Section EAGER FOR WORSHIP:
Theologies, Practices and Perspectives on Worship in the United Church of Canada

UNITED CHURCH ETHOS AND LIFE STAGES
The Nature of the United Church and its People Ch 10-11
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Wayne Holst
Ethos of the United Church

Ethos discloses the flavour, the mood, the character of the culture. Culture offers a photograph of who we are; ethos paints a portrait. Culture and ethos teach us to see things in certain ways and that will reflect how we understand ourselves and view the world.

The United Church of Canada (UCC) sustains an ethos reflective of its country. Being typically Canadian, not least because of its origins, its values like those of the nation itself, lie in merger and compromise.... the UCC makes no claims to absolute truth, the denomination regards itself as merely possessing one of the keys to heaven. Democracy, pragmatism and open-mindedness flourish.

The United Church struggles with identity and ethos. Diverse perspectives and respect for a variety of religious experiences become basic elements in the church.

While in one way the United Church is enmeshed in the Canadian culture it also possesses a long history of standing against the culture - being counter-cultural - and challenges power, privilege, money, greed and violence wherever it discovers it.

Since the United Church believes in renewing itself and society, this church and its liturgy at its best constantly seeks and attempts to be part of personal and social reconstruction.

We need to develop skills that let us examine what our worship services say about who we are and what we represent. The tools we use in this analysis are: theology, faith, history, context, form and presentation, power and symbols.

Changes happen when we:
  1. reform the system
  2. re-appropriate 'dominant systems' rituals (eg. stands against alcoholism, homophobia)
  3. recover and preserve 'dangerous memories' (reading scripture with hermeneutic of suspicion)
  4. resist and create rituals of protest
  5. throw a money wrench into the system
  6. name the locus of our accountability
  7. create subcultures and alternative cultures
  8. envision new ways of being
God works with us in the midst of our cultures and ethos.

Reflection:

The United Church in Canada is unique. There is no other church quite like it in the world. This gives us a freedom for adaptation within the Canadian and ecclesial context, as well as speaking in ways that could probably be quite different from such trans-national denominations as the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. Our strengths can also be our weaknesses with the inherent dangers of structuralism, regionalism and parochialism.


LIFE STAGES AND WORSHIP

Worship crosses generations. People at different life stages have different spiritual needs, life issues and abilities.

We need to realize that many of the studies guiding our worship planning are biased in favour of white, middle class, formally educated people. What follows are generalizations.

Intergenerational ministries are planned programs of the church that bring two or more generations together in mutually enhancing experiences of worship, education and service.

Children at Worship

Children experience awe, reverence and mystery with some ease. Often they like ritual, involvement and leadership. As well, children experience pain, frustration, violence, fear, anger and hurt in their lives and worship must address their reality.

Children have mental structures that are different from adults. They are not adults in miniature, but experience reality in their own distinct ways. Adaptation is the term that child developmental specialists use to suggest that children need to grow toward their own adequate life organizational structure. If adaptation does not occur at a particular life stage, the child or adult will return to those life issues at a later stage.

Note the developmental characteristics for children aged 2-5, 5-8, 8-11 (pages 139-143). Children like to be called by name. Ask children for feedback. They desire affirmation for where they are now, now as the future of the church. Enable the child to experience God and hear the Christian story as one in which they have a part. The UCC feels that a childrens time constitutes an important part of Sunday worship. (Note special aspects of childrens time at worship, page 141).

Children have special needs during rites of passage. They are just learning to deal with the world and have little experience handling life crises. Young children do not have adult conceptual categories of time, place, cause or effect. Children in transition need spiritual guidance.

Youth At Worship

Young people are able to understand concepts and to think about complex ideas. Central for most is developing an identity and self-esteem. Faith issues are very real for them (see pages 147-8). Adolescence entails sorting out sexual identity, sexual orientation, and values. A large number of teens are sexually active. Suicide and death are viewed as real options for youth. Many young people are high achievers, living busy lives and doing well in a lot of things. Yet they still need support and affirmation as they seek their place in the world and make decisions in their lives.

Worship for youth is planned most successfully by or with youth. Young people often open up to things that take them beyond themselves and the narrowness of their congregation and community. When offered vision, they respond with insight and energy.

The UCC and North American culture generally has not done well in providing youth with helpful rights of passage and social maturation. We need to find creative ways to acknowledge what is happening transition-wise in the lives of our youth.

The congregation must be welcoming of all youth who come, must not idealize nuclear family life, must name the realities of abuse and violence and let victims know these problems in their lives are not their fault. Teens need to know they are not alone and that cycles of isolation can be broken.

Worship can assist in ethical decision-making and the building of self-esteem.

Adults at Worship

Adults from 18-35 use the cognitive skills developed as young people and build on those skills. They can think abstractly, understand facts, relate concepts, construct plans and speculate about abstract ideas.

Adults from 35-65 build on earlier cognitive stages and tend to have a deepened perspective on personal, vocational and social issues. It is a highly creative and productive stage for many in this age group.

Older adults from 65-80 use the wisdom developed over their years. Often they develop intellectual and other interests they did not have time for earlier.

Elderly adults 80+ begin to narrow their worlds. For some, loss of perception sets in. Reasoning, memory and intellectual power may decline.

For many adults in various age groups, the church can provide a social network and a place to meet people of common interest. Each age group has to deal with its own unique transitional times.

Traditionally, the United Church has assumed that church works best when people know who they are and their place in the organization. The values that define this way of looking at reality are duty and commitment. This is not necessarily the most helpful way to look at adult values for the church of the future. Learning the codes of churchly acculturation that worked in the past are not necessarily going to work for younger adults as they make their way into the future. In the past, mission meant maintaining the church, helping it survive and preserving group identity. The focus of the church today may be more effective if it sees people who come as wanting to be changed. Focus not on where you fit into the system but on opportunities to help people experience transformation, the experience of God and open to internal, not external motivation.

With membership the focus changes to growing in God, adult education, exploring the transformative experience and Gods call to do something. In other words, the key motivator is compassion, not duty.

Welcome and belonging is experienced differently by different age groups (see p. 154).

Different people understand differently. Avoid the idea that people should change to fit the system or that there is a hierarchy of knowing. Adults are relational beings. Every age group needs to be heard, cared about and have their needs taken seriously. People need rituals for crisis and loss. They seek frameworks of meaning and for understanding change. People come to worship to hear and experience good news, life and wholeness. They want to discover where God fits in their lives. Intergenerational worship helps people of all ages to experience growth in faith together.

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April 28, 2002