A Little History of Online Worship Forms
The issue of Liturgy dealing with “Worship and Emotion,” guest-edited by L. Edwards Phillips, looks at the relationship between worship and emotion. What follows is an excerpt from Phillips’ essay in this issue, “Emotions Online,” exploring how online worship, that so many congregations and presiders are struggling with in this time of pandemic, generates emotion and in what ways. –– Melinda Quivik
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I teach public worship in a school of theology, and I have already begun to address the move to online worship in my courses. Yet, my lectures will continue to cover the history, theology, and practices of Christian liturgy, and I continue to end my very first lecture with what I call a “Phillips Maxim” that also applies to online worship: Almost anything done well will be more compelling than almost anything done poorly. By compelling, I mean that it will be emotionally engaging, satisfying, or intriguing. This maxim generates discussion about excellence of practice for worship leadership, and it raises awareness that “doing something well” is specific to the activity being done. For example, leading a traditional service in a large suburban church will look very different from leading an urban Pentecostal meeting, and each will be emotionally engaging in its own, distinctive way.
Over the last several years, I have developed a typology of models of worship practiced among church in the U.S., and each model of worship generates its own standard of excellence. Briefly, the six primary types are the Revival, the Sunday School Worship, Aesthetic Worship, Pentecostal Worship, the Prayer Meeting, and Catholic Liturgical Renewal.
Broadcasting religious programming began in the earliest days of radio in the 1920s, and almost from the very beginning issues arose about the compatibility of church with this new medium. . . .
One reason Fundamentalists and Pentecostals found success through the radio is that their styles of worship and preaching were especially compatible with a medium that keeps worshippers’ attention through the use of entertaining music and dramatic suspense. . .
Pentecostal worship is especially visceral and embodied, and Pentecostal radio preachers and faith healers quickly found a way to make radio worship feel nearly as embodied as worship with a physical congregation. The phrase “Put your hand on the radio” has become a satirical cliche among modern critics of Pentecostalism. Yet radio faith healers saw this as a tangible “point of contact” with the preacher, and indeed, by putting one’s hand on a radio, a person could feel the voice of the preacher through the vibrations of the loudspeaker.
The rise of television broadcasting followed a similar trajectory. . . As with radio, the standards for a good, entertaining television program were the same standards of excellence for a successful religious television program, and models of worship most compatible with those standards have been more successful.
Some congregations have employed a combination of these various media, with parts of the worship service streaming live, parts of the service prerecorded (for instance, a musical performance), and the final segment of the service moving to a teleconferencing link for group prayer or for a more interactive service of “online communion.”
Ostensibly, this has the potential to incorporate the best features of each format: the excitement of the live broadcast, the polish of the video set piece, and the interactive intimacy of the small group teleconference. But. . .
[tune in for the next segment]
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The full article and the entire issue of Liturgy 36, no. 1 is available by personal subscription and through many libraries.
L. Edward Phillips, “Emotions Online,” Liturgy 36, no.1 (2021): 49-54.