Review of CPWI Emergent Worship at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, DC
The Christian Peace Witness for Iraq events of 2008 were centered around diverse worship experiences in over 12 houses of worship in Washington, DC at noon on Friday, March 8. The intent of the day was to bring people from different faith traditions together to bear a worshipful witness for peace in the conflict in Iraq.
The worship I attended was at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, and it had been billed as an emergent worship. It opened with music from Ryan and Holly Sharp, and Jared Milos of The Cobalt Season. They did a masterful job of setting up a time of contemplation of scripture. It was one of the highlights of the service. For fifteen to twenty minutes Jared played a slow, sliding line on the bass guitar, drawing on the root chords of a sung chorus. Four liturgists, each reading from a different passage, alternated reading portions of the texts aloud. When they finished reading the passage through the first time, we repeated the chorus before they began to repeat selected verses of the text, alternating all the while with one another.
During the music at the beginning of the service as well as during the reading, two video projectors had been set up and were projecting images on top of each other. The first projector was simply playing a slideshow of words in white type (“community,” “peace,” “solitude,” etc.). The second projector was playing the DVD film “Koyaanisquatsi,” which shows scenes from various world cultures. (The sound from the film was muted, but I recommend the soundtrack by Philip Glass on its own merits.) The effect was engaging and intriguing. Intentionally chaotic, the words were not timed to the film, but were in random order. Some words matched well with the overlaid film, some word associations were confusing, or outright contradictory, but the blend of the bass line, the visuals, and the slow scripture reading created a contemplative environment that engaged me in the texts in very different way. It was worship leadership very well done!
Gilda Carbonaro bore witness the way that war has torn at her with the death of her son, 28-year old Marine Sergeant Alessandro “Alex” Carbonaro. Alex died of burn injuries sustained by an IED explosion on May 1, 2006. As a member of Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out, Gilda read aloud numerous emails and letters exchanged between her and her son during his deployments. The vividness of her memories shone in her voice, as did her pain and her resolve to end the war in Iraq. After the service, I was so moved by her words that all I could do was ask her to tell me the birthday of her son: April 19, 1978. He would have turned 30 last Saturday.
Brian McLaren took to the pulpit after Gilda had finished, and though he was setting out on a new book tour for Everything Must Change, and on the verge of a conference in Vienna, VA of the same name, he knew when enough had already been said. I was a bit disappointed – and surprised – that he cut his remarks short, but it was a significant lesson that even a keynote speaker and powerful preacher can sometimes have his well-prepared and refined words pale in the face of powerful scripture and raw experience. It’s better to recognize it and cut it short than to take away from the whole (Note to self: Mother’s Day/Pentecost sermon: keep it concise– May 11.)
As a concluding act of worship, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated by intinction. While for some this was a new experience, it was a fitting way to nourish our spirits as we prepared for further action. (See PCUSA News article)
I hope this review of the worship service gives you some ideas, raises some questions, and challenges you to new ways of thinking about how social justice actions can be grounded in worship. Questions?
Peace, Ivan Herman
Comment by Jan on 26 April 2008:
Hi Ivan - I had an interesting experience this past week involving back to back meetings with a couple people who led the communion piece at this event, and they were each talking about it. One loved it. One hated it.
One who loved it - found it energizing.
One who hated it - found it chaotic and theologically shaky.
So interesting. We are a church that needs to be patient with each other I guess. To recognize how hard it is to change beloved/tired practices while moving forward. I pray, frankly, that Bruce Reyes-Chow will be our next moderator to help with the moving forward part.
Comment by David Williams on 28 April 2008:
Koyaanisquatsi? Without the Philip Glass? Isn’t that blasphemy of some sort or another? I mean, really, the movie is a classic on it’s own, and though solely visual, it has an important internal narrative. Ah well.
Comment by Becky on 29 April 2008:
Jan–what was theologically shaky? I’d like to hear more about their experience. Was it just using intinction, or was there something about the set-up or presentation?
The worship service sounds incredible. Wish I could have been there. And kudos to McLaren for knowing when to let the Spirit work.
Comment by Jan on 29 April 2008:
Hi Becky - The person who said this felt that it was hard to focus on God, apparently, because of the “confusion” - lots of movement, stations (maybe). He didn’t really share details. I got the sense that it was not decent and orderly in his opinion.
Comment by Ivan on 8 May 2008:
Correction:
The film used at the worship service was “Powaqqatsi” - the second in the Qatsi trilogy. (Kyaanisqatsi is the first film.)
Comment by Carol Howard Merritt on 21 June 2008:
David, Have you been to Busboys and Poets? The new one in Arlington has one of them playing all the time in the back room.