Renewing Parish Worship

Thank you to everyone who came on this stimulating day, reflecting together on how we worship in our parishes, particularly as we celebrate the Eucharist.

In the first session we asked:
How do we preach and teach about the Eucharist, deepening understanding without reducing experience of sacramental worship to something cognitive and intellectual? How do the various biblical paradigms for the Eucharist inform our theology, our ecclesiology, our approach to mission? And how does our underlying theology of the Eucharist find expression in the way that we celebrate it? In the rest of the life of our churches? In our own lives?

Then Jan Payne helped us think through the challenges of renewing the music in our churches, and how music can help renew our worship.

After lunch we asked:
What does it mean to worship with all ages together? How does a church learn to enjoy worshipping together and what impact does it have on the life of that church, and its people?

Finally, we looked at how the church structures the balance between our place in the tradition with the need to communicate with and engage people who are not steeped in the church’s language and frame of reference. How do we speak timeless truths in new ways, respond to the way that symbols and words change their meaning, and honour the contemporary life experience of those who come to worship in the words and actions that we do together?

These and other questions were the subject matter of the day, and if you missed it, you can catch up by searching the hashtag #renewingworship or by downloading some of these:

Renewing Parish Worship slides from the Ally’s presentations

Ally’s clipart

Ally’s Holy Communion and All Age resources including the booklet on improvisation and enacting theology

Here are some more useful links:

If you have ideas to share, questions to ask, or links to add, please email me or post a comment below.