Worship Weblog

Glenside Book Group – Last Meeting

Posted by cicw

Thursday, December 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.
Learn more

List ways that your church already connects generations in worship:

At St. Luke’s Catholic, times of baptism and first communion not only involve children, but their families in the ceremonies. Family members read the lessons, make vows, accompany children to the altar rail; children from the congregation gather around the font during baptisms. Sometimes the priest invites them to feel the water as they come near to see; there is a large pool around the base of the font. The water circulates from font to pool and, reminding all of their baptisms as
they enter the church.

For the Easter Vigil, everyone of all ages brings all kinds of bells to ring when the liturgy emerges from darkness into blazing light at the cry “Christ is risen” and the singing of the Gloria. What child of any age would want to miss the chance to make a joyful noise unto the Lord? Recently, this has become the moment when people are invited to carry plants and flowers forward to decorate the altar; another all-ages activity.

At St. Peter’s Episcopal, a large (7 foot) cross is carried in the Palm Sunday processional and placed at the front between the nave and chancel. During the service, worshipers of all ages come forward for a few moments to take turns holding the cross in its socket.

Bob, from St. Peter’s, trains and directs the ministry of the acolytes—an every-Sunday role for children. Starting in third grade and often following older siblings, children begin serving with more experienced acolytes. Recently, he invited “anyone who has ever been in third grade” to sign up and garnered two grandmothers!

Also at St. Peter’s, when the bread and wine are brought forward, along with the offering, two children carry forward the large basket of non-perishable food that has been collected for a local food pantry. This echoes the ancient church practice of sharing food from the liturgy with the poor and forms the children for life-long generosity.

At New Life Presbyterian, the rotating worship bands are sometimes generation-specific and sometimes mixed. Beginning when they are musically ready, children are mentored by the more experienced players and worked into a band. For a Christmas service, Rosemarie’s hoping to pair a grandfather and grandson in playing their instruments.

Rosemarie, who has a lot of freedom in how she leads a worship band and the assembly’s worship, said she would like a little more structure. Jean and Dianne from St. Luke’s commented that they would like a little more freedom. They have been sharing music ideas during our meetings and Jean and Dianne brought Rosemarie a bag of Breaking Bread, the annual missalhymnals that St. Luke’s has been using and are discarding; they were enthusiastically received for the new music ideas they contain.

We wrapped up our four meetings by sharing some things we had learned (the resources for intergenerational worship are here; we are doing more than we thought; we need to be more intentional about using the resources) and practices we would like to implement in our congregations. We also plan to get together again in February to compare notes and get Larry’s report on the January Symposium seminar with Howard Vanderwell. We want to see what CICW is going to do with all this reading and talking!

Tags: bgglenside, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational