Ritualism

I had a wonderful Saturday night, which may likely be a blog entry later today, but we'll see.  I do want to write about my weekend, but Saturday night was good.  I went to a friend's birthday party and met lots of new people and even some new friends.  One of whom grew up Southern Baptist, as did I.  As we talked about worship he talked about how Episcopal services are more ritualistic than Baptist services.

I wanted to shout, "YES!  Yes yes yes!  You get it, why don't we?!"  By that I mean  he used the right term to describe some of the ways we embody the liturgies that we celebrate together.  Regardless of if there's smoke and bells or cassocks and surplices three Sundays a month for Morning Prayer, we are more ritualistic than Southern Baptists.  And those places with smoke?  More ritualistic than those places that don't have those things.  Either way, we have a ritual that we embody in a variety of different ways.

What so many of our people (lay and ordained) seem to not realize(?  know?  have been taught in seminary or forgot?) is that the degrees of ritualism are about smoke and bells or absence thereof.  Hearing those things described as "high" or "low" church irk me.  One's positions on the church aren't inherently communicated in how one worships.  Places that still insist on using the 1928 Prayer Book or 1662 or something on their own are low church because the church has a whole has adopted something else.  They might have billowing smoke, but they're not worshipping in common with the rest of the Church.

Churchmanship (I wish that weren't a gendered term) has to do with the episcopacy and the hierarch of the church.  While I was in Mexico I saw a delightful demonstration of high churchmanship with very, very little ritualism attached.  The priest with whom we worked was committed to the Church.  She has disagreements on social/theological issues with the Presiding Bishop and the bishop who ordained her, but she's committed to being a part of the church.  Our eucharists were QUITE different than anything we have in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, but I think she was relatively high church.

I personally identify as quite high church, which I attribute to my having been raised in such a low church tradition where each congregation does what it will.  I place a strong emphasis not just on local communities of faith, but on communities of faith being in community with one another.  I think that the Church is Christ's bride, not that individuals are Christ's brides.  That's why I like the Derek Webb song "The Church" (the last line of the refrain is "If you love Me you will love the Church").  And while identifying as a high churchman, I think I am far from being a big ritualist.

But at the same time there are places whose ritualism I can enjoy and worship and then other places where I want to scream about what's going on.  I might not like all of the theological implications of the customary at Trinity Church, but there's definitely "full, conscious, and active participation by the people there."  We do things in the Chapel that drive me crazy because I think we're clinging to something (all the time and not occasionally) that isn't where life is anymore (e.g. Evensong with unrehearsed Anglican chant for the Psalter four nights a week).

I think what I most look at in Eucharistic celebration is how the presider embodies the prayer.  I don't care if they have magic hands crossing things all the time - unless they seem more focused on the magic hands and getting their movements "right" than on the prayer.  I think there's certainly a way to do both well (and it might involve some memorization and muscle memory), but when not done well I certainly understand why less ritualistic traditions are critical of our "dry, moribund liturgy."  That doesn't mean the sacrament is invalid or that the prayer isn't said.  But I understand wanting to hear a prayer being prayed and not read as though it's a story.  And I surely don't want a presider to get to "gave thanks to you" and have body language that says, "Oh, yeah, I have to point up right now" and then quickly throw a hand up.

There are lots of degrees of ritualism and churchmanship in The Episcopal Church.  Sometimes the two go hand-in-hand, and sometimes they aren't related to one another at all.  I think that it would be helpful if we consciously work on altering our language (which students at General are doing) so that we don't use the two interchangeably.

So What's With That Liturgy?

24 January 20120 5:24 PM

Yesterday, oh yesterday.  As I sat down to write this I thought, “What’d we do yesterday?  We went to the soccer game.”  Yeah, that we did.  I was up early and it was very quiet and nice before breakfast.  We had breakfast and then helped with the dishes as we are apt to do.  During the dishes Pedro talked to Stefanie and I heard and understood “songs” and “five” and “six.”

Stefanie asked if I’d gotten that and I thought we were doing the song service at 5:00.  No, we were doing the service at 6:00.  I found out today that she tried to explain to him that Dori was going to do a service this evening, but he said that yesterday was the Lord’s day and we were going to have church.  Sooooo we washed dishes and got our computers.  I said, “To the Liturgy Lab!” which is also the English classroom/room we’ve worked in.

