Creative Worship

I do see this flexibility offered at some services, Wendell.  I would say the difficulty appears to be wrapped up with something more than creativiity.  It seems this becomes a struggle with routine, identity, tradition and choice.

I learned something I didn't know with your factoid.  I also like what you wrote, flexibility does break routine.  It increases the possibility of something new for everyone at worship.  It can break us out of our comfort zone which I believe, provides a moment to understand something beyond us a little bit better. 

What flexibility is up against, besides the normal tendency to be slightly perturbed with a broken routine, is, what could be called, a default sense of identity and tradition.  The question, “We have always done it (whatever it is) this way, why change?” will likely be hard to answer.

At the heart of that question lie two perceptions.  One, that the way we worship defines us as a community.  For instance, we follow, liturgical (or non-liturgical) worship and this is the way we have defined that worship.  If that is changed, then the decision is normally made whether the change is good.  If others feel it is good and I feel it is not, there might be other decisions I need to make that could separate me from the community.

The second is tradition.  We appreciate having memories reinforced.  I have fond memories of boyhood church worship settings that I am likely not to hear again.  The repetition formed the memory and, whenever I hear those words or the music, there is that coming back of childhood, the great Proustian remembrance of things past.   That, together with the church being perceived as preserving tradition by many, makes flexibility an uphill battle.

Finally, there is choice.  I admire those worship planners who offer us many options for worship.  I know this makes their work harder.  Each offering means another choice between one way and the other.  They also need to deal with the potential dissatisfaction towards something that is new or the boredom of something that has become too much of a routine.

What is particularly hard is that routine, identity, tradition and trying not to get mired down in choice are not essentially, or necessarily, bad.  They play a needed part of our lives.