Non-traditional forms of worship.
Hugal
Shipmate
As a member of and former leader of the Christian Dance Fellowship of Britain and am involved with the umbrella organisation The International Christian Dance Fellowship I can understand the value of non-traditional worship forms. What do these forms bring to the church? How well embraced are they?
Comments
The difficulties however are legion. With dance, for instance, is one expecting the whole congregation to join in, Shaker style, or are we looking at a "performance" from the front in the manner of a choir anthem? More generally, is there a danger that the creative people form their own little and rather exclusive "clique" (can be true of musicians and others, too!). How does "creative worship" fit in with existing liturgy, where this is practised? Can "creativity" itself become routinised? Does there have to be some kind of "quality threshold"?
Perhaps the best way of doing things is to place "creative" elements, whether that be dance, drama, visual art, music, mime, some kind of congregational activity or whatever within (and related to) a wider and more traditional worship context? YMMV - I ask these questions as someone who thinks that worship should be rich but isn't very creative myself!
Do you mean "NON-traditional"? There's a superfluous "e" in both your title and your OP.
BroJames, Purgatory Host
Even formal liturgies can sometimes lend themselves to variations of a creative nature - one very simple example is gathering around the altar for the Eucharistic Prayer at the Maundy Thursday evening Mass, if the geography of the church allows it (we do it at Our Place). This enhances the sense of actually being around the table, as the disciples were, with Our Lord, at the Last Supper.
https://youtu.be/4ivQ8tQdysE?si=LURargnrHVY2ONyS
BTW, my congregation has been known to dance around the altar.
In that case, the question is who is introducing the non traditional worship elements and why. Is it a pastor or other minister doing it without being encouraged to at least some of their congregation? Is it some central body or hierarchical leader of a denomination? Is it a at least somewhat democratically elected governing body (council, vestry, etc) of a congregation? Is it a congregation that is ministering to a new or old ethnic or other minority in a denomination?
How are all of these cases different and when is introducing the contractions worship style most or least appropriate?
I mean “the congregation’s worship style”. Not “the contractions worship style”. Thanks for catching that.
What some people would class as 'non-traditional' worship others might consider to be stuck in a 1970s/80s style charismatic-lite time-warp.
What some 'traditionalists' would consider time-honoured today might have looked odd or even avant-garde to people within their own tradition some 50, 100 or 150 years previously.
You can't get more 'traditional' than my own Tradition but even that has 'moved on' to some extent, albeit more slowly than elsewhere. You find Orthodox people of course who seem to think that we way we worship in Orthodox churches today is identical to how it would have been in the 1st century. Of course it isn't, but it's developed from that.
Equally, some charismatics and Pentecostals are convinced that their way of worshipping is identical to the way the early Christians worshipped. Of course it isn't. But there are elements there that either derive from that to some extent - or from interpretations based on particular understandings of the intriguing glimpses we find in the Pauline epistles and which have then been filtered through traditions which have grown up since. The Wesleyan tradition, for instance, or revivalism and so on.
Whether this is a good or bad thing, I don't know, but it seems to me that if we incorporate 'dance' or heavy-metal music or ice-skating or helium balloons or whatever else, we're going to end up with something very niche.
Whilst I can appreciate the skill and integrity of someone like @Hugal in his commitment to dance, I'd be running for the door if anyone introduced contemporary dance and choreography to a church service I was in. But I'd probably be ok with it if it was part of a 'performance' or billed as some kind of separate event.
Likewise, you'd have to strap me into my pew or chair these days if I were to be subjected to rounds of repetitive chorus singing and 'Lord we really just wanna ...' style prayers.
That's just me. People change. I'd have been fine with that at one time and happily joined in myself. I wouldn't try to stop anyone else doing it though.
All that said, we can't seem to avoid 'niche'. The fact that there might be a Romanian, Greek and Russian Orthodox Church in the same city is testimony to that. It's not just a language thing, either, however much people might claim otherwise.
Go to Uganda and you'll see Orthodox congregations worshipping in a more African style. But with the Russians trying to muscle in and introduce Church Slavonic or course ... (not that the Alexandrian Patriarchate has treated African clergy and congregations fairly, it has to be said).
But I digress.
On balance, I broadly concur with the comments/themes and questions that @Baptist Trainfan has raised. Resolving some of those issues and conundrums is easier said than done.
Whatever the style and tradition, the most important aspect has to be the 'intentionality' and authenticity/sincerity of our engagement. How we measure that I don't know.
There were only two of us in the choir for the mid-week Liturgy today. I messed up twice and the priest had to get us to do one bit over again. I didn't find it an 'enjoyable' experience at all but when we got to the post-communion prayers there were words and phrases that made my heart glow.
That can happen whether we are singing a traditional hymn, a modern chorus, doing some kind of dance or whatever else.
In general, I appreciate dance as an art-form.
I utterly despise the kind of free-form "do what comes naturally" thing that goes on in discos and nightclubs. Any suggestion that I should start spontaneously moving in response to music or liturgy will have me spontaneously moving out of the front door.
I've seen liturgical dance at services I've been in a few times, and it hasn't made any sense to me. The dance hasn't contributed to communicating the liturgy - it's just been a slightly distracting thing that has happened involving (in these cases) groups of women in floaty costumes. I have a similar feeling about most children's action songs - the actions seem to have been determined by someone asking "what action can we do for this line" rather than "what would be helpful to emphasize the story".
In theory, I'd be interested in trying more choreographed congregational motions in liturgy; this would stand in opposition to the "inclusive" approach that encourages everyone to participate in the liturgy in whatever way feels comfortable to them. But when you combine the "inclusive" approach and dance, you get the free-form disco disaster that I'm going to despise.
It's hard to see how some kind of international association could be sustained if that's all it was.
I've no idea what he is referring to though. All I've seen of dance in worship has been the kind of free-form bopping up and down we used to go in for in the 'house-church' scene of the 1980s - or 'liturgical dance' featuring women in floaty dresses which as has been said, doesn't appear to add anything to the proceedings.
I'd be interested to know what he has in mind, why he feels it's important and what he expects congregations to get out of it.
The '80s style charismatic two-step could be quite liberating at first but it became formulaic over time.
I'm imagining Hugal is thinking of something more choreographed where particular movements are meant to convey particular moods and meaning, as in ballet.
But there has to be more to 'non-traditional' worship than a dance element.
What exactly are we talking about here? Contemporary worship songs? The use of technology? Multimedia presentations? The 'alt-worship' stuff that was popular in some quarters in the early 2000s?
Somebody help me understand what's being referred to.
I doubt whether those breathing techniques were taught to congregations in the context of public worship, although perhaps she reserved a slot for it somehow.
If a minister/clergy person did an 'interpretive dance' at their ordination and was then appointed to a congregation I was involved with I think my interpretation might differ from theirs.
'Sorry, I know you mean well but my interpretation of your interpretive dance is that I've suddenly remembered an urgent appointment somewhere else. Like anywhere else ...' 😉
There are dance clubs and dance classes for that sort of thing.
If you want to do your interpretive dance go and do it somewhere among consenting adults.
Alan
Ship of Fools Admin
But it raises the issues @Baptist Trainfan alluded to, how would you go about getting everyone on board with some kind of 'creative' group activity in the context of public worship?
I like poetry and have been known to declaim it publicly - which is fine in the right context.
But if I were to start doing that in the context of regular public worship without a 'mandate' to do so, then it would soon get everyone's back up.
'What's with this guy? Does he like the sound of his own voice? Why does he have to hijack every service with recitations of his own or other people's verse? Aren't there open-mic nights for that?'
I can see scope for all these 'creative' expressions in some form or other - in an 'alt-worship' context or some kind of niche gathering. 'Welcome to The Zone, our regular Saturday night hipster event ...'
But on a Sunday morning, say, when you've got a few old stalwarts, a smattering of mums and tots and some teenagers there under sufferance, how on earth are you going to present or organise something 'creative' that isn't going to alienate some of them?
We still haven't defined what we mean by non-traditional.
Nor what contexts we might be talking about. Parish church? 'Free Church' congregation? Cathedral? Weekend Retreat? Pilgrimage? An ecumenical gathering? A conference? A regular Sunday service?
The answer to those questions might help us define what we are talking about and determine how these things - whatever they are, dance, equipment or whatever else - can be deployed - or not, as the case may be.
I tend to try and get those who want to free dance in churches to dance at the back but space is often not there. We encourage people who can’t carry a tune in a bucket to sing in the congregation. We should encourage people to dance.
Sometimes they are invited to do a choreographed dance for specific occasions and that is beautiful to watch.
Actually I think all groups of people (not just churches) evolve their own traditions. I remember chatting, many years ago, to an Elder in the Pentecostal church I then attended. Not only did he note that their services did in fact have a fairly standard structure, he added, "I can tell within five minutes or so who's going to stand up and speak in tongues or bring a prophecy - and what they're likely to say!". He wasn't deprecating the worship, just saying that it wasn't as "free" as some people might claim.
There was an interesting PS to this. I and another Bible College student were invited to lead the "Gospel Service" one evening (even that, now I think about it, was a "tradition" as non-believers were very unlikely to attend). We decided that we would end the service quietly with a solo song by my colleague, a prayer by myself, and a reflective silence. The whole effect was ruined because, after we'd finished, another Elder leaped up, riffling through the pages of his hymn book and eventually announcing a bouncy hymn. Clearly they (or at least he) couldn't cope with something which was "non-traditional"!
The question this begs, 'We should encourage people to dance' is, 'Why? What for?'
What's so special about dancing that it should be prioritised in some way?
What about people with physical disabilities or conditions who are unable to dance?
What about people who, for whatever reason, don't feel as comfortable about dance as you do?
I get that 'physicality' in worship is important. Both the Orthodox and the Pentecostals stress the importance of using the body in worship. Pentecostals clap or dance or sway or speak in tongues. All physical activities.
Orthodox and Christians from other sacramental traditions bow, prostrate, cross themselves, kiss icons or venerate relics and so on - all very physical and indeed 'kinetic' activities.
But other than some 'zealots' none of them are going to 'encourage' people to do any of that unless they really want to.
If you visited my church on Sunday nobody would try to get you to light a candle, kiss an icon, make a 'prostration' or whatever else.
What are you saying here? At what point does 'encouraging' people to dance become pressurising them to do so?
And why dance? Why not something else?
@Heavenlyannie is right, what's 'normal' in some congregations is normal in some congregations. If I visited her church I'd expect to see people sway or clap and so on. It wouldn't faze me at all. I've been involved in similar churches myself.
But I wouldn't feel comfortable if people tried to 'encourage' me to join in, nor would I expect them to either, because I get the impression they aren't pushy that way.
I'm still asking the question as to what we mean by 'non-traditional worship' and why dance should be the focus rather than anything else we might discuss as a feature of that.
If it's a specialist interest of yours @Hugal, then fine but you can't expect everyone else to share that anymore than I might expect everyone to like the same beer, wine, music, films, books or whatever else that I happen to enjoy.
I have, however, seen and admired a choreographed dance as part of a service of worship, but this was pre-advertised, so took no-one by surprise and others were not expected to join in. I cannot recall what the point was, but it did strike me more as a form of entertainment inviting reflection on a theme, rather than part of collective worship.
Perhaps the most powerful piece of non-traditional worship I have seen was a delivery of a story from the Gospel narrative by one young male. He seemed to use a mix of dance movement and acting, as well as the unique way the words were spoken. It fitted well within the traditional liturgy.
As far as the dance counterpart to instrumental/ solo/ choral is well choreographed and well executed then I can value and even enjoy it and gain something spiritually from it. Not, however, if it is devised and/or carried out by enthusiastic but untrained amateurs.
Congregational dance is rarely physically possible in most of the church settings I experience, and to be honest is physically beyond the capabilities of much of the congregation, and that is even before addressing the question whether people would be personally and socially comfortable with it.
Indeed!
Sorry thought it was clear I meant if they want to dance. They shouldn’t feel they can’t.
But, then, I don't like being expected to join in children's action songs either. That hasn't died out since the 1980s. It was an innovation when it escaped the Sunday School in or about 1977 and happens far too frequently to this day IMHO. I don't mind other people joining in if they really must. It's the sense that they give off that everybody must join in because of Jesus's words about faith as a little child, sometimes combined with mutterings about finding one's inner child.
So: are there "other" forms or elements of worship which go outside these? Are there ways of reinventing worship altogether?
There is often a sharp learning curve to be negotiated at first, just as there was for many of us when long-familiar language (eg Latin or Cranmerian) was replaced by modern forms. But people grow into it. The worst thing is if an experiment is discarded too soon and replaced by an equally short-lived one. Self-consciousness is the enemy.
The question to be asked, though, it what constitutes collective worship. Or, to put it another way, are there forms of "non-traditional worship" which actually aren't really worship at all? I'm thinking here of things such as "Cafe Church", "Messy Church", "Bread-making Church", even silent collective meditation and reflection. Those who participate in such things would say that (a) the New Testament doesn't prescribe any specific form of worship and (b) that doing things in these ways is, for them, valid worship. But is it really? (@Gamma Gamaliel, you've probably taken part in a wider spectrum of worship then most of us; what do you think?)
Of course worship need not be collective but an interesting point
AFAICT, it does contain elements of liturgy, but conducted in a rather less formal way. It's still collective worship, with the expected elements (prayer, Bible reading, song, teaching), though it doesn't personally do anything for me - that's not the point, of course, and it may work well for many people.
It'd take me longer than I've got right now to come up with a well-thought out answer. Even then, people might not agree that it's well thought out ...
But here's a gut/initial reaction.
Firstly, I agree to a large extent with @Angloid, that whatever a particular congregation does is part of its tradition - or to move into Topol mode - Tradition.
So, for instance, it would be part of the 'tradition' in the kind of churches @Hugal has in mind for people to dance. Fine. In which case anyone who consciously selects that kind of church as their primary spiritual home/place of worship is at least going to be comfortable in theory with the idea of dance occurring in the worship there.
'What's occuring?'
'Dance.'
As regards New Testament worship, I've heard it said in Orthodox circles that the reason the scriptures aren't prescriptive on 'how' worship should be conducted, is because it was based on synagogue worship and as most of the early Christians were Jewish they didn't need to be told as they were already familiar with the format.
It's interesting that the intriguing - and often perplexing and apparently contradictory (to my mind) instructions we find in 1 Corinthians were addressed to a very mixed congregation in multi-cultural Corinth.
But in direct response to @Baptist Trainfan, and wearing an Orthodox hat of course, I'd suggest that the term Orthodoxy / orthodoxy (choose upper or lower-case) conveys the sense of 'right worship' as well as 'right belief.' The issue then is who or which groups are doing it 'right'?
Orthodoxy holds that our worship here on earth is a kind of 'mirror' or 'icon' as it were of worship in heaven. We'll cite passages from Hebrews and Revelation to contend that this is the case. It's all centred on The Holy and Undivided Trinity - Christ Himself is the true Temple. You know how it goes.
Now, there are a range of views on how that pans out across the various Christian traditions and tribes. I'd say that what we are all doing is to some extent or other a 'shadow' or representation of that and that the Truth - Christ who is Himself the Way, The Truth and The Life - can be apprehended anywhere and everywhere.
'We can say where the Church is. We cannot say where it is not,' sort of thing.
With caveats. There always are.
With the greatest respect to Christians whose worship is non-eucharistic, I'd say that the bottom-line is that Christian worship should include a eucharistic element somewhere or other - although what form that takes is clearly a matter for discussion or debate. How that's done or understood will vary according to our theology or tradition/Tradition.
But Christ can be found everywhere and anywhere. The Greek theologian Romanides was convinced, apparently, that the early Quakers saw the 'Uncreated Light' of the Holy Glory just as the Byzantine hesychasts are believed to have done.
In terms of my own 'apprehension' of Truth or a sense of the numinous or the divine goes, then on a purely subjective basis I'd say I've experienced something of Christ in every form of Christian worship I've experienced.
It's 'better felt than tell't' as the Scots say and I don't doubt that people who might be bopping away free-form style in the kind of services/meetings that Hugal favours are connecting with Christ. Why shouldn't they?
But hand on heart, I do have difficulties with the idea of 'Messy Church', 'Forest Church', 'Breadmaking Bake-Off Church' or 'Cafe-Church' etc as being sufficient in and of themselves. That doesn't mean that I think they are 'invalid' as forms of worship, but they aren't as fully-orbed or 'complete', I would suggest, than what we might understand as more 'traditional' forms of church.
I have no difficulties with them as activities in and of themselves but not in isolation from the wider worshipping community which, I feel, should have a eucharistic element of some kind - whether in a 'memorialist' sense or a way up the candle sacramental sense.
We've had this discussion before, as to whether 'Messy Church' or 'Cafe Church' is 'Church' in its own right. My answer would be, 'To and extent but I feel it's incomplete but then it's not for me to judge how other people choose to worship or understand 'Church'.'
Does that make sense?
At one end of a spectrum, there’s following a traditional ordo—whatever that traditional ordo might be for a denomination or congregation—but doing things in non-traditional ways or using non-traditional elements within the framework of that ordo.
For an example of how dance might fit into a traditional ordo, see the Mystery Worshipper report on St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.
Or perhaps the Scripture might be “read” in creative ways, or Tongsung Kido might be used by the congregation for the Prayers of the People.
Or, another example might be the use of a large puppet in another recent Mystery Worshipper report.
On the other end of the spectrum, there’s creating a totally new form of worship. That would describe the Shakers, as well as the early Friends and Pentecostals, whose forms became traditional for them. I’d say it should also describe the forms developed by the Taizé Community.
And then there are any number of possible spots in between.
Some “innovations” may become part of the tradition—something done regularly in a particular community. Some may be occasional or one-time things, not because they’re rejected per se, but because they served a particular purpose on particular occasions, but don’t on a regular basis.
In most congregational singing, what the congregation is encouraged to sing is the tune. Free dance is more akin to that scene in Harry Potter where everyone sings the school song to whatever tune they fancy.
Why?
For their own benefit?
For God's?
It strikes me that there could be all sorts of reasons, good, bad or indifferent, as to why people are 'encouraged' to do particular things in churches.
'People should be encouraged to tithe / give more money ...'
'People should be encouraged to prepare before receiving communion ...'
'People should be encouraged to memorise scripture and read X number of chapters of the Bible every day ...'
'People should be encouraged to speak in tongues and prophesy ...'
'People should be encouraged to witness to their faith and tell their friends and neighbours about Jesus ...'
'People should be encouraged to cross themselves / say the Rosary / go to confession / venerate the Sacred Host ...'
Or whatever else.
There may be good, bad or indifferent theological or pragmatic reasons for 'encouraging' people to do any of these things.
I get that Hugal isn't saying that people who don't want to dance should be encouraged to do so, but why is it important that those who are up for that are?
Is it to satisfy Hugal's own interest in dancing? He likes dancing and so enjoys seeing other people doing the same? Which is perfectly understandable of course. I like seeing people enjoy what I like doing.
But is there are spiritual or theological reason behind it? Encouraging a more 'holistic' and 'immersive' engagement with the worship experience? Going beyond the purely cerebral and getting more physical and 3-dimensional perhaps?
I'm not criticising, just interested in the rational and why dancing might be seen as more preferable than other physical expressions such as genuflecting or bowing, kneeling or whatever else goes on in terms of gesture and movement in other traditions?
Which is think answers your “why.”
We had a rural dean for a while who enjoyed Circle Dance and used to lead a session on Saturday mornings in our church a few times a year (focusing more on the religious dances, though there are pagan ones as well). I did personally find that it felt like a form of worship - probably more so than if we’d included it in a Sunday service, as we knew everyone there definitely wanted to dance.
Ok. Fair enough.
I'm probably reading too much into what he wrote.
I think @Aravis raises a good point. If there's a choreographed form of dance, rather than free-form, it makes sense of it happens in a context where everyone is up for it.
I once visited an Orthodox parish where they'd adopted a custom where people came forward in groups of three to ask forgiveness of everyone else through a series of ritualised gestures. It was quite something and reminiscent of dance in some respects.
'Formation Forgiveness' anyone?
What is a messianic dancer?
Pagan ones? Like Wiccan?
Then there was the Clown ministry exemplified in Godspell. I never acted in that, but I was a technical advisor to a high school group that was putting it on.
The 60s and 70s were interesting times for me.
Tat goes back to the Desert Fathers in the earliest days of the Church, and hermits have been a thing through the centuries.
Agree - though what I find fascinating in a rural benefice of 5 churches which went totally over to the ASB when that came out and then Common Worship contemporary language, and has subsequently introduced cafe church into most of the churches too, is that the introduction of the latter has actually spurred a resurgence/reappearance of BCP in at least 3 parishes in response. Sort of 'we're giving those people what they want, so we'd quite like what we want please' - and it's an interesting mix of people longing for their BCP world of nearly 50 years ago now, and people too young to have had that.
I really dislike cafe church, but I recognise that it works for some people - it helped with the argument to reintroduce BCP Mattins though! They get that, so we get this.
I actually think - and multiparish rural benefices are actually modelling this very successfully IME - that the trick is to operate a mixed economy model within a church (never mind the benefice) where everyone gets something that they want, without trying to impose uniformity. So you cycle through BCP, Common Worship, Cafe Church, etc every month rather than being a BCP church, or a MOR church, or whatever.
In the sticks, I find people are pretty forgiving of what they get in their parish church, as long as they get *something* (first of all), and secondly that it doesn't settle into any one style. Small village churches have a host of challenges all of their own, but they model far more give and take on the small stuff than most urban churches I've worshipped in.