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.

Worship Planning in most parishes is the responsibility of a worship planning team, struck by --or consisting of-- the Worship Committee of Church Council, and usually made up of parish clergy and musicians and others in the parish with both interest and competence. The committee meets several times a year, most often seasonally, and, like all parish committees, should be composed of representatives of two populations within the parish. That is, the worship planning team should be both representative and competent.

First, the planning team should be representative. That is, it should be composed of people representing the widest possible parish demographic: age as well as youth, experience as well as impatience, "high church" as well as "low church". This has the effect of guaranteeing that decisions reached within the team will have been scrutinized and endorsed by a wide variety of parish opinion. To "stack" the planning team exclusively with people sympathetic to the pastor's own opinions is to court disaster when the team's decisions reach the congregational level.

The Important principle at issue: "Take the Line of Most Resistance." This was a fundamental axiom of the late Franklin Clark Fry, as I understand. He was long- time President of the old LCA and before that the ULCA, and a genius in wresting purposeful action out of a group of disparate personalities with disparate opinions. His is an axiom well worth remembering when selecting committee memberships.

Second, the team should be competent. This is to say the team should know something about the job it's called to do. It should include parish members who are competent in the various arts of worship: music, drama, architecture, etc. If your congregational membership includes a professional architect, for example, a dancer, a theatrical director, a musician, put them to work on your worship planning team. It's for this reason alone that you'd expect to find the congregation's own organist or choir director on the team, whether or not that person is a paid professional within the parish.

Part of the team's responsibilities will be to see to it that there is refreshing variety in the forms and patterns of worship in the parish. It would be deadly if every Sunday's worship were just like every other Sunday's worship; a Sunday in Advent no different from a Sunday in the Christmas season; a Sunday in the Easter season no different from a Sunday in Lent; parish worship where we sang the same dozen hymns month after month. Variety in worship operates within three sets of constraints.

The first constraint is an attempt to honour the variety that attends the change of seasons throughout the church's year; the second is an attempt to honour the variety that we can expect to find in the differing orders for worship in use among us; and the third is an attempt to honour the differing ministries to be served by worship leaders.

Now, why this insistence on variety? Why not simplify our worship, so that there's no discernible difference between, say, Morning Prayer and Holy Communion? So there's no discernible difference between, say, a Sunday in the season of Lent and a Sunday in the season of Easter? So there's no discernible difference between a Presiding Minister at Holy Communion, say, and an Acolyte? Well, here are three good reasons:

First, you are missing a splendid pedagogical opportunity, if you do not utilize the occasions for variety that constitute one of the Tradition's finest gifts to all the ages --and indeed to all the churches, "free" churches as fully as "liturgical" churches. The witness of music, of gesture, of vestments, of paraments and colour --these represent important teaching tools; we ignore them to our diminishment.

Second: You are silencing an eloquent voice, if you do not allow these "non-verbal" witnesses to speak. See the Essays above on signs in worship. Yes, these voices will always need the interpretive spoken word to provide signification and clarification and comprehension. And many people in our congregations will need to be initiated into the "message" these "non-verbal" witnesses are carrying; They may not be immediately accessible, but require some thoughtful "growing into". But the pay-off is enormous: faith is enlarged and strengthened; the encounter with God's Spirit is deepened and extended. And these voices are crying out to be heard.

Finally: You are cheating your people --under-nourishing them-- by not feeding them with the manna that God's own generosity provides, in the variety of forms and signs and ministries, the various arts and artifacts and actions cited here. These are "signs" and rhythms and forms that enlarge and extend the human spirit, and prepare the human spirit for its encounter with God's spirit: "deep calling to deep".

Parish worship teams will therefore want to familiarize themselves with the possibilities for enriching parish worship with the variety that is both permissible and desirable throughout the year. Here are some items to consider; in each case, notes and suggestions and rubrics in LBW will provide guidance for enrichment:

1. Does your parish worship reflect the variety that the Church Year affords, with the distinctive themes and motifs that make Advent different from Christmas, for example, or Lent from Easter?
2. Is there distinction and difference in your parish worship between the various orders and rites you use? Is Evening Prayer, for example, observed among you in a way that distinguishes it from, say, the Holy Communion?
3. Is there discernible variety in the way your parish honours the various roles of leadership in worship? Is it easy or difficult to distinguish Presiding Minister from Acolyte?
4. Changes in the congregation's worship practice will always present problems to some sensibilities within the parish. It's therefore always a good idea for worship planning teams to remember this important principle: Always introduce changes in a low-threat context, as much as possible. For example, if the team decides it's a good idea to introduce a common loaf at communion in lieu of individual wafers, the team might propose that this change be made first at the Services during the four weeks of Advent, to return to wafers on Christmas Eve. Even more conservatively, the team might propose introducing such a change on, say, Maundy Thursday, to return on Easter to "the way we've always done it.". Then next year we'll have a common loaf during the Lenten Season, or Easter Season. This way, the threat is perceived as low, and you're all the while building acceptance --maybe even enthusiasm-- for the change within the parish community. When people say "I know what I like," they most often mean "I like what I know."

5. Finally, might you introduce your parish to the custom of instituting major liturgical change on the First Sunday in Advent each year? This Advent change was a long-time tradition in a parish I served early in my ministry. Long before I arrived, thanks to the wisdom and vision of a predecessor, the people in that place had become accustomed to expecting a major change in their worship life, beginning on the First Sunday in Advent each year. This year, for example, the worship leader will for the first time sing the roles assigned in LBW, with people responding in song. The next year we'll introduce a common loaf in lieu of individual wafers. It's that kind of thing. You'd be surprised how fast a parish can accommodate to change, with this system! And how far they can come!