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Renewing Worship seeks to attend to what is happening locally—the lived-out decision making—because Lutheranism, like the church itself, like the mission of God, is not static. We cannot simply look to the past, dust off and brush up the best of our heritage, to determine how Lutheran worship ought to look or feel. In some locations, Lutherans are worshiping in ways that, to many of us, seem unfamiliar. And we learn from that doing. We benefit from watching and hearing and experiencing the stories of what takes place among different people who bring to the table a variety of different backgrounds and gifts. This is where the stylistic categories like "traditional" and "contemporary" fall apart, especially for Lutherans. Worship is Lutheran when the people gathered are recognizably the church in that the Gospel is preached with integrity and the sacraments are celebrated according to the Gospel. That can and should happen in a multitude of ways, which are locally informed. And wonder of wonders, by that understanding, so called Lutheran worship often comes to rich expression in settings outside the Lutheran church. But it is not a matter of "anything goes," whereby planners are free to do whatever works, or seems to work, locally. The challenge is to recognize and insist that the local assembly, which is so important, is not the whole church. The challenge is to be a local community of faith that is more than local, always linked to the people of God in every place and in every time, when it is so often our tendency to act as though we are a coincidental gathering of individuals who place our own taste and desires among the highest priorities. Challenges to Renewing WorshipSince at best the whole church decides, that is, participates actively and directly in worship renewal, it is important to acknowledge that there are some substantial challenges that a project like Renewing Worship must address. There is a cluttered landscape of diverse worship practices that are informed and shaped by cultures within and beyond the church. The ongoing attention to disputes over style masks some underlying points of tension that too rarely get named, let alone addressed. For instance, differences swirling around debates between church-growth advocates and proponents of historic liturgical renewal sometimes reflect deep theological disagreement. Failure to address underlying tensions makes it difficult to provide resources that are genuinely helpful across a wide spectrum of liturgical practice, and almost impossible to recognize what people who hold opposing views about worship call "renewal." The formation of worship leaders, like the formation of almost any sort of leader is a matter that deserves ongoing attention. A greater challenge to renewal is coming to terms with the formation of whole communities, particularly Christian assemblies. That worship is the work of the people remains little more than a theory in some settings. In most settings, renewed worship demands more than a renewed or renewing leader. Worship is less about leaders and followers than it is about participants who have different responsibilities and roles. Identifying and fostering the appropriate balance in the relationship between worship leaders and the whole assembly is a matter of faith formation that demands innovative thinking in order to facilitate formative action. |
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