Copyright: © 2004 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.

I write these lines literally hours after taking part in an amateur production in my parish church of George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan in Hell, in which I played the role of the Commander. Our director was brilliant: a congregational member, like the rest of us, and an amateur, but enormously skilled and experienced. And a Professor of Psychology at our local University.

He made the point, over the course of our several rehearsals, that each actor on stage possesses what he called (following Freud?) an OBSERVING EGO, a critical ego, that's constantly about the business of evaluating, from moment to moment, what's going on on stage. Especially where you as actor are concerned.

As a public performer, he was arguing, you've got to assume responsibility for a ceaseless self-critical examination of what you're doing. For what you're doing relative to the other players on stage. For what you're doing, from moment to moment, to advance the momentum and meaning of the performance of the play.

That seemed like marvelous GOOD SENSE to me, in theatre, and in life. To stay in tune at all times with your own observing ego. And I see it all relating to the leadership of Christian worship.

I've made reference before in these pages to the importance of honouring the principle that worship leaders serve, not only the gathered assembly, but also EACH OTHER during the course of a given service of worship. And it's important too, in my view, not simply that each of these worship leaders honour that principle, in their conduct and demeanor during worship, but that they each APPEAR TO OTHER WORSHIPPERS to be honouring that principle. See Essays 23, 65 and 66, above.

So the question arises for me as to how? How might worship leaders send the signal to other worshippers that a mutual service, one to another --me to you, you to me-- lies at the heart of Christian DISCIPLESHIP?

Aside: Faithful readers of these pages have probably tired of hearing me repeat it, but here I go again: What you DO as leader in worship has the power to teach, as fully as what you SAY. What you DO in worship assumes the character of a word. Your actions, your demeanor, your comportment, the position you assume in the space relative to each other and to the assembly, your posture, your gestures --hey, the expression on your face!-- Each of these becomes a bearer of The Word.

Or not.

So concern over such things is never merely a matter of aesthetics. It is simply part of your hermeneutic homework as worship leader. It is part of the responsibility you assume as bearer and proclaimer of the Gospel: To spend time and energy examining what you DO as worship leader, and what you APPEAR TO OTHERS to be doing. To stay in tune with your observing ego. It is simply a pernicious sectarianism to assume that words alone, verbalizings, can carry all the freight in Christian worship. See Essay 3 above. And further, as I have argued before, what you do IN WORSHIP provides a model for the Christian life OUTSIDE of worship, during the week, the day-by- day enactment of the Word of Grace that constitutes your personal discipleship. What you DO in worship provides a model, for yourself and for other worshippers, of how to live out the Good News of Christ day by day.

Hence my insistence here on three Important Principles:

A) That worship leadership always include representatives from the LAITY, congregational members who serve as Assisting Minister or Acolyte. At stake in this conviction is nothing less than the living out of the Priesthood of All Believers. See Essay 42 above...

B) That worship leaders, ordained and unordained, take up their duties in a cheerful acknowledgment that their ministry serves as a MODEL for ministry, within the Christian assembly at worship, and more broadly in the day to day disciplines of Christian life. You are unavoidably "on stage" when you serve as worship leader. Other worshippers will be watching you, from moment to moment, from instant to instant, to see the signals you send. Other worshippers within the assembly will be "on stage" too of course: Christian worship is passionately participatory, with every person present invited "on stage". But most worshippers in the assembly won't be under the moment-by-moment scrutiny you'll be under...

C) That, as an important part of that modeling, worship leaders serve each other, during worship. And further that they APPEAR to be serving each other during worship. For worship leaders to stand side-by-side during the singing of hymns, for example, each clutching a separate hymnbook, does not send the signal that they are serving each other. And it does not send the signal that serving one another is part of our discipleship. Instead, it signals the opposite: an unbecoming individualism. Maybe even an heretical pelagianism. See Essay 23 above.

So: If you're in a position of leadership in public worship, and you're standing side- by-side with another worship leader, do the other worshippers a favour --do the Gospel a favour-- and model what you preach. SHARE THAT HYMNAL!

You might even develop the habit of searching for your proper place in the hymnal FOR each other, and anticipating that kind of need from moment to moment. That's where those coloured ribbon page markers come in handy. Part of your preparation for worship each Sunday will be to find the location of each of those hymns, and to mark them with ribbons. No worship leader's hymnbook is complete without ribbon page markers: You'll have to provide them for your own hymnals, in most cases. And please: No paper clips or paper posting notes. See Essay 18...

Of course, if you're each standing alone, if you are NOT standing side-by-side, that is another matter altogether. Then you have to clutch your own hymnbook, and find your own place in it. Space arrangements in some church buildings do not allow worship leaders to sit or stand together side-by-side for hymn-singing. Pity.

