looped images and screens
with projected still images. These might well include traditional icons but are usually interspersed with images from contemporary culture – for
example, a McDonald';s sign juxtaposed with a slogan ';fast food'; for lent; or a looped image of a sped up tube journey to convey the
busyness of urban life.
Often there is a continual backdrop of music tracks, much of it instrumental but carefully selected from the chill out end of dance music. Vocal tracks that
either have a spiritual message or have words that are made meaningful by the context they are played in are used. For example Holy Joes played
'The Drugs Don't Work' by The Verve in the sharing of bread and wine at their communion service at Greenbelt in 1998 when the
song had just recently been number one in the singles chart. Musical accompaniment to songs is likely to be either sampled loops or dance tracks
– whatever way they are constructed, they closely connect with particular subcultural styles of popular music. One example of this kind of
accompaniment is that Sanctuary sing the hymn ';Amazing Grace'; to a track based on a sample of Massive Attack';s track
';Protection';. When the singing finishes, Tracey Thorn';s voice comes in singing ';you took the force of the blow –
protection';.
The signs and symbols used in rituals may well incorporate popular cultural resources. The labyrinth constructed at St Paul';s cathedral in March
2000 involved the use of a Discman to listen to music as you walked the labyrinth. At one station en route, there was a computer with a screen of
animated candles – as an act of prayer you lit a candle by moving the mouse and clicking on it on the screen which would ';light'; the
candle. The language in liturgy and prayer references popular culture – Grace have a liturgy for communion on the theme of hospitality. One of the
lines in the Eucharistic prayer is ';you ate the bread, drank the wine – everybody having a good time'; which is a quote from
U2';s song ';Until the end of the world';.
The extent to which popular cultural resources are used in alternative worship is fairly widespread. Their use is seemingly effortless – the
resources are readily available at the fingertips of those constructing the worship. The way they are used displays a very high level of ';subcultural
capital';. For example in the version of ';Amazing Grace'; mentioned above, using a sample from Massive Attack is a sign to those in
the know of a good subcultural capital bank account, but what is especially impressive is that the sample is carefully selected from Brian Eno';s
remix of the track! The point isn';t that Sanctuary are trying to impress anyone. It';s that this kind of use of popular cultural resources is
instinctive. It would be very easy to dismiss this usage of popular culture as nothing more than a gimmick, a change of style, a kind of trendy church
syndrome, but I suggest that what is going on is much more significant than that.
In a consumer society people use the cultural resources available to them to make meaning by constructing a sense of their own self and the world in
which that self lives. For large numbers of people, especially those born since the sixties, popular culture has provided the majority of these resources.
This is because it has been so much a part of their lives and language – ';the amniotic fluid that sustains us'; (Beaudoin, 1998).
Stuart Hall defines representation as ';the process by which members of a culture use language to produce meaning'; (Hall, 1997). Popular
culture, as a significant part of peoples language, is thus used to make meaning in representation. Andy Bennett conducted a study looking at how
popular music functions in this way for groups of young people in a range of localities and ';neotribes'; (Bennett, 2000). He says that they
';use popular cultural resources to construct meaning and authenticity';. This is often in ways different to those intended by the cultural
producers. One use young people make of popular music is to mark out space – ';forms of popular music and their accompanying stylistic
innovations are one of the key ways in which local spaces can be appropriated and made habitable';. He also shows that this marking out of space
is very much informed by the local context and in turn helps construct the local.
These insights from Cultural Studies help understand what is taking place in alternative worship. If culture is a site for contested meanings (Storey, 1996)
, alternative worship groups have struggled to establish meaning and authenticity by appropriating and marking out habitable local spaces. Popular music,
stylistic innovations and other popular cultural resources are key ways in which this is done. They are very significant for the identity and authenticity of
alternative worship groups and as discussed above establishing resonance. This struggle for meaning takes place on two fronts – resistance to the
dominant capitalism in the Western world, and also resistance to the dominant forms of church. Space that is habitable is carved out within and in
opposition to both of these dominant cultures. In this sense alternative worship groups are resistant communities.
The fact that what is taking place in the construction of alternative worship has been observed elsewhere by academics in Cultural Studies doesn';t
suggest that it is necessarily a good thing. Lots of strategies for mission have ended up capitulating to the cultures they are trying to reach in an attempt
to be relevant. Alternative worship as a strategy for resistance and contextualisation in postmodernity needs underpinning by theology as well as its
intuitive grasp of the language, signs and symbols of the culture.
Many writers on mission and culture articulate the importance of the incarnation as their basic theological inspiration. ';The incarnation itself gives
us the model of relevance. God shows up on our turf speaking our language so that we might understand'; (Riddell et al., 2000). Webber suggests
that ';The root problem of our confusion over spirituality may be found in the failure to understand the implications of the incarnation';
(Webber, 1999). Whilst every alternative worship group is different I suggest that for most, the incarnation is a theological foundation. It undergirds their
seemingly intuitive approach to using popular culture in worship.
Paul Roberts contrasts alternative worship';s theology of incarnation with one of ecstasy in terms of worship (Roberts, 1999). He writes that
';alternative worship relocates God back within the physical domain, so to experience God means to encounter him in and through the created
things around – symbolically, iconically, sacramentally';. This is not to blur the distinction between Creator and creation but to say that God
is experienced in the everyday. Alternative worship groups are aware that ';revelation never happens in an unmediated encounter with God';
(Dulles, 1983). They therefore tend to know their own part in constructing rituals and an experiential environment and are not surprised when these enable
people to encounter God because ';the sacred is always cloaked in cultural forms'; (Beaudoin, 1998). But because of the awareness of their
own role are slow to make too great claims for it. With this incarnational approach, the use of popular culture in worship powerfully brings ';the real
world'; into the presence of God and enables God';s presence to be discerned back in that ';real world';. Any notion of a split
between sacred and secular is rejected. Groups ';are willing to use ideas, materials and forms from the secular world in worship'; (Riddell et
al, 2000). Implicit in this incarnational approach is a very positive theology of creation and its redemption.
In an ecstatic approach ';God is located outside the physical domain'; (Roberts, 1999). He is experienced outside of cultural forms. Often the
term used is ';supernaturally'; - worship is focused on ecstatic experience in which God is encountered ';supernaturally'; (rather
than naturally). In a culture of ';sensation gatherers'; (Baumann) ecstasy has a wide appeal. The reason alternative worship has resisted this
theological basis for worship is not because it is against ecstatic experiences of God. This is far from the case. In fact one problem of Roberts';
framing of incarnation vs ecstasy is that it could be seen to imply that there is no ecstasy in an incarnational approach which is clearly not so. However
most alternative worship groups would reject experience as the absolute touchstone by which we can be sure we';ve met with God (I suspect that
many charismatic groups would as well). The reasons for opting for an incarnational rather than an ecstatic approach are more to do with where it leads
you. Following the ecstatic line where God is encountered outside of culture can easily lead to a negative view of culture and ';the world'; and
to exaggerated claims of truth about God and what he has said. In worst case scenarios salvation is about escape from the world and getting a ticket to
heaven. In the meantime energy goes into fuelling a subculture in which ecstatic encounters can be maintained but which has very little resonance with
what is going on outside, in the ';real world';. This ends up with a very dualistic view, a negative theology of creation and at best a limited
scope of redemption. The follow through on the truth issue is that an ecstatic approach suggests that an individual can hear objectively from God and have
an objective experience of him. This sounds highly suspect to postmodern ears – put simply lots of peoples truth claims have been shown to be
false. The Church herself, having done all sorts of regrettable things in the name of God, is clearly not exempt. It fails to recognise the embedded nature
of all of our positions, in other words that this supposed objectivity is not really available to us. This is particularly noticeable in a world where lots of
cultures and theological takes live side by side. An incarnational approach doesn';t have the same problem. It doesn';t need to make such
great claims for its take on the story or the experiences people have. It attempts to improvise faithfully to ';enable people to encounter God within
the context of their own subcultural sign/symbol posts'; (Riddell et al, 2000) but recognises the planners part in the construction. It is more akin to
Lindbeck';s ';cultural linguistic'; view that says that ';meaning is constituted by the uses of a specific language rather than
being distinguishable from it'; (Lindbeck, 1984).
