Coming into Focus
10/05/12 05:23
38 years ago, when I was a college student, I was asked to serve for a few months as a supply pastor in a nearby town. I knew that I was heading to theological seminary and it seemed like an opportunity to test my skills as a preacher and to learn about leading worship. In a sense, I have been doing so ever since. I had internships during my seminary years and since graduation from seminary, I have been responsible for weekly worship. I’ve been leading worship for so many years that it has grown beyond a job I do into a way of life. My life revolves around the days of the week. Weekly bible study with colleagues, weekly staff meetings to coordinate worship plans and rising early on Sunday mornings are all so ingrained into my life that I can’t quite imagine life without those elements.
As a result, I live inside of the cycle of the lectionary. I know many of the readings like old friends. I can remember other sermons I have preached in other places. My life does more that just go through the motions of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. I feel the movement of the year through the seasons of the church. I anticipate coming seasons and think of how worship might be planned for weeks and sometimes entire seasons in advance.
Sometimes I forget that it is not this way for other people. Sometimes I forget that it wasn’t always this way for me. I didn’t always know how the lectionary works. When I was a high school student, I didn’t have much sense of the significance of Pentecost or Reign of Christ or Reformation Sunday. I attended church, but in some ways one worship service seemed as good as another. I had opinions about which music I liked and which I did not, but I didn’t have a sense of how music and scripture could be coordinated to deepen the experience of worship. These were things that I had to learn. I wasn’t expert when I graduated from seminary. Actually I still don’t feel like I am expert, but I have a sense of how thing work in a deeper way than just what I like and dislike.
Worship is very important to me. I work hard at worship. I cringe when I catch myself criticizing worship led by another. I am critical of what appears to me to be a lack of preparation. I am critical of misspoken words and awkward transitions.
God, I am convinced, is much less critical of our human mistakes. God would prefer for me to simply participate in worship rather than analyze it. And I would prefer that as well.
All of this said, I was a bit frustrated last night as I worked with a team of youth and adults in preparation for worship this coming Sunday. I am used to the elements of worship being in place on Tuesday. They wanted to add new songs and changing the timing of the service last night. I am used to having carefully thought about how different elements of worship fit together. They wanted to have all of their favorite things in this service without much concern about order or coordination.
I began to feel like I do when I visit the eye doctor and am asked to strain to make out what appear to me to be fuzzy letters on a distant wall. Some of the letters are clear and easy. Some cannot be brought into focus with my best effort. Last night’s rehearsal felt foggy and out of focus.
I kept trying to remind participants of the gospel reading for the week, to call them back into focus. They kept investing their creative energies in suggesting new ideas and new ways to do things. When a song was difficult to learn, I wanted to put it off for a later date. They wanted to work out their own arrangement and go ahead with the song. We seemed to be pulling in different directions.
This morning I know that last night clearly illustrates one of my growing edges. I can be too concerned with control in worship. I have strong ideas and I want things to work according to my plan. Worship in a large and diverse congregation is not subject to hierarchical control. It demands that multiple people participate and offer their ideas. It demands surrendering control more than seizing it.
The old lesson comes clear again. This isn’t about me. I am not the center of the universe. I am not even the center of the experience of worship. In corporate worship we stand together before God.
My irritation, though short-lived, was misplaced. I should have been deeply grateful for the investment of youth in worship leadership. I should have been deeply grateful for the signs of religious imagination that brought new ideas and new possibilities to our time together. I should have been deeply grateful for the energy of new leaders emerging. I should have been shouting, “Yes!” instead of saying, “I don’t know.”
As long as I have been leading worship, I still have a great deal to learn about how worship works. One of our planning documents sets the goal of providing “worship that is as diverse as the people we serve.” The strategies outlined under that goal have primarily to do with identifiable genres of music. Jazz, gospel, contemporary and traditional are listed. Some of those have more specific meanings in our congregation than they might appear. When we say “traditional,” we are referring in part to the use of one of our older hymnals. The hymns in that hymnal, while familiar and wonderful, are a limited selection. There are virtually no gospel hymns in that hymnal. Other churches might think that “Amazing Grace,” and “How Great Thou Art” are traditional hymns. In our church we have to use our “new” hymnal to sing those hymns. They aren’t in the “old” hymnal. On the other hand, when we say “contemporary,” we are never quite sure what we mean. For some in our congregation that means using guitars instead of the organ. For others it means folk music. For others it means rock music.
Still it is a wonderful goal and we are pursuing it, even if we are sometimes unfocused. And worship isn’t about my comfort level. It is about the people and the God we serve.
I really am looking forward to Sunday worship. And I am grateful that I have a couple more nights to sleep on it before Sunday comes.
As a result, I live inside of the cycle of the lectionary. I know many of the readings like old friends. I can remember other sermons I have preached in other places. My life does more that just go through the motions of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. I feel the movement of the year through the seasons of the church. I anticipate coming seasons and think of how worship might be planned for weeks and sometimes entire seasons in advance.
Sometimes I forget that it is not this way for other people. Sometimes I forget that it wasn’t always this way for me. I didn’t always know how the lectionary works. When I was a high school student, I didn’t have much sense of the significance of Pentecost or Reign of Christ or Reformation Sunday. I attended church, but in some ways one worship service seemed as good as another. I had opinions about which music I liked and which I did not, but I didn’t have a sense of how music and scripture could be coordinated to deepen the experience of worship. These were things that I had to learn. I wasn’t expert when I graduated from seminary. Actually I still don’t feel like I am expert, but I have a sense of how thing work in a deeper way than just what I like and dislike.
God, I am convinced, is much less critical of our human mistakes. God would prefer for me to simply participate in worship rather than analyze it. And I would prefer that as well.
All of this said, I was a bit frustrated last night as I worked with a team of youth and adults in preparation for worship this coming Sunday. I am used to the elements of worship being in place on Tuesday. They wanted to add new songs and changing the timing of the service last night. I am used to having carefully thought about how different elements of worship fit together. They wanted to have all of their favorite things in this service without much concern about order or coordination.
I kept trying to remind participants of the gospel reading for the week, to call them back into focus. They kept investing their creative energies in suggesting new ideas and new ways to do things. When a song was difficult to learn, I wanted to put it off for a later date. They wanted to work out their own arrangement and go ahead with the song. We seemed to be pulling in different directions.
This morning I know that last night clearly illustrates one of my growing edges. I can be too concerned with control in worship. I have strong ideas and I want things to work according to my plan. Worship in a large and diverse congregation is not subject to hierarchical control. It demands that multiple people participate and offer their ideas. It demands surrendering control more than seizing it.
The old lesson comes clear again. This isn’t about me. I am not the center of the universe. I am not even the center of the experience of worship. In corporate worship we stand together before God.
My irritation, though short-lived, was misplaced. I should have been deeply grateful for the investment of youth in worship leadership. I should have been deeply grateful for the signs of religious imagination that brought new ideas and new possibilities to our time together. I should have been deeply grateful for the energy of new leaders emerging. I should have been shouting, “Yes!” instead of saying, “I don’t know.”
I really am looking forward to Sunday worship. And I am grateful that I have a couple more nights to sleep on it before Sunday comes.