Worship Weblog

Brookline Book Group – First Meeting

Posted by cicw

Friday, December 4th, 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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Intergenerational worship has been familiar and formative in our varied experiences, and yet is still surprisingly subversive of contemporary ways of being the church…

When Kelsey introduced herself as one involved in campus ministry with the Episcopal diocese, she shared how she was recently struck by something a college student shared: “I like going to church because I like being around people who aren’t my age.” When Carol subsequently described herself as the token “old fogey” in our group (a fitting prelude to a lot of humor and wisdom!) we all knew first hand the sentiment of the college student: that it is indeed life-giving to be together across the generations!

That was in fact the first definition of intergenerational worship shared by Meg: intergenerational worship is having everyone together at the same time, in the same place, to worship, with all the attendant blessings and challenges. She later shared about a book her mother is reading, which says the only way to have a successfully diverse congregation is to have everyone be a little bit uncomfortable with parts of the service, and that seems to apply to having a generationally diverse worshipping community as well. It calls for viewing the whole Body—and all its different members—in new ways that don’t always come easy or natural to us.

Sarah said as much when she noted the part in the book where intergenerational worship is defined as “…worship in which people of every age are understood to be equally important.” (p. 11)

Jean continued, sharing how in her church growing up, a different child would serve as an acolyte every week to light the candles. When it was her week she felt special. Kevin shared about being an altar boy in the Roman Catholic church, and Alison likewise shared about her experience in the Catholic church, where all children were present all the time. Carol reflected on growing up at First Pres. in Brookline and the sense of privilege and excitement at “graduating” to involvement in the whole service, and eventually even being able to sing in the choir.

Zerlina and others commented that sermons were often the hardest part of the service as young people, and for many it was the invitation to participate and lead with the rest of the congregation in the music and other liturgical elements that took hold of hearts, minds, and imaginations.

Kelsey reflected on a formative experience at her Presbyterian church in Louisville as a young single adult, where she was invited to join a mixed group of young and old, male and female members, to light the Advent wreath. This underscored her belonging in this diverse family of faith.

Jean shared that she recently went home and her mom assumed that she would want to go to the “contemporary” worship service because of the younger demographic. She actually doesn’t care for “contemporary” worship but she went anyway and definitely noticed the age segregation for the two different kinds of services.

Others lamented some of the age segregation that they’ve seen and experienced in the church, and noted the emerging regrets of mega-churches that have unwittingly “catered” to and cultivated consumer sensibilities as much as Christian ones via age-segregated services. We were reminded that intergenerational worship is as often avoided as it is embraced.

But as Alison would point out “The church is the body of Christ and if everyone in the church is part of the body, then everyone in the church should be incorporated…which doesn’t mean everyone has to do the same thing, though…” And as Zerlina added, this doesn’t necessarily mean everyone has to be present for the whole service, either.

But as mentioned above, it does mean that everyone shares in some of the “holy discomforts” of being together, even while recognizing the blessings. Tina likened teaching children to be in worship to training them to be at the dinner table—some disruptions and discomfort for the whole family are normal and just part of what it means to be family.

Kelsey asked some poignant questions toward the end: if any part of the community is left out, what does that say about God? Does it mean God doesn’t care about children? About the elderly? Who God calls us to be together as a community is another important reason to be present (p. 22).

Tags: bgbrookline, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational