The Worship Song...

This is something I wrote to use in our local Infant school. After our last SIAS (Statuatory Inspection of Anglican Schools) it was found that though our collective worship was good, the kids weren't able to articulate what we were actually doing when we worship. So I wrote this, sung to the tune of Sing Hosanna

We gather and greet one another,

say hello to the God who cares,

say hello to our sisters and brothers

when we join to share our songs and prayers

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

praise and worship knowing God is near.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

happy we are gathered here.

We will listen to stories God‘s given

Saying thank you for God’s good word

Open hearts, open minds, sharing vision

We will think about what we have heard

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

praise and worship knowing God is near.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

happy we are gathered here.

We will pray for our world and our lives here

Saying thank you for the all that’s good

We will ask for God’s help with the hard things

God will help us live the way we should.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

praise and worship knowing God is near.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

happy we are gathered here.

We go on with our teaching and learning

thinking always of God met here,

ekep God’s love light inside always burning

in this season and throughout the year.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

praise and worship knowing God is near.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

happy we are gathered here.

Must stop talking to that bloke

Been chatting to Rev Changing Worship again - about a) much modern worship music being thematically monochrome (Oh God, you are so great and amazing) b) there being a particular lack of recent songs with a social justice theme or the space to lament c) there being a need for clearer theology (we'd kind of like N.T.Wright to revisit each of his books and re-edit them as poetic song lyrics).

With this lurking in the recesses of my mind I sat down on the end of my kitchen table, lit a candle and started to read Morning Prayer for today.  Got as far as the Jeremiah reading (9.23,24) then had to go get a pen and paper.  I don't claim brilliance - or wisdom as the words say - and it certainly doesn't meet all the challenging criteria mentioned above - but if anyone wants to use it to write a nice worship song - you're welcome to.


Tho I'm not strong or mighty
I invoke God's strength in me
So i can break the chains that bind
set captive pris'ners free.
Tho I can't boast of wisdom
I've a longing to be wise
a desire that the scales will fall
show jaded human eyes


Love, justice, righteousness
so I can act and move
to know and grow and show delight
God's living presence prove.


Our riches are of this world.
Weak, we covet, judge and lust.
With words we sing of loving
tho our actions breed distrust.
God help us work for common good
our selfish thoughts replace
with one heart, one soul, one common goal
your Kingdom we embrace


Love, justice, righteousness
so we can act and move
to know and grow and show delight
Your living presence prove.

Prayer for Today

Just been to a wonderful day seminar at the Mirfield Centre with Dr Paula Gooder. Below is one of the many things (including half a dozen sermons at least) I have come away from the day with - a creative and poetic translation of the Lord's Prayer from the Aramaic taken from by Neil Douglas-Klotz 'Prayers of the Cosmos'. It's one of several such translations - there are a couple of others here.

O Silent Sound,
whose shimmering music pulsated
at the heart of each and all,
Clear a space in us where thy melody
may be perceived in its purity.
Let the rhythm of thy counsel reverberate through our lives,
so that we move to the beat of justice, love and peace.
The, our whole being at one with thy song,
grant that the earth may be filled 
with the beauty of thy voice.
Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share
what each being needs to grow and flourish,
And give us courage to embrace our shadow with emptiness,
as we embrace others in their darkness.
But let us not be captive to uncertainty,
nor cling to fruitless pursuits.
For from thee springs forth
the rhythm, the melody, and the harmony,
which restores all to balance, again and again. Amen.

The Work of the People

As someone who ventures occasionally to call themselves a liturgist I have repeatedly used the term 'work of the people' in countless essays and conversations over the last few years.  This afternoon I led a funeral for a lovely family whose mum had died aged 52.  Funeral liturgy in the modern world is a minefield, balancing between being clear and intelligible and culturally apt and maintaining the theological meaning and integrity of the event.  On more than one occasion I have taken funerals which felt more like the work of the clergy and the spectating of the family and friends.  Some of that is my own fault, I'm still learning, but some of it has to do with a lack of confidence amongst the populace at large to express themselves in a faith context. I'm not going into that now - I just wanted to say this afternoon that I've just been part of a funeral that was the work of the people in every sense. Beautiful and dignified, but honest and modern in the church, then boots on and shovels out at the graveside with spontaneous stories, prayers and singing, before grave all filled we shared the final blessing.  I love it when real people teach me how liturgy works.

