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Letterbox
For myself,
I like time in the middle of a worship service to think, meditate and listen
to the words of the scriptures and prayers. It is the time for a deeper
connection with a mystery within and without my being.
I wonder though about the young adults and younger generations who are so used to "hypermedia" (my term) and constant change and stimulus. The quiet time I appreciate might be too boring for them. They may not know what to do with this time of reverence. I particularly think of my 42 year old son-in-law who would rather work in the nursery than sit through a church service. I agree with Linnea Good, however, that a service of hyper excitement and enthusiasms is difficult to sustain, and would we want that?
Yesterday at McClure United Church in Saskatoon Laura Fouhse (Diaconal minister) led the service. The theme was the outreach ministry of McClure focusing on poverty. Laura used hymns, prayers, scripture and power point. The scripture/sermon part was one person reading a beatitude while he was sitting in the congregation, followed by a photo (power point projection on the wall) taken by a poor person with commentary read by Laura. This was followed by silence, then one verse of music sung by the congregation.
This was repeated using different photos with the different beatitudes. There was time to meditate and then we were presented with a new thought. It did help me to get into extradependence. The only trouble was that I was still there when it was time to hear more scripture and commentary. But the whole presentation was an integrated unit which probably served the younger folks well and may have assisted them to experience extradependence for a few moments.
We tend to automatically think of depending on a person (God?) when we say extradependence. Maybe we need to think of "letting go", "letting Other", "moving deeper", "growing in deep understanding", or "connecting with Being Itself" (Tillich.)
Faye Ford
This letter from Faye Ford in Saskatoon is in response to the article about Linnea Good and worship in the last issue of Congregational Life. You can read the original article at
www.congregationallife.com/news16/goodadvice.html
Congregational Life Newsletter. April 2010. Volume 16 No. 4.