Vacation Thoughts on Worship

Emptiness in the Church can mean more than the obvious...

When clergy go on vacation and worship elsewhere it is likely they will form some opinions about what they experience. I'm certainly no exception to this. While I try not to abstract myself from the act of worship, it is difficult as a priest and pastor not to look at the apparent assumptions manifest in the public life and liturgy of various churches--their imagery and emphasis as well as their character and "tonality." This allows me to look beyond the admittedly small boundaries of the parish in which I serve, but also to reflect on my own assumptions and practices.

One of the things I often experience while worshipping in a new setting is the question regarding whom we are addressing when we pray. Quite often it seems the prayers, hymns, and actions of worship are really being directed toward each other rather than God. Sometimes it is the slipshod way prayers are read, or the posture used (almost invariably directed toward the people in Western Christian churches, aside from a few High Church hold-outs), or blasé attitude taken by the congregation. Taken together there is the strong sense that when we gather the focus is on us, not the transcendent God. The teaching about liturgy being the work of worship of God by the people has sunk to a focus largely on the people.

Decades of emphasis on immanence, accessibility, and so-called relevance (a non-negotiable concept, yet one never really explained in theological or scriptural terms) has left many clergy and lay leaders bereft of understanding, talent, or skill in leading the people's praises. This, in turn, makes not for worship but entertainment--and all that means in an attention economy. 

In my own tradition this results in clergy who cannot use the materials of the liturgy with any degree of facility (thus drawing the attention to themselves) and lay leadership, utterly unfamiliar with the skills associated with their role through lack of training, spitballing their way through worship and inventing various folksy customs devoid of theological coherence or spiritual depth. It is often a few older people and some of the longtime church musicians alone who provide any respite from the relentlessness of this empty relevance, and I thank the Lord for them.

The upshot is that many churches today, long conformed to secular notions of success and relevance, "produce" worship which is not terribly transformative nor awfully substantial. This results in a case of "hiding one's light underneath a bushel basket" by veiling the liturgy in consumerist terms. With most churches simply not up to offering even very effective entertainment, the outcome is a bland clubbiness acceptable to some weary Boomers and Gen-X'ers vaguely remembering past church associations but utterly irrelevant (to turn the word around) for many younger people who are looking not only for a soothing or easy welcome leading nowhere in particular, but for an encounter with God, New Life in Christ, and a substantial banquet of teaching, practice, and community to provide meaning and substance absent in their secular life.

As long as I have been ordained (which is getting to be a good long while now) I have seen this mindset grip the American Christian scene. Many church traditions (including my own, sadly) seem still to be in the thrall of this misunderstanding. While there are some fine exceptions, it takes a great deal of energy, skill, and focus to resist the officially-sanctioned trend toward self-worship and immanence-overload. 

Some church traditions are far more resistant to this mutilation of worship, of course, but most are not. And, as long as there are a large number of people committed to the project of relevance-at-all-costs, there can be little opportunity for real consideration and change. For such people, no amount of decline in their church tradition (or growth and effectiveness in other traditions) will ever shake their commitment to this outdated and banal strategy. The grave alone will wrest what is left of their church communities from their doctrinaire, implacable hands.

I don't expect this post to change anything, nor do I consider it a thunderbolt of insight, but I place it here to mark a spot on the Internet where the standards of the day are not winked at, ignored, or shrugged off. Our calling is, in the words of 1 Peter 2:9, to be "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people," in order that we may proclaim the excellence of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. The worship we offer and the communities we foster should reflect this rather than turn our back on it.