Worship Weblog

Lucknow Book Group – First Meeting

Posted by cicw

Friday, October 9th, 2009

Book Groups

We invited 34 book groups across the U.S. and Canada to meet and discuss The Church of All Ages and its implications for their worship, and to share their notes here.
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This isn’t really a new issue for a new day; the quest for authentic worship has always been there, but only now is it coming out of the closet.

Out of the closet, and onto the table it came. Karin commented that so much of what we do in worship is reactionary rather than proactive. Ron remarked on how the accelerated rate of change around us also impacts our worship. And our high school members, Meghan and Christine, felt that it was their age category that was most frequently overlooked in a typical worship service.

Suddenly, we hardly knew where to start! Grace and Karin empathized with us pastors – how do you preach to so many diverse age groups in every stage of faith development? Our conversation circled back to the nature of worship and that it’s not all about providing something for everyone and ensuring that we’ve pleased all present. The act of worship is God-focused and Spirit-led. There is something mysterious and frightening about that but it also brings a freeing sense of relief. It’s not all about us, and it isn’t all by us.

With that assurance we could discuss more openly where we have been and where we are going. As 2nd and 3rd generation Canadian immigrants, many of our members have never sat in church with their grandparents or even their parents. For these members, the issue is new. Siemen’s church, which began as a church plant, has disproportionately few senior members whereas Ken & Jocelyn’s church only has a few high school age members. Perhaps it’s not as blatant as the squeaky wheel getting the grease, but when a pastor looks out on her/his congregation and sees mostly 30 – 50 year olds, most of the songs and sermon illustrations will be tailored to match that demographic.

Much of our first evening of discussion involved defining the issue – whether it’s new or not, if it is worthy of our attention. And so we gathered, a diverse group of pastors, teens, a young mom, empty nesters and a senior. I don’t recall ever sitting down together with such a group before – except, of course, in worship!

Tags: bglucknow, gookgroup09, intergenerational