Greetings Blososphere:
The Office of Congregational Development is pleased to announce a new intern in our mix. Her name is Licia, and she will be working with Dr. Charles Arn and me on the development of our pilot program--Multiple Choice Church: Reaching the Unchurched with a New Style Service.
Now it's your chance. Licia's statement of introduction is pasted below. She's a bright, energetic seminarian anxious to know all there is about the small Episcopal Church. Share your wisdom...what would you like a "rising senior" seminarian to know about the small church? What would you hope that she gain from her experience here in our office? From her work? From our pilot?
Licia (and I) look forward to your response...
Hi there!
My name is Licia and I am a student at General Theological Seminary in New York City. I am a “rising senior” which means that in September I will begin my last year of school. I was born and raised in Italy and I moved to the US in 2000 due to my husband’s job. He is Italian too and works in the field of cancer research and we have a beautiful, incredibly smart, sweet, and funny (but I may be biased…) almost-five-year-old daughter.
I became an Episcopalian at St Bart’s (the church, not the island)in 2003 and one year later my family moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where I went through the discernment process and was accepted as a postulant for ordination.
I always joke that the people of my sponsoring parish are so nice that I fooled them into sponsoring me, but to tell the truth they are a wonderfully supportive community who embraced my whole family and lifted me up in my spiritual journey with great love and constant prayers.
Last summer, thanks to a dear mutual friend, I met Suzanne and became interested in the process of helping churches reach out to people in Christ in new ways. I am very excited at the prospect of working on a pilot project aimed to support congregations interested in introducing new types of services in their schedule in order to share Christ’s message with a variety of different people.
Since my whole experience with the Episcopal Church has been mainly through medium and large sized congregations I am particularly intrigued by the dynamics of “smaller” churches and believe that my experience in this internship will help me become a more effective leader in times of growth and transition.
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4 comments:
As a layman (Trinity Lime Rock, CT) I'm guessing that "New Style Service" is a synonym for "U-2charist" or at least a more pop-styled service. There is nothing wrong with that!
However, I'm wondering, since we Episcopalians seem to own the franchise on traditional liturgy, if there isn't an equally compelling alternative -- namely, a Rite II (or Rite I) Holy Eucharist, perfectly performed, in a welcoming place.
I have been in several small Episcopal churches (other than my own), were I would characterize the service as slap-dash; where the music is weak or nonexistant; with an over-long and poorly delivered sermons; with unrehearsed lay readers; with no accomodation for children -- much less for anyone unfamiliar with juggling a BCP, Hymnal and bulletin all at once; and usually with a traditionally frosty Episcopalian welcome (if there's a welcome at all).
If this characterizes small Episcopal parishes, I wonder if a new liturgy will help? From my limited observation of them, in order to do them passably well, they require, if anything, MORE preparation than one of the BCP services.
Of course, I may have completely misconstrued what "New Style Service" means -- if so, please disregard!
At any rate, welcome to the new Intern! Having come from a big NYC church myself, I think you will see a world of opportunity in the small church.
In his post Geoff identifies a number of problems that he has encountered when he has visited other small Episcopal churches. He writes:
“I have been in several small Episcopal churches (other than my own), were I would characterize the service as slap-dash; where the music is weak or nonexistent; with an over-long and poorly delivered sermons; with unrehearsed lay readers; with no accommodation for children -- much less for anyone unfamiliar with juggling a BCP, Hymnal and bulletin all at once; and usually with a traditionally frosty Episcopalian welcome (if there's a welcome at all).”
Geoff goes on to conclude:
“If this characterizes small Episcopal parishes, I wonder if a new liturgy will help? From my limited observation of them, in order to do them passably well, they require, if anything, MORE preparation than one of the BCP services.”
