On Sunday night I am leading a Taize service at 8.00pm in the Crypt at the Cathedral.
I love Taize, the opportunity for quiet, for reflection, for simple repetition of simple words, allowing God to impact me in a fresh way.
If you fancy coming we start at 8.00pm and it would be great to see you – if you can play a keyboard I’d LOVE to see you as I don’t have a musician to play at the moment …
Two things that I have been thinking on for a while connected for me last week in my ‘enforced’ time out and I wonder how others see this?
I have for a long time been concerned by the type of worship songs that we have been singing in our churches for the last decade or so and if you have been visiting SHP for a while this will be no secret to you. I have been particularly concerned with the ‘girlfriend’ songs as I have rather badly described them, where we not only seem to be singing words written by young men that could have written to their girlfriends, but also where the lyrics are all about ‘what we are going to do’ rather than being about God. The lyrics themselves often feel quite intimate and are all about our emotions towards God rather than any of the many attributes of God. This, in my opinion, causes us to think we are worshiping God when we are merely thinking about ourselves.
Another concern of mine has been the lack of community in many of our local churches today. This lack of community expresses itself from my observations in people referring to each other as ‘Mr and Mrs Whoever’ at worst and just a veneer of friendship at best where nothing is really known about each other. Here, first names are known and possibly an occupation, but that is as far as it goes over a 10 minute conversation over coffee. There is no real knowledge of what makes people tick, or what peoples interests or concerns are – I would suggest that if these bits of information are lacking then community is lacking also.
I am convinced, however, people want community and people crave intimacy with each other. People want to be in meaningful friendly relationships with other human beings. There is an inbuilt need for us to be together which is one of the many reasons that people, over centuries, have moved together in urban spaces to live ‘in community’.
My observations and memories of these thoughts last week resulted in me seeing what I wonder is a possible link and in turn has produced this question:
‘is our desire for intimacy which can correctly and rightly be found in community with God being falsely met in our new genre of worship songs?’
As we sing songs that make us feel good with lyrics of intimacy and goodness, are we being fooled by ourselves and that singing experience into thinking we have intimacy in our relationship with others in our churches? Does the feeling produced cloud our thoughts of reality, majorly distorting our perception of reality?
The other side of this, as well, produces another important question. Does our lack of community intimacy result in us producing songs that distract us from the truth of God, choosing instead to draw us into focusing on how God makes us feel rather than who God is?
I had not noticed this link before but am starting to wonder if there is something of value in this observations? Anybody have any comments?
I regularly come into contact with people who seem to have a problem with ‘liturgy’. I think the complaint is mainly that saying a set of words each day seems a naff way of connecting with God. I have always found this view interesting as most of these people come from churches that sing the same or similar songs each week – so maybe the problem is with words without music … but I don’t know.
One of the complaints that I can go with, though, is that a lot of the language used in Common Worship does not resonate with many of us. It is very wordy and the vocabulary does not always aid worship or assist our imaginations as we worship God.
I have been following this Hold This Space for a while now which Jonny has mentioned a few times – the ‘liturgy’ used here is both relevant, challenging and often quite beautiful. Today’s post from Cheryl called ‘welcome to the world’ is another great example of how liturgy can be real for people.
One of the things I can to do as pioneer curate attached to the cathedral is be involved in the services that the cathedral does. Over the last 2 Sunday’s I have been deacon at the Eucharist, the thought of which scared me a little, but a role which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The deacons role, I think, is to serve. Apart from some things in the service, such as read the gospel (this morning with incense which was cool) and say a few things, the deacon lays the alter, pours the wine and lays out the bread ready for communion.
This morning I found this to be a very moving experience. Last week I was very nervous about making sure everything was put in the correct place. This week I was a little more relaxed and found the whole process to be a real privilege.
I was particularly moved when sharing the wine with people. I used the words ‘the blood of Christ … shed for you’. I do not know what is was about this morning’s service but there was a good pause between each people receiving wine from me (having 2 chalices at each station rather than one caused this) and the reality of the symbolism really hit me in that gap. ‘This symbolises Christ’s death’ I thought to myself. As I quietly stared into the chalice of wine while waiting for the next person I could see my reflection and felt God say ‘and this is my blood also shed for you’.
