Worship Weblog

Santa Ana Book Group – First Meeting

Posted by cicw

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Intergenerational Worship:
Inherent Challenges and Steps Toward the Goal

Having read Chapters 1-4 of The Church of All Ages, the 8 members of our group gathered for discussion. The worship styles and formats at each of the 4 churches represented are as follows:

• Single service, Traditional, with children dismissed to Sunday School (SS) mid-service (Greg) after weekly children’s sermon (Rebecca/Lynn)

• 2 Blended services + 1 concurrent Contemporary service, with pre-school-8th grade SS held during the entire first worship hour; and children dismissed mid-service (after children’s sermon) to supplementary children’s time at the second hour. High school Sunday School held during the entire second worship hour. (Julie/Joseph/Blake/Hanan)

• 3 services with 3 different worship styles: During the first worship hour: “Soft contemporary” (= music of the 80s/90s), with children dismissed to SS mid-service. Concurrent services second worship hour: one Traditional, with children dismissed to SS mid-service; and the other Emerging (cutting-edge contemporary music, media, lights down, candles, communion weekly), with children staying through the entire service. (Jenni)

It was noted that none of these churches embrace the separate-worship-and-SS-hours model with which many members of the group had grown up, where the presumption of intergenerational worship is/was inherent (i.e., family members expected to worship together one hour and attend age-divided SS classes another hour).

Intergenerational Worship Challenges

• People not willing to be at church more than one hour on Sunday morning: so they choose worship (most adults) OR Sunday School (most children/youth). (Jenni/Julie)

• Many parents do not attend church at all, but simply drop off their children. (Blake)

• Sunday morning sports conflicts. (Julie/Rebecca)

• Much of the service is not perceived as relevant to children/youth. (Julie)

• Middle schoolers may not appreciate the more serious musical styles of Traditional or Blended services. (Blake)

• High schoolers do not have enough motivation to attend—the problem not so much the content of the service, but the effort required to get up early to be there. (Joseph)

• The biggest obstacle for youth: there are not enough of their peers in attendance at services. This makes them feel like they’re not supposed to be there. (Blake)

• People of ALL age groups want to see their friends at church. (Lynn) We all want to feel like we belong. (Rebecca)

• Issues related to Fowler Stages of Faith (Chapter 3): Students resist choosing for themselves what their parents chose for them. Students are defining their own personal relationship with God, leading them to prefer more personal themes of contemporary praise music than objective/didactic themes that are prevalent in hymnody and other traditional worship music styles. (Lynn)

• Engaging the broad spectrum of faith/church-experience maturity among adults, let alone children/youth (“symphony” example, pp. 49-50). (Greg)

• Alienation people feel (especially long-term worshippers) when they do not know the songs of worship (Rebecca) and are given no tools to learn them–musical notation of melody line, etc. (Hanan)

Steps Toward the Intergenerational-Worship Goal

• Worship needs to be the meeting ground for intergenerational activities across the life of the church (fellowship, service, etc.). When cross-generational relationships are built in other areas of church life, this enhances the family connection in worship. (Greg)

• As Imago Dei, we are made to worship God. As we worship together, we help each other see that, and the presence of every generation is key to this process. (Jenni)

• In keeping with intergenerational worship definition on p. 11, we want to find ways to make people of every age feel equally important (not just “How can we get young people into church?”), acknowledging that we do not all participate in the same way. (Rebecca)

• Worship is like a family dinner. Each family member is not always on the same page at the same time, yet we value being together and grow from the experience. Family members do not (generally) opt out of the family dinner because of what is/isn’t on the menu; and sometimes we feature what grandpa likes, other times grandchild. We want to help people out of self-focus and toward valuing everyone. (Blake)

• In worship, help people focus on Christ rather than on whether or not they like the preaching, the music, etc. (Joseph) It’s all about the Word. (Rebecca)

• Help people away from issues of preference to understanding/embracing purpose (p. 64). Get away from “What do I/we want/like?”. (Lynn/Hanan)

• The idea of cross-generational hospitality (pp. 68-69) can help get us through our differences. Sing this song for the sake of someone else who finds it meaningful. (Lynn)

• Careful attention to the flow/message throughout the worship service, and highlighting this thread through verbal transitions in-and-between service elements, can help people find the purpose/meaning of each element and help them engage in the service as a whole [versus deciding “Do I like this song or not?”]. (Hanan)

• Plan services to have layers of meaning accessible to people at different levels of faith development/understanding. (Rebecca/Hanan)

• Teach the elements of worship in SS, etc.. (Greg/Rebecca)

• Welcome children to the communion table before the age of understanding. (Rebecca)

• Children/youth attend entire worship service on communion Sundays. (Greg/Blake/Jenni)

• Take the children’s sermon seriously and do it well, as part of the proclamation of the Word (Greg). What is targeted toward children blesses the whole body. (Lynn)

• The children help us get ready to hear the Word. For all present, the children’s sermon is the first step in this process: the “appetizer,” with the entrée to follow in the full sermon. This is facilitated by the preacher of the day being the one to offer the children’s sermon; and him/her referring to its content during the full sermon. (Rebecca)

• Elementary-age children are not ready for a 20+-minute sermon. Work to really include them in the pre-sermon portion of the service, and then dismiss them to age-appropriate activities. (Rebecca)

• Use child-friendly vocabulary/content in corporate Calls to Worship and Prayers of Confession. Repeat these for several weeks so that the language becomes familiar and gains meaning. Use sentence structure that is pithy and rhythmic in cadence (example to be provided at next meeting). (Rebecca)

• Have children/youth choirs + bell choirs participate more frequently in worship
services. (Rebecca)

• Teach children how to read scripture aloud and have them serve as liturgists. (Rebecca)

• Incorporate lots of active, physical things to involve children. Consider bringing children back into worship for communion, especially on intinction Sundays (so they can move). Logistics hard, but worth it. (Lynn/Rebecca)

• Offer aids to children who are present in worship: children’s Bibles with pictures, coloring materials, handouts (some educational about worship or coordinated with theme/season), etch-a-sketch, etc. (Julie/Lynn) [Show sample of Trinity “Bags of Light” at next meeting.]

• Broaden the musical offerings of worship, especially the songs of the congregation, to provide touch points for the spectrum of worshippers (hymns/praise songs, organ/band, etc.) [However it should be noted that doing this will not automatically bring in missing demographic groups if other obstacles are not addressed.] (Hanan)

• In addition to having youth present in worship on communion Sundays, have youth band lead in the worship service on these days. (Jenni)

• Consider progressive ways to use media/technology to connect with contemporary congregations. A recent worship experience was cited where lighting enhancements were effectively used to express resurrection lyrics. (Joseph) The idea in the book of the congregational daily devotional blog (p. 57) lead us to consider how we might one day use text-messaging/Twitter for interactive responses during worship services. Over-stimulation? For some, yes; but for others, this might be an engagement break-through.

Tags: bgsantaana, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational