Blended Worship: Achieving Substance and Relevance in Worship

Rating:
Summary: Renewing the Church with substance!
Review: In a post-modern church where skepticism, intellectual literalism, and novel emotional subjectivism masquerade as worship, we are often left wondering what is worship? Webber helps us through this task by explaining "renewal churches." These churches are leaving behind the notion that worship must mimic secular entertainment and consist of power-point presentations and apologetics. These are churches that effectively blend the riches of Church tradition with modern worship styles. As the title suggests, Webber wants both substance and relevance. He also wants churches to abandon the attitude that doing "something brand new" each week is the mark of a true church.

Basing his ideas on Early Church history, Webber challenges churches to:
1. Explore traditions outside of their own.
2. View worship as the celebration of Christ's victory over evil
3. Abandon using Worship times for evangelism, and designate other times for it.
4. Put Christ at the center; not entertainment or rational argument.
5. Recover Early Christian worship: the entrance, Word, Eucharist, and dismissal. He advocates reading from the gospel, Old Testament, and even an epistle. This way Churches will hear all of God's word and not just a few lines followed by a long sermon.
6. Utilize worship space and the arts as a means of worship (such as dance, icons, etc).
7. Utilize traditional music and music of other traditions (hymns, taize).
8. Rediscover the Church year and observe Advent, Epiphany, Lent, etc, and move away from the secular year. Webber has harsh words for churches on secular time, which celebrate Boy Scout Sunday and Mother's day faithfully but criticize the celebration of long-held Christian feasts and fasts.
9. Rediscover the value of symbol and sign (Romanticism).
10. Embrace the sacraments, particularly Baptism, Healing, and the Eucharist and to recognize Christ's presence in the worshipping community at the Eucharist.
11. Relate worship to all areas of Church ministry.

For many Vatican II Catholics and Anglicans his list will sound very familiar. I have attended churches that had no connection to Christianity's past, and have gone to others who by so strictly adhering to Christian tradition never made Church relevant. Webber offers a balance, which relies heavily upon the Liturgical Movement that happened in the Anglican Church and led to the current Book of Common Prayer. His ideas will generate *substance* in worship, and create a real community based on Christ. As actual worship, social justice, and the mystery of God become relegated to second place behind seat-filling services and cold apologetics, Webber's ideas are desperately needed.

I have a few objections. I agree with integrating historical Christian elements into one's own church. However, this might lead to a buffet type Christianity, where the easy elements are taken and the difficult ones left behind. Second, I agree with Webber that churches should have other services for proselytizing. However, the example he uses has its evangelism service on Sunday and the main service another night. For almost 2000 years Sunday has been the primary day to celebrate the resurrection. Perhaps Wednesday is a better day for evangelism. Overall Webber's suggestions, such as weekly Eucharist, mixing liturgy with spontaneity, integrating traditions, and basing worship on bringing Christ's life to the present, will renew churches into true communities with substance and relevance.