Worship Weblog

Glenside Book Group – Third 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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We met at St. Luke’s Roman Catholic Church this time, as we continue to rotate our locations. Our hosts, Tom, Dianne, Jeanne, and Marian led us in the first part of Night Prayers from the Liturgy of the Hours.

To locate the Word in the liturgy, we noted that the central things of worship are (1) gathering in God’s presence around (2) God’s Word and (3) the meal in order (4) to be sent into the world to serve the Lord. Worship is more than “four walls and a sermon.” We were also reminded of what we had learned last month—from chapter three—about the stages of faith development combined with the various ages of worshipers.

We began our discussion with a question: “Have you ever had the experience like the one described on pages 116-119 (hearing the Gospel of Mark recited from memory) and how did it impress you—what do you remember about it?”

We shared memorable times when the reading of Scripture was particularly effective. Reading all of 1 Corinthians 15 at a baby’s funeral; the many readings from the Old Testament during the Easter Vigil; hearing a dramatic recitation of the Gospel of Mark; a woman who has memorized and recites the books of Ruth and Esther in English and Hebrew; a family reading half of the Easter story the evening before and the rest of the story the next morning—you knew what was going to happen, but the suspense was real anyway.

We concluded that stories engage everyone differently than purely didactic sermons; a reason for more than one reading in the liturgy. The Revised Common Lectionary always has two story lections/readings to balance the more didactic NT letters. The use of lectors from all age groups was also mentioned as one way to engage the various stages of chronological and faith development.

This led us to a conversation about the story character of Scripture. The overall message is the big story gathering up all the stories from Genesis to Revelation. One member shared how he is “pushing the envelope” to discover how much of a story-teller the apostle Paul is in his letters.

We discussed preaching when there are three Scripture readings in the service: Old Testament, NT letters, and Gospel. One of our preachers told that he seeks to weave together the complementary themes from the readings. Also, how preaching the same readings to different gatherings on a given Sunday has to adapt to each group of hearers.

We also talked about how the music of the liturgy interacts with the Word: choosing the opening songs in contemporary worship so that they prepare for the Scripture reading and sermon; the processional, recessional, and offertory hymns in the Episcopal and Catholic liturgies and the musical settings of the canon of the Mass that carry the congregation through the action. Another of our preachers told how he selects hymns to go with the sermon. We also discussed the way music engages children and the very old, and everyone in between.

We spent a few minutes at the end of our time noting how the Word interacts with the sacraments; the “visible Word,” according to Augustine, that confirms the promises of Scripture.

After completing Night Prayers, we departed with plans for one more meeting in December at New Life Presbyterian.

Tags: bgglenside, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational