The Art of Public Prayer (2nd Edition)

Lawrence A. Hoffman

Description

A resource for worshipers today looking to change hardened worship patterns
that stand in the way of everyday spirituality.

All too often, those who attend church or synagogue find themselves bored or baffled by the service. Their predominant thought is how slowly the time ticks by—and that the service never seems to end.

Written for laypeople and clergy of any denomination, The Art of Public Prayer examines how and why religious ritual works—and why it often doesn't work.

The Art of Public Prayer uses psychology, social science, theology and common sense to explain the key roles played by ritual, symbolism, liturgy and song in services. Each chapter features "conversation points" designed to get you and your faith community thinking and talking about your own worship patterns—where they succeed, and where they need improvement.

The Art of Public Prayer can help you and your fellow congregants revitalize your worship service by allowing you to organize and direct your own worship, making it a meaningful and fulfilling part of your life.

Introduction: Is Ecstasy Enough? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1 ■ Structuring Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 ■ Lost Symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3 ■ Worship Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4 ■ Mistaking the Code, Mixing Messages,
and Managing Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5 ■ The Presence of God at Worship. . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6 ■ The Script of Prayer: Words Spoken . . . . . . . . . 144
7 ■ The Script of Prayer: Words Sung . . . . . . . . . . . 171
8 ■ Sacred Space: The Message of Design . . . . . . . . 201
9 ■ Fixing the System to Make Worship Work . . . . 235
For Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
About SkyLight Paths Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Lawrence A. Hoffman
• Prayer
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781594733949
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Art of Public Prayer , 2nd Edition: Not For Clergy Only
2009 Quality Paperback Edition, Fifth Printing
2006 Quality Paperback Edition, Fourth Printing
2003 Quality Paperback Edition, Third Printing
2000 Quality Paperback Edition, Second Printing
1999 Quality Paperback Edition, First Printing
1999 by Lawrence A. Hoffman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information regarding permission to reprint material from this book, please mail or fax your request in writing to SkyLight Paths Publishing, Permissions Department, at the address / fax number listed below, or e-mail your request to [e-mail] .
Grateful acknowledgment is extended to the following for permission to reprint excerpted material: Simon Schuster, from The Human Cycle by Colin M. Turnbull, Copyright 1983 by Colin M. Turnbull; Pantheon Books, from Family Networks by Russ V. Speck and Carolyn Attenave; and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hoffman, Lawrence A., 1942-
The art of public prayer : not for clergy only / by Lawrence A. Hoffman.-2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-893361-06-5
ISBN-10: 1-893361-06-3
1. United States-Religious life and customs. 2. Public worship.
3. Public worship-Judaism. I. Title.
BL2525.H64 1999
291.3 8-dc21
98-33128
CIP
Second Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover design: Bridgett Taylor
Text design: Chelsea Dippel
Walking Together, Finding the Way
Published by SkyLight Paths Publishing
A Division of LongHill Partners, Inc.
Sunset Farm Offices, Route 4
P.O. Box 237
Woodstock, VT 05091
Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]
www.skylightpaths.com
Contents

Introduction: Is Ecstasy Enough?
1 Structuring Time
2 Lost Symbols
3 Worship Systems
4 Mistaking the Code, Mixing Messages, and Managing Change
5 The Presence of God at Worship
6 The Script of Prayer: Words Spoken
7 The Script of Prayer: Words Sung
8 Sacred Space: The Message of Design
9 Fixing the System to Make Worship Work
For Further Reading
Index
About SkyLight Paths
Copyright
introduction

Is Ecstasy Enough?

