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The Art of Curating Worship by Mark Pierson presents a different perspective on how to thoughtfully design and shape worship experiences. Pierson introduces the idea of worship as an art form that involves creativity, intentionality, and a deep understanding of the spiritual journey. The book emphasizes the role of the curator (yes, like a museum or art curator), someone who carefully selects and arranges the elements of worship to foster engagement and connection with God. Through a combination of practical insights, theological reflection, and personal stories, Pierson encourages worship leaders to consider not only the content but also the context and aesthetic of worship in creating transformative experiences for congregations.
The book highlights the importance of intentionality when designing worship spaces. Pierson’s approach encourages worship leaders to go beyond the traditional structures often associated with worship, especially that associated with corporate worship in church. By treating worship as an art form, he invites readers to think carefully about the environment, the atmosphere, and the sensory elements that can affect the worship experience. He pushes for worship to be an immersive experience that invites all participants into a shared space of reflection and connection. This level of intentionality is particularly compelling for worship leaders looking to create environments that engage not only the mind but the body and spirit of worshippers. However, while Pierson’s concepts are compelling, his tone at times can come across as overly self-assured, which detracts from the book’s overall impact. His writing sometimes carries an air of superiority, implying that his methods are the newfound cure for worship leaders and worshippers alike everywhere. Additionally, Pierson's maturity and consistency falter in places, with some ideas feeling underdeveloped or contradictory. While his reflections are thought-provoking, there is a sense of imbalance in how certain principles are presented—at times, he seems to suggest that worship must always be avant-garde or deeply artistic, while simultaneously being strongly suspicious of excellence which he views as performance. Personally, I did not enjoy this book. I think Pierson has some great concepts that are good for challenging the usual methods of corporate worship. The church volunteer, the musical layperson, and those overseeing their church's liturgy may learn from this book and get their feet wet, so to speak, in experimenting with layers to bring more intention to inherently formational worship. However, it is certainly not the most groundbreaking book. I would recommend those mentioned to start with a book that is more theologically based and use The Art of Curating Worship to help brainstorm or generate ideas.
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Reading chapter 4 of Jeremy Begbie’s Resounding Truth was one of the more impactful pieces of literature I’ve come across. In this Chapter Begbie details the different theological views of music in the church from the three biggest strands of protestant thought coming from Luther, Calvi, and Zwingli. All three of these men were very influential, though they had widely differing views. I found this chapter quite compelling because there are many theologies floating around informing musical choices in worship today as well, and in my personal experience, I have felt quite convicted of one strand while also seeing the merit of another. Does this make me unstable and double-minded? Does it help bring continuity and nuance to a complex issue? Or does it just make everything more confusing?
The most interesting thing to me was that while reading these very different reasonings, there was something compelling or that seemed to hold much weight to me in almost each one. Luther sought to reform established practices, and while that meant incorporating the vernacular into the mass structure, he did not do away with elaborate music because he still recognized music as given by God. Luther supported music as a vessel of proclamation, was concerned that the congregation sing during the liturgy, and believed music to be a creation and gift of God. In 1 Samuel 16, Luther sees “music as a tool of God’s work and explicitly that through music the devil has been driven away.” Luther recognized the power music has through its emotional stimulus and cites 2 Kings 3 where Elisha calls in a minstrel so that he might be stirred to prophecy. This seems to me like a very powerful tool that music provides among other things. I can’t deny the power that music has to stir and direct our emotions, and I think the church can most certainly engage with this for the glory of God, to further his kingdom, and to edify the church. However, I can also understand how someone would be suspicious of this tool because I have seen it abused many times, and I’m sure you have too. However, when reading how Luther interpreted both the 1 Samuel and the 2 Kings passages, I felt convicted that my view of music is far too low and far too cynical, as I seem to rarely consider the power of music to spur us on to greater spiritual depths, but rather quite frequently feel overwhelmed by the ways in which it is misused and abused. Calvin agrees with Luther that scripture should be our authority and basis for what we do, but he comes to a much different conclusion. Calvin was far more cynical about church music than Luther was. Whereas Luther saw the value as music itself (even without lyrics) to be a proclamation of God’s goodness, Calvin was far more restrictive on his qualifications for what could be considered suitable for congregational worship. No instruments were allowed, harmony wasn’t allowed (but simply polyphony still made its way in occasionally), and the texts of the mass structures were stripped away to be replaced strictly by psalms. Singing these metrical psalms became foundational in Calvin’s influence. Whereas Luther interpreted 1 Samuel 16 being the music as God’s gift that drove the devil away, Calvin interprets it as God that used the music in his sovereign power to drive out the spirit from Saul. In one sense I totally understand this viewpoint. We should not get so focused on what God has given us that we forget from whom the gift came. Music only has this power to affect our emotions because the Lord made it thus. But on the other hand, I recognize the power that music has as a God-given gift, even when its message is not explicitly praising the Lord. Music still does call out to the beauty and goodness of the Lord, and although it may not always be used with pure intent, I know there is no singing in hell. Zwingli’s argument was interesting to me because I had never much interacted with it before. He was the most extreme out of these protestant reformers and sought to keep music out of the church setting altogether. Zwingli saw that scripture taught of worship as a primarily internal matter, and so saw the external (music making) as human-initiated. In addition to this, Zwingli adhered to the principal that since God himself had not explicitly commanded that we worship with music, we must not do it. Though he tried to ban all music from his churches of influence and was momentarily successful, within 50 years of his death the singing came back. My disagreements with this are not only that I hold more closely to Luther’s view that music is inherently a gift from God, but also that the prohibition of all music in church isn’t free. Paul tells us that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Humans were made with voices and to some extent it is instinctual for us to sing and lift our voices, just as the birds do. People want to sing, and even Zwingli could not stand in the way of that. Reading Robert Webber’s chapter on Lent in Ancient-Future Time helped me to see the Lenten season differently. Previously my primary impression of Lent was a season in which Christians dim certain pleasures in their lives so as to anticipate Easter in which we remember Christ, the Light of the World, resurrected. While this is partially true, it is only the smallest shade of what Lent is. Lent allows Christians to more fully participate in Jesus’ death by incorporating disciplines that move us to deeper spirituality so as to “create and make in us new and contrite hearts” in anticipation of the Easter Resurrection. The Lenten season allows us to more fully experience the power of the resurrection and the baptism into the new self. The practices of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving train us and engage us to “deny the powers that control us and go in a new direction.” This may seem like far-fetched spiritual improvement available only to nuns, but Webber posits that “perhaps this new direction will come from the abandonment of a deep-seated habit that holds us in its grip.” Lent encourages us and gives us the space to crucify the flesh as we walk with Jesus towards his death in Jerusalem and makes the Easter Resurrection experience much more formative.
While many protestants don’t make any spiritual preparation for Easter, Lent isn’t for the truly holy and righteous among us. Lent is for all of us who call ourselves Christians- it is for you and for me. I myself came from a faith background that doesn’t engage with Lent at all. It seems like scary legalistic territory from the outside. However, now that I have been learning about different Christian practices in college, I have begun to appreciate and participate in Lent. I can only imagine what my mother and sister would say if I told them I wore ashes on my forehead or am participating in Lent! I started small- my first year going to an Ash Wednesday service, singing the kyrie eleison, and remembering that from dust I am made and to dust I shall return. This year, I intentionally began Lent with an Ascential fast in mind. I can’t fully fast on Fridays because I am training for a marathon, and we complete long training runs on Saturdays that I need energy for (or maybe that’s just my excuse). But I can fast from something that I feel has power over me. I really like chocolate and sweets in general. I recognize how blessed I am to be able to forsake non-nutritious food like that, and I also have connected it to other Lenten traditions. I have learned that some churches intentionally do not sing the word “Hallelujah” during Lent. As a new worship leader at a church that does celebrate Lent, I have implemented this. I haven’t told them yet, but perhaps that will be a necessary teaching moment in order for this to be beneficial. It’s interesting to me that the Lenten season is a darker season- one in which we don’t give the highest praise until we commemorate the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, and one in which the literal daylight that we have is limited and continues to increase as we approach Easter. With these specific practices, I am reminded of how dark the world is and why we need Jesus our Savior- a world with limited light, a world with less joy and yes, no chocolate. Sweet food to the mouth is absent. A world without alleluias ringing out. More importantly, I am reminded that we made the world dark with our sin. And Jesus is the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world. And as we approach Easter, I look forward to how great it will be to see more light in the world, to be more free from sin’s fleshly hold on us, to taste sweet things again, and most of all, I look forward to proclaiming “Hallelujah” in song with the Church again and shouting with great joy highest praises to the King of Kings. Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner describes several Jewish practices and how they influence and can be integrated into the Christian faith. Winner is herself a Jewish convert to Christianity and she describes how her Jewish roots and practices have enriched her Christian faith. In reading this side-by-side comparison, several practices stood out to me.
If we were to oversimplify, we could say that Jews put more emphasis on doing and Christians put more emphasis on believing. Upon closer examination, however, we find that these two are actually quite complimentary. Introducing this book, Winner writes of Jewish thought “Your faith might come and go, but your practice ought not waver. In fact, Judaism suggests that the repeating of the practice is the best way to ensure that a doubter’s faith will return.” In this sense, we can see the value of teaching our minds and spirits through the obedience of our bodies. Winner goes on to explain that “Eventually, through the doing, one will come to hear and understand and believe.” While Christians have much to learn from their Jewish heritage and while many Christian practices themselves have been lost through time, this simple book makes a case for reclaiming or reviving Christian practice (being inspired by our steadfast Jewish cousins) by stating that “the practicing teaches us what it means to live as Christians.” With this in mind, Winner’s chapters on sabbath and hospitality stood out to me the most. Winner explains how observing the sabbath (something she was taught by diligently observing shabbat) is not simply resting because we are limited humans and need rest from work (although that is part of it). In observing the sabbath, we face down the temptation to grab control and continue our endless toil. But in observing the sabbath, it is not a day to take off and meet all of our wishes and desires of things we would like to do but haven’t. Observing the sabbath is worship, and it also teaches us how to worship by conforming us to the God’s calendar. In light of this, the sabbath teaches us how to live as Christians. Similarly, showing hospitality is one way that we live out the character of God to those around us. Hospitality was expected of Jews and even their daily mundane reflected that, such as having doors on all four sides of their houses to signal that people are welcome. In showing hospitality, we are exhibiting the generosity of the Lord, as well as putting our trust in Him that He will continue to provide for us and the people we have invited into our homes. The practice of hospitality is one that teaches Christians how to love one another: following Christ’s example by unbending ourselves to serve others. Ultimately, this book has been very informative on Jewish practices and has pushed me to think more deeply about the Christian practices I partake of- and more specifically, the ones in which I don’t. It stood out to me in this book that Judaism is so blatantly all-encompassing that it leaves no room for any corner of your life to remain untouched by it, if you are of that faith. My biggest takeaway from this book would be to let my Christian practices speak of my faith by permeating every aspect of my life- even the mundane and dreary doorways. I really enjoyed reading this second chapter of Christ-Centered Worship by Bryan Chapell. Having read chunks of this book prior, it was nice to have a refresher and notice different ideas this time around. Like with the Byzantine liturgy, the Catholic liturgy also separates from non-believers when it is time for communion. It is clear that these liturgies have a great reverence and respect for the Eucharist and desire to protect it and prevent it from being taken unworthily. For many of us today, the practice of dismissing all the outsiders can seem clique-like and extreme, but I can see the merit to it. Many times, there will be gentle instructions in a church service for those who do not believe to not partake in the bread and cup, and in my experience often accompanied by a warning from scripture about eating and drinking judgement upon oneself. One church I had the privilege of visiting several months ago I felt handled this quite gracefully. They mentioned that if someone is not a believer, the ritual of communion would be meaningless to them, and the church would not ask them to participate in something that was meaningless to them. I haven’t quite thought through all the theological aspects of that, but I thought that it was a great way to speak to nonbelievers in our culture through a lens of courtesy.
A big theme I picked up on in this chapter was that many of the elements in the Catholic liturgy that seem strange and overly formal to us protestants are actually the embodied response of the congregation to scripture. It seems foreign to our American culture that is oversaturated with individualism, but these responses leave no room for self-glorifying actions or an insertion of oneself. The congregants are certainly important in the sense that Christ has given himself for all, but the focus is always on the Lord and what He has done through Jesus Christ and petition is always done through Jesus Christ with the expectation that He will continue to meet all our needs. The Catholic liturgy is heavily sprinkled with scripture, which once again helps to stifle selfish ambition. A priest won’t be up there trying to get laughs out of people because his job isn’t to hold their attention, but rather to direct it toward Christ and administer the sacraments that make us one. I included my notes below because it was helpful to break down the different elements in this liturgy. Adoration (choral introit) Confession and Assurance (penitence: Kyrie eleison) Thanksgiving (Gloria- hymn of praise)
Liturgy of the Word- Instruction
LITURGY OF THE UPPERROOM:
In Beyond Smells and Bells, Mark Galli gives an introduction and overview of liturgy. He expresses the love he has for liturgy, as well as the deeper layers beneath some of its functions. Galli discusses some of the inner logic of the liturgy to demonstrate ultimately how this beautifully constructed tool of sorts still falls entirely short of the true glory and goodness of God that is yet to be revealed to us.
