THE CREATIVE POWER OF LITURGY Kevin Bates sm Much of my work is with young people whose favourite word for Liturgy/Mass is “boring”. Recently I sat through a Mass, which meandered along without any seeming connection with the real world. It was a day set-aside by the Church as refugee Sunday - to promote an awareness of refugees and their situation and ours. They were not mentioned. I looked around and wondered what connections were being made with the people. There was a good-sized congregation, and they were quietly praying - perhaps the liturgy was simply a chance for them to stop and connect with God on their own terms. Whether they connected because of the liturgy or simply as an adjunct to it, one will never know. Liturgy is designed for connections - for communion if you like - between God and people and between people who share a common vision/faith/dream about what it means to be here on this journey. In order to be truly creative, Liturgy needs to enable this connection, pave the way for it, challenge us to connect, and call us beyond the connections of the here and now. The real presence we claim in our Eucharist for instance requires connections at the psychological level in order to be fruitful. Creativity is a much-used word and is synonymous with the novel, the different, the imaginative - and it is true, the novel, the different, the imaginative can all be creative, but they are not necessarily so. My guess is that creativity has something to do with what is life-giving - what enhances, deepens a sense of, a taste for, a commitment to life - so that the participants in an activity are energised and challenged to live more fully and more freely. Liturgy is designed to be profoundly creative. When it is reduced to perfunctorily performed aerobics and formulas, then creative is the last description I’d give it. One can often be tempted to think – “They don’t really mean this!” Liturgy, when it works or when it is creative, is grounded in the world of the present and not simply a story about a world that is past. For sure we draw on our memories, but we are not stuck in them. The lives that are being lived now are invited into the mystery being celebrated, people are called to see the sacredness of their own being, the hand of God in their struggles to become more truly alive, and the God who is at work in our world is named and celebrated. I remember a piece from an American Protestant liturgist of many years ago, in which he said whimsically in a poem “While the saints deliberated, burly sinners ran the world.” It’s possible to escape into a world of prayer and absolve ourselves from the tasks of generating a new heart say for our nation...It’s possible to spend all our time on in-house struggles - mostly around who should be doing what to whom - and of course who shouldn’t. This hardly leads to an experience that is creative. Liturgy when it is creative, energises the heart, heals us, and touches us with a story that calls us to action, to prayer, to a change of focus. Liturgy when it is creative addresses that inertia that so often is our main energy-sapper, and calls us beyond “But we’ve always done it this way.” Liturgy when it is creative, reverences the mystery that can never be contained within the heart and mind of any one person, any one group, any one Church, a mystery that is always more than we have seen or tasted. Creative liturgy calls us to a certain awe and leaves us with a sense that we belong in the mystery and are not alien to it. Liturgy when it is creative, responds to the moment as well as to the memory. It is today that the Word is becoming flesh and our liturgy needs to name, celebrate, and agitate so that this becomes our Eucharistic bread. When words and actions are simply from the heart, when the words and actions enhance each other, and when the words and actions speak with immediacy to the people gathered, then creative things can unfold. When the words and actions are simply imposed they are soon seen, either as banal, trivial, or as magic, by those who still wish to believe in them. In the film “Paradise Road” the women prisoners were obliged to honour the Japanese emperor by bowing to the flag. For the soldiers it was a ritual that made sense immediately. To the women it was a ritual that helped them survive - and in fact they made fun of it with mutterings “up the Emperor’s arse” and so on. Ritual actions need to emerge from within the heart, in order to be creative. A couple whose marriage I celebrated recently created a liturgy that was truly creative, simply because they really married each other - they didn’t just get married. Far from the world of cosmetics and bridal cars, they transparently gifted themselves to each other with such simplicity and depth, that I was the one who cried! On the other hand, at another wedding, where the bride came into Celine Dion’s “You were my voice when I couldn’t speak”, and we had Communion accompanied by “Ooh baby when we kiss.....”, the liturgy was more a cosmetic exercise to appease a family and a culture, while the real energy was in the photos and the image of it all. (I was a bit cranky with myself for not having caught up on their music selections prior to the event and work with them on it – I had to take some of the responsibility!) Other