Intergenerational Narratives: Worship part 1

What does it mean to be in the world but not of this world? The previous post tells us how the five-act narrative might help, though not very specifically. What if we were to examine the church’s worship and church polity through the lens of the five-act narrative? Would our ministries change? Would our worship change? Would our bylaws and church constitutions change? Perhaps but it will take cultivating a community that embodies what it means to live in act-four. What does it mean then to live in act-four? Let’s examine that question through our worship practice.

First, we need to examine our definition of worship. What is worship? Well, that is a loaded question. Some may define worship as an experience. The individual meets with other individuals to have their faith renewed and seek to experience God through music, drama, and preaching. This definition highlights the individual experience of worship. The components of worship revolve around the individual. The focus is on ourselves; our feelings, responses, actions, surroundings, likes, and dislikes. The worship experience in a worship service is regulated to a time much like when we take our vehicles to the auto shop for an oil change. This definition of worship as an experience is about us. We become the focus of the worship, though we do not realize that we’ve become the focus. The songs we sing that are subjective, using personal pronouns such as “I, me, mine, my” turn the focus of worship inward as it becomes about my relationship with Jesus; my worship experience and meeting with God, my time to be rejuvenated for the work week.

An analogy of worship often used is that worship is drama. Soren Kierkegaard suggested that worship is a dramatic action. The principal actors in the drama of corporate worship are the people of the congregation who are prompted and aided for their role by the leaders of worship (Sing with Understanding, p.249). With this analogy God is the beneficiary of the worship. God hears and accepts the prayers and praises of the congregation. God looks in the hearts and lives of the people, discerning the motives behind their worship and their service. The three-act narrative works well with this analogy because God has accomplished what God has wanted and now sits in the audience watching, judging as we perform. Kierkegaard’s metaphor is not entirely bad; however, it does lift up the experience of worship. It does so because we begin to ask, “How do we know God found our worship service to be pleasing this morning?” “Did I sing loud enough?” “Did I raise my hands high enough?” These are silly questions but the drama metaphor raises them because we want to do what is right before God and our human desire seeks affirmation from God and that affirmation is translated (traditionally) through our experience. Responses such as: “I feel lifted and good after singing this morning.” “The service was spot on today because I felt the spirit of God moving inside me and through others because hands were raised, amens were shouted, and everyone got a standing ovation.” result from the drama metaphor as it exists in the three-act narrative. In this framework, our need to have reassurance of our personal salvation is the primary desired outcome of worship, “I feel that God still loves me because of how worship felt this morning.”

Since the focus is the individual, our ministries become focused on reaching the individuals. Thus we create worship services, ministries, studies, or other gathering times around the individuals. In this model, a twenty-something who attends a very traditional worship service may look around and say, “I do not feel that I am getting to worship God. I do not feel close to God in this service. The music does nothing for me. The traditional sermon does nothing for me. Plus, there’s no one younger than 60 in this service.” In turn, they will approach a church staff member and begin to lobby for a service that is aimed at a younger crowd. The music will be modern music with a full band, videos will be used, and sermons will be called conversations. In essence, the individual will seek to create a worship experience better suited for her own personal experience.

Our contemporary services are a result of a three-act narrative, as is staying in a traditional model, the motives behind each focus on the individual. A contemporary service will focus on the 18-40 year olds while the traditional service will focus on the 50-90 year olds. Each service will be tailored to those attending in order to attract their like audience. This affects the church’s ministries because the service will lead to creating new ministries that emphasize the individual’s need. A single will want to be around other singles, married folks will want to be around other married folk (as long as they are in the same place in their life as they are), senior adults will want to be around other senior adults, etc. The individual focus of worship and the resulting ministries are a result of a three-act narrative that creates separation. Children’s church is a result of separation, we target families but do not want the parents distracted during worship so we create a time just for children, after all, they won’t understand the sermon anyways. Particular styles of worship are tailored to meet the expectations of particular demographic groups, especially generation cohorts (Church of all Ages, p.xiv).

Kierkegaard’s metaphor is not entirely out of place. In the five-act narrative, the drama metaphor creates what some define it as an event. Robert Webber writes, “Worship is the action that brings the Christ event into the experience of the community gathered in the name of Jesus” (Worship Old and New, p.67). It is the event in which a set of circumstances, actions and interactions that occur in a particular time and place and with a particular group of gathered participants (CA, p.xii). In the event the point is not the experience, the event stands on its own and the experience becomes something else. One does have an experience at an event but that experience is shared communally with those who are also experiencing the same event.

A few months ago I attended a U2 concert with a friend. As U2 took the stage and began to play, I realized that I wasn’t just at a concert I was at an event. Everyone around me was partaking in the event. They were singing along with Bono, they clapped to the beat of the drummer, and they cheered as their favorite song was sung by the thousands in attendance. But the event did not end when the concert ended. Goers continued the event as they left, singing the songs they just heard, talking about the experience as a whole. The conversation was not about them as individuals but as a collective group of U2 fans. U2 themselves sought to create an event that bridged the goers to others who were not there, dedicating a song to a Burmese freedom fighter and everyone singing for this individual. The event was a gathering of young and old and no one was separated, they were united in the present event.

The experience of the event is spiritually, communally, and ethically, formative. But the experience of the event is not the point. The point is to “royally waste our time in the presence of the living God” (CA, p xiii). I like the idea of royally wasting our time in the presence of God. The point then is not the experience of wasting time or the encounter with God but rather it is the act of wasting time. The story that comes to mind that best exemplifies this idea is the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.

The spirit of the Lord told Philip to walk the desert road. Philip begins walking out into the wilderness and comes across the eunuch reading a text from Isaiah. The spirit of the Lord tells Philip to go over there and Philip runs to the chariot. Conversation begins to take place between them and the eunuch is baptized in a nearby river. The point of the event is not the baptismal experience of the eunuch or Philip’s message. The event itself was the point, not the outcome of the event. Philip’s act of walking and the eunuch’s act of reading and asking questions lead to the experience of the baptism but it is the event that truly matters.

Worship as an event opens up Kierkegaard’s drama metaphor, especially in our five-act narrative. Our worship services become gatherings in which the communal experience is highlighted solely by the act of being together and wasting our time in the presence of God. The five-act narrative expands our understanding of worship as an event and encourages including all generations in the narrative event of worship because we understand that intergenerational worship is a part of the Christian narrative.

Intergenerational worship is worship in which people of every age are understood to be equally important (CA, p.11). This definition helps us understand what we mean we say intergenerational. We understand that intergenerational is gathering everyone of every age and regarding each with equal importance; although at this moment we are talking specifically about worship, it is the same definition I will use when I refer to intergenerational gatherings. Each generation has the same significance before God and in worshiping congregations (CA, p.11). We seek engage each family, each generation communally through our worship practices and the five-act narrative helps us to do so. In my next post, I will explore the Scriptural practices of intergenerational worship/gatherings and further explore what it means to be a part of the five-act narrative drama and the importance of intergenerational gatherings.