The use of icons in worship, particularly the image of Christ, has caused much theological debate and controversy down the centuries. In his book
';God';s Human face'; Schonborn outlines the various threads of debate, especially surrounding the iconoclastic controversy of the 8th
century AD (Schonborn, 1994). Interestingly, he states that the heart of the debate was about the incarnation - ';He who rejects the icon also
rejects the Incarnation: this is the common conviction of all defenders of images.'; Whereas ';contempt for matter is one of the most striking
traits of iconoclasm';. The rules for painting icons are very tightly controlled in the tradition. In large part this is because the icons are primarily
seen as ';theology in colour' in contrast with much Western art which is seen as romantic and an individual';s interpretation.
Popular culture is heavily image oriented and iconographic. ';The icon is the common currency of our popular culture'; (Beaudoin, 1998).
Edward Robinson has written a book entitled ';Icons of the present'; (Robinson, 1993). In this he argues that the arts have always had a
crucial role to play in evoking the presence of the holy, functioning as ';windows on eternity';. This is particularly the case when in a well
established religious tradition the conventional language of the sacred has become over familiar – art opens up perception in new ways, enabling
us to see the world with new eyes. He argues that a spiritual tradition needs to be continually renewing itself if it is to be faithful to its own tradition.
';Every revelation is initially culture bound: it speaks the language, it uses the image of its own time and society. If it did not, communication would
be impossible. Every tradition if it is to live has continually to be breaking that mould, and every succeeding mould.'; So what are needed are icons
of the present, that keep revelation alive by representing that mystery in the language of the here and now. He goes on to suggest that when any
iconographic style ceases to be earthed in the present, whilst its images may still exert a powerful grip on the mind and heart, the dangers both of
nostalgia and otherworldliness become very real.
It seems to me that these insights describe very succinctly much of what is going on in alternative worship. Groups are engaged in a process of
producing icons of the present to represent the holy in the language of the here and now. Popular culture is a significant part of that language. To give a
concrete example, Grace had a series of services that looked at traditional iconography in the Eastern Orthodox Church and then at various
representations of the Image of Christ. The question raised by the series was about how to represent Christ now. Several things were striking in these
services. One was a reading that pointed out how most of our mental images of Christ are either ';oldy worldy'; or ';ethnic';
(nostalgic and otherworldly as Robinson says above) and very rarely anything that would fit in urban city life in London where Grace is located. Another
was a photo montage of the disciples made from images of young adults taken out of contemporary style or dance magazines which powerfully related
the gospel to now – the disciples could have been your mates. At one of the services people were invited to bring things that functioned as icons
for them and to say something about them and put them on the communion table. Popular culture featured highly with images, music tracks and even a
luminous plastic star placed on the table.
The church can easily dismiss icons of the present, especially using popular culture in the kind of way I describe above as bad taste or a gimmick. In part
this is because a high/low view of culture still seems to be prevalent. But I think it';s more that the cultural forms of church have become so
normative that to insiders they have become the most ';natural'; or ';correct'; way of worshipping God – you might say
culture has become an invisible part of the equation. (Taylor and Willis, 1999 describe how this process takes place more generally). In this reification,
popular culture is simply ';out of place'; because it transgresses established symbolic boundaries. Television, say, in church is not
';natural';. (It is interesting that in churches that do use video they tend to show either a video produced by Christians or a film clip to
illustrate a point in a talk, very rarely something integrated into the worship itself). Change takes time in any culture. ';The Story of the Sony
Walkman'; records how the walkman transgressed social boundaries because it brought what was a private act – private listening –
into public spaces. It was similarly ';out of place'; but now it has become accepted. Maybe this will be the case with popular culture and
church. The use of worship bands with electric guitars and microphones has become enculturated where it wasn';t some years ago. Perhaps
alternative worship will be seen to ';offer a way forward for the church'; (Roberts, 1999).
Whilst it is true that several alternative worship groups have managed to find space to exist within denominations (notably the C of E), it is very difficult at
present to see this process of enculturation taking place on a much wider scale. This is for several reasons, including those mentioned above. But the
chief ones are to do with power and control. Time and again the experience of those either in alternative worship or youth ministry taking new and creative
approaches to worship is that they are misunderstood. Rather than contextualising the gospel in a variety of subcultures the expectation from the church
side is that they will socialise people into what already exists as church i.e. put ';bums on pews';. Those who hold the power call the shots
and can control what is or is not permissible. Often this is done by an appeal to uphold the tradition or what is ';biblical';. The problem here
is self evident – those preserving the tradition, the ones with the power, are the very ones who claim that what they are already doing is both
biblical and the way the tradition is preserved! A fresh understanding of tradition is desperately needed if the church is to avoid the slide into ever
increasing irrelevance.
In a postmodern culture tradition and continuity are actually an incredible gift. Without the tradition there would be no Christian faith now. At a time when
culture seems to be changing so fast, to be able to be located in a tradition that has been passed down for 2000 years gives a real sense of
';weight';, a much needed anchor point in the world. Being located within the Christian tradition and seeking to be faithful to it helps to avoid
groups'; and individuals'; beliefs becoming too subjective or personal – it offers a check on spirituality (Beaudoin, 1998). It also turns
out to be a tradition with a vast amount of resources and an incredible global network. The basic and seemingly obvious point about the Christian tradition
is that it is living and not closed or completed. In this respect the kind of use of ';tradition'; to defend the status quo as outlined above is not
faithful to the tradition at all. Jaroslav Pelikan says that in this kind of scenario religious leaders are defending not tradition but traditionalism (Pelikan,
1984). One is living, the other is dead. Part of the process of carrying a tradition forward is struggling with it, and engaging in its debates as to how its
inquiries can be carried forward. A tradition needs diversity at its heart. In this respect whilst tradition does in some respects provide limits, it also gives
the tools to liberate us from the way traditions have been used against us. Wherever the message of Jesus for today is distorted the tradition needs
correction. To keep reforming religious tradition in a prophetic spirit is to be faithful. This reformatory impulse is at the heart of the tradition. To deny it is
';to disallow that subversive and dangerous memory of Jesus in the church'; (Tracy, 1991). But paradoxically it is the resources from within
the tradition itself which will subvert the inadequacies and injustices of a religious tradition (Beaudoin, 1998). To preserve a tradition then is to ';drive
to the heart of it to understand its significance and then do our best to re-present the same field of reference in our own context'; (Riddell in Ward et
al, 1999). Alternative worship groups are in this sense well located within the tradition, regarding the One they follow as the ';Holy
Subversive'; and themselves when they are true to Him as ';sanctified subversives';.
I conclude by summarising the argument thus far and making some final remarks. I have argued that alternative worship is one strategy for
contextualisation and resistance in postmodernity. Popular culture is one aspect of the language of alternative worship that helps establish resonance and
gives it authenticity. (There are lots of other aspects – I have just been interested in discussing this one here). On the surface, the use of popular
culture does not appear that significant – it';s by no means the answer to the church';s problems. But underlying its usage is a
strong incarnational theology and an understanding of tradition that needs continual renewal if it is to be faithful to itself. Whilst it is just a snapshot, the
church';s resistance to popular culture and ';icons of the present'; in alternative worship betrays the depth of the crisis it faces. It has
reified cultural forms that are located in the past, and uses its power and control to preserve those forms. This is true across the denominations.
It';s not my denomination so perhaps I am out of place to comment on it but it is surprising that even in the Orthodox church which has an
iconographic tradition, the rigidity surrounding the usage of icons creates precisely the same problem as elsewhere. Battles raged in this tradition to
uphold the importance of the incarnation. Whilst it might be a bit over dramatic, I conclude by saying that in rejecting popular culture the church is in
danger of rejecting or undermining the importance of the incarnation once again.
