Planning Worship in a Post-Modern Environment

You know, in the old days it was simple:

If you were Methodist you had the Bible, earnest preaching and Wesley's hymns;
If you were Catholic you had Latin liturgy, liturgical colours and incense;
If you were Anglican you had the BCP and cricket.

But things have changed.  Now through the wonders of Liturgical Renewal, you can mix 'n' match to the service that suits you.  Mash up Gregorian Chant and heavy metal?  Just call it creative.  Don't like candles?  Use scented tea lights.  Singing the Psalms not suit you?  Gaze at a hazelnut.  After all, it's what Mother Julian did.

So as another in our occasional series in Worship advice,  here's a few more hints 'n' tips to help you negotiate the post-modern maze - or should I say - labyrinth?

Smell

Smell is the one of the six senses that is hard-wired straight to your brain.  Smell is powerful.  Smell can be your enemy - or your friend.  If the smell of old hymn books and musty hassocks is your thing, then that's great.  Get straight down your local village Anglican church and get your hands on your BCP.  If you're lucky, there might be some other people there as well  But other smells are maybe more conducive to a worshipping atmosphere.  Incense is good.  Personally I find a mixture of spikenard and frankincense just hits the spot, in a relaxing post-daily-toil joss stick.  But try and introduce incense to your communal worship and you'll always find you've got one person who claims it brings on their asthma attack, even if they've never had asthma in their life.  You'll bring the thurible in, and there'll be the sort of outbreak of coughing you normally only get when some-one starts burning old tyres in a tuberculosis ward.  And we all know how unpopular that makes you.

So why not try pumping the smell of fresh coffee, or baked bread, into your worship space, church or Moot House before meetings?  It will give your worship that homely feel - and the takings in your coffee shop afterwards will go up.  Or failing that, the scent of ironing can create the real sense of yearning for home when you're ten and it's raining outside.  Or is that just me?

Music to Listen To

With my background in the Extremely Primitive Methodists, this one is counter-intuitive and hard.  I want to be busy, busy - doing the next thing, then the next.  I can't imagine just sitting still and contemplating.  Worship, to the Extremely Primitive Methodists, was all about doing stuff.  Not least because if you sat still you would freeze to death.  But sometimes you just have to be still.  And they tell me that playing a piece of music can help.  Now, already on this site today Sally and Graham have recommended Coldplay.  And I can see that for some people, having people from Camden as the background to their spiritual lives may work.
But somehow, whenever I hear "Fix You" I just remember that I've got to get the Community Cat down the vets.

So here's some ideas that I find go well.

Enya, obviously.  Enya has the great advantage that you can feel terribly spiritual and go away feeling vaguely blessed and spiritual without ever coming across anything that may actually change you in any way.  Jon and Vangelis used to work much the same way.  While Fauré can make you feel all woosy and other-worldly.  Gregorian chant can make you feel like it's the day after a rave, if you're after that "back in the 90s" experience.  And Chris de Burgh just makes you wonder when it's going to stop.


Graven Images


Now I'd like to consider the power of pictorial art.  Our ancestors knew all about this, of course, with their wall paintings and stained glass and sacred carving.  Until the evil Roundheads smashed the glass and whitewashed the walls and smashed the carving.  

Of course, the Roundheads may have been on the credit side in being in accordance with the 2nd commandment.  Which you could see as a slight advantage - but I'd say that to instil a sense of true worship, the best bet is to project images on the wall of the Moot House.

Personally I love Eastern Orthodox icons.  Obviously, I've no idea what they mean - I can't read much Greek and the saints all seem to be a little dull - but the goldy colour is brilliant and they just look so spiritual.  So projecting images of icons interspersed with pictures of homeless people in London can always be very effective.  Everyone goes away feeling holy, and just a little bit compassionate.  And it hasn't cost them a penny!  Can't be bad.

Cafe Church

It's just so fair-tradey last year, isn't it?

Back in the day, there was a great craze for "Irish Theme Pub Church".  It fitted in very well with the Celtic Worship revival.  Basically you got a church in Harpenden (or, for those west of London, Woking), filled it with Irish drums, pictures of shamrocks and leprechaun memorabilia and played Irish-style music.  The Churchwardens (if Anglican) were issued with shillelaghs instead of wands and the responses mostly consisted of "So are yer all right there, Father Ted?".  The liturgy was renamed the "craic" and post-service coffee was replaced with Guinness.  Unfortunately there was a tendency to skip the service completely and head straight for the coffee, but it was a real step forward in making worship "real" to the youth of the London suburbs who  totally failed to attend.

So now we've moved the angle to Thai Takeaway Church.  Basically, if you phone us up and give us your credit card number we'll deliver you a Thai takeaway.  You don't even need to attend any kind of "formal" worship, and you can listen to the praise music of your choice (or even just watch the telly) while you're eating the food.  We feel it's a real step forward in making that "attending worship experience" a little less intimidating.