Newsletter of the Worship Committee of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod, ELCA; June, 2005
A Place of Encounter: Renewing Worship Spaces
by D. Foy Christopherson
If you are like most people, you are convinced the worship space of heaven itself was patterned after the perfectly beautiful church in which you were raised. We Lutherans often proclaim that the things of worship do not matter. We are fooling ourselves. Rightly or wrongly, there is almost always a holy fuss when we change even the smallest aspect of worship, or even more daring, when we change even slightly the space in which we worship. Our worship spaces are sacred spaces, not because they are perfectly beautiful, but because they are places in which we encounter the holy. Whenever you tamper with holy things and the holy memories they evoke, powerful emotions rise to the surface.
In his compact, easily readable book, A Place of Encounter: Renewing Worship Spaces, D. Foy Christopherson succinctly discusses the places we have created in which the assembly gathers to worship God. The Bible says precious little about how we should design or redesign our worship spaces. The secondary worship issues with which we can become obsessed do not distract Christopherson. He shares the history of the early Church and the tenets of our Lutheran Reformation heritage in an easily absorbed fashion. However, Christopherson consistently brings us back to the biblical basics of worship: bath, gathering, Word, meal, and sending. There are obviously many architectural ways to enhance-or impede-the promised encounter with Christ through these basics, and Christopherson explores many of them. The value of his book, however, is contained in its simplicity. Cutting through centuries of beloved accretions, Christopherson challenges each parish and each worshipper to create a worship space that lets the risen Christ meet his assembled people in bath, gathering, Word, meal, and sending. If you are looking for a "how to" manual about the "things" with which we worship, you will be disappointed, although Christopherson does discuss the history and current implications of many "things" we associate with a worship space. Rather than our beautiful buildings, the assembly of people amongst whom the risen Christ has promised to be present in Word and sacraments makes our worship and our worship spaces holy.
Most parishes have barely begun to wrestle with the exciting challenges and opportunities lifted up in Principles for Worship, approved by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 2002. Christopherson carefully focuses our discussion of the major worship issues upon which all parishes should begin to chew. Each chapter concludes with several discussion questions that carefully elicit personal feelings and opinions in a nonjudgmental way. That is not easily done when parishes discuss matters of worship. Designing worship space demands care-full and prayer-full reflection upon the biblical basics of worship, how the Church has worshipped in its past, and how in the years to come we might put our worship where of faith is. A Place of Encounter is a comfortable way to begin that process. Christopherson’s concise discussion of worship space is not his sharing of the answers to all our worship questions. Rather, it is a tantalizing beginning as we discuss the most important thing we shall ever do together: worship.
When we worship our spaces of worship, we are in danger of breaking the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods." As Martin Luther reminds, "We are to fear, love, and trust in God above all things." "Worship wars" usually result from misunderstandings based on misinformation resulting from miscommunication. A Place of Encounter should be mandatory reading for not only worship and music committees, but also congregation councils and any person who takes seriously the worship of God in Jesus Christ.
John Santoro
Pastor, Trinity Church, Valparaiso, Indiana