We contemplated lots of things and weren’t really sure what to do.  We settled on modifying the Order of Worship for Evening.  We though about doing the liturgy of the word from Rite II, but we didn’t think that the BCP imagined us doing that without a priest.  We didn’t want to do Evening Prayer because they don’t have Prayer Books.  They have copies of the BCP in Spanish for Rite II.

We decided to use the assigned Isaiah lesson in place of the suggested short reading since it was about light and it was the same number of voices.  Poor Stefanie was trying to make sure her sermon made sense and Google translated it and then had three readers go over it.  Since we didn’t have Prayer Books and chapel is new to them, we added some things and subtracted some things.  I said the Prayer for Light then Stefanie used the Collect for the Day.  I put together the liturgy with her input and approval and such.

The psalter we used the assigned psalm.  The psalm isn’t a reading, so we tried to make it more interactive between the people and the lector.  Since it was like an office service we had one of the kids read the gospel lesson and didn’t have a epistle.  We added songs they knew and some that we knew and could teach.  For the responses we had me que the people and them repeating after me.

We worked on that most of the morning and into the afternoon.  We got content with it and then went to the soccer game.  Fabian, one of the German volunteers, was headed to the Hogar as we were leaving, so he came with us.  The game was sloppy and could’ve been better. They played really well and then just stopped.  It got hot and they got tired, too. 

The service went well.  Pedro came and demanded respectfulness.  Stefanie did a great job and our musician was extremely helpful.  He played songs that he knew.  We used the tools available to us in crafting a liturgy and in executing it.  I got some of the stuff from St. Lydia’s and did a paperless song.  It’s hard to use the liturgy as part of catechesis when the congregation has only assembled three or four times and the people don’t have Prayer Books.  

We tried not to trample rubrics.  We tried to do some stuff that was familiar, but we weren’t doing a Eucharistic service.  We worked hard on it and were intentional in our decisions.  In an ideal world we would’ve been able to do some things differently, but we weren’t in an idea situation.  We were given a task and we completed it, I think.  And it went well.  We got together to rehearse it, too, so that was helpful, too.  Later in our ministries we’ll say to one another, “Remember that time we planned and executed a liturgy in Spanish when neither of us was really fluent and one of us wasn’t functional? Yeah, that was fun, right?”

Keeping Mass in Christmass

For the first time this yea,r I didn't get invited to one single "Keep the Christ in Christmas"Facebook group.  I might have had one page suggested to me for becoming a fan, but that's it.  Starting two years ago I invited everyone who invited me to one of those groups to a "Keep the Mass in Christmass."  When we talked about the Reformation this year in liturgics, our professor pointed out that most of the people who are most vigilant about keeping the CHRIST in CHRISTmas and not saying "Happy Holidays" are the theological descendants of those people who got rid of Christmas all together (namely hyper Protestants).

The (heavily cited!) Wikipedia article says this

Following the Protestant Reformation, groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast."...Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647...In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England shared radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. The ban by the Pilgrims was revoked in 1681 by English governor Sir Edmund Andros, however it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region...Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom.

Washington Irving wrote short stories about Christmas, and that made it fashionable again.  The wikipedia article addresses that, too.

What I've gathered, as well, is that the people who want to KEEP CHRIST in CHRISTmas don't actually care about religious celebration, other than not wanting to feel dominated or ignored...and they prefer to dominate others.  (I'm not talking about everyone, but the most vocal people.)  I tweeted a few weeks ago that for there to be a war on Christmas happening, the music at Starbucks was awful Jesusy.  The religious celebration they want to do isn't so much celebrating, as maybe remembering that Jesus was born.  That's great, do some remembering.

But I think that another way of maintaining Christmas as a religious holiday is to celebrate it with religion.  When I've tweeted something to the effect of keeping Mass in Christmas, I've gotten the response (and I'm not the only one) to get "Isn't keeping Christ in Christmas more important?"  Well, like I said above, I haven't actually noticed an absence of Christ....and if you celebrate Mass (or some other communal celebration of the holiday, gathering around Word and preferably Sacrament) it's hard to not have Christ in Christmas.  And I'm willing to have a pretty vague and generous definition of mass, namely a gathering of the religious faithful, regardless of their tradition, to celebrate a feast day.

Thom, SFO offers the following about keeping Christ in Christmas:

Instead of inaugurating the Christmas season at Thanksgiving or Halloween, try living the mysteries of Advent. Try preparing yourself for the coming of our lowly king. Try not spending 6 months salary on gifts to impress friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors. Instead, take that money and do some real good. Try tempering the joy of the season with the stark reality that we are still in darkness.