moments of creativity......can come from the things that don’t go quite right! The Creative can be a great surprise to all of us: for instance when I accidentally dropped the rings as I went to bless them at a wedding and they went skipping over the marble floor - I took off after them – the crowd broke into delighted mirth – it was the first sign of joy in the whole show as both families were a bit anxious about the whole event and wouldn’t even look at each other! (PS to that – the couple have done remarkably well and are now marrying off their own children!) Life-giving moments are often birthed by surprises or by the earnestness of insight of young people, such as a high school boy some years’ ago who wanted to use a song by Guns and Roses at Mass. Not having time to check it, but trusting in his serious intent, we played it after Communion to hear “Everybody’s Lookin’ for their own promised land” as a kind of mantra through the song. Following the song he and I had a lively conversation, which led to a marvellous moment of quiet prayer before we finished. If I’d refused to have the song, God and that class of young men might have missed out on connecting. My guess is that Jesus was pretty creative - in his behaviours, his story telling, his humour, and his reverence for people. Some of his greatest clues still bear scrutiny and are most creative yet! I have compiled eight ideas from my time in the UK that can help break open our imagination for developing creative worship. The most important thread that runs through all of these, however, isrisk. Simply put, if you don’t risk, you won’t innovate. 1.Write Your Own Liturgy // Many (if not most) of the alt. worship gatherings have a communal practice of writing their own liturgy with images, metaphors, visual references, and language indigenous to their own location (think social location, geographic location, denominational location). If you find yourself in a place where liturgical forms are more restricting than freeing, even starting with elements of the worship often not typically seen as “sacred” can open up space for further improvisation. The prayers of the people, the invocation or the benediction all offer fairly non-abrasive way in to creative prayer. 2. Encourage the Artist(s) // In the Church of modernity, rationalism dominated. Making room for the voice of the artist to be heard, seen or felt inspired creativity. Artists know better than us “nonartists” (Everyone is creative, whether or not they identify themselves as an “artist”) that exposure to creative thinking fuels further creative thought. The arts are often highly encouraged within alt. worship in a wide range of ways. The result is a creative atmosphere, a culture of creativity. 3. Practice Storytelling // The practice of telling the story of a community’s life together evokes shared memories as well as critical reflections. At times such a community practice even raises a diversity of perspectives about that shared history! Alt. worship has made a habit of telling their stories at Greenbelt (an annual music festival where alt. worship communities converge for a “family reunion” of sorts), resource weekends and in collaboration with local community partners. Make use of the biblical narratives too when telling your story. Remember that the biblical stories are not so much authoritative because they happened, but because they happen…today. 4. Imitate Someone Who Inspires You // Imitation is a powerful tool for improvisation. It is a practice of careful and intentional study. Even when taking careful considering to imitate and replicate, new connections and insights are made. Doing the same routine in a new place invites creative thinking and deeper attention to context. It won’t matter the medium, so think broadly here. Below are several sites that have documented alt. worship gatherings all over the world. Find something that inspires you and imitate it with careful reflection on your own context. 5. Visit Art Galleries // Though it may seem odd, there is much that can be learned from experiencing well laid out and well curated art exhibits. Paying attention to flow, lighting, presentation of the art and background information presented can provide new ways for thinking about creativity. At Grace (London), Jonny Baker has developed much thinking on “curating worship.” For example every Grace service is led by a “curator.” The idea here is that when good curation happens, you experience the difference and yet no one ever knows or realizes who the curators of any exhibit are. Good curation is felt more than noticed on the surface. 6. Create Boundaries and Limits // Often it is harder to be creative with absolute freedom. Rather than starting with a blank canvas, choose an element of liturgy (or other aspect/event of community life) and create intentional boundaries to work within. For example, many of the alt. worship gatherings were limited to the presence of only lay people. This meant that their sacramental practices had to be creative with other areas of the service — such as creating prayer stations, the worship space itself or music. 7.Do Less, Simplify // Similar to creating boundaries, limiting the content to the bare minimum often produces a more creative setting. Create a special seasonal service (Advent, Lent, for example) with the bare minimum. Use the same scripture multiple weeks in a row or use the same prayer repetitiously but in slightly different way. Though many alt. worship services are intricate, many participants often choose a single prayer station or opportunity to express themselves. Another example of this repetitive simplicity can be found at the Community of Taizé where simple chants are repeated over and over again. 8. Create a Change of Scenery // Often times when we are dislocated, we find ourselves with a new awareness of our surroundings. Changing the location (be intentional here) of where worship or another community life event is help to re-imagine what the possibilities are. A change of scenery was responsible for both Transcendence (Visions, York) and for a new rhythms of community life at Grace (London). As you begin to take risks and develop your own creative worship, perhaps a careful distinction would be helpful. Christianity has a rich history and tradition. In fact it’s quite creative. I want to draw a distinction between traditional (adjective) and traditioned (verb) worship. Like all adjectives, traditional is highly relative and has come to be equated with the static — maintaining the status quo. The later, traditioned, as a verb, represents an active process of engagement and study with a particular tradition. We all come from a tradition. Worship that is traditioned though has been intentionally seasoned (think “flavored”) with the symbols, images, metaphors, language and icons that contain deep significance for Christian faith. But traditioned worship has also been handed over to a new day, a time in which the original must also speak to the present and to the future. That is to say, they become relevant for today and beyond by their very function. And so if we are to develop creative worship that helps us make meaning of the world we find ourselves it, it will be both traditioned and relevant. But those two are never intrinsically mutually exclusive. —– Tim Snyder is the co-founder of the Netzer Co-Op, an emerging community in Austin, Texas. He holds the bachelors of arts in theology from Texas Lutheran University and is a graduate student at Luther Seminary. Tim is Managing Editor of GENERATE Magazine. Tim previously contributed an article on the liturgy of the farmers market to The Everyday Journal. Additional Resources for Creative Worship: smallfire.org // Here Steve Collins has curated the largest collection of pictures documenting the alt. worship movement in the UK. smallritual.org // Here Steve Collins has curated a large collection of articles, videos and other resources from the alt. worship movement in the UK. Proost (a small publishing outfit in the UK) has published a series of Pocket Liturgies from many of the most creative worshipping communities in the UK. These are great especially if you are interested in writing your own liturgy. visit Proost online at proost.co.uk Jonny Baker’s Worship Tricks is a collection of creative moments in worship from all over the world. You can find those on his blog: jonnybaker.blogs/jonnybaker/worship_tricks/ For the best introductory guide to developing creative worship, see A Wee Worship Book (4th Incarnation), Wild Goose Worship Group (GIA Publications), 1999). 4. Imitate Someone Who Inspires You // Imitation is a powerful tool for improvisation. It is a practice of careful and intentional study. Even when taking careful considering to imitate and replicate, new connections and insights are made. Doing the same routine in a new place invites creative thinking and deeper attention to context. It won’t matter the medium, so think broadly here. Below are several sites that have documented alt. worship gatherings all over the world. Find something that inspires you and imitate it with careful reflection on your own context. 5. Visit Art Galleries // Though it may seem odd, there is much that can be learned from experiencing well laid out and well curated art exhibits. Paying attention to flow, lighting, presentation of the art and background information presented can provide new ways for thinking about creativity. At Grace (London), Jonny Baker has developed much thinking on “curating worship.” For example every Grace service is led by a “curator.” The idea here is that when good curation happens, you experience the difference and yet no one ever knows or realizes who the curators of any exhibit are. Good curation is felt more than noticed on the surface. 6. Create Boundaries and Limits // Often it is harder to be creative with absolute freedom. Rather than starting with a blank canvas, choose an element of liturgy (or other aspect/event of community life) and create intentional boundaries to work within. For example, many of the alt. worship gatherings were limited to the presence of only lay people. This meant that their sacramental practices had to be creative with other areas of the service — such as creating prayer stations, the worship space itself or music. Related posts: 1. The Art of Worship 2. Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling 3. Why Our Words and Metaphors Matter for Worship
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 12:58:17 +0000
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