In my cluster of churches we have Tongan, Samoan, Hispanic, Filipino, Multi-racial and european congregations. For one day a year we all get together for a choir festival as we celebrate the diversity within our unity. It should be a simple thing to pt together and in most ways it is, but it somehow manages to seem like a lot of work too. When we sat down to discuss the service, we were presented with a lengthy, but well written liturgy put together in a simple way to kind of slot between the choirs. The thing missing was the Eucharist and for the Tongan and Samoan pastors that was critical. Our discussion turned into an interesting one about the differences between a European service with long unison prayers and lots of readings, but no communion and the services of other cultures which are more focused on a spiritual experience with less form and a whole lot less reading, but always with communion especially if it is with another group. I am not sure that everyone really heard each other at the table, but the group has a lot of respect for each other and didn’t get bogged down in the little things. We ended up taking out some of the formulaic stuff (with a nod the fact that it really was well written) and putting in the Eucharist. The previous year we had just left things up to two of the pastors and went with whatever they came up with. This year it started that way and turned into a collaboration that I personally appreciated for the insight I received into my own worship tendencies and a cultural sensitivity that reminded my a lot of the kinds of dialog that take place when putting together interfaith and ecumenical gatherings and worship. There is always a balance and I was proud of the pastors who were willing to stand up for what was important to them so that they could feel their people would be represented and their voice was being heard. It wasn’t like there was any intentional saying it has to be a certain way, but it still meant something to hear a pastor stand up and talk about why the Eucharist is important to them. Those who love liturgy didn’t loose out either and the service did its best to blend the voices of our faith communities into the voice of one church.
The blending of voices/collaboration
That same week I was part of an ecumenical service involving a Russian Orthodox Abbot, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and United Methodist pastors and with a choir of people from the Latter Day Saints. The service was put together using an Episcopal pattern with some Presbyterian prayers and a sermon by the Russian Orthodox Abbot. We could not do communion together because of some fundamental differences around the act, but we did have a blessing of the bread at the end. The part that stuck out to me though was that we used the Nicene Creed which clearly was inappropriate for the ecumenical group gathered, but I appreciated our Orthodox brother simply being willing to omit saying the Filioque (this is the part where is says the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (agreed on) and “from the Son” (not agreeable). As much as I appreciated his willingness to ignore it, he shouldn’t have been put in that position and I was disappointed that he was. Another part of the service that stood out to me was the bowing before the altar and crossing ones self. These are not a common part of my tradition and in some ways I felt awkward as the pastor who doesn’t really do those things and who has a theological issue with bowing to the altar or to the cross. In some ways the services was so liturgical (traditional formulaic) that I felt like I (or at least my style of worship) was the most left out of the service (though I had plenty of parts to read). This service was not a collaboration, it went well and had some good moments, but we were each just doing what we were told to do.
On a separate non-religious note about collaboration I recently finished listening to an interesting collaboration called, “The Copper Bracelet.” This is the second book using the same set of characters and with each chapter being written by a different writer. The first was, “The Chopin Manuscript” and I read it because there were chapters by several of my favorite authors including David Hewson (which was my uncle’s name, and who is a very nice guy on top of being a great author (I met him once and talked to him about travel and choice of graduate schools for something like 45 minutes)). This is obviously a very different kind of collaboration from that of a putting together a worship service, but there were some lessons in it that I find similar. What stands out to me is the effortless way one author can simply kill off or resurrect a character in a way that no single author would our could. When it’s your character there are always some who you simply know will survive, but when another author takes over all bets are off. I was actually annoyed at one point when a character that seemed interesting was abruptly killed and it made all his development in previous chapters seem pointless.
What is all comes down to is that in collaboration you sometimes have to be willing to let go. You do what you do and the next person does what they do and so on and you can’t always worry about what they will do with the things you created. On the other hand, in a good collaboration there is a mutual respect so that the important things are understood and in the end all the participants can feel they were are part of getting things to where they got. It can not be just about everyone doing their part, it needs to be about everyone actually being a part of things. Collaboration can be beautiful and it can be disastrous and either way we can learn a lot from it.
Tripping the Light Fantastic 