"Paying attention to how we worship is vital for the life of the Church"

Just as we are connected by the moana across the pacific, we are also connected by the land to First Nations People, as we seek healing and reconciliation. We worship on stolen land. How might this reality be meaningfully brought into how we worship?

Anita Munro (an indispensable voice within the UCA’s liturgical tradition) explored this question in her keynote address. Anita queried the reconciliation rite (confession and declaration of forgiveness) in dialogue with the reality of First Nations dispossession. The keynote probed whether our use of the reconciliation rite risks inoculating ourselves from transformative encounters with otherness. Any discussion of “transforming worship” is right to be mindful of deeper considerations of what transformation, and spiritual maturation might actually mean - and whether they are truly aimed at God's reign of justice and peace.

 There was a strong appetite at the conference for engaging these deeper questions of transformation and spiritual maturity, particularly through the lens of liturgical formation. As a common saying in liturgical studies goes, lex orandi, lex credendi: the law or prayer is the law of belief. Roman Catholic scholar Gerard Moore drew attention in his keynote to a necessary scepticism of the universality of much liturgical ‘lex’: law which belies a more plural history, and yet is often uncritically made falsely uniform and imposed onto diverse contexts. And yet, this scepticism should lead us into deeper liturgical reflection and formation, not away from it.

It was a consistent refrain at the conference that churches don't pay enough attention to liturgical formation, for presiders or for lay people. It is worth considering whether this might be true in the UCA as well. In our own tradition, Uniting in Worship 2 turns 20 years old this year, and is still not as widely known as it ought to be across our church (due in part, I suspect, to a lack of understanding about how exactly to use it).

The AAL conference generated a lot that is helpful for the UCA’s ongoing liturgical development. As a paper from Annie Brophy highlighted, the most recent Act2 report, The Gift of the Spirit, doesn’t contain the word ‘liturgy’ at all, and ‘worship’ garners little attention. (Annie's paper is part of her PhD in Uniting Church Liturgical studies.)

The UCA can often experiment with ideas and practices where other traditions find a limit. And the UCA can engage conversation partners other traditions struggle to bring in. We have an important contribution to make, not least because of emphases within our tradition on lay leadership, participation (the focus of my own paper), and becoming “fully humanly inclusive” (a term from liturgical scholar Stephen Burns).

Paying attention to how we worship is vital for the life of the Church: worship is both the end and the beginning of the Church’s common life. To do this the UCA needs to remain part of wider ecumenical conversations, while maintaining a focus on the diverse contexts in which we worship, witness, and serve. It is through these engagements that the UCA will find its identity anew, and grow in our participation in Christ’s mission in the world.