I like it.  To it I'd add not just waiting until Christmas to celebrate, but also keeping all of Christmastide.  Twelve days instead of one is a lot more celebration!  I've also heard people say (often in response to the statement "It's only Advent!") "It's never the wrong time to celebrate Christ's birth."  Well...maybe.  As TBE says, you wouldn't sing "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" on Good Friday...and you don't say "Merry Christmas!" in July.  I don't think Christ is really absent from Christmas, not even in secular settings; certainly not absent if Christians actually celebrate (especially together) the mysteries of the Incarnation (which is not celebrating Jesus being born to die; cf John 1....and I don't think singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus is quite it, either).

If we keep the Mass in Christmass, Christ will surely follow.

Quotation for Christ the King

"Just a friendly reminder to my American brethren and sistren: your altar this morning should be arrayed as to suit a king not a farmer. Save the cornucopia and faux vegetables for Thursday." - Fr. Oscar Late

Tidy Vestments

Make the choirs of angels sing. The Power Ranger blue set is only considered cool by teenager Jesus. The Baby Jesus doesn't like it.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hosanna

WE're going to try this tomorrow night in procession.

On Crooked Hearts

Go check out one of Emily's post's, "On Crooked Hearts".

Going Paperless, Chapter 5

People

This was on the Third Sunday in Lent, we didn't have service the next week, and I had spring break afterward, so I didn't write last week. Chapter 6 will hopefully be coming soon (by a guest author!), but I was on a plane for it, so I can't write it. Luckily, the guest author (if he'll write) was also leader for both 3 and 5 Lent. I might get him to write some reflections on his first leading experience.

From my perspective it was great. James is a GREAT leader with very clear signaling. He has a teacher's air about him and does a great job teaching pieces. For the first time we incorporated an Agnus Dei into the service. OH! What a great start we had! I'm getting ahead by jumping to the fraction. So, there were a lot of people there that night. I had a friend visiting and some spartners and a family that hadn't been there in awhile. I wasn't leading so I sat somewhere else and helped ring. I'd trained two ringers the day before at least one of whom was there. They're working to start leading sometimes.

This was the day that I really wished, from a music perspective we could have a regular presider, just so that the lay-planners and the clergy people could more easily and regularly plan on what's going on. This week the presider, who serves as a priest at an Anglo-Catholic parish, sang the Collect for the Day. We hadn't planned it necessarily, but he did...and I droned. While Colin and I are not of one mind about what should be sung (if you don't know, I say sing everything; let's make life a musical!) I think that working to having more things sung has a major benefit: everyone can join the prayer in an orderly fashion.

While I stand in the orans during prayers to indicate my being a part of the prayer the presider is praying on behalf of the gathered community, a sung prayer gives sonorous space for the people to join on a drone. I first experienced this during a sung eucharistic prayer at St. Gregory's and it excited me. Then I talked about it with Taylor Burton-Edwards who gave me the image of a soloist and a choir. All are singing, but one is leading the way...and everyone's voice is being heard. Everyone is embodying and actively taking part in the prayer.

All our music was the same for Lent, and Matt preached a great sermon. He sat in the same chair the presider has been sitting in, and it was great on so many levels. Seamless choreography between preacher and presider, and it just worked out really well. The music is being learned, and the parts are getting stronger, I think. James led again last Sunday, but I don't know how it went yet. I really wish my idea of a group of people leading and singing together had worked out. It would be really nice to work out physical placement in the chapel and other stuff in a group and to hear people who are doing it's perspectives.

This week we're doing different stuff for the Passion and we're looking at the rite. I'll let you know how it goes.

Also: check out this post about learning to pray through humming.

Lydia-esque

As I'm standing or sitting in the Chapel for mid-day Eucharist, I thought I'd share this with you.  I love the new schedule post time/date thing!  I don't know what this gathering is, but it's big. Emily Scott is leading music. This is an example of the way prayers are sung at St. Lydia's on Sunday nights, and there's a snippet of "To the Bath and the Table."

