Liturgical Changes Yet to Emerge

The issue of Liturgy entitled “Future Renewals: Looking Toward the Next Fifty Years of Worship Scholarship and Practice,” was co-edited by Andrew Wymer, vice-president of the Liturgical Conference board and professor of worship at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and me.

We solicited essays from a range of members of the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL) looking at what has changed in liturgical scholarship and liturgical practice in the years since NAAL was founded in response to the Second Vatican Council.

Here is an excerpt from HyeRan Kim-Cragg’s essay outlining the changes still needed in liturgical reform but which face obstacles. –– Melinda Quivik

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Active roles of laity, conscious reading of scripture through lectionary, and full participation through laughter and other sensory experiences will continue to be crucial in the future renewal of worship for the next fifty years.

Keeping these three contributions in mind, I would also raise three concerns attention to which may enhance faithful practices of worship. These concerns are Lament, Land, and Language of technology. . .

LAMENT

The mainline church’s dominant characteristic of worship traditionally has been not only pietistic in terms of underscoring quiet personal devotion but also reserved in terms of expressing people’s experiences. Worshipers including preachers have been discouraged from showing their emotions, especially negative ones, and pushed instead, to internalize loss, pain, and suffering. Many of them, for instance, have been taught not to cry out in public during the funeral. Yet, this pandemic has compelled worshiping assemblies to name these experiences as an integral part of worship. Lament as a part of liturgy is so needed, yet that it is an aspect of worship that the churches have often neglected. It should be noted that newer hymnals include sections entitled “Lament.” Healing does not occur without lament as Easter does not come without Lent. . .

LAND

A concern for land in worship points to three interrelated needs: (1) a need to address Indigenous issues including colonial legacies, (2) a need to tackle the ecological crisis, and (3) a need to explore worship outdoors.

One of the near ubiquitous features of United Church of Canada’s Sunday worship since 2015 is the inclusion of the “Land Acknowledgement” at the beginning of the service. The acknowledgment is normally done verbally as a call and response. But it is also visibly communicated through the presentation of banners or candles featuring the Indigenous colors of the world (Black, Red, White, and Yellow). Verbal and visible land acknowledgements in worship should embody a collective and corporate commitment by the church as it owns its colonial legacy and confesses the violence committed against Indigenous people and their land, supported by deliberate work toward reconciliation as an act of repentance. . .

Attention to land is also directly related to addressing the ecological crisis, surely the most catastrophic crisis facing humanity today. While worship is primarily a human act, as a response to God’s unconditional love, divine love is not limited to humans but encompasses the entire world. . .

Finally, attention to land is related to our concern for worship outside the church building. . . (1) to consciously learn from Indigenous people who say, the “land teaches” and who seek to learn from “the earth as a source of life;” (2) to actively engage in ecological justice work; and (3) to fully encounter God who is manifest in creation.

LANGUAGE OF TECHNOLOGY

By language of technology, I mean the electronic communication and media use in worship. . . Technology has shrunk the space of the liturgy so that it can fit in the palm of the hand. . .

At the same time, the fact of inequitable access to the internet has increased concern for the way this may disadvantage some people.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The full essay including references is available now in the digital and print editions of Liturgy. All of the essays in Liturgy 38, no. 1 are available by personal subscription and through many libraries.

HyeRan Kim-Cragg, Principal and Timothy Eaton Memorial Church Professor of Preaching at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in The University of Toronto. Her fifty articles have appeared in Homiletic and Liturgy, among other publications. Among her twelve books is Postcolonial Preaching: Creating a Ripple Effect (Lexington Books, 2021).

HyeRan Kim-Cragg, “Contributions of the Liturgical Renewal Movement and Concerns for the Future Renewal of Liturgy,” Liturgy 38, no. 1 (2023): 33–39.