today i am heading to church house to be one of the presenters at an annual gathering organised by the liturgical commission of the church of england for those involved in creating and leading worship in dioceses round the country. i am looking forward to it and doing a double act with nicholas henshall around the theme of worship for an outward facing church. we have decided to pitch the day as much as possible as a conversation around questions and themes that we have been reflecting on. these are the questions people will be discussing – let me know your thoughts if you want to join in. i don't know if there's a hashtag for the day but perhaps if you want to send a thought i'll check twitter on #worshipforanoutwardfacingchurch
- What is the relationship between worship and mission?
- How do you negotiate the gifts of tradition in a particular cultural and/or local and/or missional context?
- If we loosen up the rubrics around worship what happens to Anglican identity?
- How do we encourage creativity and experimentation in liturgy?
- Might participation in the creative production of worship be a way to encourage discipleship? If so, how do we move away from a culture of provider/client expert/ignorant in worship?
- What would happen if the assumed culture of the church around leading liturgy was based on trust of leaders rather than fear/control (of the liturgical thought police) ? Put another way what are we afraid of?
- In practice what might a centred set rather than a bounded set approach look like?
- If canon law is changed through practice and experimentation how can we encourage a shift of emphasis towards permission giving?
- Which presents the greater challenge in terms of worship and mission – the rubrics of the church or the culture of the church?
- What training of worship leaders, liturgists, presidents… etc might be required to enable worship that is in and out of the tradition but able to improvise creatively?
- How might the notion of mixed economy be applied to worship and mission?
- Has cut and paste technology changed everything anyway?
Hello.
While not an Anglican I wonder if I might make a few observations.
Firstly, moving on from your second point, how does a local context help or hinder engagement of worship when there is a national identity. Following on from this, how might a local community create worship that has a ‘local accent’ by positively engaging in the language of local mission.
Secondly, why you helpfully suggest centred and bounded set, why not go a step further and speak of fuzzy set? This enables creativity and engagement with the Holy Spirit that moves beyond a particular tradition. I think this partly engages with point four.
Thirdly, moving on from the final point about cut and paste, has youtube and the globalisation of worship songs change everything? Is this a help or hindrance to mission, especially if everyone ends up singing all the same songs in the same style? Does it in fact make sung worship the centre of meeting now?
These are my random and initial thoughts.
Blessings for the day,
Dan Yarnell
lecturer at Springdale College
National Coordinator for the Fellowship of Churches of Christ in Great Britain and Ireland
PS Will you be at the Missio Africanus day tomorrow? I and my college Andy Hardy are presenting a worskshop and It would be good to connect.
Oh my gosh yes. These are the questions I’ve been pondering as well.
Is there any sort of recording of the conversation that took place? I would find this very helpful.