Going Paperless, Chapter 4

Rounds

This past week things again got better. We took out that extra phrase in "Return to God," and we were much stronger singing the refrain together. I'm thinking about how to get a drone going, but I think it's going to stem from having some ringers that drone around the people. We might be condensing our seating, maybe which would help people hear the ringers. I think this week again I'll do all the petitions, but starting next week my have a few other students prepared to offer petitions to model it so that the next week more people will have seen people other than me offer biddings, thus when I open it up, they might be comfortable opening them.

We sang the second phrase of "Come Light of Lights" a whole lot this week. Slight malfunction that was no big problem, but we sang it over and over again. I could've taught the whole song, but I've been trying to keep it simple. Maybe this week we'll add the first phrase in. I've been going with just the second because it fits better with right before the gospel, especially if you're teaching a song very, very quickly as someone walks five feet to the altar to get the gospel book and comes back with it. That's thus far been teaching it and then us singing once or twice. Not enough time for the entire song.

I'm still trying to figure out how to teach a second phrase that has different music but the same words; when I start the second phrase the people often join in, even if I'm indicating to listen or that I'm singing. This isn't just a chapel thing, though, I've seen it other places. I think our space contributes to that, though. I think our space and what we do with it is going to get more and more important in both the paperless music we're doing and just what we're doing with the service. This dialogue about a second phrase with the same text is because we sang "What We Need is Here" as we went up to the table.

Four weeks in and I'm really starting to appreciate the way the presiders can sing as they set up the table and get things ready. I've watched Mo. Sandi and Fr. Mark do this lately. It's nice to see them pouring things or getting them just ready and still being in the community. I think that they probably appreciate it, too. I know that I get frustrated when I have to do stuff with my hands which means I can't hold a hymnal to sing whatever we're singing. We did Mark Miller's Sanctus et Benedictus again, and the hosannahs at the end are the same as the second phrase in "What We Need." Requires some thought.

In Chapter 3 I told you about introducing "Whoever Eats This Bread" as a round as a breakthrough moment. The first part starting singing stronger when the second part was introduced. This week, someone started the second part (or started to start it) before I did. When I did they joined me. Then someone started a third. I think that when we got fully going we were singing it in five parts. There may've only been 2-4 voices singing on each part, but they were singing and could be heard. As I signaled to end we all finished our parts, and the last part was a tiny voice singing with her mother. She got nervous when she realized she was really the only one singing, but I nodded to her and sang with her.

I had to think on the fly for our song after the dismissal Sunday night. We're doing "Jesus is With Us, Let Us...." during Lent, but I'd only heard it with "Go in peace to love and service the Lord" and "Let us bless the Lord." Fr. Mark used, "Let us go forth in the name of Christ," which didn't fit either of my settings, so we sang "Let us go with Christ." I think, since we've done that two weeks now and are rather robust at it I'm going to introduce the layer either this week or next. I feel like seeing that this can be more complex encourages the people, but that could be a false perception.

Apparently one of the girls was leading with her hands during the song. She has experience at home with her mom doing musical stuff with hand signals, so the idea of up and down with the hand is not new to her. After I gathered my stuff together to head out to St. Lydia's I came into the chapel to go through and out. As I walked in three girls and a mother (two of the girls belonged to her) were singing "Whoever Eats This Bread" in three part round. The tune and text stuck. A student's wife said to me (with some enthusiasm), "We liked the round! It was good!"

So, we're getting it. Little things like tiny voices singing on their own at the end of the round or people singing the songs outside the service are nice. I left bubbling and was quite pleased, which Emily noticed. I also got a really encouraging e-mail last week, which helped. Lots of good affirmation about this coming around. Easier to keep going when there's encouragement. I have some broader ideas, too, but those will have to wait awhile.

Intentional, Repetitive Worship

In a recent entry Bosco Peters talks about "predictable worship," the idea that Anglican/liturgical worship is rote or people just going through the motions The part of his entry that resonated most with me was this:

My hackles were raised at blaming worship that is “rote, predictable and uninspiring.” The other side of seeing worship as “rote” is seeing it as “by heart”. Worship “by heart” has been the Judaeo-Christian tradition for at least 3,000 years. I would like to see the peer-reviewed statistical evidence that there is a correlation between “rote, predictable” worship and causality of decline. I have participated in plenty of “rote, predictable” worship, from Taize, through great cathedrals, to China, and the heart of Zaire, where there is clearly no correlation to declining numbers. The danger of linking “uninspiring” to “rote and predictable” is it feeds a prejudice that in order to grow numerically in our “new context” we need to abandon the liturgical tradition of Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Orthodoxy, etc. Nothing, IMO, is further from the truth. In this context it is worth noting the recent announcement that the proportion of Roman Catholics worldwide has increased. IMO we need training and formation as leaders and communities to celebrate worship that is “by heart, common worship, and inspiring.”

I hate to say it, but I've encountered a lot of Episcopal worship that is "rote, predictable, and uninspiring." But the reason it's been that way hasn't been that I know what's coming next. The services that have been the best for me haven't been ones that deviate from the text or rubrics of the prayer book. A lot of my feeling about a good service aren't about wacky liturgy, but rather that the people -- especially the leaders, music, clergy, and other lay leaders -- are invested in what's going on. They are focused on the moment and know what they're doing and know what's going to happen.

That's been what I've so much enjoyed about the LT90 Eucharist on Thursdays in Chapel, and I hope that the same thing is coming through on Sunday nights. The groups responsible for putting those services together get together and talk extensively about what's going to happen in the course of the service. They put thought into it and they make decisions. On Sundays we've added the Creed. We've also altered the presider's binder so that there is a note saying, "Turning to page 358 in the Book of Common Prayer let us reaffirm our faith," or something to that effect. This is a child-friendly service. Children in large part neither know the Creed nor know where it is -- yet. The Thursday eucharist planning class plans the service on Tuesdays, makes notes, collaborates, and on Thursday morning goes over what they've decided and practice the service.

A lack of intentionality affected how I felt about a number of services that I myself planned. First problem there is that I was planning them on my own. Often times I was making bulletins the night before and doing exactly what Taylor Burton-Edwards says NOT to do: plugging and playing hymns from a lectionary hymn guide, leaving the same typo-ridden prayers of the people form, and springing new things on Ashley at the last minute. One of the best services I remember planning was on Native American Sunday (or something like that in the UMC), where I used the guide, but I was conscious to begin with about our observing it. I knew who the preacher was, and although we didn't coordinate with him explicitly, I knew that his sermon would likely have a myth from an Indigenous Americas people. I put a lot more thought and effort into that service and everyone in the room, as I recall (and there were only 8 of us) felt something different.

There is a big difference in worship from rote and worship by heart, and uninspiring is linked to rote, I think. In my experience, when leaders are just going through motions and doing what they have to do, or appear to be sight-reading a eucharistic prayer that's been out for thirty years (and they've been priests for that long or longer), or blaring the music over the people rather than assisting the people in singing praise to God, the gathered assembly goes through the motions and just gets through the service. The best services I've been to that I can recall are ones where, even in the confines of the normal week-in-week-out plan decisions about worship are intentionally made so that the people together can do their work, whether that's choosing one good familiar hymn and dropping the instrumentation every other voice or officiants at spoken morning prayer focusing on the moment and living in it.

Worship by heart can grow from worship from rote, but it takes a lot of focus and intention.

Going Paperless, Chapter 3

I'm feeling like Wednesdays are the days that I post about the previous Sunday's experience. Maybe I need that much time to process and think, maybe cool down, maybe that's just when I get around to it. Oh well, it's not that important; it's getting posted, and I already have a Chapter 3.5 to post maybe tomorrow or Saturday. Probably not Friday, though. All that was completely arbitrary. It's a short post, but it'll get written when it does. Nothing's ever boring on our Sunday paperless adventures; there's always something!

This week was our third week with paperless music, and I think we had a breakthrough. :) My music stuff got all switched on Saturday and Sunday as I more carefully considered what I wanted us to sing. We came in to "Return, Return to God" (see video below). It went well, and we added an extra phrase, but it worked. It was a very good starting point. It's slow, contemplative, Lenten. Colin and I are very much wanting to not take as many options as we can to make this a kid-friendly service. We want it to be accessible, but we want it to be a full service and a formational experience for the children, and hopefully an experience that seminarians can learn from about leading worship that involves children. As such, we're trying to restore the song of praise after the opening sentence (Collect for Purity being optional). This week we were going to do an English Kyrie that I was essentially going to make up. But it got skipped. It happens.

We were going to sing "Come Light of Lights" as our Gospel acclamation, but I decided to shorten it to just the second phrase. I will keep doing that, I think, even though it was a little rocky. Despite the rockiness, the singing was stronger in general this week. I think three weeks in people are starting to understand a little better or trusting themselves a little more. That our presider sang strongly was very helpful. The sermon was outstanding and I think everyone got something out of it regardless of age. I don't remember us doing the Creed....but we did say the confession, which we've added for Lent. The prayers of the people were good and were bidden. Need to make a mental note about them. During the peace I moved again, which I think works well. There was a slight miscommunication between me and the presider (I didn't hear an offertory sentence), but singing "What We Need Is Here went well. We sang it as we gathered around the table and until we were ready to start giving thanks together, making eucharist.

At someone's suggestion from last week, I stood directly across from the presider, which worked well. We've continued Mark Miller's Sanctus et Benedictus, which is going well. The hosannahs are a little confusing because of the third one the second time through, but it is what it is. During the distribution we had our breakthrough! We were singing, "Whoever Eats this Bread," and we sang and sang and sang. We had strong voices singing, and we were close together and could hear each other. When I received I made eye contact with someone across the table who was comfortable singing and they kept the song going. Then I took it into the round and someone followed me. I think there were just two of us singing the round, but I think that made the first part sing more strongly. On the way out we sang "Jesus Is With Us, Let Us Bless the Lord." Just one part, maybe I'll add harmony myself as Lent progresses.

And this week I had a very formative experience, which I'm realizing Sunday night planning very much is. It's preparation for being in parish ministry. I received some feedback from someone who's attended about the way we're doing music and about variety of musicians. I've heard it and made note, and am going to talk about it with the rest of the team, but I think for now we've made the decision to use paperless music for consistency, which is a key goal of our time planning Sunday nights. I don't want to be the only one leading the songs, but we do want to have a consistent manner of music, if not always the same "style" as it were. (Read: "Guide My Feet" will be used by the end of the year; it'll be paperless, but gospel.)

Next week, all the music is the same. Might toy with some harmony that is pre-written, or might just keep making it up. Going to try to get someone to cantor verses for "Return, Return to God," so that I can drone during petitions to demonstrate droning. I'd love to move to more singing during the Great Thanksgiving so we can drone, but these are pipe dreams. Master singing first, then droning.

Make a good Lent. Return to God.

Going Paperless, Chapter 2

One word summary for 2/14: abnormal. All the music we used was the same, except the Gloria. Since Rick's Gloria was too hard last week we moved to the Peruvian one, like I said we would, and it went well. "Arise, Shine" was better this week since people knew it, and really all the songs were better. But like I said, this week was an abnormal week: we had prospective students on campus and in that service. And they sang. Oh did they sing. It was great. They actually may have been just what we needed in a few ways, and they also made me forget some things, too.

Colin and I have shifted the focus of the service, and now we're in the process of implementing it. It's not a change in the service inasmuch as what we're trying to do and how we're trying to do it. All the prospectives made me forget what we'd discussed but I think it worked out. After the fact, I remembered and will keep it in mind this weekend. So, the Gloria went well. Right now echoing is working very well. "Gather Children" didn't go poorly as we gathered around the table, but it took a few times through, and there were plenty. During the peace I moved from where I was sitting in the frontish of the Chapel to the middle of the Chapel so that I would be behind everyone as we moved forward. I don't know if that helped or not, but I'm going to keep playing with my positioning in the Chapel. This week I'm going to try being directly across from the presider after we've all gathered at the table. Mark Miller's Sanctus was well received, and I have some tweaks I need to make in teaching it. We did "Alleluia, Alleluia, Give Thanks to the Risen Lord" again during the distribution, and that is where we learned a few things.

One, two chalices when there are prospective students! That's what lead to the second revelation. We weren't even thinking that far ahead when we just went with the standard Sunday night one chalice. However, since we did that it was taking awhile, and I thought "I need another song!" So, after a number of times through "Alleluia, Alleluia, Give Thanks to the Risen Lord" I taught "What We Need Is Here." That worked really well, and I'm glad that I taught it. Through Lent that's going to be our offertory/gathering around the Table song. And last Sunday we got a sneak peak at it, and only the people who read my blog will know that's what coming.

So, two weeks down. It got better. It was abnormal. I had a debrief with someone in attendance afterward who raised some things for me to consider, though I've lost in my head what they are. I was just thinking on some of them to include them in my note. Oh, I wanted to say that I've recruited a child to help with the leading, and I'm thinking I'll start incorporating that this week. The Dean contributed a paperless confractorium that he asked if we'd like him to do just before the service. It's already Wednesday and I haven't rehearsed any of the music yet. That is to come...Friday? Saturday? Sunday afternoon?

Next week we're singing: "Wait for the Lord," "Sing Praise to God," "What We Need is Here," "We Have a Hunger Lord," and "Jesus is With us, Let Us Bless the Lord." Stay tuned for more adventures in going paperless.

Going Paperless, Chapter 1

This calendar year (because that's how the Chapel of the Good Shepherd Operates) I have been asked to co-coordinated the Sunday evening community eucharist (about which I blogged a few months ago) with Colin Chapman. One of the things we're trying to do is get attendance up. We're seeking to make it an authentic, intentional worship experience. One of the ways we're trying to do that is with paperless music. In January I went to Music that Makes Community and learned some good pieces, got a confidence boost, got some resources, and made some good networking connections. So from that I've planned music from last Sunday through Easter. Lots of continuity with pieces so that people can get really comfortable with them.

The exception to that, of course, is that very, very soon we're in Lent, so all the music will change for that season. However, we'll get two weeks of these songs (or so I thought) before we moved on to more dreary songs. Not dreary. Just more contemplative and slower, at least off the top of my head I think they'll be slower. I chose the songs for now the same way I usually choose music: what do the words say and how is that related to what we're doing? If I had to use one word to describe how Sunday night went, it would definitely be #fail.

It wasn't really a failure, it was just new. It will get better at it as we go, and even as the service progressed it got better. As Taylor Burton-Edwards (whose wife is a priest) pointed out, I am trying to get a very scripted people to go off-script. Paperless music is new to them, and the musical selections weren't the best they could've been, and I'm making changes as a result. And most of the music was completely new to the people, too. This week I'm thinking about moving my position to somewhere else and hoping to have some ringers in the congregation who've practiced the music and can bolster confidence of the assembly as they sing.

The opening last week was "Arise, Shine," which is in Music by Heart. One of the perks of having evening worship is that songs with light are always applicable, regardless of season. I'm trying to avoid the Phos Hilaron since it's the invitatory at the evening office. That song will continue. One of the things that we're doing is restoring a song of praise separate and distinct from an opening song. This week, since it's the season after Epiphany we attempted a Gloria. This was Rick Fabian's paperless Gloria with congregational refrain and cantored verses. I practiced it all week with the keyboard because I kept getting some intervals off. We didn't make it to the verses because we didn't get comfortable enough with the refrain. Now I know it at least. Next time we're doing the "Peruvian Gloria " that Patrick Evans lead at MMC and can be found in The Faith We Sing and probably other collections. It's much simpler.

For the gospel acclamation we sang the Caribbean Hallelujah that we've used all school year and the people are familiar with. I'll sing it twice through next time versus just the one. That needs to be worked out and communicated with the presider so that they know when they'll be on, and I'll know when I need to stop. That'll clearly change with Lent. For the offertory song, which is also a transition from the choir to the altar we sang "Gather Children, Gather 'Round" which I somewhat altered at the end as that I couldn't entirely remember how I learned it, but I made it work. Then we did the best two of the night: Sanctus and song during communion.

For the Sanctus we did Mark Miller's, also found in The Faith We Sing. I don't have a copy of that, but I remember when we'd do "Singy Communion" at the Wesley. Mark's setting works well to break into phrases to do an echo. During communion we sang "Alleluia, Alleluia, Give Thanks to the Risen Lord," which went well. The people, in large part, knew it. We repeated it a good number of times, and I think we were starting to get some harmony. We sent the altar party out with "God Bless Every Step," and it went well, despite being a newish piece. I think one of the things that helped as we were around the altar was that we were close together, so we could hear each other even if we weren't singing lustily and with good courage.

And that was Chapter 1 in this adventure of turning a service into a service of paperless music. Keep checking in for updates, because I think I'm going to keep blogging them, both for my reflections and in the hope that people can offer suggestions and the hope that people can learn from my mistakes!

It's the work of the people: Sunday Nights

I'm sitting here watching Torchwood before I work on a Church Music paper and my final Tutorial Seminary Paper. And Right now they're reading Daniel 12.10 (title of the Episodes is "End of Days"). How appropriate for Advent. This is the first in a three part series that I've promised my senior warden for over a month now, and it was spurred by conversations with Taylor Burton-Edwards and Fr. Malloy. The conversations were about services that I like here at the General Seminary (and those I don't like to some extent), and then we talked about Sunday night, and TBE put it succinctly when I described the service: it's the work of the people.

