WorshipCentral

Interesting one- there's a band in Hull who have been developing a Rock Eucharist- based on traditional CoE liturgy backed by a mix of secular rock songs, modern worship songs and some of their own stuff. They ran it at greenbelt last year and are going back again this year. I found it really cool how placing the liturgy in this kind of context made it immediately more alive and relevant, even though its the same words (www.rockeucharist.co.uk)

I've recently found that the Eucharistic Prayers are a great way to get into a place of praise and wonder - the words spoken over the gifts of bread and wine in the liturgy are often incredibly powerful as they always speak about the cross. These ancient prayers can also be used in non-liturgical worship, perhaps proclaimed by the whole assembly with drums etc. An example of this is the prayer for the feast of Christ the King:

Father, all-powerful and ever-living God,
we do well always and everywhere to give You thanks.

You anointed Jesus Christ, Your only Son,
with the oil of gladness,
as the eternal priest and universal king.
As priest He offered His life on the altar of the cross
and redeemed the human race by this one perfect sacrifice of peace.
As king He claims dominion over all creation,
that He may present to You, His almighty Father,
an eternal and universal kingdom:
a kingdom of truth and life,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.

And so with all the choirs of angels and saints we join in their unending hymn of praise.

Holy, holy, holy Lord....

Wow.

Those words are literally, awesome.

We've been doing communion during worship now and again, not all the time so we don't get too religious about it (;-P) but this is simply great. Our experience has been using songs, or had the musicians play in the Spirit for a while as the people share the elements together. We've sometimes done it alongside bringing our tithes/offerings too. That's bound to upset some people!?!

Can I ask which flavour of church this comes from (I'm going to say Anglican, given that it's Eucharist, but thought it best to check).

Thanks again for sharing.

visit me at www.andrewweir.co.uk

It is in fact from the Catholic flavour of Church and is used on the feast of Christ the King each year, which is also our Youth Sunday - so it's pretty special!

I was a part of a community for a couple of years in which we would spend sometimes half an hour to fourty five minutes in free praise during the mass to really focus in on God's presence in the Word and Eucharist. It really brought the liturgy to life. Good times!

We have communion every sunday, we like to inform the congregations that the whole service is a worship service and communion is a form of worship. And we play songs from lianna klassen cd The Guest Repentant Lament and I Am work very well.

Being a Catholic and using Worship songs as part of liturgies (i.e. Mass) in a Youth retreat centre for the last five years (the centres have used them far longer) it makes for a beautiful service. The coming together of the old and new. As a young Catholic I must admit to it all seeming very wordy and old wordy at that, in my mind was "What on earth is thee and thou and art all about?" Growing up in a Catholic Parish run by a wonderfu group of Missionary Priests I have come to an understanding of these words. The Eucharistic Prayers and indeed many of the prayers said at the beginning of Mass and during the Mass are truly beautiful. It could be by accident but often many of the Worship songs appear to reflect this. I guess it all just comes down to the heart of Cristian faith.
It is amazing how the differences in various Christian denominations are often highlighted and yet (including Christians) our similarities are so often missed out.
At any weekday Mass in a Catholic Church this week you would hear these words:
"Let us pray
(That God would continue to bless us with his compassion and love)
Father,
let the gift of your life
continue to grow in us,
drawing us from death to faith, hope and love.
Keep us alive in Christ Jesus.
Keep us watchful in prayer
and true to His teaching
till your glory is revealed in us.
This one of the opening prayers. Not to mention the beautiful words of the Eucharistic prayers.
I'm not sure this ridiculously long post makes sense or really answers the original point but I hope it's kind of useful.

One issue came up for discussion on another site I go to - http://www.shipoffools.com/ ..

Namely - around Christmas, one team of Anglican churches all want a Midnight Communion service on 24 Dec. Only problem - they don't have enough priests (having to consciously write that, as my brain immediately went "pasto^H^H^H^H^H") to cover for the Communion bit... as their rules only apparently permit one other site to run offline communion.

Foreign to my Baptist mindset.. but apparently they need a priest to "do the magic", so to speak.

My suggestion was - how about if we were able to multicast the central service to the other 3 - then wouldn't you only have 1 service, but just space-shifted? Local teams to do the actual distribution of bread'n'wine, but it's all hapening at the same time...

Would be perfectly legit for us Baptists - would it pass muster in an Anglican or Anglo-Catholic context?

As a Catholic, I almost take it for granted that a worship service consists of the following:

repentance
scriptures
offerring
intercessory prayers
remembrance of the Last Supper
receiving the Eucharist (true body and blood of Christ for us Catholics)
reflection and commissioning to go out and live the Gospel

All of these points are often supported by music - hymns for entrance, psalms during the readings, contemporaru worship and praise at other moments etc. But at each stage the worship formats (music/projected images/dance/spoken word) only complement or add to the original format of worship - they can never replace or supercede it. Wow, I never thought I'd use that word lol

It can be truly moving to combine old and new (Yes, we've even used Light of the World as people have come forward to receive communion) and like any denomination we have characters who prefer the traditional and the those who prefer the contemporary. I remember going to Mass in Africa and during their offerring (or tithing?) they danced up the aisles with their contributions, joyfully giving what little they had with drums and shakers leading the way...in some circles the liturgy of the Mass (available daily and sometimes several time a day) is unlikely to change radically but more often Catholic churches are also providing para-liturgies which resemble times of worship expressed by other traditions as a complement to the essential liturgy of the Eucharist. Hope this sheds some light for anyone interested :)

John 3.16 --> 1 Jn 3.16 This is love.

Here is a link to a catholic band called Emmanuel Worship : http://www.emmanuelworship.com/firemass.cfm.
I discovered them in Sydney this summer during the World Youth Days, a massive gathering of young catholics (more the 500 000 at the final gathering). They wrote a set of songs for the catholic mass called Firemass, as well as many worship songs. Enjoy !
I'd like to thank HTB and everyone at Worship Central for welcoming catholics in what you do. As a catholic, we sometimes feel left out of the whole contemporary worship thing. However, I assure you that many of us have a burning heart for worship, and are very keen on using modern instruments and tunes to do so. Thanks again, God bless.

I'm in a C of E church and we've been doing songs instead of the responses to the communion prayer. I wrote a really simple song and did it one Sunday in church to test it out before deciding whether to add a bridge etc - before I knew it the youth group had gone away and both worship leaders who went with them were using it (I didn't know this) and I therefore had to decide to leave as-is!

Words (You'll guess where it goes in the liturgy)

Holy, Holy, Holy
God of Power and might
Holy, Holy, Holy
Is the Lord Most high

And heaven's choir sings your praise
For your glory resides in that place
And we will join with Heaven's song
Singing Hosanna
For the Kingdom has come

That's it, dead simple and pretty cool whilst retaining pretty much all the liturgical words with a little extra. In the space of that songs we've also used other songs focussing on God's holiness etc. Can be sung quietly or rocked up with a screaming guitar solo...I really should record it sometime and post it - but I'm too lazy!

We're just having conversations about the communion table we use as well, and are going to experiment with different coverings (e.g sackcloth/hessian during lent, purple throughout advent) and focussing our lighting more on the table. Next time we're having an all white covering and I'm back projecting some video loops from behind (under the table) onto the front of the table - kinda like 21st century ecclesiastical embroidery but with video!