Margaret Johnson, Bruce Alexander, John Marsh, Pam Martin (at back), Tricia Coldren, Carla McGhie, and Mavis Brownlee pose before a wall paintings during a visit to St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in |
What are we trying to do when we worship? What is the church up to when it engages in communal worship?
These questions formed the basis of a liturgy conference that seven people from this diocese attended for a week in January 2008. Members from the parishes of St Barnabas,
The conference Leadership in Community: helping the people find their voice in the liturgy, was held at St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church,
St Gregory's is a church dedicated to exploring ways of using movement and innovation to rework traditional worship forms. St Gregory's has a unique architectural structure that invites creativity and movement yet at the same time it is heavily influenced by traditions from the Eastern Orthodox and Ethiopian Christian Church.
In this colourful setting we learned about offering unaccompanied music, about speaking and body language techniques. We explored the art of offering prayer in public. We noticed the use of space and the impact of gesture.
The course included two fieldtrips to other churches and participation in a variety of worship forms within St Gregory's. After each event we were encouraged to say what we had noticed, what we had observed and to consider how it impacted us.
At a deeper level, underlying all our noticing, the question always hovered, awaiting response, What is the church up to? If worship is a "rehearsal" for life, what then are we "rehearsing" for?
On the last two days of the course the wider implications of our worship struck home. We are engaged in a special Eucharist organized by all the conference participants. The prayers of the people are over, we stand, we begin to sing and then we begin to move.
Imagine, 40 people, each with their hand on the shoulder of the person in front moving in a long column. By using a simple four-step movement we wind our way towards a freestanding table.
We spiral around this table to the sound of music and drum beat, until all are gathered and there the Eucharist is celebrated standing. The bread and the wine are shared, each of us feeding and being fed. This is a moment of spiritual nourishment, community and belonging.
The next day, our last day together, the table, our altar of yesterday, is now surrounded by huge containers of food. The table is also covered in food items. It is the Food Pantry day when St Gregory's gives food to those in need in the neighborhood.
Volunteers, people who have previously been fed by this very Project, have a lunch together and then stand behind the containers giving food to the huge mixture of people moving around the circle. Over 500 hungry people are fed that day. We have witnessed another eucharist. What we did the day before in worship has come to life and meaning in an astonishing and vivid manner.
So, what are we up to? We return home eager to become worshipping communities committed to developing liturgical experiences that will prepare us and strengthen us to extend the eucharist. By participating in liturgies that ask us to move, to risk, to touch, to form the circle, to feed, to include all and to give special thought to the needy and the hungry we live into our friendship with God.
This is what we hope that our church is up to.