Written by Jonny Baker, April 2000
Baumann, Zygmunt (1995) Life In Fragments Blackwell
Beaudoin, Tom (1998) Virtual Faith Jossey Bass
Bennet, Andy (2000) Popular Music and Youth Culture Macmillan Press Ltd
Bosch, David (1991) Transforming Mission Orbis Books
Brierley, Dr Peter (2000) The Tide is Running Out Christian Research
Clapp, Rodney (1996) A Peculiar People IVP
Cray, Graham (1998) Postmodern culture And Youth Discipleship Grove Books Ltd
Du Gay, Hall, Janes, Mackay and Negus (1997) Doing Cultural studies: The Story Of The Sony Walkman Sage Publications
Dulles, Avery (1983) Models of Revelation Doubleday
Frith, Simon (1996) Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music Oxford University Press
Gadamer, Hans Georg (1994) Truth and Method Continuum
Hall, Stuart (ed) (1997) Representation: Cultural Representations And Signifying Practices Sage Publications
Kuhn, Thomas (1962) The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions University of Chicago Press
Kung, Hans (1988) Theology For The Third Millenium Doubleday
Lindbeck, George (1984) The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age Philadelphia:Westminster
MacIntyre, Alisdair (1988) Whose Justice? Which Rationality? University of Notre Dame Press
Morgan, David (1998) Visual Piety University of California Press
Pelikan, Jaroslav (1984) The Vindication of Tradition Yale University Press
Riddell Michael (1998) Threshold Of The Future SPCK
Riddell, Pierson, Kirkpatrick (2000) The Prodigal Project SPCK
Roberts, Paul (1999) Alternative Worship in the Church of England Grove Books Ltd
Robinson, Edward (1993) Icons of the Present SCM Press Ltd
Schonborn, Christoph (1994) God';s Human Face Ignatius Press
Storey, John (1996) Cultural Studies And The Study Of Popular Culture: Theories And Methods Edinburgh University Press
Taylor, Lisa and Willis, Andrew (1999) Media Studies: Texts, Institutions and Audiences Blackwell Publishers
Thornton, Sarah (1995) Club Cultures Polity Press
Tracy, David (1991) The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism Crossroad
Walker, Andrew (1996) Telling The Story SPCK
Ward, Pete (1997) Youthwork And The Mission Of God SPCK
Ward, Pete (ed) (1999) Mass Culture The Bible Reading Fellowship
Webber, Robert (1999) Ancient Future Faith Baker Books
Basics:
'Alternative worship' is about bringing your real self and your real world into church - not just exercising your 'religious' side, and not using church as an escape from the outside world. People usually get involved in 'alternative worship' when they find that their normal form of worship, of whatever denomination, is preventing them from bringing their real needs and concerns honestly and openly before God. This can be as true of modern forms of worship which deny people's real situations as it is true of old forms of worship whose relevance has been exhausted. Acting a part in church is profoundly damaging to your relationship with God and with your fellow Christians! Conversely it can be profoundly healing to come before God and your fellow worshippers in honesty and find acceptance. Church after all is meant to be a place where we face reality in the presence of God and find healing and strength to live as God's people.
For most of us, this process involves making church out of the elements of our everyday lives - the issues, the culture, the language, the media, the music. Church becomes more like home - a place where we belong and which belongs to us. And this can help us to see that home, and the rest of our world, can be church - life lived in the presence of God.
This certainly doesn't rule out the use of historical elements and traditions; they have shaped our spiritual lives, it would be dishonest to deny them. However, the historical elements you use should be those that are meaningful to you, not just hangovers from the past that nobody has really thought about.
It is best to establish a separate service to experiment in rather than trying to do it in the 'normal' services at your church. This minimises the risk of offence or disruption to people's cherished worship habits - if they don't like what you're doing, they don't have to come! This also frees you from any need to conform to pre-existing worship patterns - you have a clean slate. Successful innovations can be introduced into other services later if wanted.
The team:
Reimagining worship involves time and thought, so you need a small group who will meet regularly to plan services a week or two in advance. Get as wide a variety of people and skills as you can on the team. Involve as many as possible in the actual presenting of the services. Try to achieve a balance of male and female voices and perspectives. Some people will have very obvious skills to contribute, but don't let them get stuck in the rut of only doing those things. They may have other talents too, and others may be able to do what they can do. At Grace everybody contributes ideas to the planning of a service, but then the various pieces of it are handed out to whoever is available/willing. So people end up doing things they had never envisaged doing, and sometimes unsuspected talents are revealed. Remember that stumbling but genuine contributions are worth far more in worship than empty fluency. Everybody is creative, being made in the image of God; part of the purpose of alternative worship is to help people rediscover this truth for thmselves. As well as healing people's self-worth, creative expression opens new channels of communication to God and to others.
Leadership:
Try to avoid putting the team up on a stage and reducing the congregation to an audience. Leadership is about helping other people to have their own encounter with God.
Congregational involvement:
Provide activities and discussions that the congregation can do without intervention from the team, and can maybe give feedback on. Much of the worship can be done by providing 'stations' containing things that people can use or not use, in their own ways and time. Not everyone needs to do the same thing at the same time.
In fact, in many ways alternative worship is about providing a set of tools for the congregation to construct their own worship with.
Modernity [post if you like]:
Don't be modern for its own sake.
Don't keep old stuff if it means nothing; rewrite/reinvent or junk it.
Multimedia:
Don't get carried away with multimedia that looks impressive but means nothing. Beware of unintended meanings; be aware of the underlying 'feel' of what you're doing. Beware of images/effects which are so startling that they are all that anyone will remember of the service [unless they make an intended point, of course].
Mistakes:
This is an experiment, so things will sometimes not work out, or the equipment will go wrong, or someone will make a hash of something. Relax - you're only human [church is a good place to acknowledge this]. God doesn't mind, and the congregation don't know what was supposed to happen anyway. If you must do something that requires tight integration of several things at once, rehearse - but if the whole service requires rehearsal and not just a run-through you're trying too hard to impress people. This isn't a worship show.
Risks:
Dare to take risks, with your creativity, with your congregation, with God [who likes it]. Seek honesty not respectability, seek truth not safety. Obviously, gauge your audience, but one of the sins of the Church is that it wimps out, tries to be 'nice'. The real world isn't 'nice', childbirth isn't 'nice', crucifixion isn't 'nice', and worship that touches reality is healing. But don't cause needless offence or hurt if you can help it, and never be shocking just for show.
Of course some people will be shocked or offended by the mere fact of you doing something different in church. Ignore them as nicely as you can. They don't have to come if they don't like it. Tell them you have a right to go to hell in your own way, and so do they.
Numbers:
Numbers in alternative worship services don't have to be large - in fact it is possible to have too many, if people will need to move around the worship space to do things. Too many people and half of them end up as an audience, who watch rather than participate. Intimacy is well worth aiming for, it walks hand in hand with community and communion.
Resources/materials:
Written stuff, eg stories, meditations, readings, poems, liturgies:
Remember this is about finding your own voice in worship, so write your own stuff as much as you can. People who think they can't write may turn out to be very good - the secret is to have something to say that you care about. Grace use Mike Riddell, CS Lewis, Douglas Coupland, Thomas Merton, Celtic liturgy and poetry, traditional Anglican liturgies and writings, Ignatian meditation, whatever means something real to us.
Images eg video, slides:
See the 'Using Images in Worship' notes also on this website for a full treatment of this aspect. I just make a couple of comments here.
Images of ordinary things, of your everyday surroundings, can have enormous meaning used in church, perhaps with a meditation or prayer. They can be a way of bringing your normal environment before God, and of seeing it in new ways, perhaps through God's eyes.
Remember slides and video images are background. Don't change them too often or use distracting video, or people will watch them like TV in case they miss something. It's better to have three well-chosen images that people will find meaning in and will remember [this is different from using specific images or film clips to make a point].
Music:
Use music as background/to create atmosphere. Think in terms of a continuous film soundtrack, rather than individual songs. These can be dropped into the general musical flow. The background music provides emotional colour, fills gaps, papers over the buzz of conversation in group discussions etc. We do our readings/spoken stuff over quiet background music as well.
