Worship Weblog

Toronto Book Group – First Meeting

Posted by cicw

Wednesday, October 14th, 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.
Learn more

Is “intergenerational worship” an attitude more than an occasion?

I am always struck by how people’s church experience is wider and deeper than their denominational tag. Claire is Presbyterian, but has been enriched by her studies at an evangelical West Coast university. Karin worships at an English/German Lutheran congregation, but many of her young adult years were at a Presbyterian church in Toronto’s Beaches neighbourhood. David Locke is worship co-coordinator at a Christian Reformed Church in Oakville just west of Toronto but comes from a varied church background. John was a Salvation Army officer until his recent retirement, but has preached a number of times at Trafalgar Presbyterian, where I am music director. I have been a member of the Presbyterian confession for many years; but my background is in the “Assemblies” (sometimes called “Plymouth Brethren”.) This is not to minimize the effect of a denominational home: in fact, the church culture of each group member shaped their understanding, their expectations and their experience of intergenerational worship.

We traded stories – and differences in vocabulary: “multi-generational” was something different from “inter-generational”. Kristine, minister (and my colleague) at Trafalgar Presbyterian, said that that “inter” generational implied a connection between the generations; “multi-generational” did not. For some, intergenerational worship is a special service; John Mills said that Christmas and Easter were natural occasions. Karin pointed out that this was because there was a strong story, which was much easier to make concrete, visual, tactile – many of the elements that usually go into an intergenerational service. John wondered that, if you had intergenerational worship services more often, wouldn’t they become less special, “dumbed down?” Others saw that “intergenerational” was more an attitude on the part of the whole community. They take more work, we all agreed.

I asked about what objections people raise or what obstacles to intergenerational worship people meet. There were many offered. David said that, for some, young people’s leadership feels forced, a token, or not natural, perhaps because they aren’t asked to do it often. In some congregations, adults didn’t like being in a worship service when something in it wasn’t “for them.” Some of our group commented on that irony: more often, much of worship isn’t designed for children. John said that his denomination “does not do so well with young people in worship.” He pointed to a dynamic which I’m sure is true across the denominations: that it’s the ones who foot the bill who get to decide what’s important in congregational life. We agreed that it is strange that we identify parts of worship as being for the children; we don’t do that for other groups in the church. We also agreed that seniors are sometimes the forgotten generation in discussions about intergenerational worship.

It crossed my mind that seniors are often treated as only a church’s past, in the same way that children are (too often) called the church’s “future”. What if we treated seniors as our future and considered children to be a vital part of our present?

The issue of who is asked to lead, and when, and how, was raised by several. Kristine knows church people who object to being welcomed only by a child at a church they are visiting. They feel that a child welcoming with an adult is acceptable, but a child alone is not proper or dignified enough. Karen talked about her son Stephen who felt honoured and trusted when he was asked to play his violin at the funeral service of a long-standing and beloved member of the community. (Stephen plays violin every Sunday as part of our church band.) Lively discussion followed her comment that Stephen welcomed the “adult” responsibility. What does that say, people wondered, when a child has to behave like an adult to belong fully to a church community?

It continued to be apparent that different group members understood intergenerational worship differently. Karen Pozios pointed out that a regular service can have the quality of being intergenerational without being a “special” service. She remembered a wonderful worship moment when a group of very young children, a whole Sunday School class, took up the offering. They did it seriously, and worshipfully and added to worship something only they could add. Karen then told the “backstage” part to this story. When they got to the back of the sanctuary, one boy looked at another’s offering plate and said, “You got more than I did.”
Claire and David both talked about playing their instruments as a regular part of worship as young people, an important part of their worship experience. David said that his musical leadership led to his being asked to lead monthly worship at his church, which became a formative part of his life of faith.

Too many thoughts and ideas came out of this discussion to fit in a quick summary, but it left me with a key question. In whatever form your church’s worship takes, what are important dynamics of “intergenerational” worship? Both Karin and Claire talked about being the only one in their age group, and how that made them, and makes them, connect with other generations. Karin said that what was important to her as a late teenager worshiping at Beaches Presbyterian was that people took an interest in her, and cared about what she thought.

It seems to me that a church which understands that the generations need each other is already practicing intergenerational worship.

Tags: bgtoronto, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational