2014 Seminar | Garden City Community Church, Garden City, NY

Karen Zalewski, lay leader; Rev. James Adelmann, Senior Pastor
September 9, 2014

by Kathryn McNeal, M.Div. ‘15

Garden City Community Church, a United Church of Christ congregation on Long Island, is working to rekindle the sense of the sacred in its worship.  In keeping with the symbol of the United Church of Christ—the comma that affirms that “God is still speaking”—their aim is to reorient and re-frame their approach to their Sunday morning services.  Instead of asking what the people are doing in worship, this congregation is asking what God is doing in their midst when they worship. Instead of focusing on their own excellence and creativity, they are looking at God’s excellence and creativity. Instead of seeking a final, best form of worship, they are learning how to listen for God’s voice as they gather.  They do all this as a civic, socially active congregation longing also to deepen the connection between worship and their lives of service and justice.  Garden City is aiming to do good, not because “that’s what Christians should do,” but because they are intentionally, thoughtfully, and prayerfully responding in worship to what God is doing in the world.

Three specific strategies shape their efforts: increased freedom and variety in congregational singing, fuller participation of youth in worship, and increased embodiment in the liturgy. In Garden City’s current Sunday morning schedule, classes for youth take place during the regular worship service. Therefore children are present for only a portion of the liturgy. As Garden City works to increase the participation of children in worship, the congregation is creating more instances when the children will stay for longer portions or the entirety of the service. This has implications for other worshipers as well: when the children are addressed in worship, adults overhear the message, which may touch them as well.  In addition, adults are often more willing to participate in embodied worship with the children or for the sake of the children than they are on their own.

To encourage more congregational singing and to invite worshipers into a more prayerful, focused time, worship leaders have recently added a gathering song to the beginning of the Sunday service—ideally, a short piece that is quickly and easily learned and that introduces the main theme of the service. The addition of the gathering song also provides an opportunity to increase the congregation’s familiarity with new music.  When this congregation’s project was discussed during the summer seminar, participants suggested that leaders occasionally invite the youth of the church to help teach the gathering song to the congregation—thereby both addressing the goal of increasing youth participation in worship and encouraging participation by their parents and other older worshipers.  Seminar participants also encouraged Garden City musical leaders to be explicit—verbally and nonverbally—in inviting worshipers to sing regardless of their self-perceived musical abilities.  Another suggestion was to urge worship leaders to look for ways to teach the day’s music and its meaning throughout the liturgy, for example by discussing a hymn during the sermon.

The third goal of the project encompasses the former two. The congregation’s hunger for more embodied worship became evident when a little girl refused to leave the sanctuary for Sunday School until she, too, could feel water sprinkle on her skin during a remembrance of baptism. After this and other incidents, worship leaders have kept the hunger for embodiment in mind and planned ways of addressing it more intentionally.  For a service that included a baptism, for example, the pastor selected a pitcher from which to pour water into the font—not previously a practice in that congregation. The pastor thoughtfully selected a large and beautiful pitcher and chose to pour the water from a height that allowed people to see the water and hear its splash.  After the service, a woman remarked with surprise and delight on the beauty of the pitcher.  Clearly, something as seemingly simple as the selection of a pitcher had affected her experience of worship. Carefully, thoughtfully, intentionally, worship leaders are experimenting.  Sometimes the congregation now moves forward to receive the Eucharist rather than passing the elements to one another while seated in the pews. On “Souper Bowl Sunday,” the entire congregation squeezed into the chancel to bless the food members were contributing that day to the local the food bank.  A thriving vegetable garden in the churchyard provided another opportunity for embodied blessing.

One concern raised by this congregation’s team is whether their worship space—long and narrow, with fixed pews and narrow aisles—will allow them to develop a more embodied liturgy.  Seminar colleagues encouraged them to be creative.  Rather than feeling constantly constrained to conform the worship to the space, they urged Garden City’s worship leaders to experiment, with care, with ways of changing the space. If there is a lack of space in the front of the church, for example, try removing a few pews. When change is not possible, be creative  in using what you have:  for example, lead different parts of worship from different locations in the sanctuary; highlight with fabric and call attention verbally to the cross formed by the intersection of the middle and front aisles; continue using the chancel as was done on “Souper Bowl Sunday.”

Garden City Community Church recognizes the dynamic nature of liturgy. They know that the perfect worship service does not exist. This is why the focus of their project is not on the specific changes they are making.   Rather, step by step, they are rekindling the sense of the sacred and listening to God’s voice in their midst. They look to God’s work, God’s excellence, and God’s creativity to inform how they practice the liturgy each Sunday, constantly re-evaluating their progress to their main goal – a more palpably sacred worship experience for all.