Writing about Universalist Christianity and improving how churches work
Not lots of details, but there will be Christian worship at noon (to 12:45) at the Occupy DC encampment, at McPherson Square (K St at 15th St. N.W.) tomorrow.
Hope to see you there. I’ll report back.
Other religious communities have their own worship services. I’ve heard the Unitarian Universalists are holding one on Thursday but I don’t have any details.
I’m just starting to work with a few people to hold Christian worship at the Occupy DC encampment, so I’m reviewing the newest resources for worship from the ecumenical church. While I’m picking up a free church bent in the working group, I’ve noticed how Anglican services are helpful resources, especially that set of modern liturgies — often called Service of the Word — which seem designed to be led by laypersons, as distinguished from historic services of morning or evening prayer. Methinks a sign of clergy shortages, and also useful in non-Anglican settings. (Think of the frame of services prepended to the 1937 Unitarian and Universalist hymnal Hymns of the Spirit.)
Well, lo and behold, the Scottish Episcopal Church — a relatively small (54,000) Anglican national church — has just this month authorized such a Service of the Word on an experimental basis for two years. Download the zipped file yourself. It contains the service and notes, both as PDF and DOC.
I like it. Room to re-introduce well-loved parts, and enough freedom to make it welcoming. The gender inclusive parts show maturity of thought. Many options are biblical, allowing for transposition to other translations. The notes give the service’s rationale and its direction should offer relative novices comfort and strength.
Starting as early as seminary, I’ve known free church ministers (including and particularly Unitarian Universalists) to put together their pastoral services book — services, readings and the like — for weddings, funerals and other occasional services. Baptism and communion would go here, too.
But what about the actual binding? Almost all I’ve seen are loose-leaf, thus calling for a binder. I can’t recall if I’ve used anything but 8½ by 5½ inch binders, and all but one of those (inherited, made of pebble-textured card) have been covered in vinyl. But I found one, Russell+Hazel mini binder: three-rings and covered in something like buckram, like clothbound books. Effective, but not the most attractive upon close examination. Not terribly expensive ($16), made in the U.S.A. and its plastic content seems to be restricted to a protective film.
This is the one I found today, at the Container Store.
An open thread, both to advise would-be visitors and to help undecided church leaders. Please note the church, town and whether or not you’ll be open for some or all services and programs.
Thanks.
This is late, and rather thin, but I thought some readers might like to know of that the Church of Norway has liturgical resources in English translation online.
There are few distinctive prayers that might be useful to mark the Oslo killings, but the funeral service (PDF) might be helpful in identifying a biblical passage to introduce remarks or a prayer.
So where do you find this one-year lectionary? Lemme tell you: that’s not a question often asked on the left-hand-side of the Christian family, where there’s either a value placed on the ecumenical convergence three-year lectionary or where it’s a moot or alien question. It’s prospering best in conservative Lutheran and breakaway Anglican circle, from what I can see. That doesn’t dissuade me. (Then again, you can say the same thing about Geneva bands if you add conservative Presbyterians.)
I first look to the 1866 Universalist A book of prayer for the church and the home (Google Books) which stands in the center of the now little-known Universalist prayerbook tradition. The pastor of the First Universalist Church, Providence, Rhode Island and friend, W. Scott Axford, identifies in its collects a subtle and pervasive tenderness that, in his assessment, distinguishes Universalist liturgics. (I hope I’m not misinterpreting him, as this came from a discussion some years ago; he’s quite thoughtful and precise on these matters.)
The collects — pronounced with an emphasis on the first syllable — are important because they synthesize and “collect up” the thoughts in the lessons.
But the fact that there’s so much overlap between the one-year lectionaries means that it’s useful to examine them for variations. Go back 45 years or so, and the in-use Anglican lectionaries would work, including the 1928 prayerbook that can be found on the web and for a song at many a used bookstore. I also consult the not-online Free Church Book of Common Prayer (1929) which is loosely connected to British Unitarian-inspired Free Catholicism, the subject of many other blog posts. One prayer book that uses the traditional forms with modern idiom is the 1965 (Anglican) Melanesian English Prayer Book and I consult it occasionally. Then, too, is the old Church of South India worship-book, of which I have written much. Of course, the current U.S. Episcopal church has a one-year cycle of collects, and that’s a big part of the one-year appeal.
I was giving some advice today to a colleague about an “occasional service” — it doesn’t matter which kind — and remembered one of my bugbears: having enough people in the service to make it go smoothly.
Ministers or lay worship planners — so I gather — often talk about distributing responsibilities to include more laypersons in worship, but it’s been my experience visiting churches that this gets translated into reading lections and taking up a collection. Or, it is manifested as more responsive readings or other speaking roles for the people in the pews. Some, of course do it well; this is intended for those who don’t yet. And this is one area where large churches, perhaps out of necessity, have the advantage.
