When I came to this parish, the Pisckies always opted out of the "Ecumenical" Holy Week services, and we did our own thing instead. The whole thing wasn't all that ecumenical anyway. Of course the Roman Catholics opted out, much for the same reasons that we did. There is a rich liturgical beauty in our Holy Week practices, and we weren't prepared to trade them in for a week's worth of hymn sandwiches, heavily dependent on the spoken word and the talent of the preacher.
During my time here, though, we've opted into some of it, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday really, and invited the others to join us on Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday. We also retained our "Last Hour" on Good Friday.
As we planned 2010 this year today, it was heartening to find an enthusiasm from the other churches in joining us for our Liturgies, not only on Maundy Thursday, but on Good Friday too. Our tentative "sharing" of what we have at this time has been appreciated after a little suspicion, and now the other congregations enthuse about joining us for our Thursday night goings on!
Sharing our riches has resulted in an openness and an enthusiasm to share more.
My goodness, I even discovered three Presbyterian ministers today who were reading Spong!
3 comments:
In *some* circles it's the CoS who have read Spong and Borg and are hosting _Living the Questions_ sessions, and the piskies who're stuck in 1970... :/
Yes, Tim, I know many American Piskies who haven't read Spong.
Well, if Spong is right, (I don't think he is, incidently,) does worship or liturgy really matter at all?
Why not just read out sections of "The Screws of the World" or "Heat"?
In fact, if he is right isn't it stupid and a waste of our short lives to worship nasty old "God"?
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