Giddy Kipper

I am excited! As if life wasn't fun packed enough as it is the BBC are coming to my church.  For some reason which still hasn't been explained, instead of broadcasting the Pentecost Eucharist from a big flash cathedral (apparently it's one of their obligations under charter - Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) - they are coming to my church.  For 59 minutes we will be live on BBC 1 on Sunday June 12th. We've known about this for about 3 weeks but now the planning meetings are starting it's sinking in, slowly but surely.  And my head is easily turned - when one of the technical crew started talking about how they rigged the Abbey for the Royal Wedding I was impressed. When he went on to talk about his lovely weekend working in Carlisle and how good Lady Gaga was - well that really got me!

I am staggered to find myself in the position of being a curate who is writing a sermon which will be broadcast live on national telly. I am trying not to be a dithering nitwit. I am failing.

Let us pray.....

I had an inspiring meeting this morning with some friends from the Calderdale Interfaith Council's "Women's Group".  They have kindly agreed to help me with a children's workshop on Good Friday exploring how we look for God - how we seek contact with that which is beyond us through prayer.  The conversation moved round to the physicality of prayer - and how rubbish and English we can be about this in the Western Christian tradition.

I assume that the rubric suggesting we 'sit or kneel to pray' which is so often used was introduced out of a desire to be inclusive of those who found it physically difficult or painful to kneel.  It seems though that what it has done is tied people to their seats.  I've notice this with some of the children in our congregation recently.  We have some members of the congregation who sit throughout the services because of back problems and such like - but this seems to have suggested to others that gluing bottom to seat at 10.29am and leaving it there (save perhaps a desultory slope to the communion rail) - whether praying, listening to the Gospel, singing the Gloria - until biscuit time, is a good idea.

I appreciate this tells you quite a lot about my own tradition - but talking to my friends this morning - a fellow Christian, a Bahai and a Moslem - we all felt we weren't talking about rules in worship, we were talking about entering into prayer, into worship, with our whole selves.

I'd been looking at some physical prayer in Sue Wallace's Multi-Sensory Prayer (which I was amused to discover you can buy online from Asda Entertainment! - and why not :) thinking it might be a good idea for the workshop.  I now have a clear vision of how we can physically and visually represent the commonalities in our faiths using movement and prayer positions. Thank you ladies!

If God is a DJ

OK - perhaps a shallow chat this evening - but bear with me.  I am a big fan of liturgical structure.  My sending incumbent indoctrinated me with the belief that you can do anything as long as it has intergrity within the liturgical structure.  He used to put together great "charismatic liturgical" evening services - if I remember rightly mainly because the diocese needed to take people on the local ministry course to experience some charismatic worship and there wasn't anyone else doing it in a 'safe' C of E context at the time. Back then I used to get to be the one who stood by the piano warbling - happy days.

This evening though talking to my bass player (sic. husband) we came across Morrissey's Angel, Angel Down We Go Together and thought it would make a good addition to Changing Worship's Alternative Hymnal.  Then as I thought this through I started to think about liturgical structure and the way a DJ structures music on a dance floor - creating atmosphere, inviting people onto the floor with the fmailiar and the comfortable (but fun), building the tempo to that part of the night when it seems only the strange and disconnected are not moving and dancing as one - swept away by the rhythm and joy.

I am torn as to how I feel about this  - I've been to some terribly manipulative worship where they obviously really got the DJ thing.  But are we learning enough from those who can fill a dance floor?

Or if the strange and disconnected are marginalised by such experiences - how can it express the gospel anyway?

Thou shalt not..... some new commandments?

Recently a friend of mine posted on fb about how language works with children - namely that using negatives doesn't work, because the 'don't' or the 'not' isn't heard.  So for example when your child is hanging from a tree branch you shouldn't scream "Don't fall" because all said child hears is "Fall" - you should couch your advice in positive terms  - so it's "Hang on tight to the branch!".

With this in mind I have twice in the last week faltered as I have read the Ten Commandments as part of the Penitential Rite at the start of our Lenten liturgy. (I should note that the use of this particular material was at the request of lay members of our worship vision group!)  The first bit is OK, but then we get to the "Thou shalt not"s.  Each time I read I picture myself and half of humanity falling out of a tree.  So I began to wonder what some of those thou shalt nots might look like creatively and positively re-framed.  I imagine there are creative liturgists and pastoral practitioners up and down the land who've done this already - but here's my first two - and feel free to comment with some of your own ideas below.

Thou shalt not commit adultery - Live and love in trust and faithfulness

Thou shalt not murder - Honour and cherish human life