While I have had similar experiences as Geoff’s when I have visited other Episcopal churches, these experiences have not been confined to small churches. The problems that Geoff describes may more frequently beset small churches but they also assail larger churches too. What I have observed that when services are “slap-dash,” it is often because the priest presiding at the service is in a hurry. I have been left with the distinct impression that the priest wants to get through the service as quickly as possible because he or she has a pressing engagement elsewhere, or views the readings and homily as preliminaries to the Holy Communion, or simply finds the service boring. The priest may rush through the service out of long habit, a habit that the congregation shares. If the priest slows the pace, the congregants will begin to glance nervously at their watches. They have allocated one hour on Sunday morning to God and one hour only. They have other things to do – beat the Baptists and the United Methodists to the Piccadilly, mow the lawn, take a nap.
Music is a perennial problem of the small church – Episcopal or otherwise. Most small churches have limited musical resources and as Bishop Michael Marshall points out in Renewal in Worship unrealistic ideas and expectations about music in worship. Instead of tailoring their worship and music to their resources, they are apt to imitate the worship and music of larger churches with more resources. They often adopt styles of music that do not take into consideration prevailing musical tastes in the community and create musical barriers between themselves and the community.
As far as sermons my experience has been that rather than being overly long, they have not been long enough. They have tended to focus upon one or two ideas that may have came to the priest’s mind while reading the lessons for the day (or homily notes provided by a homily service) and have no real connection with what the Scripture passages actually say or mean and how the Biblical truths or principles found in them apply to the lives of the congregants as followers of Jesus Christ. Indeed the passages simply serve as a launching platform for the priest’s own ideas.
Unrehearsed lay readers and lectors is a problem that is not particular to small Episcopal churches. The age of the reader, the acoustics of the building, and the availability (or lack) of a sound system can influence the quality of the reading. Individual who come from a church with a sounds system should be vetted to see if they are able to project their voice before they are asked to read in a church without a sound system. The attitude of the reader toward the Scriptures can also influence how well he or she reads a passage.
I am not sure what Geoff means by “no accommodation for children”. Churches, large and small, that are seeking to be “visitor-friendly” are printing the entire service in the worship bulletin including the lyrics of hymns, songs, and service music.
“Frosty welcomes” are not confined to Episcopal churches. I once visited an Evangelical Lutheran church where the only person who welcomed me was the pastor. The congregants ignored me. They were too busy chatting to their friends.
I have been involved in both liturgical and non-liturgical churches. Any service – liturgical or otherwise, requires preparation. In my experience the amount of preparation required for a non-liturgical service does not differ significantly from that of liturgical service. Unfortunately many people think that Prayer Book services do not require a lot of preparation. All that is required, they assume, is the selection of a few hymns and the preparation of the sermon or homily. Consequently, these services do not receive the degree of preparation that they need to be done well. This lack of adequate preparation accounts for many of the problems that Geoff has identified.
New types of services may not a panacea for the worship problems of Episcopal churches. However, they can help congregations and congregational leaders to become more intentional about worship.
Robin said "New types of services may not a panacea for the worship problems of Episcopal churches. However, they can help congregations and congregational leaders to become more intentional about worship."
That's a GREAT point! I agree totally.
If we are really able to focus on why we are there on a Sunday morning (or whenever else), it is possible to make what too often is a reading of several pages in the BCP into a real service of worship.
I did want to explain my comment about accomodating children. Perhaps it was my upbringing as a small-town Methodist, but it seems to me that one thing we are commanded to do is to welcome the "little children" (one can read the scriptural tea leaves to support many other "do's" and "don'ts" but this one seems pretty clear.)
A quarter century ago, I took my daughter to a nearby Episcopal parish for worship and left her in the Sunday School while I went upstairs to the HE. On the drive back home, I asked her "Well, how was Sunday School?".
Her response: "Daddy, they pretended that I wasn't there."
Sometimes a four year old sees things more clearly than a hundred adults. Her response sent chills down my spine then, and to the extent that this could occur today at any parish with which any of us is affiliated, it should send chills down our spines now.
Hang the deficient music, the poorly prepared sermon, the rushed liturgy. When we fail the children, we FAIL.
I look forward to seeing the fruits of your ministry. Regarding the concern raised about children. In several small congregations, I have placed a rocking chair in the worshipspace for young mothers and elders with back problems. It is often the small things that send the most powerful messages. Kelsey Hogue
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