I like creativity in worship. Mix it up. A little change here, a little innovation there. For me, it keeps things fresh.
But C.S. Lewis had a very a different perspective. According to him, worship is like dancing: practice makes perfect. And introducing new elements into the dance simply distracts the dancers and diverts their attention from what they’re supposed to be doing: worship.
So here he is warning against novelty and change in worship. Check it out and let me know what you think. Should we avoid “novelty” in worship?
It looks as if [pastors] believed people can be lured to go to church by incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications, and complications of the service. And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of his innovations. The majority, I believe, never are. Those who remain — many give up churchgoing altogether — merely endure.
Is this simply because the majority are hidebound? I think not. They have a good reason for their conservatism. Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And they don’t go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best — if you like, it ‘works’ best — when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.
But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about the worship is a different thing from worshipping. The important question about the Grail was ‘for what does it serve?’ ‘Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.’
A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the questions ‘What on earth is he up to now?’ will intrude. It lays one’s devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, ‘I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.’
Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity. I can make do with almost any kind of service whatever, if only it will stay put. But if each form is snatched away just when I am beginning to feel at home in it, then I can never make any progress in the art of worship. You give me no chance to acquire the trained habit— habito dell’arte.
C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (Mariner Books, 2002), 4-5.
Agree, mostly. Obviously the liturgy Lewis is talking about has some issues of its own, but the point is good. Too often we’re worried about the “next big thing,” the newest gimmick and gadget to “bring ‘em in” and the point of worship is lost. The idea of “new and novel” is overrated. Now, having said that, doing some thing just because “that’s the way we’ve always done it” and because “that’s where I’m comfortable” is not much of a basis in worship either. We ought to be more concerned with what God has said about it, what brings Him the most glory, etc, than we are about “what’s hip and happenin’” and what we can do to amuse the goats. Thanks for posting this.
I always feel like an idiot when I post here…but it doesn’t seem to stop me…
Applying this perspective to the average evangelical worship service seems a stretch. Services are generally designed for an audience, which by definition, is there to be entertained, informed, educated, etc. Would this perspective even make sense to the average church-goer who doesn’t embrace sacramental practices or lacks familiarity with the elements of liturgical worship? I think there is more to be discussed here than ‘Lewis generally has a good point about avoiding novelty’.
What exactly is worship?
How does an audience become participants enacting worship? Lewis states “They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore.” How does the service enable these to happen?
Interestingly…this seems a popular topic this week: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-repetition-method/
I can’t speak with much authority here, but my sense is that my church avoids the kind of liturgical permanence Lewis desires for the sake of the newcomer (or “seeker” if you like – yes, my church is unapologetically seeker sensitive). Our church is constantly asking how it would feel to be at our service for the first time. In a more regular liturgical service, one of the main worries our leadership would have is that a newcomer would feel like everyone else knew what was going on and they didn’t, everyone else was an insider and they were an outsider. I guess the difference here is really high vs. low church rather than stable vs unstable liturgy, but I think there is overlap here. Even seeker sensitive low churches have some kind of liturgy – the difference is we announce and explain absolutely everything we’re doing during the service so no one feels left out for not knowing whats going on.
The heart of the difference seems to me to be the missional nature of church services. I don’t mean to insinuate that Lewis has a less than missional ecclesiology – I know he believes in the Great Commission. Its just that he doesn’t see the worship service as highly concerned with that aspect. For him, the worship service is for the regular, devoted attender. If it was thought through from the perspective that the worship service is for both the longtime worshipper and the brand newcomer, there might be a different sense of what “works”. Novelty still wouldn’t be a virtue, but familiarity might not be either.
Interesting observation given how long ago he wrote this and where we are presently with ongoing “worship wars” and innovations in worship.
The one thing that he wrote that I would disagree with was this:
“…it ‘works’ best — when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it.”
While I know some are comforted by sameness, the danger that can result is if and when thought is no longer involved in the process and we’re just going through the motions. Some worshippers’ objections to change in worship, I’m not sure is as much as well thought out as what C.S. Lewis wrote here as much as it is a reaction to change in a routine. But I want to think about what I do; I don’t want it to become just some rote ritual. From an evangelical perspective, maybe that would mean the pastor or worship leader would from time to time, call the church to reflect on what it is they’re doing, but just to enter into an unthinking process of worship, to me, just does worship of God an injustice. I believe we should engage all of our being in worship–body, soul and mind. Also, if we’re not thinking about it, maybe we’re overlooking very much needed opportunities at times to change some things that should be changed.