Galli highlighted the mystery of the liturgy in that there are workings of the Lord and His Spirit within us that we will not fully understand or at times be aware of. Though to some it appears as an outdated formal sequence, it holds great beauty and mystery in its power. While many scholars, theologians, and skeptics over the years have certainly done their diligence in dissecting the liturgy to understand or dismiss it, there are components that remain incomprehensible, shrouded in the majesty of the Lord. At first, this can be frustrating or can seem like a non-answer to burning questions. At further glance, it seems clear, though, that as limited and fallen human beings we should not expect to know or understand everything there is to know about the Lord. Our unanswered questions are merely more invitation to draw nearer to the Lord. As a leader, I think this can be easy to forget. I tend to want to explain everything and try to come to definitive conclusions, but there simply isn’t always a conclusion or an answer. In practical terms this can mean stepping back from over explaining while striking a balance with having teaching moments. Another idea expressed was the explanation on viewing liturgy not just as an order of service, but understanding it as reenacting and participating in the story of Christ. This was really impactful to understand because it gives meaning and motion to the rhythms of the liturgy by forming our own rhythms to the life of Christ. In practical terms as a leader, this pushes me to lean into the church calendar to help bring order and foster creativity. All in all this was a nice book that helped me understand and further foster my love for liturgy. Visual art and architecture have a place in the liturgical arena and have been used to teach and form Christians for centuries. Visual art and architecture have didactic purposes (in which they teach others about the Christian faith), devotional purposes (in which the art kindles our affections toward God), and also liturgical-functional purposes (in which the art serves liturgical activity in the church, such as the use of specific colors in the church calendar). In Glimpses of the New Creation, David Taylor writes about the formative power of visual art and architecture. I found his assertions compelling and quite interesting because I often think about how the architecture of a church sends messages, and I have found that no space is neutral. Here are some short analyses of three different worship spaces:
 2. First Reformed Church of Holland, MI. When visiting the First Reformed Church of Holland, MI, not only was I encouraged and uplifted by their liturgy, but I was also struck by the beauty of this space. It is very open and welcoming. It lets so much natural light in that brightens up the space. With little obstructing decoration, wooden pews and platforms, and no carpet, the space BEGS you to sing and allows for the sound to be carried throughout the room. This space seemed to be operating under the idea of both church as house of God and church as school house.  3. Brownsville Assembly of God This church begins drawing your eyes upward from the outside and continues this by use of wood support arcing to the center. This church has two levels of seating, all facing toward the front, some with a slight curve, where a cross is displayed. This space seems to operate under church as God’s house, and church as schoolhouse.  What do humans need to live? The usual food, shelter, and water, of course. But that’s only surviving. To live- and to live well and fully; to thrive- humans need more than just the bare minimum necessities. Some studies suggest that newborns need physical touch to live and will die without it. Our minds, emotions, and our spiritual lives play into our health as well. In order to truly live, humans need purpose as well; something that speaks to our minds, emotions, and touches our spirits. In order to worship well, too, this is essential. Thankfully, the arts speak beautifully into this need. Incorporating art into worship isn’t just a nice touch, but it is essential to worshiping well and contributing to the spiritual nourishment of thriving Christians.
The arts in varied forms- visual art, kinesthetic art, music, architecture, etc.- fill an important role in worship that serves to teach and nourish Christians spiritually. The arts through their creative means speak to our emotions and stretch us emotionally. The arts help us envision and imagine an emotion that we might not have felt in that moment ourselves. It helps us to imagine what someone else might be feeling and to experience that in order to step into empathy with them. In this way, the arts by directing and training our emotions, help us to show Christ to others and serve in Christlikeness. David O. Taylor described the distinctive nature of the arts best by saying, “Whereas sin desensitizes the human creature, robbing it of both its senses in the world and of the world, the Spirit of God resensitizes it, making it capable of holy sensory life” by way of the physical means that the arts take. In Chapter 1 of Glimpses of a New Creation, David O. Taylor describes a handful of determinative patterns of worship, and some of them really stuck out to me.
