“I must admit that I am a bit of a beginner when it comes to liturgy. High church is not my background nevertheless I have always cared about the craft of worship. More recently I have felt a bit at odds with some aspects of contemporary worship and it seemed to me there is often something missing.
At Adelaide Place we have experimented in small ways by encouraging our worship to coincide more intentionally with the church calendar however it was during my recent sabbatical that I attended a retreat which really sparked something in me. I felt almost obliged to pursue this new impulse when I came back to my normal rhythm. As a result, ‘A Liturgy Collective’ was born as an exploratory next step which attempts to create a space where worship leaders, pastors and spiritual guides could get together for refreshment as well as deeper reflection on the actual practices of corporate worship.
It was important for me that this space would allow us to hold the aspects of worship we treasure most deeply without any fear of correction or subtle rebuke. The space was to see what could happen as these things we treasure were given space to deepen as they sit alongside the Great Tradition and other diverse practitioners. What will emerge is very fluid but there are two analogies that I keep coming back to which help describe the sort of contribution this Liturgy Collective can make . One is about diet and the other is about language.
