The
thoughts shared below were delivered at an informal gathering at the Church of
Ireland Theological Institute. Roman Catholic ordinands from Maynooth seminary
joined our own students for an evening of fellowship and dialogue around the
theme of pastoral care and liturgical worship. The meeting was conceived and
convened by CITI’s inter-seminary representative, Abigail Sines.
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| Accessed from vannw.org. |
Abi has asked me to share a few thoughts
on the link between pastoral care and liturgical/corporate worship. The first
thing I ought to say is that I’m not a liturgist – I primarily teach Missiology
and do not have a liturgical background. Indeed, my PhD is in Systematics where
the focus of my work was the Augustinian theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope
Benedict XVI. However, I do teach a module on Pastoral Studies and there we have
explored the link between liturgy/ritual/corporate worship and pastoral care. It’s
on that basis that Abigail has asked me to participate briefly tonight.
You are probably aware of this already,
but Anglicanism is not a monochrome tradition. There are three recognisable
theological streams or ways of thinking within Anglicanism that have been
traditionally designated Catholic, Evangelical and Liberal. Of course, the
distinction is not as absolute as that, in that many Anglicans combine elements
of two or three of these in their own spirituality or faith perspective. However,
within Anglicanism, there are styles of worship which can more definitively reflect
just one of these traditions. Most of
you will be aware that some expressions of Anglo-Catholic worship can look and
feel very like Roman Catholic worship (show powerpoint). However, for the sake of giving you a sense
of the broadness of Anglicanism, and some exposure to the less Catholic parts
of our denomination, I shall include in
my comments tonight some reference to
Evangelical/charismatic style worship which sometimes
has its own very unique way of linking corporate worship to pastoral care.
Before jumping ahead of myself, though,
let me say that tonight I am offering just three reflections to help set the
ball rolling. The first reflection is that there can be a perceived conflict
between ‘pastoral care’ and liturgy/corporate worship. Those most engaged in the debate tend to
caricature the other position and trumpet its irrelevance. The American Lutheran scholar, Elaine
Ramshaw, whom I think has written one of the key books on ritual and pastoral
care, summed up the conflict very well. She wrote,
We
all know too well the truths that give rise to these counter-accusations.
Ritual can indeed be formalist, distancing, insensitive to the specificity or
pace of the individual’s needs, intent on enforcing a procrustean pattern.
Equally sadly, even ‘pastoral’ counselling can be privatised, narrowly focussed
on the needs of the moment, insufficiently grounded in the depths of the
tradition, tone-deaf to mystery.[1]
This
observation highlights two things for me. 1. Liturgy can be markedly ineffective in delivering pastoral care. There’s a joke told on the Alpha course about
a young boy who was brought to church for the first time. He found the service
somewhat uninspiring and took to looking at the church’s in-door decoration to
pass the time. Spotting a plaque which recorded the names of soldiers who had
died in the two World Wars, the boy asked his father what it was.
‘Those
are the names of those who died in the services,’ the father replied. ‘Well,
did they die in the Morning Service or the Evening Service?’ asked the
boy.
Worship
led in a perfunctory way by the priest or minister, or in a way that simply does
not connect with the pastoral concerns of those who come seeking meaning from
their worship experience, does little to minister to pastoral need. The whole media-dominated world that young
people grow up in today means that worship that does not seem to connect, or do
anything for the participant, will more easily be written-off. That no doubt is
at least partially the problem of the person going to worship, but it does not
minimise the fact that in a rapidly de-churching age, it is very bad news for
the church.
The
other observation is that pastoral care of the individual is not always best
done in the domain of one-to-one pastoral nurture. Walter Brueggemann in an essay entitled ‘The
Transformative Power of the Pastoral Office’ argues that ‘pastoral care is
essentially a liturgical enterprise.’ Interestingly, that American Lutheran
theologian whom I’ve already cited, Elaine Ramshaw, reaches the same
conclusion. The argument is that worship can provide a new way or a different
way of understanding reality, a set of symbols around which people can
reorganise their lives. While that is a theoretical stance, there’s a
fascinating article by Paul Anderson entitled ‘Giving glory to God is good for
the giver’ which talks, using real-life examples of how involvement in
liturgy/corporate worship, can have a profound pastoral impact. One example he
gave was of a young man who did not have serious psychological problems per se, but who was just too focussed on
himself. It was said of him that he regularly turned conversations toward his
concerns and would serve others only when it was convenient for him. However,
after a few months involvement with the church it became apparent that his
attachment to self had significantly diminished. That he paid more attention to
others, spoke around their agendas rather than his own, and generally showed a
lot more concern for their interest and needs.
What
made the difference? The answer the young man gave was that ‘By praying daily
and worshipping weekly, I became more aware of my self-centredness.’ The
comment Anderson makes is that ‘Sometimes struggling people will find help only
when they begin to look outside themselves towards heaven. Worship, because it
focuses outward, can bring a healthy corrective to narcissism, as it did for my
young friend. One cannot truly worship God and be fixated on one’s self.’
So
worship and liturgy can be ineffective in meeting pastoral needs, but they can
also have a huge impact by transforming the worldview of the worshipper. That’s
my first reflection.
The
second reflection is that pastoral care is achieved in a worship context when
the way the worship is conducted and experienced, bonds the members together in
community. Community, togetherness, a sense of unity in
worship is innately healing. Ramshaw argues that worship can be enacted in such
a way that it genuinely does create and nurture community. The key is active participation. The more
widely and actively people participate in a ritual, the more they experience it
as their own, as part of their identity, the more they will be connected to
others and connected to the God whom they seek to worship.
Her
observation is that what is really needed is a church community which
corporately performs this ‘work of the people’. Enthusiastic participation in the
hymn singing and liturgical songs, active engagement with the intercessions, and
the Peace shared in an attitude of openness towards fellow worshippers and so
on, will all help to make real community possible in the context of worship.
How
is that kind of communal involvement achieved? From my own personal standpoint, it’s achieved
not via the anonymity of the priest in the worship context, but by the lead
that he gives. The notion of truth through personality is quite key to making
worship pastorally relevant, I believe. Having ministered in unchurched
England, I’m aware that the lack of community in worship is a huge pastoral
deficit. When people are not used to church, it’s pretty vital that they
experience through the worship leader and the community of faith already
present, something of the reality of the
God whom they’re being invited to encounter.
This
leads me to my third and final reflection. It’s based mainly on personal
experience within a charismatic/evangelical parish in England. Worship combined
with music and led by those who are genuinely worshipping themselves, can sometimes
have a profound and unusual spiritual impact. Take the example of Vaughn, (rugby
player, entirely unchurched and not his real name), who found himself weeping profoundly
at the end of a service and realising that he had ignored spiritual questions
which he should have been addressed. The church responded by offering a six
week evangelism course followed by a Confirmation course. Vaughn engaged radically with it and not only
got confirmed but ended up becoming the church warden a few years later.
There’s
an odd little text in Paul (1 Corinthians 14:24-25) where Paul describes the
church community prophesying (whatever that may be) and the unbeliever having
the thoughts of his heart laid bare. The response of that person, claims Paul,
is that he will recognise that God is really among them. While it’s not the
same scenario, it is still a depiction of a reality experienced in worship which
helps the unbeliever to recognise the presence of God.
I
am aware of the downside of this approach, but to me there can be an experience
of God in corporate worship, particularly the more charismatic variety, which
enables people to sense his presence and know something of his reality. The
Catholic lay theologian, Ralph P Martin, in his book The Worship of God suggested that the act of praise is a ‘dialogue,
involving the interchange of the divine initiative and the human response.
Worship pulsates with a two-beat rhythm expressed simply as ‘we come to God’
and ‘God comes to us.’ The charismatic renewal, for all its excesses, helped
create something which enabled people to enter into that kind of dialogue with
God.
Some questions for reflection
1. Do
these thoughts in any way echo your own experience within Catholicism?
2. The
Eucharist has not been mentioned directly, what role might it play with regard
to fostering pastoral care?
3. Does
the idea of ‘truth through personality’ place too much responsibility on the
leader of worship?
4. How
might worship become more accessible to someone who was de-churched or
unchurched?
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