We Are Too Timid, from Donald Vinson

WE ARE TOO TIMID

One of my favorite aspects of General Convention is daily Eucharist. On their own, they are worth coming for.

In TEC, we don’t have many mega-churches. Most of us say we are content with that. We wouldn’t go to one anyway, we say. Give us small to middlin’ “family” style congregations where everyone knows everyone and “you are missed when you don’t attend.” I may have said that myself at some point.

General Convention Eucharists have a couple of thousand in attendance. They are held in great convention halls, with the people at round tables. The Eucharistic Ministers alone make a procession larger than most of our West Virginia congregations. Printed worship booklets are provided with texts and music. Sometimes (gasp) hymn lyrics are projected onto large screens; otherwise, artwork is projected. Sound and light systems are crucial.

Because even as TEC, we are an international and certainly and multi-cultural church, scripture readings are sometimes in Spanish or even an Indian language. Music selections range from ancient chant to traditional hymnody to Gospel, to African, South American, Indian, and contemporary-style hymns and service music selections. Sometimes, they are in their original languages, with English translation provided. They tend to be simple, tuneful, and upbeat. Accompaniment is top-notch, but there is no pipe organ—we’re talking electronic keyboard, drums and such here. We do have a volunteer Convention choir, which is magnificent.
At the Integrity Eucharist, the sanctuary was raised in the center of the room, and there were no projection screens. There were large, colorful pavement candles at the four corners and a huge copper bowl on the altar for the blessing over the water: we did the renewal of baptismal vows, and there was a long and boisterous procession around the room, framed in colorful streamers, as Bishop Robinson blessed the people with the holy water. The special choir there was fabulous, but what they sang was not Mozart! It was a beautiful and complex African hymn.

I guess what I am saying is that, if this is mega-church, lay it on me. As long as I have a few small groups to participate in (study, ministry, fellowship, etc.) where I would know people well and be known, it doesn’t matter to me that I don’t know everyone present for worship. In fact, there is something to be said for worship as a large-scale community experience. Something miraculous happens in the singing, in the preaching, and particularly in the Communion line. God definitely shows up.

I’m also noting that this worship experience, while it does contain many elements ancient and traditional, has a thoroughly contemporary feeling about it. It is not a remembrance of what church historically has been: it is and experience of worship now. It is fresh, creative, joyful, colorful, uplifting, inspiring, comforting, and challenging all at once.

In our home congregations, we sometimes take a dab or a swipe at modernity and congratulate ourselves on how innovative we are. I am convinced we are far too timid. To get the effect we would desire (presenting the hope of the Gospel to more and different people), we need to pull out the stops and do the hard work necessary to produce meaningful and truly innovative liturgies for people today.
At the heart of it, we are afraid. We feel threatened and fragile, a diminished and endangered fragment of our former status (which was never all that great, proportionally speaking). But we are so afraid of losing what we still have that we lack the courage to reach boldly for the rich harvest that I believe God is calling us to gather—people who don’t look like, act like, or think like the people who have been Episcopalians in the past.

Our church, especially in dioceses like West Virginia, is elderly and dying all around us, right now. We are going to lose what we have been, no matter what we do. Why can’t we get out of the confines of that leaky old boat, and play in the water with Jesus?