Now, how about DURING the leadership of worship? I'm thinking of Presiding Minister and Assisting Minister, or Leader and Acolyte. Can these worship leaders find ways to position themselves so as to send the signal of SERVICE during prayers or liturgical responses? I'm thinking of such moments as:

1. at the Confession, LBW rubric #1
2. at the Prayer of the Day, rubric #8
3. at the Creed, rubric #20
4. at the Prayers or Intercessions, rubric #22
5. at the Offertory, rubric #26
6. at the Post Communion, rubric #40

When worship leaders stand SIDE-BY-SIDE, facing the people, during worship leadership, I call this the "Ike-and-Mike" position. When they serve each other in such moments by holding each other's book, they're not only modeling the service of DISCIPLESHIP for other worshippers. They're also modeling an endearing COLLEGIALITY. They're acting out the important egalitarian principle of the Priesthood of All Believers. So it's hugely important that one book be used, in such moments. Ike serves Mike. Mike serves Ike. Neither is superior to the other in rank. They're brothers. That's the signal they're sending.

Now, there are PROBLEMS with the Ike-and-Mike position. Chief among these problems is that they impede each other's freedom of movement, standing flank to flank. Neither Ike nor Mike can manage a full and graceful and generous orans, when they're standing cheek-by-jowl. Orans is that lovely prayer posture of antiquity, with arms out-spread, palms open and up in a receiving gesture, head up and eyes open, fixed on infinity. It's a marvelous evocative posture that speaks volumes, when it's done gracefully and generously and sincerely. It telegraphs praise. And it should be used for all prayer in public worship.

Repeat: No worship leader should offer public prayer in Christian worship unless it's from an orans posture.

So the Ike-and-Mike position works well during the singing of hymns and psalms and canticles, when Ike and Mike are standing side-by-side and sharing the same hymnal. But it's NOT SATISFACTORY, in my view, at almost any other moment in worship. It does not lend itself to freedom of movement, to a graceful and generous orans. So what to do?

How about the Martha-and-Mary position? This is my name for an alternative position for the two worship leaders. The one who serves, that is, the one who holds the book --we'll call her Martha-- stands IN FRONT of the one who is being served, that is, the one who reads --our Mary. Our Martha positions herself in front of our Mary, slightly to right or left of our Mary, her back to the people, or on an angle, perhaps three-quarters turned away from the people. And she holds Mary's book for Mary's reading from it.

Even better would be if our Martha could stand A STEP BELOW our Mary, if your worship space allows it. Mary stands a step above, offering a free and graceful and generous orans. And Martha stands a step below Mary, her back to the people, facing Mary, perhaps slightly to the side, holding Mary's book. In this position Martha is like a living lectern, holding the open book at a level and at an angle that's comfortable for Mary, the one who reads. Mary can even have Martha adjust the book's height and angle, on the spot, in the moment.

Whenever it's adopted, the effect of the Martha-and-Mary position is to allow Mary to assume a full and generous orans as she prays, and Martha as she prays, without the obstruction of another human body at her elbow, at immediate left or right. And it's to send an even stronger signal of SERVICE: Martha is unquestionably Mary's obedient servant in this arrangement. And significantly, as I have argued before (Essay 65), it is Martha, in the moments of her servant role, not Mary, who REPRESENTS CHRIST, in his role as servant.

For the action at the altar during Offering and Offertory and Holy Communion, the Ike-and-Mike position strikes me, again, as particularly graceless, restricting, as it does, a generous orans. At the Offertory and Offertory Prayer, I'd let Martha take centre stage ALONE, and position Mary at the north end or south end of the altar table, facing ninety degrees to the people, her attention centred on the action of Offering and Thanksgiving. Then when Mary moves to centre stage to preside at Bread and Cup in the Great Thanksgiving, I'd position Martha similarly at altar's end. This has the effect of sending the signal that each is waiting upon the other, collegially, but with attention centred on the event of sacrifice and sacrament, rather than on the other as person.

It would be salutary if, at another time during the same worship event --the Intercessions or Prayers of the People, for example-- Mary were to TAKE HER TURN and serve Martha. Then the egalitarian and collegial aspects of their mutual service would not be lost. One disadvantage of the Martha-and-Mary configuration is precisely that: It does not signal collegiality as becomingly as the Ike-and-Mike configuration.

Unless, that is, Mary can find occasion to serve Martha. Mary can serve Martha at the Intercessions, as noted above. And The Offertory is supremely Martha's moment, representing as she does in that ritual juncture the entire assembly in its offering. Although Mary is not actively holding a book for Martha in this moment --the book rests on the altar on a pillow or missal stand-- Mary nevertheless is sending a potent signal by simply waiting upon Martha at altar's end. And vice versa, in due course, when Mary presides with bread and cup.

The point of all this pedantic Polonian punctiliousness? (Polonian? Like Hamlet's Polonius?) When you prepare for worship, be sure to bring along your observing ego.