Be true to yourselves - you probably already know what music you would like to use in worship, but haven't dared or had the chance. So do it. You know what music means most to you, speaks to you of God, or of life, so use your own musical culture in church. Use the soundtrack of your own heart. If it's Christian music, fine, but if it isn't, that's good too. Don't categorise into sacred and secular - there's no obvious divide. We use secular stuff, and people think it's Christian because the church context changes the perceived meaning. This can be revelatory, and in turn can stunningly transform the way that the same music is heard in its usual secular context. Obviously some things aren't helpful or can't be used, use judgement as to whether something will cause needless offence or get misinterpreted; but the general intention is to bring your real self and your real world before God, rather than being 'churchy' or 'holy' [and then going home and listening to something different. God is listening there, too!]. Keep an ear out for where God is in the secular world, where real spiritual issues are being dealt with. There are some surprises to be had.
Remember worship isn't just about happy songs - there's sorrow, anger, bitterness etc to bring before God too [take a look at the psalms]. People who come to church carrying negative emotions or problems can feel alienated or excluded by upbeat joyful worship music, they need music and words that enable them to articulate their pain to God. That pain can't be healed until it has been given room for expression.
Grace music:
The next few paragraphs are about the kind of music we use in Grace services, as an example of an approach to music in worship.
We use the ambient/chilled/meditative end of contemporary dance music as general background in services. We buy this music anyway so we just keep an ear open for anything that might be of use; sometimes we find instrumental tracks that can be used as alternative backing tracks for our own worship songs. It's all secular stuff available from normal record stores. In larger record stores ambient/chill out appears as a separate category, there is a lot of this post-club background music available [for the long motorway drive home at 4am!]. Don't let the dance music categorisation put you off - it's just by an interesting quirk of social/musical development that this stuff has ended up there in the racks. 'Easy listening' might have been a better term for much of it, had it not already come to mean old swing records and schmaltzy crooners. By avoiding obvious dance beats or electronic noise it is possible to put together a worship soundtrack quite acceptable to all ages and types.
I can think of 4 categories that Grace music falls into [all fluid]:
1. Sometimes it's just that the music is good background;
2. Sometimes a track has lyrics that suggest a church use;
3. Sometimes a record has major significance for society/says something important about our world.
4. Our own and other people's worship songs.
Examples [not exhaustive]:
1. Cafe del Mar vols 1-6; the Orb; Orbital; Super Discount; Northern Exposure Expeditions; Sabres of Paradise; Two Lone Swordsmen; Air; Fila Brazilia [despite their name they're from Hull]; Real Ibiza vol. 2; anything by A Man Called Adam; Groove Armada.
2. 'Easter Song' on Cafe del Mar vol. 2; 'Resurrection Song' Cafe del Mar vol. 3; 'God is a DJ' & 'The Long Road Home' by Faithless, 'Sunday 8pm' album; 'Firestarter [Empyrion mix]' the Prodigy; 'Praise You' Fatboy Slim; 'We have all the time in the world' off 'Shaken and Stirred: the David Arnold James Bond Project'; 'Starlovers' Gusgus...etc. Whatever strikes our attention.
3. 'Inner City Life' by Goldie; 'Bittersweet Symphony' and 'The Drugs Don't Work' by the Verve; we're waiting for the next great anthem...we hoped Blur would oblige, but they haven't.
4. 'Grace' album, 'Eucharist' album; but music in this category is usually sung live over a backing track, which might be a secular instrumental track we've found that happens to fit. We often augment the backing track with [one or two] live instruments too. We don't have a worship band as such.
Playing something like 'Praise You' in church while it's at no. 1 carries a tremendous punch. It recontextualises both record and act of worship. Suddenly what we are doing in church becomes part of the real world.
[NB I guess we've all heard chart records used in church settings tokenistically as a sop to the 'young people'; it just reinforces how alien church is...But if the whole context of the service is such that use of these records becomes natural, it changes perceptions of where holy ground is in our culture...I wonder how many times Moses had passed the burning bush on his travels before he heard God speaking to him from it?]
We don't usually use hard dance stuff unless we want to hype up the atmosphere a bit or make people dance. If you wind people up in a service you then usually have to calm them down again to move on, and anyway we're a bit wary of generating hysteria in church. It can be good to make an upbeat ending, a bit of a party vibe to send people home on.
We seldom use rock as such because it doesn't fit the general musical flow of our services [does 'background/ambient rock' exist?], But some tracks are too significant to be ignored, eg 'Bittersweet Symphony' by the Verve - we built an entire ritual around it, but used a slightly funkier remix by James Lavelle that's a B-side on 'The Drugs Don't Work' single.
Basic hardware:
Music:two CD players or twin turntables that you can cross-fade between for musical continuity; we have recently bought a Minidisc player, which allows us to pre-record a lot of stuff but unlike a tape allows instant access in any order, and displays the actual track title so you don't cue the wrong one!
Video: a domestic video player, but buy a splitter so you can send the picture to several TV sets.
Several TVs [remember, for most purposes, to turn the sound off].
Several slide projectors, projecting onto muslin sheets hung [in our case] on washing lines strung up wherever in church. Fireproof the sheets first [you can buy a spray]. Hang the sheets so as to create more intimate spaces within the cavern of the church interior. Muslin is also great for covering nasty furniture and draping around things for effect.
PA system and good speakers
Live instruments if available or to suit tastes.
Lots of candles - all shapes and sizes. They create a fantastic atmosphere, rich and intense. Use plenty of small cheap nightlights, eg to form a pathway down the church for people to enter along; put them around the TVs, and around any stations or things that you have set up. Generally, the more candles the better it looks, unless you have a reason for restricting them for the theme of a particular service. Use them symbolically, eg light a triple candle while saying a trinitarian prayer.
Lighting generally should be low and intimate, so as not to drown out the slides and candles. The slides and TVs will contribute quite a bit of light themselves. Spotlight the microphones and the music desk so that people can read things. Low lighting levels also mean that people don't notice the clothes pegs holding up the drapes, or the dirty marks thereon, or the grubby old TVs. These things fade into the background, and the images and candles and things you have specifically lit dominate. The transformation from grot to grotto when the main lights are turned off can be breathtaking.
Important: this doesn¹t have to cost much. Borrow as much as you can, or buy second-hand. People may have slide projectors or slide collections at home; maybe they can borrow from work or school. Use old TVs and video recorders - when someone you know gets a new TV or video recorder, ask if you can have their old one. It doesn¹t matter what the equipment looks like, in the service people will only notice the picture on the screen. But invest money in achieving good sound quality, both spoken and musical - the ear forgives muffled or tinny sound less easily than the eye forgives faint or strangely coloured visuals!
We've developed a tradition for Advent at Grace, an alternative worship community in Ealing – Nine. It's a very simple idea for a service (feel free to use it). We take the traditional nine lessons and carols framework and give it our own twist. We find nine volunteers willing to take part who are given one of the readings. They then have to choose a piece of music and do something to reflect/relate to the reading - this might be a piece of art, a ritual, a meditation, a thought, an audio-visual piece. At the service the nine readings are read from the bible and after each one the person does their piece and play their chosen piece of music. Followed of course by mulled wine and mince pies. It’s highly participative and creative. People produce amazing things. On reflection I think it might be an example of Worship 2.0 …?
There have been a spate of articles recently on the new revolution in the internet which has become known as Web 2.0. The Guardian Weekend magazine ran a 15 page feature called the Bigger Bang that interviewed several of the entrepreneurs behind these startups. In it John Lancaster said "What all these new kind of sites share is an approach to creating things: "user-created content", in the jargon. The internet is no longer about corporations telling you what to do, think or buy; it's about things people create."
So Wikipedia is an encyclopedia where the information is provided and edited by anyone rather than experts. It is constantly being added to and evolving and is astonishingly rich in information. Flickr, Youtube, and Myspace are online photo, video and music sharing sites respectively. People create and upload and give feedback on media content and then build social networks around that, some of which is virtual and some with people they already know. Technorati, Digg and Del.icio.us all work with the publishing revolution in blogging to help people collate, track, identify and share the content that is good, useful and interesting.
