The Good Worship Guide by Robert Atwell

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In many ways this book captures my own inclinations about worship. That what we offer as worship to God, and offer as a context for one another's encounter with God, should be the best it can be.

“Informal” is a current buzz word about worship, but too often informal worship becomes casual worship, under-prepared worship, and ultimately lacklustre. I don't believe worship must always be rehearsed to the n^th degree, there is a place for chaos in worship, but Godly chaos is distinct from worship that has merely become shambolic. And so the first section “Worship Matters” is useful whatever your style as it sets out the principles of “Good Worship” as Atwell sees them.

The remainder of the book is a sort of ritual notes and therefore is much more closely tied to a particular churchmanship. Atwell admits there is a certain middle-class quality to the approach to worship he is advocating. There are certain assumptions that he makes as a former Vicar of St Mary's Primrose Hill which don't translate easily even to other “liberal catholic” settings which are not populated by the muesli munching urbanites of Primrose Hill (I say that with a certain affection for I myself would probably count as such a muesli muncher...).

One aspect I found irritating was the sense that preparing and leading worship is not really the business of lay people. Atwell offers “A beginner's guide for lay people” on leading public worship, which runs to 3 whole pages in a book of nearly 300. It is clear that lay people leading worship is viewed as a last resort – for those times when the Vicar is ill. There is also a list of what lay people “can and can't do” which is almost entirely a list of can'ts.

I think this underplaying of the laity's role is perhaps because “liturgists” who start with Atwell's assumption about order and dignity in worship tend to be control freaks. I call to mind Richard Giles who certain appears to have adopted fairly dictatorial methods to realise his vision of renewal within the liturgy. Now I accept this is a part of key difference between a “visionary” and a mere “dreamer”, the capacity to push the vision into reality, but we must hold that in tension.