I was amazingly struck by those words, and the reality of the statement. I think when serving others it is easy to forget that this act was done for me as well. As well as serving this is a time to thank God personally as well.
Today the symbolism went a little further for me. On my drive home my reflection in the wine hit me again – not only was this blood shed for me, it was also shed for those that don’t yet know Christ. As I reflected in that wine, I am to take that reflection to the community – somehow, in some way that can be understood, I need to reflect the reality of life with Christ to people I brush against in day to day life.
The Eucharist … I’m not totally sure if we can fully understand it … but it’s more than an event in a building, more than symbolism at a particular time, … more of a reality that should be lived out attractively drawing others to Christ.
Yesterday as part of my induction, Colin, our excellent Head verger, took me on a roof tour of the cathedral. This was an amazing and privileged time as I got to see parts of the cathedral that few others manage to see.
The views from on top of the cathedral are amazing and as I took this photo which looks across the roof of the nave I was struck by the care, thought, effort and risk taken to build this part of the cathedral that few would see. The builders had focused in on an amazing fact of worship here that sometimes we miss; that worship is for God and nothing else.
The delicate stonework on the bell tower would not be seen by human eye and yet the stone masons still took great care and build and joined this at great personal risk to themselves.
I feel God saying again as an encouragement – that just because people don’t see it or are aware does not mean it has been wasted … God sees all and enjoys our worship efforts whether that be stone craft, poetry, song or some other thing we choose to do for God.
For those of you visiting here from The Cove the links to the activities you are looking for are at the end of this post.
Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of spending some time with The Cove, which is one of the clusters from St Mary Bredin in Canterbury. I was invited to lead some creative worship by one of the cluster leaders who just happens to be the Principal of SEITE.
We tried a few things that I had used before, such as the journey, and things I have wanted to try such as the Bittersweet Ritual from Jonny Baker’s Alternative Worship and Psalm Consequences which I picked up from somewhere but can’t remember where.
The Bittersweet Ritual was a response to reflecting on our life journey. As we considered that life is made up of bitter and sweet experiences I invited people to either dip bread sticks in honey and eat as a symbolic action of thanking God for the good things in life, or eat a slice of lemon to acknowledge before God that actually life is pretty tough at the moment. This was quite a powerful experience as people did this with the Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony playing as a background track.
The most powerful part of the morning was when we ‘played’ Psalm Consequences. I think it is pretty self explanatory what this is, if you know the consequences game, and at the clusters request I have posted the instructions here. In quite a jovial atmosphere people added their lines to the psalms. When we read them the creativity and sheer beauty of what we were hearing was amazing. It moved some of us to tears and amazement as we focused in on the evidence that God was creating with us. The Psalms were stunning and moving and my only regret is that I did not take photos of them before I left.
I enjoyed lunch with the group afterwards which was a good chance to get to chat with some people and learn more about them. This is a great group of creative people who it was a real pleasure to spend some time with – thank you for giving me the opportunity.
Links to stuff I used
The running order – you will see the stuff I never used
The PowerPoint
The Psalm Consequences instructions
The Journey
Useful sites I use
Jonny Baker worship tricks – an excellent resource for tried ideas
Proost – you should definitely subscribe to this
The Work of the People – great for video loops and stuff
Blessed – a sacramental alt worship group in Gosport
Hold this space – some amazing wonderful inspiring liturgy
In a weaker moment towards the end of my training I said yes to Jeremy, the Principal of SEITE, to a request to lead some creative worship with a cluster that he attends at St Mary Bredin in Canterbury.
I liked the idea of experimenting with the aim, alongside of worshipping God, of just sparking some of the creative energy in this group by helping them to experience different ways of worship other than singing. As a person who has a particular dislike of most of the worship songs we sing today I jumped at the chance! (there are a variety of reasons for my dislike of singing ranging from songs being too feminine in language to songs lyrics advocating a hope for stuff that I just think is not backed up in scripture such as ‘being taken home to heaven’ – but that’s all the subject of another post at another time).
Despite jumping at the chance of leading worship I have found this quite a difficult challenge and it is still not entirely sorted and so I have wondered why this has taken me so long – is it the fear of doing something with the ex-principal in the congregation, or my problem with wanting to be a perfectionist, or a foolish desire to be as trendy and creative as possible?
Actually, I have decided it is none of these. The reason for the hassles and confusions I am having at the moment is simply because I am working on this alone!
When I lead worship normally, the worship comes out of a group collaborative working together or journey. Ideas are shared and mulled around. Things are bounced around between different minds. Other peoples reactions cause thought processes to develop in different areas. Talking and sharing breeds creativity. When all that has nearly run its course different people then become responsible for different elements and as that happens God moves through different individuals and things are enhanced further.
Collaborative work may take longer, and it may be frustrating sometimes, but I have really missed it on this occasion. The process of leading worship to a God who exists in community, clearly needs community to consider how to worship. On Sunday morning something will be missing, it will feel incomplete as this has been put together with one mind trying to hear God but I really hope all of us, and I include me in that, take away something new of our relationship with God.
On Tuesday I traveled to see Epping Forest YFC and lead their prayer meeting and then meet up with friend Leesa for lunch.
I always like to try and be creative with local YFC teams and challenge them to think and pray in a different way to that of which they are normally used to.
Yesterday I set up a track which we call ‘the journey’ using masking tape on the floor, which is based on an idea from Mike Riddell. The basic idea is that the Christian life is a journey, we all travel through all of it, God is at the centre of all of it, and no one place is better than another.
I set up the track with the following areas:
sand and rocks to signify the desert – those parts of our journey where we feel disconnected from God, dry, lost, doubting, wanting what we can’t have
blue material to symbolise sea – to signify those times when we jump right into God and let him take us where he will, as we travel on the currents of God’s will
a lake – those places where we float and chill out with our creator
rivers – surprising places and incidents which suddenly appear and we briefly notice God breaking in
mountains – for those mountain top experiences where we live close to God; people always want to be here – but the air is thin, there is no vegetation and its not a place to be 24/7
valleys – these are dark places which quite often follow mountain top experiences. it’s tough to see where you are going when in a valley.
At the centre of all of this were three candles to represent God the Trinity at the very centre of our traveling.
Each person then took a few glass beads and shared where they thought they were at this point in time. All of us shared we were in more than one place. It was great to see that in just a group of 6 of us, we were spread all across the journey.
For me, I shared I was in an unusual place of a mix of mountain top as I’m quite excited and in many ways can see where I am going coupled with being in the sea, feeling out of my depth and needing to totally trust and rely on God.
After sharing where we were on the journey, it was a privilege to pray with each other.
The journey is a great way for praying and sharing together.
At the SEITE weekend we were able to use the labyrinth kindly loaned by CMS / Jonny. People’s feedback was that it was a great experience and a powerful way to connect with God.
For me, it was exciting to see so many people from different backgrounds walking the labyrinth and finding it to be a deep, and sometimes, profound experience and to experience the atmosphere of prayer in the room while others were walking; I find it difficult to express the experience in words.
You can ‘walk’ the same labyrinth online here.
The photos can be seen here.
Another SEITE training weekend looms. The subject is ‘work and rest’. I’ve been away most of this week (as I am most weeks in fairness) so the best way for me to rest would be to stay home!
I really love the people I am going away with. We are coming to the end of our training. We are being told where we are going to be deployed to as curates or whatever and it is an exciting time – but (and that is a big but) I am tired of having to be away at weekend, sharing rooms, attending compulsory sessions, being given more work and then having to return to another full week of my real job. I know when I am there that I will enjoy the company of my friends – but as I write I could really do without this weekend and just stay home. This weekend we are at Herne Bay Court, and will be one of the last groups before it closes.
A plus of the weekend is that I get to work with a group of friends as we set up The Labyrinth as a worship experience for all these trainee priests to walk through. I personally love the concept of labyrinths and am looking forward to seeing how others respond to a different experience where others have skillfully taken an ancient concept and reformed it in a post modern setting. You can get a feel for this at the online labyrinth which is a great use of an hour or so if you are looking for some space to reflect in the presence of God.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 