Whilst these sites may or may not be of interest in themselves what is significant about them is the values or ethos that is emerging. Whereas Web 1.0 was characterised by being an information source, some of the values associated with Web 2.0 are that it has an architecture of participation where community is the content, knowledge is open source and it is based around decentralized authority that values the wisdom of the crowds who are self publishing content with an incredible amount of creativity.
Steve Collins definition of alternative worship on the web site www.smallfire.org is "Alternative worship is what happens when people create worship for themselves, in a way that fully reflects who they are as people and the culture that they live their everyday lives in." A generation are growing up for whom the ethos of Web 2.0 is their world. So we should expect and celebrate Worship 2.0 – creative, highly participative, valuing community as the content, open source, low control where the expert worship leader is replaced by teams self publishing creative content.
Let me conclude by reworking John Lancaster’s quote above…
"What all these new kinds of worship share is an approach to creating things: "user-created content", in the jargon. The church is no longer about institutions telling you what to do, think or sing; it's about things people create."
Welcome to a 'Grace' worship service simply entitled slow. The worship space is divided into two halves by back to back projection screens. On one side a VJ (like a DJ but mixing visual images rather than music) mixes slow images and the other fast images. People sit whichever side they relate to most. We take about 10 minutes in contemplative prayer to quiet down in God’s presence to a backdrop of ambient tunes played by a DJ. A glass jar with sand in water is shaken and placed to settle down as picture of what stilling our hearts might be like. An image of the jar is projected on the screens while we listen to Radiohead’s The Tourist with the lyric ‘hey man slow down’ projected over the image of the jar. The story of Mary and Martha is the basis for thinking about the pace of our lives and whether we are naturally more commuters or contemplatives and what pace God might be calling us to. The service has been inspired by Asian theologian, Kosuke Koyama who suggests in ‘The three Mile an Hour God’ that God’s pace is walking pace. A couple of chants are sung over chilled electronic tracks and we make prayer bracelets and use the Orthodox Jesus prayer as a way of asking for God’s mercy in our lives. In response to the service we are invited to take away a boiled sweet to suck on slowly if we want to ask God to help us slow down or a soft sweet to eat quickly if we felt the need to speed up.
It often feels that there is a choice between two basic types of worship in churches: Liturgical worship that follows a set pattern or structure in a prayer book led by professional clergy is the basic diet of mainline denominations. And blocks of singing led by a keyboard player, guitarist or worship band are the staple diet of worship in charismatic/evangelical/pentecostal churches. On the one hand, the liturgy has depth but repeated week in week out can become very dry and formulaic. But on the other hand, worship led by a band whilst it can be exciting isn’t without its problems – worship easily gets trapped into performance mode, and the range of theology in the songs is often pretty thin. It seems to suit an adolescent stage of faith which is brilliant if that’s where you are at. But when you have been a Christian for a few years, your faith is equally as real but you probably have a different set of questions and struggles. When a friend is diagnosed with cancer, raising kids is a challenge, God is distant, or life is hard this kind of worship can seem irrelevant and disconnected from everyday life. Themes that are commonplace in the hymnology of the psalms – anger, lament, disorientation, exile – just don’t seem to fit with this modern worship culture. I meet increasing numbers of adults who are struggling with this dilemma. Alternative worship (the label given to the sort of worship described above) has ploughed a third way, a way that embraces contemporary (postmodern) culture but whilst re-engaging and reframing tradition at the same time.
Grace is an alternative worship community that has been going for about 13 years. It is a congregation of St Mary's Anglican church in Ealing. Probably about half of Grace overlap in some way with other services or parts of St Mary’s and for the other half Grace is church. In an Anglican set up adding a new congregation is easy enough to do – in practice 8am, 10:30am and 6pm often have quite different flavours and attendances anyway. And there is increasing recognition that one size no longer fits all. Whilst unity in the church is important it doesn’t necessarily require us all being in the same worship service on a Sunday morning every week. The key to Grace getting started and its continuing success has been having a creative team with the vision to do something new (the team is all voluntary), and then the church leadership taking the risk of giving space for something new and trusting the Grace team. There is no doubt that Grace appeals to and reaches a very different group of people to the other congregations at St Marys.
We need a baptism of imagination about worship. It is too often predictable, uncreative and stuck in a rut. Part of what it means to image God is to be creative. We need to develop communities of worship that celebrate and invite creativity. The word liturgy actually means at its root ‘the work of the people’. In this sense rediscovering liturgy will mean that we develop worship that comes out of a worshipping community’s life rather than worship that is served up by experts or professionals. Something happens when the worship is ‘our’ worship that we have dreamed and made however raw, gritty and real it is. And the range of possibilities for worship is only limited by our imaginations – let loose the DJs, photographers, digital artists, story tellers, film makers, liturgists, painters and so on. In Grace our model of leading worship is based around the idea of curation so someone will take on the task for a service of pulling together a team of people and then work together to create a worship experience. The leader’s role isn’t to be up front and perform but to ensure that all the components come together, to see it all hangs together and to help curate the worship space. Anyone in Grace is welcome to take on this role. This model would be easily transferable to any worshipping community and a good place to start might be to take on curating a service for a festival in the church year which would easily have material to work with. I am constantly amazed by things that people produce in worship when we encourage them, give space, and let go of control. In Grace we have developed a working ethos around the words creativity, participation, risk and engagement.
I love this kind of worship. I find it connects me afresh with God and fires me up to re-engage with the real world. However it is not a new solution to be copied. The important part is not the sylistic aspects of worship – different music, video loops, and so on, i.e. another consumer choice. The real gift and challenge is for us all to get creative and contextual and grow worship that is truly the work of the people in our own communities.
A few years ago, before I was involved in alternative worship, I went to see a Christian musical performed by the local church drama group. After the interval, the curtains opened upon the figure of Christ on the cross, portrayed by a fortyish friend of mine in nothing more than crown of thorns and the obligatory (and probably unhistorical) loin cloth. As we gazed, slightly shocked, upon his almost naked body, flat stomach, ribs showing, I thought to myself "Good job he's still skinny enough to play Jesus" - and then it struck me. There is no evidence in Scripture to suggest that Jesus was thin at all. He might, for all we know, have been short and fat, or at least had plenty of body hair and a pot belly. After all, few men get to thirty without a little extra round the waist, especially if they are gluttons and wine-bibbers. Thing is, we've inherited a tradition of how Jesus looks, and it affects what kind of person we see him as - and therefore our relationship with him.
In fact, Jesus's earthly appearance is nowhere described in the Bible, except in mystical and symbolic terms in, for example, the Book of Revelation. One effect of what to us is a strange omission is to prevent us tying Jesus down to a particular place and time - the Incarnation becomes about Jesus in the contemporary world here and now, all heres and all nows, utterly committed and involved and refusing to be distanced or irrelevant. The trouble with all our usual images is that they remove Jesus from the contemporary world. They make him a historical figure or a sort of alien not at home in our lives. It's like having the Queen come to tea - meeting him becomes a somewhat constrained and artificial encounter with someone who is clearly not part of the world you and I live in. We don't expect him to know how to work the Playstation, let alone beat our score; or else to be floating serenely in a state of mystical purity untouched by such worldly matters. Even if we believe in him, we either unconsciously limit his relevance, or set the rest of our lives in the modern world at nought as we look forward to leaving it behind for a robes-and-sandals Kingdom - forgetting that these things were once as contemporary as combat trousers and trainers, and that in their time they conveyed the immediacy, the worldliness, of the Kingdom.
From Byzantine times through to the late medieval period, Christ as portrayed in art appeared as a contemporary figure. The robes, the hair, the beard were pretty much what normal men of those centuries wore. The Christ people saw when they looked at the pictures was a real person present in their world here and now - for the first 1400 of the last 2000 years, there was no perceived distance to travel between him and us. If people of those centuries behave as though Christ were a real and immediate presence in their world, that's partly because they had seen nothing that would open up a distance.
But in the fifteenth century the way people in general, but men in particular dressed began to shift. We've all seen a jester's outfit, parti-coloured doublet and tights with a funny hat - but in the fifteenth century this was the height of fashion, a revolutionary and one might say indecent break with with the past. From this point on men had cod-pieces - something which never found its way into the representation of Christ! This is also the first clean-shaven period since early Byzantine times about 1000 years earlier.
So at this point a gap opened up between the way Christ was normally portrayed, and the way men actually looked in the contemporary world. But the issue doesn't seem to have been addressed, and I think the reason is because this is the period of the Renaissance. And the Renaissance rediscovered the culture of the ancient world and aspired to it as superior. We enter a period in which it was normal to portray rulers and aristocrats as Roman emperors, when high culture liked to dress up in the clothes of ancient Rome. And so no-one was interested in portraying Jesus in contemporary fashions - indeed, both his divinity and his perfect humanity were expressed by giving him the muscular, hairless body of a Greek god or hero. Not to mention the scanty draperies, which would have got funny looks in Elizabethan London.
And when the cultural authority of ancient art began to fade in the 19th century, it was replaced by another nostalgic longing, for an idealised medieval world. We get Holman Hunt's 'Light of the World', and the Pre-Raphaelite Jesus of Sunday school fame. And nothing came along to replace that, because when art turned away from the past to embrace the modern world, it didn't want to take Christianity with it. And those artists that did portray Christ tended to use him as a way of engaging with tradition and the past. The image of Jesus was left frozen, timewarped, after 500 years of being constantly turned back away from the contemporary world into an idealised past.
Now, in the year 2000, we find ourselves looking at a Christ who seems alien to us, from another time and place. This makes it easy to believe that he should be left there, with all the other cultural baggage we claim to have outgrown. Our problem is thrown into sharp relief by the way other twentieth-century cultures have reimagined Christ in their own image, to claim his identification with them right here and now. We in the West have hesitated between reimaging Christ as one of us, and clinging on to the historical tradition of representation we have inherited. This leads to those strange cheesy baby-boomer Jesuses, or to Che Guevara - we leap at the chance the return of beards and long hair, and even sandals, have given us to have it both ways - we can say "Look - Jesus is just like us" and have the tradition, too. It's actually dodging the issue. Can we really portray Jesus as 'one of us' again, when that means abandoning the tradition - or are we stuck with the first century Jew or medieval holy man? Is Jesus going to be for us a historical figure we have to keep bringing forward in time, or an eternal figure at home in all times? To go back to where I started, if what we are given in the Bible is the character and nature of Jesus, not his appearance, how do we reimage that character in our own world, in a way that's truthful not nostalgic?
Steve Collins April 2000
LABYRINTHS have made something of a comeback in the past decade. A labyrinth is not a maze: there is one path to follow, not a choice of turns. Labyrinths have been in the Christian tradition for many centuries.
The most famous labyrinths are found in cathedrals in northern France. The one at Chartres is stunning in design and setting, and is now a place of pilgrimage from all round the world; but for many years it lay forgotten under chairs, like a buried treasure. It took someone with imagination to uncover it and to enliven the tradition of labyrinth-walking again.
Walking a labyrinth can be done in many ways, but it is essentially a prayer meditation. There are three stages to the journey: in towards the centre, which is often a time for stilling and shedding; being at the centre — a space to be with God; and the journey out, taking the encounter with God back into the world.
In a busy life, walking a labyrinth really forces you to slow down and pray.
A number of alternative-worship communities have reinvented the labyrinth for post-modern spiritual seekers and tourists. This was done by adding a series of stations to the journey. The walker listens to a set of meditations on headphones at each stopping-point, sometimes having interactive rituals to perform. A labyrinth was installed at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2000, and at Greenbelt later the same year.
The response was overwhelming. It has now been set up and walked in thousands of churches round the world, and published in several countries and languages. There is even a digital version online, which is good fun.
There are several things about laby-rinths that catch the moment: the resurgence of interest in contemplative spirituality; the idea of faith as a journey; the notion of creating a navigable space where worshippers and God meet, rather than performing at the front of a congregation; the rediscovery of an ancient treasure and reframing it in the Christian tradition; linking imaginatively with contemporary culture; and the popularity in using art installations for worship.
Grace, an alternative-worship community, is mowing two labyrinths in grass this month — one to celebrate Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit, in Ealing, and one for A Rocha at the Minet Park festival in Southhall, to introduce labyrinths to spiritual seekers there. The inspiration for these has come from the mown grass labyrinth at Greenbelt last year, and the one at Burford Priory.
Greenbelt has had various takes on the labyrinth in the past decade. This year there will be a labyrinth based on the Chartres pattern, run by a group from Scotland. For newcomers to the idea, it’s a good place to take the first step.
This article was originally submitted as a chapter for a book on preaching. However I am proud to say that it was deemed unworthy of publication! So here it is. Click on the link below to download it as a pdf document.
IN A post-modern culture, tradition and continuity are a gift. At a time when culture seems to be changing fast, to be able to be located in a tradition that has been passed down for 2000 years gives a real sense of "weight" - a much needed anchor point in the world.
Part of the process of carrying a tradition forward is struggling with it, and engaging in its debates as to how its enquiries can be carried forward. This is what Greenbelt is all about. To keep reforming Christian tradition in a prophetic spirit is to be faithful. To deny it is to disallow that subversive and dangerous memory of Jesus.
Grace is an alternative-worship community in Ealing, a congregation of St Mary's Church, and has been going for more than a decade. Alternative worship likes to work with the traditions and liturgies of the Church, often in creative and playful ways. Communion by Numbers re-presents the eucharist in the context of a meal, which is, of course, where it started, at the Last Supper. Tables are set out in a café style, and groups of six to eight people gather round each table. Music is playing, and the service takes place at the tables.
On each table is a series of numbered envelopes. When a bell rings, someone at the table opens the first envelope, and follows the instructions contained in it. This is repeated, so that progress is made through the numbered envelopes in order. The envelopes correspond to the main elements of a communion service: preparation, thanksgiving, confession, the word, prayer, sharing the Peace, preparing the table, eucharistic prayer, sharing bread and wine, thanksgiving, and blessing.
This may mean, for example, that the word is a Bible passage that is read at the table and then discussed; sharing the Peace could be done by a toast with the glasses round the table; the eucharistic prayer could be prayed, and then bread and wine shared at the tables; the blessing could be accompanied by passing round hot towels from a curry house, and so on.
One of the playful elements in the service is a "text confession", where people are invited to text a confession on their mobile phone to a given number. An automated service sends some words of absolution in reply.
When Grace first held this service, the absolutions experienced a delay. Rather than appearing immediately, they arrived during the eucharistic prayer. Phones started to bleep, and displayed the words "You are forgiven." It was perfect timing.
Preserving tradition is done by driving to the heart of it to understand its significance, and then by doing our best to represent it in our own context. In this sense, Communion by Numbers is traditional worship: it takes the tradition seriously, re-examining the sharing of bread and wine among friends gathered around a table, and reframes it in a contemporary context. The next time someone attends communion at their own church, the experience of Communion by Numbers may well reinvest communion with meaning for them in new and different ways.
Every so often a tradition experiences a rupture. I am thinking about the early days of hip hop in relation to music. DJs started playing a break in one track and then mixing it in to a break in another (or even a second copy of the same track) to keep the beat going, over which people would 'break' dance and rap. Shortly after, the advent of sampling then changed everything - you could sample a piece of music, a drum beat, a snatch of vocal and loop it or mix it in with other samples to create new tracks. This was a whole new approach, a creative bricolage, that challenged the traditions of music making at the time. Some people said it wasn't authentic, but rather stealing other peoples’ music. James Brown was one of the most sampled. He is referred to in the tune 'Talkin all that jazz' by Stetsasonic where they have this killer line: 'Tell the truth, James Brown was old ‘til Eric and Rakim came out with "I Got Soul" '. In other words he should be thanking the hip hop culture for giving him a new lease of life rather than complaining. In many ways sampling brought the archives alive to a whole new generation.
