Worship Weblog

Davis Book Group – Second Meeting

Posted by cicw

Tuesday, November 17th, 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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Key Question: If stories are important to us (and they are), what does worship look like that is “story driven?”

Our own stories are important to us, and sharing stories is something we continue to value, especially in worship. Shelly, a young mother of three, remembers her teen years and how stories from her mother seemed to draw them closer together. When her mother shared about her own past, even in the dreaded “when I was your age” format, Shelly recalls thinking, “My mom isn’t an alien, she had similar struggles.” Shannon remembered, almost as an epiphany, that she learned about faith before she considered herself a Christian through the stories of her Grandmother. “My Grandma would tell me stories of bad days, of struggles, of how it hadn’t been a good week. But she always ended with, ‘Yet I trust, Shannon, yet i trust.’” Shannon then commented, “I don’t think I ever realized that before. My Grandma’s faith, shared through her stories, was shaping me long before I ever thought.” As we considered the importance of stories in our own lives, we started thinking about worship as story-telling.

We thought about story-telling, and how the stories we usually hear are those who seem to have it all figured out. “What about someone who is in the middle of something? What about someone who isn’t quite so sure where they stand with God at the moment? Does their story have value too?” asked Scott. We talked about lament, about sharing struggles, and the songs we usually hear in worship. While we resonated deeply with the concept of worship including “the whole sweep of divine activity, past, present, and future” most of our group was hesitant to relate their own worship experiences in those terms. Much of the worship we have participated in, we agreed, seemed more focused on individuals rather than on God – much less the activity of God.

Tags: bgdavis, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational