Copyright: © 2003 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

In the marvellous Anglican parish in Leeds, UK, which I've held up to you before (in Essay 59) as a splendid example of all that a Christian congregation should have been in the late 1960's, the weekly Offering was collected in your pew in a velvet bag at the end of a long wooden pole. (Yes!) These bags were carried forward to the chancel steps during the Offertory, and emptied unceremoniously into an enormous brass basin held by an acolyte standing there. The British penny, in those days, was a gargantuan copper disc, and the action of emptying those offering bags into that brass offering basin created a cacophony, as you might suppose. It was an astonishing moment for me: the gospel of our self-giving summed up in sound. I loved it; I coveted it for every Christian congregation.

The collecting of the Offering is only one aspect of the ministry of Usher and Greeter among us. I'll list them in the order of their doing.

1. Greeting worshippers as they arrive: Serving as Greeter is one of the important ministries of laypeople each Lord's Day although I'd argue that the Presider ought also to be among those who greet arrivals, on the principle that the Presider is the host of the party and should rightly be among those who welcome worshippers. But laypeople have a vocation here as well.

   You have had the experience, I am sure, of entering an unfamiliar church for worship and of being totally ignored. Or perhaps worse yet, being accosted by a "greeter" with sullen countenance or officious demeanour who directs you to a seat --or to the Holy Table!-- in the manner of a drover herding cattle.

   The skill required of Greeters in worship is more likely a gracious inborn charisma, than something you can learn. It is rare indeed to find people with the TEMPERAMENT that allows them to be helpful without being pushy; to be truly welcoming without violating the visitor's personal space or personal privacy; to anticipate the special needs that children, for example, might pose, or the aged, or the disabled, or the mentally unstable. (And every church worthy of the wonderful word "catholic" ought to include a generous measure of each of these!)

2. Remaining alert near the entrance door or in the narthex during the Service for unforseen emergencies. It's often necessary for someone at the entrance door to meet an emergency need there: to seat late-comers, to direct a parent with a squalling child to a nursery or wash-room --that kind of thing. Alert Ushers during corporate worship can be a god-send.
3. Collecting and bringing forward the day's offerings: Should it be the congregation's financial officers, for example --our treasurer, our financial secretary-- who collect the offerings, as a matter of course? A respected teacher maintains that practice would help our people to understand some of the nature of what we do in worship. It's another example, in action, of what I have called ritual clarity. See Essay 5 above.

   Ushers should be trained to bring forward the gifts of money, bread and wine as the choir and/or people sing the Offertory, not before. The Offertory serves in LBW as processional music for the bringing forward of the offerings: the "Great Entrance", in the Orthodox tradition. (The "Little Entrance" refers to that of the worship leaders with the book of the Gospels at the beginning of the Service. Hah! That terminology should give the clergy a little humility!) You've been in churches where Ushers simply charge forward with their burdens whenever they've reached the last pew, assuming their work is done --whether or not the Offertory is being sung.

   Two more issues surrounding the Offertory:

   A) Can we train our Ushers --and our peoples' pieties-- to include the bread and flagon along with the offerings of money when the Ushers bring the Gifts forward? It's not just money we offer into the embrace of God at the Offertory, it's the bread and wine as well. All three of these signs are intended to serve as symbols for our stewardship, our "husbanding", of all the world's resources. Money, bread, wine: It is all one offering. See Essay 42 above. The Offertory canticle or hymn would also cover, at the same time, the action, in the chancel, of presenting simply the Chalice and communion linens at the Table.

   B) And can we train our pastors, our altar guild, our Ushers, and our people to get accustomed to leaving the offering plates or baskets in the west end of the worship space, perhaps on an offertory table near the entrance door with the bread and flagon, as their "default position", rather than on a wall-bracket in the chancel?

   This would have two salutary effects: First, it could begin to train our people to leave their offerings at the door, as they enter, if that is their preference. Then no worshippers would feel embarrassed if they forgot their gifts when the Offering plates (baskets? bags?) are passed among them: If you forgot your gift, that is, you could simply smile sweetly as the offering plate goes by, as if to say, "I gave at the office." It would have the effect of eliminating a sometimes- mortifying moment of social pressure among worshippers.

   Furthermore, it would have the effect of ensuring that the action of the Offertory would be initiated among the people, the Ushers simply beginning their passing of the plates --without, that is, first receiving empty plates from the Presider. For the Presider to pass out empty offering plates to Ushers before they can begin their work is meaningless ritually --and yet another re-enforcement of our current crippling clericalization. The Offering, supremely, belongs to the people. The liturgical action of the Offertory should begin with them, not with their clergy.

4. Directing communicants to the Holy Table: In most congregations, here's another ritual mine-field. Do we need ushers at all, at the Communion of the people? I greatly admire the piety you often encounter in Roman Catholic parishes, where communicants come forward to the Table, without any direction, un-self-consciously, some from the front rows of seats, some from the rear rows of seats, each according to his or her own inner direction, in a marvellous but reverent hodgepodge of comings and goings that is nonetheless wonderfully worshipful. No Ushers needed! See Essay 57 above.

   At the opposite extreme, I have experienced, at Communion, the "service" of Ushers so obsessive-compulsive as to intimidate the stoutest pieties into a quivering obsequiousness ("Am I doing it right? Am I making a mistake?").

   Perhaps Ushers are needed among us at Communion for the foreseeable future. But the manner of their serving is exceedingly delicate. And that delicacy often determines whether or not a stranger or visitor will return a second Sunday. The bottom line: I realize that among us it may take several generations of becoming familiar with every- Sunday Eucharist before we can do away with direction to the Holy Table. (Essay 57 again.)

5. One more thing: I don't see any need, ritually, for Ushers to dismiss the congregation, row on row, after the Service has ended --a practice you sometimes encounter at weddings or funerals, and in some parishes also at every Sunday Service. In the case of weddings and funerals the custom can be defended, if you want to make certain that the immediate family gets out first, before other worshippers, so as to allow them to join a receiving line or a procession out of the worship space. But the custom makes little sense, in my view, when Ushers must dismiss you, row on row, after every Service simply as a matter of course. Worshippers have presumably entered without direction; they should also be allowed to leave without direction. Indeed, some may prefer not to leave, at least until after some moments of private meditation.