Yesterday, in a context I don’t quite remember, Canon Condry mentioned a statistic from the Church of England that was quite surprizing. Namely, while regular attendance at parish churches continued its long decline again last year, in 2011 alone, attendance at Cathedral services was up 20%. That’s impressive! It got me to wondering why.
I’m sure this doesn’t account for every reason, but I wonder if it is because the services are so enchanting, by which I mean, they actually try to take the worshipper somewhere else. They are self-conciously unlike other experiences currently on offer. They are not relevant. They are not up to date. They don’t have brilliant, rocking worship bands. Could it be that modern secularized Britain actually contains un- and de-churched people who actually want a church that is, well, church?
That was the question that intruded upon my worship today at Canterbury Cathedral. Here we were in the Quire wafted repeatedly by an eager thurifer who had, it must be said, a little too much going on in his thurible! We were led in worship by a university Choir from South Carolina and an organ. Archbishop Rowan presided. And I was taken by all of it to the very threshold of heaven, to the place where the veil between time and eternity was at its thinnest, and there bidden to feed on Christ in my heart by faith with thanksgiving.
As I pondered this question in the Quire, another memory intruded. During my D.Min. module this year one of my students asked me why I stuck with the Book of Common Prayer when “young people don’t want it. They don’t understand the language.” To which another student replied, “He likes it because he thinks church language should be Church Language. It’s not everyday. It’s different.” Even as the responder agreed with the questioner–modern language all the way–he really got why I like the BCP. Some young people–and not necessarily Christian young people if what I’m told about the Cranmer Conference is true (I’ll find out since I’m the speaker this year)–certainly the young people I met at St. Margaret’s, those who went to st. benedict’s table and a couple who have started to come to the Epiphany feel similarly. They want church to be different. They want its worship to actually take them somewhere else.
And here, it seems to me, is an evangelistic opportunity for those churches that either will not or cannot go with the megachurch model. Perhaps an evangelistic model for a church liturgically trapped in 1962 is not to try to get up to 2012 but to get back to 1662. Of course, there are other ways in which this hypothetical church (just so we’re clear, I’m not thinking about my parish) might need to modernize–accessibility, child-friendliness, creative ways of engaging the community between Sundays. But just maybe it’s ok in worship to rest on the conviction that worshippers really do come to the very threshold of heaven every Sunday and embrace those practices that really do foster an experience of transcendence, an experience that is ec-static.
Maybe–just maybe–that’s one reason why English Cathedrals are doing relatively well.
I don’t know whether this is a Spirit inspired intuition or just a flight of fancy. I need to pray about it more. What do you think?
As someone who was first exposed to Anglicanism by St. Margaret’s and now am at member of St. Benedict’s Table I think you are exactly right. For years I told people in the evangelical churches I was going to that my generation (I am 28 now) want to find three things in church: mystery, transcendence, and community. If a church can be a place where all three happen, and still point to Jesus, they will have more people then they are ready to handle.
I think you are on to something, Tim. As a rather low church Baptist, but one who has had some of his most enriching church experiences in Anglican churches, on sabbaticals in Oxford and New Haven, I get what you are saying. Mind you, neither of the Anglican churches I mentioned had as high a liturgical form as you have described. Our best, very brief exposure to that was in a Church of Ireland service in Belfast, the year we sabbaticaled in England. The service we attended had a sung eucharist, with the priest at the altar and his back to the congregation. That struck my low church senses strangely, but there was a certain transcendence about the experience that was moving. Regrettably, we had arrived very early and had not gotten copies of the liturgy as we came in, so we could not participate as fully as we would have liked.
You are having a rich experience at the conference. Blessings on the remainder of your time, and on your later conference ministry.
Many thanks for this post. You might be interested in this blog post, if you haven’t seen it already, which comments on a recent American (Episcopal) survey on hymnal revision. The survey respondents most opposed to a revised hymnal (which would presumably include more inclusive language and a wider variety of contemporary worship music) were those under 30; the people who are most interested in a revised hymnal are the aging boomers in their 50s and 60s. The blog author suggests that this is a generational difference between boomers, who want church to align with their experience in the secular world, and millennials, who are interested in exploring a more transcendent and unique worship experience. This certainly aligns with my own anecdotal experience as a 25-year old Anglican; I can’t count the number of times that senior clergy in my diocese have patiently explained to me that young people do not like the Prayer Book, the pipe organ, traditional hymns etc., apparently oblivious to the fact that they are more than thirty years older than I am. . .
I think another part of the story, however, is the integrity of the worship experience. An Anglo-Catholic Solemn High Mass is carefully choreographed with attention to detail in the music, vestments, and ceremonial action, but so, in a different way, is an evangelical megachurch service, which is just as carefully choreographed, has equally high standards of musical preparation, and has an well-defined “liturgical” style of its own. A typical middle-of-the-road Anglican parish, by contrast, tries to satisfy a wide variety of tastes by incorporating a variety of liturgical and musical styles, with a result that is usually somewhat confused and lacks a distinct character of its own. And I would blame this, in part, on the ethos of unlimited choice inaugurated by the BAS, which provides a grab-bag of widely disparate and frequently confusing liturgical options. I’d almost be inclined to suggest that it doesn’t matter what liturgical or musical style you adopt in a parish, as long as it’s consistent, well-prepared and carefully thought out.
Looking forward to working with you at the Cranmer Conference!
“Could it be that modern secularized Britain actually contains un- and de-churched people who actually want a church that is, well, church?” I think Peter Hitchens addresses this very thing in his book, The Rage Against God. He basically agrees. In my recent trip to England with the Providence Chamber Singers I was really blessed with the opportunity to sing in these cathedrals, and some of my favorite memories were attending Evensong at Yorkminster. The beauty of it all brought me to tears and everything about the service proclaimed, “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and shall be forever.”