In the final part of his series, John L Bell highlights the need for worship ‘laboratories’.

IN this last article, I want to do little more than tell of an occasion over thirty years ago when Christine, my then colleague, and I were invited to lead worship for a presbytery retreat.

We decided in advance that we would each lead exactly the same morning service, Christine with the elders, and I with the ministers. Each group had around fifteen participants. It was probably different from what had been expected. We did not sit in straight lines facing a podium, but in a circle in the centre of which was a low table. There was no piano, we sang unaccompanied; and no one person led the worship, it was shared by half a dozen participants.

It began with opening words from scripture, accompanying which three symbols were gently placed on the table. The symbols were: a bible, a candle and a cross, representing the truth, light and way of Christ. When it came to the scripture reading, there was an open question to which anyone could respond without discussion by the others. The first prayer had a shared printed text, and in the prayers for others, there was time for participants to name people or situations which concerned them. The act of worship took around 20- 25 minutes.

Towards the end of the day, we met again in the two groups which had gathered for worship in the morning and Christine and I asked those around us how they felt about their participation in the morning service.

“ These places need not be in sanctuaries, but in environments where presumptions of liturgical protocol do not stifle progress.

My group, the ministers more or less agreed that it was a very positive experience, ‘but the lay people are not ready for it’. The general consensus among the elders was: ‘It was very good, but the ministers would never let us do it.’ Who is kidding whom? I was reflecting on this experience recently with Christine and with two other people engaged in working with small congregations, one in a pioneer setting. All agreed that while it is important that training should be available to prospective readers and worship leaders, it is not enough. What we also need are laboratories, places of experiment where ordinary members of a congregation can develop their hidden potentials and fulfil God’s mandate to share reflection on scripture, pray and worship; and do this in contexts which do not simply copy the conventional practices of the ordained ministry. These places need not be in sanctuaries, but in environments where presumptions of liturgical protocol do not stifle progress.

Such innovation is happening in some parishes in Scotland, and it has a long pedigree.

It has been done before. It began at Pentecost, which happened not in a church but in an upstairs room. And it happened with a crowd of women who gathered by a riverside, including a cloth merchant called Lydia.