HELLO!

I promised more information on the funeral for Ernie Nauffts, here it is: https://www.arbormemorial.ca/en/coleharbour/obituaries/ernest-ronald-ernie-nauffts/166624.html Please keep Karen and her family in your prayers. I had a very busy Sunday and a jam-packed Monday. Several of my appointments were pastoral in nature but included a church service at a long-term care facility. Over the years my approach to these services has changed and with that change has come a new way of experiencing worship in general. In Seminary we learned liturgy in an ecumenical environment, our professors were Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church clergy. A few professors were lay leaders in their denomination, obviously the women from the Roman Catholic church fit this profile. Mary, who taught us liturgy, would tell us, “If you want to understand how liturgy should be experienced, watch figure skating.” What she meant was this, the flow, the way various demonstrations of movement and sound, the symbolism of how physical bodies present the Spirit at work, all revealed God’s presence. To this day, when putting a liturgical service together; funeral, wedding, baptism, Sunday morning worship, finding that flow, ways to connect music and word, action and emotive prayer, streaming from a constant and obvious theme, remains my focus.

I recall taking bulletins to these long-term care facilities, passing out the words to hymns, following a set liturgy with precise wording, and one day realizing…it was all for me, for the choir, for the staff. The residents were indifferent to all of this. I was offering what I thought others wanted/needed. But the more time I spent at these facilities the more I understood what resident wanted. In their cognitive reality what brought them joy was the human connection, making eye contact, saying “God bless you”, choosing hymns THEY wanted to sing. I offered a clear message of love, if I told a story, it was accessible to family and staff.

On Sundays and at funerals and weddings, I employ a similar approach, I mix in heaping ingredients of scholarship and theology, but I do so with generous helpings of accessible stories, humour and prophetic challenge (“You shall comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable”). In the end, the flow of music and word, of stories and teaching, of justice and pastoral care, are what is most necessary. I do not like, what I call “grab bag liturgy”. In my youth the liturgy consisted of hymns, anthems and prayers, in no particular order, with the sermon at the end. That is not “flow”, that is building to a big finish. Ecumenical mainline worship flows with a gathering, the Word, and a response, in other words, the community comes together, the community listens together and the community is sent out together. But as I find words for the bulletin, speak words in worship, and preach the Gospel, I am always conscious of two things, is this accessible to a wide audience and is the comfort/affliction of the Gospel Good News being heard? Do you understand what is being said and is the message something you don’t always hear in our culture?

The word “liturgy” is defined through its Greek word, “leitourgia”, which means, “the work of the PEOPLE”. People. Plural. Peace, Kevin