Review: Alternative Worship

Alternative Worship
Jonny Baker and Doug Gay with Jenny Brown

I suppose I've never really moved in truly alt.worship circles - my spirituality has never been expressed through the Conga; I've never participated in worship by drawing a picture; the whole church-as-nightclub/nightclub-as-church thing never quite suited my style. On the other hand I did introduce open participation communion services in the Brethren style to the Anglican church I used to belong to... and liturgical worship to Brethren and Baptists. I have appreciated a 'praise up' at Spring Harvest before now, as well as choral evensong at some of England's finest cathedrals. So worship in a variety of styles is far from alien to me.

Alternative Worship is mainly a book of resources, but also carries some theological reflections, in passing. The introduction links this movement of alternative worship with the notion of "emerging church", and explores what it means - in terms of corporate worship - to be post-Charismatic or post-Evangelical. Most of the book is organised into four themes, reflecting four major seasons of the church calendar - Advent/Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. Each carries resources - liturgical material, readings, prayers, and the like - and also rituals - ideas about how to act and what to do; old and new ways to embed and develop spiritual practice. A CD contains some music, pictures, and other additional material.

The whole collection comes across as being well-grounded in reality: the authors are describing stuff they have done. They encourage the reader to take the ideas and make them their own; to adapt them to local circumstances. That's a good job, because many of them really, really, wouldn't work in my church context right now. It is a great set of resources, though, which has both given me ideas, and also helped me to think more creatively about worship, even in quite a conventional context.

Some people, trying to make sense of the emerging church stuff, have seen it as mainly about different ways to express church together. That would be a mistake. Also a mistake, though, is to concentrate on theology and its outworking in practical action, without paying enough attention to the idea of worship: a need to worship seems deeply embedded in human-kind.

This book is a great mix of reflection and practice. I think I will be dipping into it, and adopting/adapting its ideas for quite a while to come.