Hip hop has a strong association with Jazz, and indeed could be said to be carrying forward its traditions. Jazz was very much the music of the underground dance halls and clubs - its creative improvised format liberated it from the music that had gone before. In the hip hop tune ‘Jazz Thing’ Guru cites a list of the jazz greats and concludes "this music ain't dead, so don't be misled by those who said that jazz was on its deathbed... The nineties will be a decade of a jazz thing. I love jazz music". This track is hip hop - its beats and samples and rapping - and yet it is also jazz and seeks to locate itself in the tradition of jazz. Its jazz retains 'a new format'. The tradition ends up being renewed and carried forward rather than remaining stuck.
What's this got to do with youth ministry? Everything! Most of us involved in youth ministry have to wrestle with how to deal with our traditions. Tradition is an amazing gift. Without the heroes who have gone before, we wouldn’t be doing ministry. But it can also get stuck and need renewing. Just like the traditions of music we need creative visionaries who risk rupture and reclaim our traditions in new ways to carry them forward.
In New Testament and The People of God, Tom Wright introduces the notion of “faithful improvisation” by using the example of discovering one of Shakespeare’s lost plays, but lacking a scene in the fifth and final act. He suggests what would be necessary for that play to come to life would be a trained group of Shakespearean actors to improvise the missing scene. These actors wouldn’t simply wing it, but rather, they would immerse themselves in the first four acts and the other plays of Shakespeare. They would then act out their parts, striving to be faithful to the developing plot and character portrayals. Wright suggests as Christians, we have a script consisting of four parts – creation, the fall, Israel, and Jesus and the church. The fifth and final act is the church’s ongoing improvisation of the developing story. He says that we, as Jesus’ actors, are called to inhabit the world of the Bible and then act out that worldview for a new day.
Faithful improvisation frees us from the tradition, but it does not free us to do whatever we want. In order to improvise we must know the author, our God, the history of the church, the scriptures, and other improvisations of the church. The better we know the tradition, the more knowledge we can draw on to revise it. Jesus was more faithful to the tradition (i.e. the law) by getting to the heart of it rather than getting caught up in the trappings. The Spirit calls us to join in with what God is doing in the world and to improvise.
One of ALOVE’s essentials is Mission – “Going into the world to find Jesus and point him out”. We need to do this, not by simply abandoning all tradition, but investing in loyal radicals in our youth groups to help them, and the church, reinvent itself. With faithful improvisers, Christianity won’t be ‘on its deathbed’ or the preserve of old guys in lounge suits saying ‘nice’.
A lot of groups are reimagining worship. Part of the journey for most involves experimenting with a variety of expressions of worship - new music, liturgy, prayers, ritual, and using images and symbols. The culture we inhabit is image-based. The use of images is intuitive, natural and authentic for those that have grown up in this culture. It is also helpful in mission because it's a language and form that many outside the church relate to more readily than a culture dominated by words. Evangelicals have not got much of a history of using images in worship so there's little tradition to draw on (unlike the Orthodox and Catholic traditions). It takes some experimenting to get a feel for the language, to find what works and what doesn't.
Imagination
The key to getting going is imagination. A lot of people don't try anything new or different because they don't think they are creative. We all are. Once you get going the ideas come thick and fast. The first step feels the riskiest and hardest. Others think they haven't got the expertise - you don't need it. Still others think they can't afford it on their budget. You can do a lot for next to nothing with a bit of imagination.
Sparking ideas, not prescriptive
The idea behind these notes is to help you get started. A lot of people need some encouragement taking that first step. It can be very helpful going and meeting with and seeing what other groups are doing as a spark to the imagination. However these notes are not meant to be prescriptive. There isn't one way to do these things. One of the exciting things in worship at the moment is the amount of creativity being rediscovered. Similarly when you see what another group are doing, use some of the ideas but don't just copy. Find your own voice, your own language, your own expression of worship to God.
Choice of images
There is a large element of experimenting with what is appropriate and works in worship. A helpful starting point is remembering it's worship so the images should enhance the worship. This may seem obvious but sometimes people can get so excited about the images they are using that the focus can be all about how wonderful the latest images are rather than them being an inspiration for worship or a pointer to God. It is important to keep some kind of dialogue going within the group about what the images are saying for them and if they are helpful or not. Then the group can learn the language together, what works and what doesn't. It's a way of helping people find out how others are using the images to enhance their own worship, which in turn may help them.
The issue of quality is a difficult one. There is a balance between wanting everyone to get involved and express worship in different ways and wanting to use good quality art etc. You just have to feel your way with this but encourage people not to go in for things that are naff. A good rule of thumb is to think how friends outside the church would react to the images.
The most difficult area to use in terms of appropriateness is video. In part this is because the images are moving rather than still and so can easily become too much of a focus, particularly if they are on a big screen. You don't want to create a cinema! Also video is a very powerful form - it's important not to abuse this power just for effect. We've all experieneced being bombarded with images on the news of refugees for example. It's too easy for this kind of image if overdone or used inappropriately to desensitise people to issues of justice.
One approach to using video is to have the images focused around one idea or theme. For example during a service about Pentecost having flickering flames for 10 minutes, or images of water droplets during a prayer of confession. This way the images enhance the worship rather than become the focus. Another approach is to use more complicated sequences that might be more of a focus for a meditation or prayer.
Sensitivity and appropriateness are important, but you learn them as you go. It is worth looking out for those in the group for whom this is their thing and who seem to have a good grasp of it. overhead projectors
A lot of churches use these for song words and nothing else. Here are some ideas to try:
* Get some coloured lighting gels (coloured acetate) and lay that over the words.
* Design some images on computer, print them out. Get them colour copied onto acetate.
* Get some of the group to write graffiti/paint pictures and colour photocopy them onto acetate.
* Colour photocopy any appropriate image e.g. icons, Celtic cross, creation......
* Rather than use the usual screen, hang a sheet up, or get hold of a roll of muslin and hang a series of strips up and project onto that, or get hold of an old parachute and project onto that.
* Try projecting from behind rather than in front (simply reverse the image).
* Use more than one OHP - borrow them. Hang screens at different points in the room to get away from the front being the only focal point.
Art
Have someone paint a picture during the worship service on the theme. Ideally this is best done by someone who is an experienced artist and can prepare the picture beforehand. Have paints/paper/clay available for people to draw/paint/model during the worship, then take photos of what has been produced and use it another time on slide. Or hang the pictures around the place. It's worth bearing in mind that a lot of people will need encouraging to try this kind of thing. Also the process of expressing something is as important as the end product. Encourage those with artistic gifts to produce stuff in advance either to have as sculpture, paintings, or to photograph and use on slide.
Slides
Borrow projectors - as many as possible! Often members of churches have them and never or rarely use them. They are very happy to loan them. Borrow slides. Lots of people have slides that sit in the cupboard and don't get used. Be sure to mark them clearly and look after them. Take slides. Borrow a camera. Get some people taking slides on a theme. Use shots of creation, elemental stuff (e.g. water, fire), stained glass windows, icons, abstracts, bread and wine, ..... Purchase slides. Cathedrals and art galleries often have collections of slides. With several projectors you can project images at various places in the room. Use sheets, muslin or a parachute.... You can project onto walls or the ceiling. It's a good effect with muslin to not just have a flat surface. Try creating some depth and layers. Try projecting from behind. Your imagination is the limit.
Words projected on slide look great if you can produce them. If you can get white words with a black background you can project them over an image from another slide projector or video projector. There are different ways to do this. Ask around - there may well be someone you know who could do this at work. One way is to print out laser copies on A4 of the words you want, photograph them and use the film negatives (which will be white on black). Chop them up and put them into slide frames. (You can buy a box of 100 for about £5 from a photo shop). Another way is to create a template on a computer of an A4 sheet with say 32 boxes the size of slides. Write the words into the boxes and take either the disc or a printed copy to a printer and ask for the sheet to be printed on negative film. You then get your white on black and chop them up and put them in slide frames.