I can see it now as plainly as I saw it thirty years ago, every day I was at Banaras, for two years. Young and old go down to the water s edge at dawn and stand there, each alone but all together as one greater Self. One by one, as they feel ready, they walk out into the water until they stand waist-deep. Some stand there for half an hour. It is their time of mantra. Then as the sun rises above the green fields on the far side of the Ganga, its first rays reaching across and touching with warmth the ancient palaces and temples of Banaras, thousands of pairs of hands, cupped together like begging bowls, raise the water to the sky, and thousands of voices recite the sacred gayatri mantra so silently, you feel it rather than hear it. As they let the water trickle back into the holy river the sun catches it, and a million sunlit drops add their beauty to the beauty of the sound of the temple bells and the voices of devotees singing kirtan all in one single greeting to another day of life. Is that ecstasy enough at the beginning of every day of youth, every day of adulthood, and every day of old age? And what might we have been if we had been taught such an art as this?
-Colin M. Turnbull, The Human Cycle
Picture the early morning gathering at the river, but with yourself among the loyal thousands gathered there. Would any of us presume to doubt the efficacy of the rite? Who wouldn t gladly drop a hundred years of sophistication to stand by a sacred stream with the meaning of life shining through a million sacred droplets glittering in the morning sun? Or, if you don t like Turnbull s example, choose from thousands of others. Bathing in the Ganges at Banaras is only one of many stories of religious rituals that impress their adherents with the unmistakable conviction that worship matters.
By contrast, the worship we Jews and Christians know best in our North American sanctuaries seems like a pale imitation of the real thing. Only yesterday, it seems, Vatican II opened up the possibility of liturgical renewal for Roman Catholics, and overnight, Protestants and Jews too were promising new liturgies that would make public prayer compelling. Those were the heady 1960s and 1970s, when anything seemed possible. By the 1980s, even though new worship books had been introduced in churches and synagogues everywhere, it was becoming clear that the problem was not just literary. The question shifted from, How do we write new liturgies? to How do we restore meaningful public prayer to our churches and synagogues? How do we make true worship happen?
This book is for the worship care committees that I see functioning in every church and synagogue, intent on discovering how to better the spiritual state of public prayer. The descriptions of dysfunctional worship in chapter 3 ought to evoke smiles (and tears) of recognition, since they are composite cases drawn from the experience of Everyman and Everywoman. The chapters on language, music, and space empower ordinary men and women to know enough to take an active part in determining their own liturgical future. The book empowers lay people and clergy to work together to develop worshiping communities where individuals are nurtured by the power and depth of the rituals of their past.

You Just Open Your Mouth
When I was still a rabbinic student, I asked my teacher, Dr. John Tepfer, of blessed memory, if he would offer a course in Yiddish, the folk tongue of eastern European Jews that was fast dying out. Professor Tepfer, it was rumored, knew everything. So why not Yiddish?
In fact, he knew Yiddish very well. He had been raised on the language-spoke it, I am sure, before he learned English. Nonetheless, he refused my request. His somewhat serious, somewhat tongue-in-cheek explanation I remember to this day. Teach you Yiddish, Hoffman? Why, you don t teach Yiddish. You just open your mouth and it comes out.
Alas, though I have never been shy about opening my mouth, Yiddish does not come out. We know now also that worship, which we once took for granted, does not happen automatically-even with the new and better liturgy books that the last thirty years have given us. Teach worship? my teacher would also have replied. Why, you just open your mouth and it comes out. He would have been wrong there too. What our ancestors not many generations ago took for granted, we struggle with. We now teach worship in our seminaries. And we should teach it in our synagogues and churches.
This is a book to do just that. When I wrote it in 1988, it became a standard manual, used by Christians and Jews, in parishes, congregations, and classrooms. Now, ten years later, some revision is called for. Rather than reprint the old edition, I decided to bring the book up to date, integrating what we have learned about worship in the last decade. I have streamlined it as well, not just adding material, but omitting it whenever possible, so as to produce a serious but workable handbook for people concerned about the life of congregational prayer.

Watch My Language: Worship, Sanctuaries, Theology, and Such
The hardest task in writing has been to find some common language to address Jews, Catholics, and Protestants-all at the same time. Our several worshiping communities use words differently. Take sanctuary, for instance. For Jews and Protestants, the sanctuary is the entire worship space; for Catholics, it is the area immediately around the altar, and older Catholic usage applied it only to the area reserved for the clergy.
Or take clergy. Some confessions (a Protestant term roughly equivalent to denominations, but what Jews call movements) have no clergy at all, strictly speaking. Jews do have clergy, but debate rages over whether cantors, not just rabbis, fit that category. In some synagogues, rabbis who are recognized as clergy do not lead worship, while cantors who may still be striving for that recognition do.
More important than misunderstanding is the mistaken impression that the wrong word may have upon readers. Until recently (and still today, in many synagogues) Jews, who know what worship is, rarely use the word because it sounds too Christian. So as not to alienate Jewish readers from the outset, I have therefore entitled my book The Art of Public Prayer , not The Art of Public Worship. Nonetheless, Christians will readily recognize that my topic is worship.
I have, however, held steadfastly to Christian practice by retaining the word theology. Jews do have theologies, of course, and they know they do. But they do not readily connect them with religious decisions the way Christians do. For Jews, proper worship practice is deduced from halakhah (Jewish law). This book describes what you have to know about such things as sacred music, sacred space, religious symbols, and systems thinking to make worship meaningful today. I do not mean to tinker with age-old forms of prayer just for the sake of bringing in the masses or pandering to current fads. I have the highest regard for inherited traditions that ultimately govern what we do. Serious religious planners never lose sight of age-old verities, which they balance against the need to make those verities speak to the current generation of the faithful (another word used by Christians, but not by Jews). But what word should I use to characterize those verities? In the end, I decided on theology, not only because it is the word most Christians would select, but because what Jews think about Jewish law must ultimately be consistent with what