Rector’s Ramblings – September 5, 2024

I’ve always been a fast walker and fast talker. I suppose once I know where I want to go or what I want to say, there’s no point in lollygagging. I also listen fast. I keep my Audible app set to about 1.2x speed because most narrators read too slowly for my taste. While many things are fine sped up, some things should be done slowly, with intention, and even savored. Worship is one example. Unfortunately, the Church’s sense of liturgy is often at odds with the culture on that, too. 

Episcopal Churches move through liturgy at a steady pace. Economy of movement is a hallmark in many congregations, although rushing is frowned upon. The pacing of a Eucharist is part art and part necessity. Leading a well-paced service that keeps moving but doesn’t feel rushed is a delicate balance. Sometimes, the morning’s schedule adds pressure on time, or a special blessing or dedication calls for more time spent in worship. Sometimes, the occasion calls for a certain pace, in the way that Good Friday, for example, tends to slow things down.

Christ Church has a broad range of service types and contexts. Our services range from forty to forty-five minutes at our early service to more than an hour for our 9:15 am service, which often includes cycling a full church through the altar rail. Brevity is welcome at the 8 am and St. Ignatius services in particular, but when we run much longer than an hour at 915 or 1115, brevity comes to mind for some there, too. Our contemplative service on Sundays has the slowest pace by far. Still, even it tends to clock in at around an hour, a feat achieved by having fewer “parts” to the service and using the reclaimed liturgical temporal space for silence.

I am particularly keen to address the length of the 915 service now that Sunday School is back in session and people are returning from summer travels. Soon, our fall “snowbirds” will start to arrive, too. Our 915 is a glorious service with our choir and a lovely positive energy. And when we have a full church, that service runs longer, as there is no way to proceed through the distribution of communion quickly in our space – nor is “quick” the goal. Nonetheless, I want our Sunday School teachers and our Coffee Hour programs to have more than the 30 minutes they typically get once people have made it out of the church and across the cemetery to the parish hall. I don’t want to rush through the liturgies. We do our best to make up time when we realize we have a full church or had a long sermon, but there’s only so much we can do to shorten a service, and talking more quickly can be detrimental to the efficacy of the worship itself. 

So, what can we do? Well, some would say we just need shorter sermons! I hear that, and we try to be mindful of sermon length. Ultimately, the sermons will be whatever they need to be to share the message on the preacher’s heart, especially since that is the only formation/learning many parishioners will have in a given week. Sermons don’t hold the same importance in Episcopal worship as in some other protestant denominations, but they are nonetheless vital. That said, we’re trying to be conscious about it, which is why I’m experimenting with a hybrid preaching model. I prefer to preach without notes, which used to mean not writing anything down. Now, I’m using some notes to be “tighter” in my delivery and hold onto the form and structure with an eye toward length. Discussing sermon craft may be in the weeds for most, but I can say that it is more challenging to preach well-crafted shorter sermons and more difficult again when you aren’t using a manuscript, which is easier to edit and adjust. Ultimately, however, preaching alone doesn’t address the time pressure.

We’re also going to experiment with a few minor changes in September – at the 915 only – to see if we can shorten the overall length of the service without diminishing the experience or rushing through what we are doing. The most obvious of those changes is that we will omit one of the three scripture readings each week and read the psalm (instead of singing it), although all the readings will be provided in the insert. We will also shorten the sequence hymn to a verse or two, long enough to allow the acolytes to process into the congregation with the Gospel. We are also bringing back the prayerbook option for “a song of praise” instead of the Gloria, which we have done on and off for years. In October, we’ll try replacing the sequence hymn altogether with the return of the chanted psalm, as that part of our hymnody is beautiful and worth experiencing, even if we don’t do it all the time.

We will also work to ensure the congregation moves as efficiently as possible during communion, which parishioners can help with. That includes filling the altar rail each time the clergy and eucharistic ministers cross the row. Frequently, the last few spaces at the altar rail are left unused. Many forget that there is an extra space perpendicular to the rail as it makes a turn at the baptistry. A couple who sees one space on the end of the row may not want to split up for communion, but with that bend in the altar rail, they don’t have to. Those two to three spaces that get missed add up over the course of communing one hundred people. Efficient use of our space can represent several minutes of savings without doing anything differently than we are now. What we don’t want is for people to feel like they need to run up the aisle! These sorts of changes are to make sure that we don’t make people feel rushed.

We’re trying to make some space for that well-timed, steady liturgical progress through the 915 that allows for thoughtful and prayerful prayer while setting us all free from looking at watches or feeling crunched because we know something else is coming up soon. Making these minor changes won’t mean we have a forty-five-minute service – that’s not the goal. We’re looking for a consistent and comfortable hour-long service that will allow our Sunday morning programming to flourish. But not at the expense of worship, which is our priority. This is not unplowed ground in the Church either, with many congregations making minor adjustments to stay on a schedule.

At the end of the day, these minor changes may be enough to allow us to find the temporal space we need to keep from rushing and distraction and help us encounter the Holy more fully. These are just experiments for now. If the unintended consequences are detrimental to our worship, we’ll return things as they were. And have no fear – no matter what little things we tweak, the Holy Spirit will still be in our midst when we gather!

Tom+

O Almighty God, who pourest out on all who desire it the
spirit of grace and of supplication: Deliver us, when we draw
near to thee, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind,
that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections we may
worship thee in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.

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