Alternative Worship In The Liturgical Tradition

Liturgical traditions can still offer great flexibility for integrating into worship a broad spectrum of church ministries. This entry describes a congregation in which this flexibility is demonstrated.

Worship at St. Gregory Nyssen Episcopal Church in San Francisco encourages participation from everyone. Such worship has an evangelical emphasis, since it helps to spread the gospel because it shows the gospel. Participatory worship embodies Jesus' distinctive teaching that God's presence now comes to all and calls for an active response from each of us. Rather than trim its liturgical sails in order to appeal to contemporary secular culture, the church, instead, encourages its worshipers to participate in popular worship from diverse traditions, to an extent that many had thought they could not. St. Gregory's makes lay ministries accessible to all, including the elderly, the youth, the physically impaired, and people entering the church for the first time. For example, lay people read all the public readings including the gospel. The deacon may even invite newcomers to read; many enjoy this way of contributing before committing themselves to the church. After the sermon and two minutes of silence, the church invites all to share their own experiences as they come to mind and to offer their own petitions and thanks during the prayers that follow. Regular churchgoers set an example, and visitors regularly join in. Every musical skill level has an active place in worship at St. Gregory's. People entering the church receive a personal welcome and a sheet of printed music that will be sung, with a short pamphlet explaining worship and church life. In addition, cantors introduce the music in a quick rehearsal each Sunday. Deacons announce each event throughout the service, giving simple directions so that visitors can participate fully with the rest of the worshipers. The wide repertoire of congregational music ranges from simple chants and authentic folk music to classic hymns in four-part harmony, which are mostly sung unaccompanied in the resonant worship space. The congregation dances twice, before and after the eucharistic feast. While drums and rhythm instruments support the dance and the accompanying hymns, the congregation circles around the altar table, using simple Greek steps. These steps are quickly explained each time and used again for weeks in a row. Subsequently, newcomers can follow along in the dance at once and within two Sundays are experts. In addition, singers, who have practiced previously, perform choral works from the Renaissance to modern times. Composers in the congregation, under the leadership of the music director, write new pieces for both the congregation and the choir. A dancing church attracts some types of worshipers more than other types; however, the experience of St. Gregory's shows that the choice of attending a dancing church does not necessarily depend on the worshiper's physical ability alone. Most elderly or disabled people dance the first and simpler dance, and some join the second dance as well. A seminarian in an electric wheelchair led the line each Sunday during her intern year. Moveable chairs nearby serve any who wish to sit out a dance, hymn, or prayer. The church facilities are fully accessible to worshipers in wheelchairs. Women's Concerns in Worship At St. Gregory's, women and men share all liturgical ministries: welcoming newcomers, reading Scripture, singing, dancing, praying aloud, presiding, serving as deacons, preaching, teaching, and consecrating and distributing the Eucharist. The church uses Scripture translations and liturgical texts edited to make gender-specific language general where possible. Several standards of inclusiveness are applied in this editorial process in order to take into account modern biblical scholarship, classical doctrine, and good aesthetics. A New Zealand Prayer Book (1989) of the Anglican Church in New Zealand provides psalmody and prayers free of divisive nationalistic speech as well as gratuitous gender distinctions. In alternate years, the church follows the Church of England's modular Lectionary 2, which offers biblical readings about women to balance readings about men for part of the church year. Slowly the church is collecting or writing new prayers and songs that use feminine imagery to enrich the language of prayer. A long-standing women's group is growing under female clergy leadership and meets for mutual support, spiritual discussions, and retreats. Children's Ministries and Worship At St. Gregory's, children gather in Sunday school during the liturgy of the Word. At Sunday school, they enjoy a simple service that parallels the adults' worship—including the distinctive use of silence, bells, singing, praying, and dancing—and an education program that parallels the lectionary readings. What they learn in Sunday school, they can share with their parents after church, as the whole family talk about the day's Scripture and discussion. Children join the adults for the liturgy of the Table and often bring gifts of their own to lay on the altar. These gifts may include art work responding to the Scriptures or