Worship & Other Conspiracy Theories
Dear Friends,
Most people I know describe this as having happened at some point: you are talking about something—the kind of cereal you like or the trip you want to go on or your favorite pair of shoes or anything in between—and all of a sudden you are inundated with ads about that thing. The conspiracy theory is that our phones are listening in to our conversations so that we can be advertised to in better, more effective ways.
Maybe that's true. My experience of watching people try to work together makes me more skeptical of conspiracy theories, though. Have you done church committee work?! But I digress.
The point is that our tendency to consume, to buy, to want, runs deep in our culture. We are constantly consuming something. We finish one episode of a show on Netflix and the next one starts up in 10 seconds. When the season is done, we're informed of another show we'll love just as much and encouraged to binge on it. We order a kitchen utensil on Amazon and the website tells us exactly what else we need if we're going to be truly happy with our purchase. We spend days on the couch watching sports. Just last night, an unnecessary ad popped up informing me that I needed a new cell phone and why, and it took me about 10 minutes of scrolling through the ad to remind myself that my current phone is absolutely fine!
We are consumers. And what strikes me about these forms of consumption and the others that permeate our culture is how very passive they are. We don't really need to make choices. We don't need to be part of the decision. We simply consume and when there's no more, Google or Amazon or Netflix or whatever will tell us what's next.
I'm thinking about all this, because I'm thinking about what a striking contrast church is. This is true in the church's worship and in the church's wider life.
In worship, you may notice that at times I push us to engage—to say the responses loudly, to sing the hymns (whether you're a great singer or not!), to stand and sit as makes sense. Not just to take in worship, but to be an active, engaged participant. There are, of course, Christian traditions that don't really encourage that. Places where you can hear a 40-minute sermon after a band plays a nice concert for you, while you remain a passive observer.
But that's not Anglican worship. Anglican worship is engaged, multi-sensory, participatory. Your voice is needed in the "Amen!" Your song is needed for the hymn. Your reading, your prayer, your Eucharistic ministry, your standing, your kneeling, your sign of the cross—they make worship what it is. Worship is something we must do together!
This is also true of our wider life as a church. Church, the community we're called to be, is not a spectator sport. There is so much going on—small groups that meet, outreach opportunities, Sunday school classes, fellowship opportunities. Your participation is needed there as well. So find your place. Find the way you'd like to dig in, to participate in the life of this parish. If you need some help discerning how you're called, please get in touch with me.
You are needed. We need you for worship. We need you for our life in community. We need you to serve well in the world God loves.
God bless,
Fr. Quinn+