Lutherans have been fairly ‘word focussed’ from the beginning - after all Martin Luther used words to bring about the Reformation. However it is not true that everyone is really good at connecting with words alone (either spoken, read or sung). In recent years an understanding of worship needing to be experiential, and something that involves all the senses has been the result of some creative thinking on this subject by a number of authors. Of particular note is a book that really pulled things into focus for me, Bob Rognlien’s “Experiential Worship: Encountering God with Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength.” The title of that book points to a holistic approach to worship. For years I have taught that the command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30 NRSV) is a call to a holistic response to God. In other words when we strive to love God (and others) it must involve the whole self: our emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical being.
We were created as beings who experience and relate to the world in many different ways. We are complex and multi-dimensional beings, thus to focus on just a few senses in our worship is to ignore other significant parts of ourselves, limiting what we receive and what we share. When worship is primarily about sitting still while listening to a bunch of words, and saying (or singing) some words in response, then we are missing a big part of the picture.
In the first centuries Christian worship was often accompanied by a meal, which came to be known as an agape feast. Imagine all the senses engaged in this early worship practice – smell, sight, taste, touch, as well as hearing. It is often noted that eating together creates a sense of fellowship in a way that simply sitting together listening to one individual speak cannot. Perhaps part of the reason for this is that when we eat together it is a multi-sensory experience, and thus a more complete engagement of ourselves is happening in such a gathering.
Dan Kimball, in his book “Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations” writes:
Multisensory worship involves seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and experiencing. This means our worship of God can involve singing, silence, preaching, and art, and move into a much greater spectrum of expression. It goes outside the box and then throws away the box that limits how we can express our love and worship to God when we gather. We move past merely listening and singing to a whole new level of ways to participate in worship through all our senses.
On one level I had already been aware of this for years. I am reminded how I learned at seminary that word liturgy comes from the Greek word leitourgia, which literally means “work of the people.” Thus liturgy was to help the people participate, liturgy is something the people actively do rather than passively receive. And yet, still so much of our worship experience remains primarily passive – listening to the scripture readings and sermon, listening to the prayers – maybe adding the occasional “hear our prayer.” There are ways in which the congregation participates in such traditional Lutheran worship - the singing of hymns, the congregational parts in litanies, going to the altar to receive communion, but even these things are fairly limited in what is experienced by the participants.
Worship in the cathedrals of Europe was more multi-sensory than what I grew up experiencing in western Canadian Lutheran churches. European worshipers were surrounded with sounds, sights and smells – all laden with meaning. The stained glass windows, paintings and sculptures giving the eye much to consider; the sound of bells, organs, choirs (and even preachers) reverberating through architecturally symbolic space (and in the ears); the smell of incense, bread and wine encouraging remembrance (smell being one of the strongest triggers of memory). All this added together created a more engaging worship experience, involving more of the whole person than simply sitting and listening (though admittedly worship in European cathedrals could also become too esoteric and distant from the average worshiper).
I first encountered the concept of multi-sensory worship through Robert Webber, who coined the term “ancient-future worship” to describe the blend of ancient multi-sensory worship elements with contemporary context and technologies. The writings of Robert Webber, Dan Kimball, Bob Rognlien already referred to, and others like Tex Sample (The Spectacle of Worship in a Wired World), Richard A. Jensen (Envisioning the Word: The Use of Visual Images in Preaching) and Robert P. Glick (With All Thy Mind: Worship That Honors the Way God Made Us) – all these percolated in the back of my brain and eventually Mysterium was the result.
Mysterium began with a dream, or perhaps it was a vision. Very early in the morning on Sunday July 24, 2005 I found myself wide awake. Since I was about to lead two worship services later that morning I knew I needed to get back to sleep. I remembered a technique for such occasions that Beth, my wife, uses — when she can’t fall back asleep she prays, offering intercessions on behalf of all the people she can think of. By focusing her mind on prayer her thoughts stop spinning around and soon she falls back to sleep. So I began to pray, thinking of all the people in my congregation and life that were struggling with various concerns, saying a silent prayer for each of them. After a while of doing this I began to drift off when suddenly, in my mind’s eye, was a picture of an unique worship setting, an image so completely formed that it startled me into full consciousness again. I remember thinking “this is some interesting stuff, I’ll have to remember it when I get up.” As I began to make a mental check list of all the things that were part of that vision I soon realized I had better get up and write it all down — there were simply too many details to trust I would remember everything later. So I got out of bed, went down to my office, fired up the computer and proceeded to type a page and a half of notes. With that accomplished I went back to bed, and fell fast asleep.Later that day, when I went back to read what I had typed early in the morning I was amazed at how everything seemed to make sense and fit together. There were some elements that could be attributed to my worship experiences at places like the Qu’appelle House of Prayer, or various Youth Gatherings I’ve been part of, but much of what I had seen in my mind’s eye was unique. Over the next number of weeks I talked about this vision of worship with some creative and gifted people from the congregation. Their conversations affirmed for me the need to put this Mysterium worship experience together. Right from the very beginning I knew that if Mysterium was to happen it would require a team of creative people working together. I put the word out, and was delighted by the enthusiastic response of people who became part of the Mysterium Team.
It has been over five years now since Mysterium was first introduced. There have been changes over the years, but at its core remains the desire to provide a multi-sensory and experiential worship experience for all who come. Visuals are an important part of what we do and one of our team members, Lois-Anna Kaminski, has faithfully put together a slide show of images and quotes each month related to the theme for that worship gathering. We have had artists at many Mysterium gatherings who create an original painting during the worship time. Over the years we gathered enough artwork that we were able to host an Art Show this past fall featuring over 40 pieces of art created at Mysterium. There is much more I could write about Mysterium, but instead of making this blog post longer I will simply refer interested readers to the Mysterium website.
There is much room for growth and improvement in creating worship that is multi-sensory and experiential, but I do feel that many churches have begun to point themselves in this creative direction. Old ways of doing things are always hard to change, but worship that does not engage the whole person will be easier to dismiss or abandon for those shaped by our post-modern culture. The era of people sitting through a church service out of politeness and cultural expectation are gone, it’s time to explore the fullness of ancient-future worship.
I end this post with a quote from the first Robert Webber book I read, “Worship Old and New” – I read this work over 20 years ago as part of a course on worship that I audited at Canadian Theological Seminary (back when it was still located in Regina).
Worship is not an isolated aspect of the Christian life, but the center from which all of life is understood and experienced. For this reason [we] ought to give careful consideration to… a more thoughtful use of space… to a full range of music… and to a more concentrated effort to engage the senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and hearing… Clearly worship renewal does not consist of moving chairs in a circle, rearranging the order of worship, or finding new gimmicks. The heart of worship renewal is a recovery of the power of the Holy Spirit who enables the congregation to offer praise and thanksgiving to God. The value of studying the history and theology of worship is that it provides us with insights into the work of the Holy Spirit in the past and allows us to be open to His work in the present. In this way the Holy Spirit may lead us into ways of worship that are continuous with the historic witness of worship given to the church throughout its history in the world, and at the same time He may lead us into the discovery of new forms and patterns that meet the needs of people in our day.
Those words, first written 30 years ago, remain relevant today. It remains my desire to have the Holy Spirit lead me in my worship leadership, and maybe that’s exactly what happened in the genesis of Mysterium. May all who plan, prepare and lead worship be open to the Spirit’s guidance, that all our worship enables a holistic response to God.
