Worship Weblog

Brookline Book Group – Second Meeting

Posted by cicw

Wednesday, December 23rd, 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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What are some of the challenges of fostering an intergenerational culture, and how might past generations help us negotiate the way forward?

We all appreciated the distinction Rendle makes between maturity or morality (the right way) vs. differences in approach to worship, and the hazards of confusing these, something that happens often across generations. He talked about the importance of conversation that gets at the heart of differences and leads to genuine understanding, when more often we’re tempted to simply suck it up, compromise and try to “cater” to everyone’s “preferences.” This ironically turns out to be deadening to everyone. We need conversation across generations if there is to be vital intergenerational worship and real community. Rendle even goes so far as to say congregations need intergenerational conversation as much as they need intergenerational worship.

It’s difficult to stimulate these kinds of conversations for a host of reasons, not least the fact that church leadership structures are often not representative of key cohorts in the life of the congregation, especially more recent arrivals and younger members. Kevin noted that while his church faces this classic challenge on Session, the music/praise team, on the other hand, is made up entirely of relatively recent arrivals, a curious reversal of the reality on Session!

Kelsey noted how the “bell curves” of membership and leadership (in terms of how long folks have been around: 1-10yrs, 10-20, 20+, etc.) and the extent to which these correspond to one another, affects the congregation in so many ways besides worship, e.g., whether people understand themselves to be participant vs. recipient. “In the past clergy were hired to do ministry and we received it, but it’s unsustainable for us to have a model of ministry where paid staff do everything, to say nothing of theologically problematic. The younger-tenured cohorts (folks who have been around 1-10 yrs) have more of an interest in being participants, and we need that.”

The question, as Carol noted, is whether there will be genuine hospitality in the welcoming of new(er) groups into our congregations or just politeness, i.e., are we fixing up the home just the way we like it, inviting friends in to share it with us—but only so long as they play by our rules—or are we allowing “outsiders” to become “insiders” who can enjoy genuine ownership and belonging in the home (to borrow Rendle’s metaphors)?

Hospitality calls for a “steady purpose and flexible strategy” as new realities and participants emerge. And it will call for trust which, as Tina noted, can only be built through relationships: eating meals together, serving alongside one another, taking the initiative to genuinely understand vs. merely accommodate. Are folks willing to make time? Are they willing to take the risks involved? And what is the purpose of worship?

Several of us noted that we could learn a lot about worship purpose and strategy by looking at practices of forebears in the faith, e.g., the ancient and medieval church emphasis on visual, spatial/physical, sacramental, embodied and enacted approaches to worship vs. the almost singular reliance on words in most present-day Protestant churches. Many Protestant churches have come to understand worship as Christian education, and primarily adult education. With this tacit understanding, it doesn’t make much sense for children to be present, for example, and other, more “developmentally appropriate” alternatives are sought. But what if worship is a community event and corporate activity for the Body of Christ vs. a developmental or educational matter (boiled down to what we learn or understand or can verbally recount)? We’ll pick it up here next time…

Tags: bgbrookline, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational