Categories: uncategorized
Date: 25 November 2011 11:52:39
Found out last night I have completed my Faith and Worship studies successfully. That means, like some others around these parts, I will be having an accreditation service to become a local preacher some time in the near future. I nearly managed to blow it on my final exegesis - that having been the assignment, as M Litt deadline was looming as well, I decided to do less than usual on so that I could get an extra couple of hours done on the thesis. Still, I am through and so thought I would do my reflection on this course which I know is currently being discussed.
For me it was the right thing at the right time in so many ways. The nature of my call to preach and hesitantcy in following that call after so long thinking that my sexuality consigned me to washing up and chairs meant I needed to be nurtured and for F&W not to just be another academic course. To be honest after completing my MA in Applied Theology the academic side was not what really challenged me about my Local Preacher training - it was dealing with the awesome sense of responsibility and being the person who was in charge of the worship side when worship leaders were not available. For me being the person choosing the hymns and ensuring that they were part of the worship - enhancing it - was something more than daunting. I had to face the phobia I had about me and musical worship in church. As somebody who had spent years not singing - because I am that out of tune - and then decided to make a joyful noice knowing I am not gifted musically it was really difficult. So for me alot of the Faith and Worship course has been about over coming my own perceptions about how it was appropriate for God to use me.
The tutors I had were great. They understood that I had a grounding in a lot of the theoretical stuff and needed their stories and experiences to develop me. Thus, for me, the academic stuff was a bit of light relief from the M Litt stuff - what I would call enjoyable theology - and the visits to the tutors provided me with some great chill time to sit, listen and laugh. Faith and Worship therefore worked for me in the way other courses wouldn't.
In terms of the content some of it was dated and there was one unit based on Sociological theory that did my head in because it was reductionist in various ways. However, overall it was a good course which I think gets a good balance.
Where I think there is a problem and this is what I will continue jumping up and down saying until I am blue in the face because I think it is important is that it is too rooted in traditional forms of doing church. Throughout the course I felt that there is a choice those of us looking to develop worship are faced with Faith and Worship or the Fresh Expressions msm course. There is nothing at the moment which is set up to say you can be trained to build a bridge between worship in traditional inherited forms of church and worship in alternative spaces and within Fresh Expressions. That is the course I desperately wanted to do. In many ways, whilst trying to get into the late modernist mindset, Faith and Worship is heavily rooted in modernity and modernist understandings - which to some extent are appropriate because this is the mindset many of our congregations have. Preachers of my generation and of the next (using old outdated currency Gen X er's and Y er's) understand that the world we will lead worship in and the models of being church we are going to lead them in are changing and over the next 20 or so years are likely to alter dramatically and we want to be trained for that too. We need to be trained to move between and lead worship in congregations with modernist and late modernist mindsets rather than having to choose between them. We need to be trained to not throw the baby out with the bathwater but also not to be afraid to engage with rapidly changing methods of communication. The key will be to train people in the message which remains constant but communicating in ways which won't.
Long post but one I have been wanting to get out for so, so long and one which I guess means I should get round to engaging with the Fruitful Field consultation going on at the moment. Basic message is that Faith and Worship worked really well for me, and I am a voice calling for it to be refreshed and developed not ditched.