So: how many of us have been in worship where too few people have fumbled liturgical actions that would have been made perfect with more people. Anything with a hand-held microphones or paper certificates (or flower or other tokens to share) come to mind: an assistant to hold (or pass around) one and distribute the other make a neater presentation. The alternative is the worship leader trying to hold too many thing, or awkward communications to move the the next liturgical step.
Where candles are used, ushers can make lighting candles safer and pass off a taper used to light the candles. In membership induction services, special honors can be given to poor speakers by giving them the role of formally welcoming the new member by shaking hands or sponsoring them, if these roles aren’t already filled.
Equipment for worship — I’m thinking here specifically for communion or baptism, but the idea is widely applicable — needs to be tended, set up, used and removed or replaced. There are opportunities for learning and trust that can give members of a congregation a low-risk, low-commitment way to serve, provide there’s the imagination and a plan to provide for it.
In the open-source software world, advocates make a distinction between “free as in beer” and “free as in freedom.” While free (of cost) beer is nice, the freedom to share, modify, extract and even profit from (depending on the license) is truly precious, and has allowed an ecosystem to develop around not only software but cultural and (a favorite) other projects. Even beer.
But Christians I’ve read, looking towards the same phenomenon have used another similie: “free as in grace.” This suggests an alternative to free in economic, practical, intellectual or utilitarian terms. If something is compellingly true, and has its origins apart from human initiative — let me put that out there tentatively — then that truth demands cooperation of those who hear it to liberate it for the sake of liberation. So, I think of evangelistic tracts which long before free culture movements have been distributed “free as the Lord provides.” (Free here being largely financial, but the fact the sponsor comes from the Free Churches isn’t lost on me.)
But see also of the Jewish liturgical Open Siddur movement. Or the DVD I picked up yesterday at a Chinese grocery — and is the proximate reason for this blog post — from a Buddhist mission. (Alas, the videos seem to be of a monk speaking one language I don’t understand, and subtitled with a different language I don’t understand.)
There’s not much English on the case. But I can read “For Free Distribution — No Copyright.” Â And that’s a good enough reason for me to take it back so someone else can profit by it.
I’ve written on this subject several times, please consider reading
It’s no secret that I don’t like secular holidays in church.
They raise the question, “How did this holiday become part of our story?” The implied answer is “Well, it’s not really, but we don’t have a clear way of saying yes or no to the dominant culture.”
And sometimes we must say no or else our religion becomes a subcontractor for anything that’s popular and respectable, whatever the source or meaning, and whatever the harm. And despite all the talk about radicalism, Unitarian Universalism — especially on its Unitarian site — is a deeply respectable and culture-driven religion.
The contortions to make something religious out of Mothers Day are astounding. On the one side, there’s the effort to make it a peace holiday as intended. Good luck with that. Or there’s the ever widening functional definition of motherhood, to include those who never had children or — I saw this at least once — are male. And then there’s the sometimes-seen rose distribution, which if people were being candid, I bet is as hated as it is loved.
Better to mention it — perhaps even have an event apart from worship — and move on. Or if there’s to be something liturgical for Mothers Day — and Fathers Day and Memorial Day, while we’re at it — let’s at least be honest and missional.
One could hold two brief services — before and after the main service —
And these should be well promoted, to provide the kind of rare outlet that some might find too painful to otherwise admit. There’s something to be said for worshiping with strangers, and in both cases I’m thinking of several people who’s real-life religious needs are not being fulfilled around these situations.
I think this is something good and valuable and — dare I say — healing that we can provide, whether or not there’s a special cake and flowers during coffee hour.
In my last pastorate, I remember getting a steady stream of older Episcopalians who saw in our liturgical practice a reflection from an earlier age: a variation on choral Morning Prayer with sermon. Something Latitudinarian in an age when Episcopalians have decamped to low-church Evangelicalism, or more often, a variety of post-Vatican II Anglican Catholicism with nothing but the Eucharist for, well, just about everything. (You may luck into Compline.)
The particular piety of Morning Prayer — and its centuries of use — have been driven into a second place, and in some areas obscurity. I won’t argue that choice among Episcopalians.  But Morning Prayer  worth preserving among Christian Unitarians and Universalists, for whom it has also been customarily and widely used for worship under a variety of names.
But resources about how to conduct it well are few.
Cue this blog post, which in the bumpy world of Episcopalian liturgics has been plainly useful and venom-free. It’s more than a year old, but still getting comment.
“Sunday Morning Prayer in Parishes?” (Haligweorc)