perhaps fresh bread they have baked for the Eucharist. At least quarterly, the congregation prays eucharistic prayers improvised in language and imagery suiting children's understanding. At every celebration, the children share the consecrated bread and wine along with adults. Then under the deacon's guidance, children gather alms from the congregation following the Communion and bring these to the Table along with food for the hungry and homeless. At the end, they join hands with everyone in the dance. On occasional weeknights, the church celebrates the Eucharist as the early Christians did, as a community supper, following the second-century Didache rite. At this occasion, children may dine with their families. Sometimes they dine at their own table in order to enjoy a special educational program matching the adults' discussion. Social Ministry and Worship In keeping with its focus on worship participation, St. Gregory's approach to service work stresses everyone's ability to help. An annual canvass of the membership identifies what people value and want to accomplish in the church and uncovers gifts and opportunities for service. Lay people respond to pressing needs in the city by donating time and money to projects outside the parish. During Sunday liturgy, lay people enlist fellow church members' prayers and participation, often drawing collaboration from people of diverse politics. Members have likewise cared for AIDS patients and others among the congregation enduring long hospitalization. Some members have volunteered in such activities as suicides' and battered women's hotlines and homeless family programs. Every two months, the congregation collects donations for projects outside the parish that are nominated and presented by members. These projects also represent a wide range of social service models and draw broad financial support. The people mix their love for dancing and giving at the annual diocesan ball benefiting Episcopal Charities. Two members have opened a college scholarship fund for the Sunday child-care worker. Another member has adopted a single-parent family in a nearby housing project and has started a food and clothing cupboard at St. Gregory's. Furthermore, the whole congregation gave generously to help parishioners who lost their homes in a recent Oakland hills wildfire disaster. The liturgical assembly forms the heart of this work and generosity, as worshipers pray together for the needy and for God's help in assisting them. Demographics of Worshipers The roughly one hundred regular worshipers at St. Gregory's show demographic similarities. On the average, they are twenty years younger (thirty-five to forty) than Episcopal parishioners nationally, college educated, and open to new life experience. Most worshipers move or change jobs within six months before or after joining the congregation. Members are predominately Caucasian, with a few African-Americans and Asian-Americans. On the other hand, St. Gregory's incorporates members with diverse lifestyles (from singles to married and unmarried couples; from heterosexual to homosexual) and an unusually wide range of political opinion, from radical left environmentalists to neoconservative entrepreneurs. Public intercessions serve both creative reconciling dialogue and mutual personal support between the members of St. Gregory's. The rich use of music and dance has not attracted professional musicians; instead it has chiefly attracted people who like music and welcome the chance to get involved. In addition, aspiring part-time writers have also been drawn into the church. Subsequently, St. Gregory's sponsors twice a year weekend working retreats for writers and composers, including people outside the parish and many currently not related to any church. Educational Ministries and Worship During the week, clergy and trained lay leaders pursue counseling and adult education within the parish and beyond. Courses in Scripture, tradition, and issues in daily living feature up-to-date scholarship, modern research into human behavior, and reflection on personal experience. One presbyter, a founding board member of Spiritual Directors International, supervises an extensive ministry and leads prayer courses. A lay member teaches group spiritual life to diaconal students from four dioceses. Furthermore, several church members supply professional counseling services. In addition, a lay spiritual direction group meets monthly. Another presbyter of the church teaches the New Testament and liturgy to parish classes and diaconal students and convenes the North American Academy of Liturgy work group on early liturgical history. St. Gregory's often receives visits from students and scholars who come to experience its worship in person, and these people also encourage their friends to visit. The church has also desktop published music and pamphlets that share the church's work with the church at large. Visitors periodically write from around the United States and Canada, relating how they have appropriated some insight or usage they observed at St. Gregory's and offering discoveries and suggestions the church might try out in turn. This dialogue greatly enriches worship and church life.