Video
You obviously need at least a video player and a television. If your church has not got one, use yours or borrow one. A simple but good effect is to use two televisions. To do this you need a splitter. This plugs into the video player and gives you two outputs for the televisions. With long leads work out where to place these - away from the front is helpful so that it doesn't feel as though we are gathered to watch television. For larger scale events you can use a video projector. They are straightforward to use. Several schools, councils, youth agencies have them that you can hire. Project them onto any flat surface e.g. sheet. You can get a special screen which is helpful for back projection, but a sheet is pretty good. There are other bits and pieces e.g.. vision mixers that some people use but these are a luxury.
As with slides and OHPs build up a collection of images. Start small i.e. one image you want to use. You don't have to have video running all the time. Video material can be got from a variety of sources:
Off the shelf videos:
The 'Images for worship' series has been made specifically for use in worship. It is set out in a series of tracks on particular themes - e.g. 'Spirit', 'people' or 'environment'.
HMV have plenty of rave/fractal type videos that are good for creating a certain kind of vibe. There are computer graphic videos - the downside of these is that the images are a bit cold/clinical which isn't brilliant for worship - organic ones are a lot more 'real'.
Creation images (eg National Geographic). Lots of people have used images from the film 'Koyanasqaatsi'. Hunt around and ask around and you can find stuff.
Filmed programmes from the television - wildlife, news, documentaries,....etc
One of the difficulties can be finding a clip but it being too short. With two video players and the appropriate lead it is possible to compile a longer sequence using record and pause buttons.
Make your own:
Most people can get access to a camcorder at least. Try making some of your own images e.g.. candle burning, people, water, traffic.....
With a small bit of investment you can get a text writer to put words onto video. This can be very effective, particularly if it is a slow sequence of one or two words at a time that connect with a theme e.g. at Pentecost, different words for the Spirit - fire, wind, breath, dove, dangerous friend etc. If you can't afford this, write them and use a camcorder, or create the sequence on computer and film the computer.
Computers
It is possible to link a computer up to televisions or projectors and run everything from there. However this is more specialised and requires more software etc. If you are interested in that get some advice from a computer shop or someone who is doing it. (Often at larger events e.g. Spring Harvest, Brainstormers this technology is used).
Copyright
Copyright is a big issue. It would require a whole other set of notes to go into it in detail. If you are producing your own stuff you are fine. Other than that you need to check it out.
Outro
The overall setting for worship is very important. Things like lighting and layout affect the mood a lot so it's worth thinking everything through. The main goal is enabling people to worship in ways and forms that they can relate to. These notes have focused on image use. But ritual, poetry, liturgy, prayers, readings, scripture, meditations, poems, stories, songs, tracks are all other ways of expressing worship. Worship doesn't have to be technologically slick, it's whether it is real or not that counts.
A few years ago in Grace, the alternative worship community I am part of we ran a worship experience reflecting on the theme of wonder. We had a big graffiti wall with the word ‘WOW’ painted on it in pop art style (like Lichtenstein’s famous POW! painting). We then invited people to come and graffiti on the wall things that made them go wow, that gave them that sense of awe. People have those moments in all sorts of situations - watching the sunset, in the warmth of an embrace, witnessing the birth of a child, staring up at the sky on a starry night, visiting an art gallery, being at a gig, realising the enormity of what God has done for us in Christ, walking a labyrinth. We then got people to reflect on things that robbed them of that sense of wonder. For each one they would write a post it note and stick it on a brick that was placed in front of the wow graffiti. After a while the wall gradually blocked out the wow (If you do this make sure you build a wall that is safe and sit people at a reasonable distance from it – we actually used a set of sponge bricks from a theatre set). This became a physical picture of how things like busyness, homework, lack of time, or the struggle of relationships dulled peoples sense of wonder. The service then turned to focus what God has done for us – given us the gift of creation, come that we might have life, sent Christ to restore our broken relationships (and in fact the whole creation) – we read the verse from Ephesians 2 that describes Christ tearing down the wall of hostility and celebrated this under the idea of ‘restoring lost wonder’ by tearing down the wall we had built whilst playing a loud music track to reveal the wow that had been hidden from sight.
Douglas Coupland who so often captures the zeitgeist has a fantastic quote in his book ‘Life After God’ where he says ‘Sometimes the people I feel saddest for are those who once knew what profoundness was but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder’. Worship is one fantastic way to help young people rediscover that lost wonder.
Restoring the wow can be about very small things. Involve young people in the creating of worship so that they own it. We had two teenagers recently perform a track they had written along with VJing some visuals they had put together – it was amazing. Creating it definitely gave them a wow. Take worship out of its usual setting. Why not worship outside – looking at a starry sky, or on the beach, or at an art gallery? Involve all the senses – we set up five stations in a service – one for each of the senses – for people to become aware of them and thank God for the gift of life in all its richness. Move worship beyond singing – there are so many diverse ways we can express ourselves. Find something dry in your tradition and dream a way to make it live again. Use the things of everyday life as the building blocks for worship so that young people are enabled to encounter God in the everyday and ordinary things of life.
Youth is a stage of life characterised by passion. Sadly the opposite can sometimes be said of church. Older generations in church are afraid of the passion of youth and sometimes seem to prefer worship to be predictable, safe or routine. Kenda Creasy Dean had just published what I think is the best book on youth ministry for quite some time ‘Practising Passion: Youth and the Quest For A Passionate Church’ where she advocates developing a curriculum of passion which re-engages with the ancient practises of the church as a way of enabling young people to be transformed by experiencing the Passion of God. One of those practises is worship.
Last year one of my favourite contemporary art installations was The Bridge by Michael Cross at Dilston Grove in Bermondsey. The artist had constructed a pool inside the old chapel and designed a series of steps so that visitors could walk on water. The water had been blackened with dye so it looked pretty mysterious. When you stood on the first step the weight of your body as you leaned forward caused the next step to appear from under the water. It was quite a slow process, designed to be meditative and step by step you walked across the water. That experience still lives with me and when I have faced decisions requiring a step of faith I have pictured that moment.
Lots of alternative worship groups have drawn inspiration from art installations and have created interactive experiences as part of worship. These might be stations in a service or something on a grander scale. Greenbelt being an arts festival has hosted some wonderful worship art installations over the years. To much amusement at an ideas session for last year’s festival someone suggested doing ‘shed worship’. As far as I know that’s a new concept! But a few months later and lo and behold a few groups rose to the challenge of creating a worship experience with a shed that would be placed outside on site. My favourite one never took place because of health and safety – “the Scape Shed”. People were to be invited to write things on pieces of paper that they wanted rid of in their lives and post them through holes. Then at the end of the weekend the shed would be ceremoniously burned! At the festival there was a poetry shed, a graffiti shed and a shed obscura (a shed turned into a pin hole camera as a reflection on the upside down kingdom).
A mission challenge is how to take spirituality that resonates with contemporary culture and do it out in public spaces rather than inside church walls. In New Zealand, Opawa Baptist Church did precisely this last month taking the Christmas story to find a home outside the church and in the marketplace of Christchurch. Under the creative leadership of Peter and Joyce Majendie eight 20ft long containers were designed, created, wrapped and delivered to parts of the city to be unwrapped. Steve Taylor, the pastor describes it -
“Each had Scripture written on them by a local artist to provide context for the Christmas story. We had people comment "wow that's the largest I have ever seen the Bible written in the city". We had to call the police when 10 drunk santa's invaded one station. There was quite a contrast between the local cathedral who celebrated Christmas by erecting a giant Christmas tree outside with the names of all their commercial sponsors and our container about 20 feet away with planets in motion and a baby crying and people invited to make a star out of wire. About 15,000 people visited the containers. It was brilliant to watch people walk out of a station and say "that changed me" and to have over 200 church volunteers spending time in the city, engaging with people and it's rhythms.”
It sounds a fabulous way to take worship outside the box (and in to other ones!).