One of the things that makes doing alt worship workshops really hard with those who lead mainstream / established worship, is that they will always look at it through the lens of the mainstream… the mainstream is the norm, and anything else has to be defined through that language / model / lens. The hardest part of last week’s workshop, for me, was that i haven’t moved in church circles for so long, and i’ve forgotten the extent of the translation i need to do in my head to get back into that mindset.

i also don’t like how my mind works within that mindset… which is an interesting personal reflection. it may show that sometime soon i’ll have run the limit of my usefulness with the church… in which case i’ll go back to plan A: work for a bank and do sacred space stuff in the rest of my life [probably with a much stronger post-christian emphasis]. i have this very strong urge at the moment to be out of the radar of the church!

i normally begin with the lectionary reading, if i’m doing worship with a church group. otherwise it will be seasonal or random themes.

I won’t sing Onward Christian Soldiers either.

But what happens to alt.worship when it is done every week? Things like Cheryl’s Easter installation in the basement take time, effort, energy and are usually too much for a weekly service unless you have a huge people resource amongst those planning. Do you develop some regular elements that happen most, if not all, weeks? Or a set of favourite frameworks that are selected and adapted according to the theme?

Incidentally, I don’t mind Taize-style services, but I find some of the Taize music really, really, really, really offputting. Not the melody, but the words. I can sort of live with traditional hymns with words that I find offputting because they usually only expect me to sing things I find problematic once per hymn. Taize music makes me sing them or listen to them over and over and over again. If I try really hard I can sometimes lose the words in the harmonies, but by no means always. The one that jumps immediately to mind is Laudate Dominum. God, for me, is not one who dominates, but the way the words fit with the music pushes that idea.

and I agree with you completely re: the definition of alt worship – the problem is that it’s a term that has, rightly or wrongly, become associated with a type of worship that reflects a specific subculture

i’ve probably not been careful enough with language about alt worship in this post.

i think that alt worship [at its best] speaks into and from within the culture and context of the people who attend. part of the intention for me, when i curate it, is to offer a way where people can see their every day lives in a new way – to encounter a story of redemption, hope, grace that speaks both into [prophetically] and from within [incarnationally] the every day culture within which we live. that will look very different for middle class professionals than how it will look for people in prison.

i find taize is wonderful for losing myself, for being held by the people around me. but it doesn’t let me tangle with a story, it doesn’t give me a space where i’m confronted or provoked by the ambiguities of the world i spend my life in. i think they’re completely different forms of worship, and both have their space and moment.

does that make sense?

But they’ve also liked the taize services I’ve invited them to. The thing I’ve found helpful about taize is that on the one hand, the language is “clear” and “specific” enough for conservatives and moderns to connect with it, but also simple and ambiguous enough for postmoderns to connect with it. There’s something about the chanting, candles etc that appeals to a huge range of people – I’d say that the only negative feedback I’ve had has been from pentecostals who have a fear of candles (I kid you not – I have quite a few friends who basically regard having candles in church services as idolatory – I struggle with that one!!)

My question marks above a lot of what I’ve understood to be “alt worship” have always been about worship style and justice. I want to worship with a diversity of people, for that is part of encountering the Other, and it’s part of building the Kingdom. My concern is that alt worship has often appealed to a fairly highly educated, arty, progressive kind of crowd.

This isn’t really meant to be a criticism of alt worship, and I’m definitely not advocating traditional forms of worship – I’m just raising some of the questions I’ve grappled with in the past and continue to struggle with.

BTW – I have noticed your paragraph about community – I’m just not entirely sure what you mean there.