Worship Weblog

Berkeley Book Group – Second Meeting

Posted by cicw

Monday, January 18th, 2010

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

At the end of our first meeting, in September, I asked the group to be thinking about hymn texts that reflect our worship life as an intergenerational experience. And so, we began our second meeting by looking at and singing hymns. First, we noted that there are a few hymns or sacred songs (too few, these days) that almost everyone knows, and therefore all generations can sing together. The most obvious song that came to mind was “Jesus Loves Me.”

There are several more recent hymn texts, though, that speak eloquently to the journey through life. Here are a few our group sang together:

“God of Generations” (verse 1) by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette © 1998
God of generations, we are all your children;
To your church we bring our gifts, our worship and our song.
Young and old we follow, hand in hand together:
In your great love, together we are strong.

“God of Our Years” (verse 1) by Jane Parker Huber © 1993
God of our years, from our birth to our life’s culmination,
Hear now our praise and our anthems of glad celebration.
Through all our years, through all our joys and our tears,
You come in Christ’s revelation.

“God Made from One Blood” (verse 1) by Thomas H. Troeger, 1989
God made from one blood all the families of earth,
The circles of nurture that raised us from birth,
Companions who join us to walk through each stage
Of childhood and youth and adulthood and age.

A phrase from another verse of the first hymn mentioned above caught our eyes and led to further discussion. From the Carolyn Winfrey Gillette hymn:

In our church’s children, may we see you working;
More than “our future”! They are faithful now.

The church so often speaks of children as “our future.” Yet, commented some of our group members, children are too often not honored as they should be, even within our church families. Without consciously meaning to, children are sometimes marginalized. They are the present, not just the future. If we are not intentional about the gifts they bring to our worship as children, there is a good chance they will not even with us five or ten years from now.

Another question: does segregating our children from full participation in worship serve them well? This concern refers to Chapter 5 in The Church of All Ages, where Darwin Glassford notes that through most of the church’s history, “all ages were in the same pew” (even if worship was, admittedly, focused mainly on the adults). A shift occurred in 1960s and 70s that began the practice of “children’s church.” Although this certainly gave a new focus to educating children in the ways of worship, were the eventual losses actually greater than the gains? We agreed that the answer to this question varies from church to church, but several in our group felt that the family should worship together, throughout the service.

Another area of concern in our group is that the wider community beyond the church has lost sight of the importance of families worshiping as part of their weekly life. For quite a few years now, the once-sacred Sunday morning has become a time for sports activities, causing families who might be involved in the church to make hard choices. We are losing generations, and have been for some time (sports on Sunday is not the only reason, of course!) In some of the churches represented in the book group, there has been a significant drop in families with children becoming part of the congregation, over the last decade or two. Marie Onwubuariri, one of the pastors in our group, often speaks with parents who are torn between providing opportunities for their children in team sports and bringing them to church.

Switching gears, we talked discussed how music often drives worship in churches; or, at least, how music in worship can be a draw that brings people in the door. Wendell Ferguson feels that while music is a draw, it is solid preaching and teaching that will keep people coming back. But first you have to get them there. Music often is the attraction for young adults coming to the church. As one of our group related, she is the only one in her family that comes to church. She’s seeking not entertainment but the chance to be in fellowship with people who lived longer, and might be in a position to offer support, advice, wisdom, etc. to her; a place where people will say, “We’re here for you.” Plenty of young adults are looking for this connection, so it’s not all about loud upbeat music, for them.

This relates to Chapter 6 in our book, “The Power of Telling a Story.” Children, teens, and young adults need the opportunity to tell their stories. This won’t happen if the minute they walk through the church doors they are judged by what they are wearing, or deemed too young to have anything worthwhile to say or offer in worship.

As you can tell, our second book group conversation was wide-ranging, thoughtful, and passionate!

Tags: bgberkeley, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational