Worshipping “outside the box” best describes what Orangeburg’s Church of the Redeemer will do weekly beginning Sunday.
The church will attempt to reach out to newcomers and parish members with a contemporary service that will incorporate prayer, scriptural readings and praise music to worship the Lord. The service, titled “Vesper Light: A Celebration of Praise, Prayer and Worship,” will take place at 6 p.m. every Sunday in the church’s Parish Hall.
“Church of the Redeemer has always been a pretty traditional Episcopal church,” said the Rev. Dr. Frank Larisey, Church of the Redeemer’s rector. He said the church’s worship services resemble the strict liturgy of the Catholic Church while its theology is a combination of both Catholicism and Protestantism. “Our worship has always been traditional, old-fashioned, using Elizabethan, or Shakespearean, English.”
Larisey, who has served at the church for three years, said the new alternative services will be based in traditions older than those influencing the church’s Sunday morning services. He said the basis for the evening services can be traced to early Christians and found on page 400 in the Episcopal Church’s “Book of Common Prayer,” under the entry titled “An Order for Celebrating the Holy Eucharist.”
“They didn’t have anything that was written down,” Larisey said of the early church. “They had the Old Testament, the Psalms, old letters of Paul, the Gospel according to Matthew … and they probably didn’t have all of them — they had some of them. (But) they came together to praise God. They just praised him. They had songs, hymns and spiritual songs … reading from letters … preached, and then they prayed. … Then they shared the Last Supper … and before they left, they prayed for one another’s spiritual needs.
At [url=http://www.saint-peters.net]St. Peter’s Anglican Church[/url] in Tallahassee, we started this exact type of service a year ago. It is called [url=http://www.saint-peters.net/veritas][em]Veritas![/em] An Anglican Service of Praise[/url] and is every Sunday at 5:00 p.m.
While we have contemporary music sung by a worship ensemble with words projected onto an overhead projector, the service is [em]strongly[/em] anchored in the [em]Book of Common Prayer[/em] liturgy.
It has been a great draw for Tallahassee college students (FSU, FAMU, TCC — who often stay afterward for a fellowship dinner for only a $1), people coming from other denominations, and even the unchurched. In fact, I know of some who loved the liturgy so much, they started coming to our traditional morning services (organ, vestments, incense, etc.).
The key for this service is, while changing up the style, the liturgy and proclamation of the Gospel isn’t lost. And I think St. Peter’s has done a tremendous job of melding everything together while not diluting the Gospel.
This sounds like the “seeker service” popular in mega-churches a few years ago. I know of an instance where an Episcopal parish tried a “seeker service” and it flopped. Certainly there are successful instances as well. The point is that it’s not a sure bet.
I do have some concern about the rite, which we used to call “Rite III”. My understanding was that it was not to be used for a Sunday service. Moreover, back in the 70s, St. David’s, Austin started a 5pm with folk style music, using Rite II. Probably there were 20 people there, including the musicians and priest. I was there about 10-12 years ago and the church (a large room!) was full. I hear it still is. So a non-set liturgy is certainly not a requirement. Preach the gospel, lift up Jesus, and they will come. Make them welcome and they will stay.
I love the Veritas Service — it is liturgical, the musicians are very talented and the preaching is Biblically based.
That said, the one thing I would suggest is that the musicians base the music on the theme of the readings for the day. It [i]seems[/i] to me (I may be wrong) like the songs are picked haphazardly (“I like this one, so we will use it”), and many over-used from Sunday to Sunday, because “people will sing it if they know it better through repetition”?.
When I was folk-choir leader, basically the only advice I was given by the priest was “read over the Scriptures for Sunday and pick your songs according to the theme of the day”. Nothing else. I had full range to use whatever songs I wanted, as long as they fit the service for the day. I never lacked for choices.
I would also suggest using a modern Praise version of the Psalm of the day, which is often omitted from the Veritas service for time constraints. If done at Offertory or communion it would work well, I think, and you could do a complete psalmody from the works of modern Christian artists from Twila Paris and Michael Card to Casting Crowns and Third Day.
So that would be my advice to the music leader. John Michael Talbot has a book out for liturgical music leaders called [url=http://www.faitharts.ie/joymus.html]The Joy of Music Ministry[/url]. While I haven’t read it yet, I think it would be a great resource.
Other than that, it’s a wonderful service.
Peace and Song in Jesus Christ!
Jim Elliott <><
libraryjim, You should send your comments to Fr. John!
Ahhhhh, I’m sure he’s tired of hearing my theories!
LOL 🙂
Jim E <><
PS, I wouldn’t mind if someone cut and pasted it in a letter to him, however. 🙂
One more thing that ‘bugs me’ about contemporary services: when no attempt is made to fit the songs into the correct part of the liturgy — for example, a petition song used at the Gloria, a praise song during the prayers, etc.
Peace
Jim E. <><
Blast, this is why I revisit my threads:
The situation I described in my last post re: parts of the liturgy and music has NOT been a problem at St. Peters’ Veritas service, when I have attended. The one I described before, yes.
Peace and song in Jesus Christ
Jim E. <><