INTRODUCTION

Men are today longing for adequate guidance in worship. Necessity is driving them to God. The breakdown of a supposedly stable order of society under the strain of war makes the search for reality imperative. The instinct for God finds its answer not in private quests alone, but perhaps even more in united efforts. It has well been said, "The soul of man is made for fellowship; isolated half its strength is gone." Speaking from another angle, a teacher recently told his class that the full realization and expression of God cannot be made by a single individual, but only by a community of fellow Christians.2

It should give us cause for keen concern that men so seldom find what they crave in worship. They come hungry to devotional services and go away empty. One who has had wide experience bears this testimony: "Wherever I have been I have found men whose spiritual needs demanded more than they found in our ordinary conventionalized services. They ask for the sense of spiritual reality. They desire to lay hold of God and the Unseen World 1 "Fellowship of Silence," p. 20.

2 Prof. George Cross, D.D., Rochester Theological Seminary.

with a firmer grip. There are not wanting many who have turned from the Church to new and strange ways, seeking what they ought to find with

us.

. . Can we say now what St. Paul could say of Corinthian worship in his day, that were an unbeliever or unlearned person to enter our church during our Sunday worship he would be judged of all, and the secrets of his heart be made manifest, so that falling down upon his face he would worship God, and report that God is in us of a truth? This is surely what this modern world all about us is in search of."3

Can it be that our services are not flexible enough, that whether liturgical or non-liturgical we are becoming fettered by the customs of the past? Are there not whole realms of worship into which the average person never enters? Pleas for greater flexibility are coming from opposite directions. The Bishop of Winchester writes, "I think that a large number of our people feel, and rightly feel, some lack in our church services. They keep us occupied, if we respond to their guidance: it is their strong point that they invite throughout the active participation of all worshipers. But, except in the quiet spaces at the time of Holy Communion, which all have not been trained to use, they do not perhaps leave us freedom enough.' Conducting services

994

"Fellowship of Silence," pp. 238, 9. Ibid., pp. v, vi. Italics not in original.

with the soldiers at the front in France led "Gipsy" Smith to make this strong statement as to what the men would demand of the churches on their return: "They want warmth, movement, directness, and absolute sincerity. We must get an atmosphere of graver reality in our public worship and church life. I do not mean the services should become a sort of religious free-and-easy. But they must be more full of movement and warmth and color."5 Freedom, Warmth, Color, Sincerity. These are serviceable words for the testing of every devotional meeting we plan to conduct. The earnest, painstaking leader is like the householder commended by Christ "who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." The devotional heritage of the past can be moulded by the modern spirit into a service free from rigidity and formalism. It would be well to acquire a due appreciation of the values and the difficulties of the liturgical and the non-liturgical. The comparison is admirably and briefly drawn in a pamphlet on worship by Prof. William Adams Brown, D.D., to which the reader is referred for a discussion of the subject more fundamental than this manual aims to be.

"The difficulty in the case of liturgical worship is in part that of monotony; in part that of rigidity. The constant repetition of the same form tends for

5 The Christian Advocate, April 12, 1917. Italics not in original.

many people to produce a certain sense of unreality. The words lose their meaning just because they are familiar, and the mere repetition of the ritual comes to be thought of as worship apart from its effect upon the consciousness of those who take part in it.

Again, the liturgical service lacks flexibility. Unlike free worship, which responds in new ways to the new and ever changing situations of the day's experience, it must express itself through the forms which have been prescribed. When a great crisis comes in the life of the nation, or of the individual, when some new problem is to be faced, some deeper depths of experience to be plumbed, the soul craves new words, or at least a new combination of the old to fit the new situation. But for this the liturgical service makes no provision.

The difficulty with the worship of our non-liturgical churches is just the opposite. Its besetting sin is slovenliness. Unrestrained by any prescription from without, the minister follows the mood of the moment, with the result that great reaches of the Christian experience are passed over without expression, and heights to which the spirit might climb are never attained. And with this arbitrariness there goes a certain carelessness and lack of dignity. One gets the impression that worship is an easy thing, for which no special preparation is needed, that a prayer can be thrown off in one's odd moments, as one might write a note to a friend. The sense of standing in an august presence, the mood of reverence which befits one who is confronted by the ultimate mystery is not characteristic of the worship of our non-liturgical churches."

6 "Worship," pp. 15–17. Association Press.

It is ǹo purpose of this manual to enter the difficult field of methods of conducting formal church services, even though the quotations it has been convenient to use thus far have had reference to such worship. Nor is it intended to furnish here suggestions for the great gatherings where the message of the speaker is the prime consideration, such as theater meetings, evangelistic campaigns, and great conventions. There are, however, very many gatherings of small groups of people for specific purposes. Here the conditions are favorable for introducing variety into the expression of devotion and giving all present a greater share in the fellowship of united worship. Into these meetings of small groups of intimately associated people should come a deeper reverence and a richer devotion.

It would be impossible to enumerate all such groups, but a few illustrations will make clear their general character. In most large buildings used for the executive offices of religious organizations members of the staff and stenographic force meet daily for prayer. The desire here is not so much to acquire information of the latest developments of the work in which all are immersed as it is, through worship together, to consecrate in Christ's name the daily round of office work. So, too, in the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Association buildings of our large cities it is customary for the staff to meet for prayer before separating