Contemporary Models Of Worship And Spirituality

A variety of recent publications and programs have rethought how Christians can express their faith and develop their spiritual life in the modern world. This article identifies seven unique approaches to Christian worship and spirituality, and describes their commonalities and differences, providing a thought-provoking perspective from which individual Christians and particular churches or denominations can reconsider their own expressions of faith.

Since the late 1960s, there has been a virtual explosion in the area of Christian spirituality. In the beginning, it started in terms of a recovery of lost spiritual traditions. This was especially true in the Roman Catholic church, which has been the home of numerous schools of spirituality, usually in terms of some religious order. One thinks of Franciscan, Dominican, Carmelite, or Ignatian spiritualities. Many of these communities discovered once again the charisma of their founders, placed this originating experience in the contemporary context of the various biblical, ecumenical, and liturgical movements, and sometimes radically changed their practices of prayer and their pursuit of the spiritual life. The obvious changes were registered in retreat houses, where there was a growth of the individually directed retreat. Spiritual direction became an essential part of anyone's serious desire to grow in their relationship with God. The Protestant churches, because of a certain wariness that much of this might be a form of works righteousness, were slower to join this movement of Christian spirituality. But as individual members of these churches sought for a deepening in the spiritual aspects of their lives and as they became more aware of the richness of their own traditions in the area of spirituality, they have tried to enter fully in the mainstream of spiritual practices. But in the meantime, other factors have brought about changes in the direction of this spirituality movement. Spirituality is now seen in a broader context and not as something that can be monopolized by Christians. The convergence of the Eastern and Western traditions has added greatly to Christian spirituality on both the reflective and the practical level. And within the West itself as people have not found their spiritual resources in the churches, they have turned to what can only be called secular forms of spirituality, such as the many twelve-step programs and practices inspired by the human potential movement and transpersonal psychology. Now one is more likely to find the enneagram as part of the program of a retreat house than something explicitly liturgical. Finally, much of spirituality has been defined in terms of the professional religious person, such as the clergy person. Today, lay movements have claimed spirituality in a way never before. And while many lay people find certain of the traditional brands of spirituality congenial, still another way of viewing Christian spirituality has become imperative. Thus, the use of models to deal with diversity. Models have been found quite useful in other area of theology, especially the theologies of the church and of the liturgy. In fact, one can view the Christian spiritual life through the same lens as one views the Christian liturgy. This is no surprise since the liturgy is the articulation of the Christian community's spirituality. It is the church's form of spiritual direction. The Institutional Model Because the institutional model stresses the importance of the visible and concrete in our lives, in terms of the Incarnation, it sees the spiritual life as something that requires structure and procedure. It is not possible to have a purely spiritual or invisible spirituality. A relationship with God that lacked the visible dimension would be inhuman. But if there is visibility, then there is procedure and structure. According to this model, one would expect the spiritual life to have clear times for prayer and worship. Spiritual reading, meditation, and various spiritual disciples would all be part of what it means to grow in union with God. When people gather together and center their attention around the Bible, a cross, a lighted candle, or around their breathing and certain bodily practices, such as tai chi, we are seeing the institutional model at work. When this stress on the perceptibility of one's spiritual life becomes dominant, a certain rigidity enters in. There is the danger of a work righteousness being present. One cannot become holy by satisfying certain rules. The spiritual life needs to be more elastic, so that personal creativity can remain a part of it. There can be no question of simply doing something in order to get grace. This is as true of extreme Catholic sacramentalism as it is of the Protestant work ethic. God's presence is found in all of creation, and not only where some authority says it is. The Mystery Model Spirituality from a mystery perspective does not mean the life of union with God is mystifying. Rather, one's spiritual life is wholly centered around the Christ event, especially the death and resurrection of Christ. Here the Resurrection is not simply God's approval of what has been done in Christ or some kind of "?frosting on the cake?" of the life of Christ. Rather, the Resurrection is the saving event. The cross has no value in itself if the Resurrection is not its purpose. To be a spiritual person according to this model is to develop oneself so that one participates fully and concretely in the life of Christ, not the life of the historical Jesus, but in the life of the risen Christ. Since this is an Easter-oriented spirituality, the spiritual path is imaged as a Passover, a movement through death to new life. This is often reflected in the way that mystery-oriented spirituality takes very seriously the church year and the celebration of the mysteries of Christ's life, such as his ascension, the descent of the spirit, the period of Advent, and so forth. The movement of the spiritual life is a symbolic one. There is no place in this form of spirituality for a nostalgic looking back at the Jesus of the Gospels. This is a courageous religious commitment to live the life of Christ, who transcends space and time. The passageway is life in Christ as it has been promised by the great prophets, as it is fulfilled in the Easter experiences during Holy Week and the period until Pentecost, as it is lived out during the course of the year, and as it is promised again in the future Christ brought to expression in that eschatological period of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. The Sacramental Model The sacramental model of spirituality is a spirituality of the church. It has a strong ecclesiological base in which one's relationship with God is experienced within the recognizable Christian community. This is the spirituality that many church members would easily recognize. This is especially true of Roman Catholics after the Second Vatican Council. One's union with God is not only facilitated by the church, but the individual Christian contributes to the larger spiritual life of the church itself. The major image around which the spiritual life is mobilized is that of the grace-filled community. It would be a mistake to understand sacramental spirituality as one in which the church as an institution is prominent. Rather, it is the church as the body of Christ and the sacrament of God, which is foremost in the mind and heart of the one at prayer. The Holy Spirit is preeminent in this spirituality because it is experienced as the source and power of the inner unity that binds together Christians in the pursuit of holiness. Those who see their relationship with God through the prism of the Incarnate Christ, for whom spirit and matter are inextricably bound together in that Incarnation, and in whom the symbols of the Christian tradition find their roots would be characterized as having a sacramental spirituality. The Proclamation Model This is a spirituality of listening and deciding. People who follow this path tend to be very sensitive to the presence of God, certainly as found explicitly in the Word of God, but also in all areas of life. They are listening for what God is saying, or better, proclaiming. Prayer and spiritual discernment is deciding how to respond to these calls from God. Thus, this spirituality has a certain ecumenical openness because of its evangelical character. It is a spirituality of dialogue, God and the person being in a conversation. But it is also a spirituality of judgment in that persons see themselves as bound to the critical nature of the Word of God. The Scripture as two-edged is the criterion whereby they make decisions regarding the spiritual moving of their spirits. For although these people are in conversation with God, it is God who speaks first and so they are ever on the alert to hear that voice more clearly and respond more generously. It is obvious then that this is a kind of relationship with God that is based on presence. The quality of the spiritual life is often measured by the quality (not quantity) of the mutual presence between the person and God. This is more than mere physical presence or some kind of comforting presence, although it may be that. Spiritual moments here are ones of new encounters, shocking deepening of the transcendent, divine surprises, and further bonding. Out of this dialogue with the divine presence, persons are created anew and life takes on meaning in terms of the various challenges that this divine reality presents to them. The Process Model A person of the process model would be very uncomfortable in any kind of otherworldly spirituality or an approach to the self and God that is dualistic. This perspective is more creation centered, where one works out one's spiritual life by being in harmony with the universe and open to whatever novelty life may present. Even for those who are committed members of some institutional church, the parameters of church life move far beyond what is usually recognized as Christian. To be in relationship with God means to be in relationship with the world. World and God go together and a person cannot have one without the other. The goal of the spiritual life, that is, union with God, is ever present in the sense that being on the way is all important. It is not as if there is some ideal state in the future and the person is always trying to obtain it. Rather, full relationality and openness now indicate spiritual perfection. Being connected is being spiritual. And the process-oriented person is reluctant to define the limits of those connections too carefully. In no other spirituality is the involvement of the individual with God so salient. What an individual does in his or her prayers and actions affects God. God is less than what God could be if the individual has not prayed and has not walked the spiritual road. God is there, ever offering new challenges along that path. God is the great seducer. And to the degree that the individual responds, God's own life is enriched. Leading the spiritual life is all about making a contribution to the life of God. The Therapeutic Model Self-transcendence is the word here. The moving beyond all those obstacles that prevent the full humanization of the person is the intent of this model of spirituality. Personal freedom is the goal of one's prayer life, spiritual direction, meditation, and various spiritual exercises. It is at the juncture of this model that Christian spirituality meets the modern twelve-step programs and those which have taken their inspiration from humanistic psychology. Thus, the language of the therapeutic model has the flavor of the process of self-making. Those who operate from this model would not be happy about making a clear-cut distinction between therapy and spiritual direction. As with the sacramental model, this model uses the language of body, but the meaning is quite different. In the former, body is a theological metaphor referring to the assembly of Christians, whereas here body means individual embodiment, especially the aspect of flesh and sexuality. Salvation is making deep contact with those carnal aspects of one's life. It is not that carnality is absolutized, but one cannot dispense with it in the spiritual journey. Spiritual direction will often follow the lines of personal autobiography since it will be their story telling that will have a healing effect on the directee. The language may be that of the psychiatrist's office, and the content may be about hurt, anger, and sexual orientation, but the larger story will be that of Jesus Christ. It is that story of God in the flesh that brings comfort, heals woundedness, and bestows significance on the one who relates to God therapeutically. The Liberation Model To build the spiritual life is to build the kingdom of God. In that sense, the liberation, like the process model, is a very this-worldly model. However, the liberation approach has an eschatological stress not found in the process model. The kingdom of God can only be anticipated, and the spiritual life is lived in the midst of that prophetic experience. Unlike the process-oriented people, liberation-oriented people are more comfortable with biblical imagery and language. For it is here that they get their inspiration for the betterment of the world, the tearing down of sinful social structures, and the envisioning of a new age of freedom. Those who pray in a liberation-model fashion never pray along. They are ever in solidarity with their brothers and sisters, especially those who live on the margins. They have made a covenant with the poor and oppressed and are anxious to include them in their imaging of God and of a redeemed humanity. To be spiritual is to be responsible. It means to be committed to change, to newness of life, and to societal conversion. This means that often their spiritual journeys will bring them into conflict with the status quo, with the established powers of the day, and with vested interests in the church. Prayer and meditation are not exercises that one does before the protest and after the public challenge; instead prophecy and bold confrontation are themselves spiritual practices. Union with God is synonymous with raised consciousness. Growing in piety means distancing oneself from sinful structures and the ensconced oppressiveness of daily life. Spiritual discernment is translated into the ability to be sensitive to areas of injustice in the world as one conducts one's ordinary life. But this sensitivity flows from an inner spiritual life where the person tries to experience what the kingdom of God will be like when it comes. These liberation-oriented people's love of humankind is founded on an inner drama of playing at the kingdom. Of course, no number of models can capture the mystery of the spiritual life. Nor is God required to deal with any individual in terms of a set of models. But these models can serve as tools of understanding that most important relationship we shall ever have.