Sunday night is the family/community Eucharist, and it has some quirks, and I fell in love with it last February when I visited the seminary. It starts with either the opening acclamation or a hymn. Sometimes the processional hymn is the hymn of praise, and sometimes we sing or say the Trisagion or the Kyrie after the opening acclamation. A priest from the community (and believe me, we have plenty) is always the presider, but students are usually the preachers. This is the opportunity for students to preach in the chapel in a service before their senior sermon. This is the most child-friendly of the services.

Children carry the cross and the gospel book, they are usually the oblation bearers. Lately we've had kids that can read reading the first lesson (we only do two) and the prayers of the people. Most of the time the sermon starts with an invitation for all the children regardless of age to join the preacher on the chancel steps. The music is provided by students with musical ability. We've had guitar players, organists, and a vocalist who accompanied herself with a tambourine. And they're all awesome.

Sunday nights is a time when the GTS community comes together (in varied sizes) and brings its gifts to glorify God and enjoy God's goodness in the Eucharist. And we don't tidy up living in community: children scream, they crawl around the chapel (one especially enjoys the altar rail on the dean's side as a destination), they kick the pew wracks in front of them, they babel. Sometimes they cry or meltdown and need to be held. They try too hard to hold infants and toddlers. But they have a part to play and in all their noise and messiness they glorify God and at least remind me (as if I could ever forget!) that honestly living in community is messy because we're broken, messy humans.

And adults I think have a lot to bring and learn. Students preaching often ask questions as part of their sermon, which my elementary school principal mother will tell you may not always be wise; you never know what the answer might be. They have a role to play not just in worshiping, but in formation. There are children who stand with me and the presider (and somtimes others) in the orans. They look on the in the prayer book that I take up with as they learn the memorial acclamations. They are learning now about acolyting, helping the presider set the table, taking directions from sacristans and altar guilds.

And it's not a show. And it's not cold or detached. It's worship. It's the work of the people, and I'm headed there now.

Quotations from Facebook

In an effort to keep quotations that I like around and still be able to update my favorite quotations on le Facebook, I periodically clean some off of Facebook and put them in my blog. I did it with Xanga and now I'm doing it over here. Here are some:

"I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'ma giraffe." - Richard Gere

"During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism." -Howard Thurman

"God's love if off the chain." - The Rev. Luther Felder

"I've never heard of a school not being on Facebook. Is it an Amish schoolhouse?" - Leland Spencer

"La la la! C'est internationale!" - Cabaret Leader

"You can look in [my purse]. I don't have a knife or gun or samurai sword." - Ellie

And for what it's worth, these are the ones that stayed:

"I will not indulge in futile philippics against enemies I never met in battle." - CS Lewis

"Condemn no man for not thinking as you think: Let every one enjoy the full and free liberty of thinking for himself: Let every man use his own judgment, since every man must give an account of himself to God. Abhor every approach, in any kind or degree, to the spirit of persecution. If you cannot reason or persuade a man into the truth, never attempt to force him into it. If love will not compel him to come in, leave him to God, the Judge of all. " - John Wesley, 1745, "Advice to a People Called Methodist"

"I believe there is no Liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer of the Church of England." - John Wesley


"We pastors are distinguished not only by what we graciously support, but also by what we condemn. Any homiletic that seeks to make peace with hearers cannot be faithful to the gospel." - Bishop Will Willimon

"If liberals would stop helping the poor and hungry, they would have more time and money to secretly manipulate people [like IRD does]." - Rev. Ashley Walker Davis

"Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn."
- John Wesley

"When you talk about God, you don't really know what you're talking about." - The Very Reverend Alan Jones

"Every good protaganist has to have a gay best friend I think. Kirk and Spock, Froddo and Samwise - all the greats." - Mark Alexander

"Let's make it a game, and turn more literary works into scientific documents." - Elizabeth A. Eiland

"A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed -- what gospel is that?" - Oscar Romero

"You can't speak in episcode and expect me to know what you're saying!" - Erin Warde

"Your status states absolutely no opposition to the war. Your status states opposition to the apathy of the [A]merican public in the face of our dead." - Mark Alexander

"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - St. Thomas Aquinas

And the new one:

"The point being that the liturgy should help us to engage the life of God in the world, and not serve to confine god to an attic full of antiques. That indeed is to surrender the world to godlessness." - The Rev. Sarah Flynn