The first is the Fourfold pattern of worship, which I was first introduced to through Constance Cherry’s book The Worship Architect. This pattern of worship really helps inform the skull and bones of worship to me. It doesn’t have anything explicitly to do with music, but it largely informs what I consider and what I choose when leading others in corporate worship. The pattern describes rooms or walls of worship based on what we read in the Gospels. First is the gathering (seen by Jesus being called, then the word (in which Jesus is spoken to), then the table (in which Jesus is nourished), and then the sending (Jesus is sent to others). We participate in this pattern with Christ as the Lead Worshiper in which Jesus calls us, speaks to us, nourishes us (through the Eucharist), and then sends us to do His will and the will of the Father. This informs my approach to worship by emphasizing the importance of the table. By recognizing this pattern, I now hold the Eucharist as not some strange occasional ritual as it was at my old church, but an important and fulfilling part of worship that should be taken often. The next pattern that stuck out to me is the pattern of priorities. In this, Taylor describes some liturgical binaries that “describe not just opposite tendencies but dynamic tensions that a congregation may seek to hold together.” This was really impactful for me to learn about because in my time studying worship arts, we’ve had several class discussions on what styles and forms of music and communion each emphasize and teach. I didn’t quite always understand what the point was- some ways of administering communion seemed to me to be almost equally individualistic and corporate. How do you choose which one to do? But thankfully it’s not a question of “either/or”. It’s actually a wonderful dialogue of “both/and”! We don’t have to make decisions on whether we should structure our services that allow more room for individual reflection or corporate activities. We get to and should include room for both. The only question we need to ask is how do we balance these liturgical binaries among others. The next pattern that stood out to me was the pattern of revelation and response. This is vital in understanding worship to me. Many people can start with the assumption that we initiate worship or that we are welcoming the Holy Spirit into a place. This is simply false. God is the one who initiates worship, and understanding this concept helps to rightly order and structure our corporate worship. I understood the deeper implications of this best when Robert Webber touched on it in the Divine Embrace. In Chapter 10 he says, “The biblical God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not the God who sits in the Heavens but the God who acts in this world. The Triune God creates , becomes involved in creation, becomes present in Israel, becomes incarnate in Jesus, dies for sin, is victorious over death, ascends to Heaven, and calls the Church into being by the Spirit, to witness to His work, of redeeming the world. This same God will restore creatures and creation and rule over all in the new Heavens and the new earth. Biblical worship tells and enacts this story. Narcissistic worship instead names God as an object to whom we offer honor, praise, and homage. Narcissistic worship is situated in the worshiper not in the action of God that the worshiper remembers through Word and Table.” This explanation helped me understand how operating from an “us-initiated” context of worship can be harmful. It can teach and embed in others a wildly false idea about God and our standing with him. Recognizing this pattern has informed my worship by taking the importance off of myself and placing it rightly back onto Christ, the Head Worshiper. Robert Webber in The Divine Embrace discusses how worship nourishes the Christian’s spiritual life. First, worship nourishes our spiritual life by presenting truth and making sense of the world through a biblical lens. Christians are spiritually nourished by entering into God’s story- in which scripture further tells us how we are to live in this world, grow in it, and make sense of it through the Truth that God reveals. This is primarily done through scripture- the Word of God. Worship rooted in scripture presents and ingrains biblical truths in us that stand contrary to the ways of thinking the world has set up. There may be things in scripture that we don’t immediately understand because we are looking at it through the false ways of rationale the world trains us in. Instead of looking at scripture through a worldly viewpoint, we should be looking at the world through a biblical viewpoint. The starting point here really does make all the difference.
A second way worship nourishes our spiritual life is through prayer that focuses not on humans, but on God’s story and mighty acts that establish a foundation for who He is and an expectation for present and future works. Recognizing the acts of God through prayer and having an understanding of who He is leads to an expectation of his saving works here and now and results in intercession for the communities around us. Worship through prayer also highlights the big moves that God made in the past (becoming God in flesh, acquainted with human grief), what God does now (he has and continually does restore our union with God), and the future hope we have for what God has foretold (restored creation in the new heavens and the new earth). A third way worship nourishes our spiritual life is through the Eucharist. This is a ritual of sorts that looks quite odd to the outside world, and many Christians themselves are not always aware of themselves. The eucharist draws us into participation in the life of God in the world. In this ritual, we, partakers of this sacred meal, become the story of God in this world lived out for all to see. We take this tangible reminder into our bodies, and it gives us energy that we spend helping others and transforming the world through the Word of Christ. The author summarizes it by saying, “We move from a delightful contemplation of all that bread and wine disclose to participate in God’s story by letting the Jesus who comes to us by bread and wine be given anew and poured out again to the world through our individual lives and through the community of the people of God, the church.” |
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