Shaping the Assembly Edited by Thomas O’Loughlin

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This collection ends with Richard Giles quoting Seamus Heaney “… when the slates came off, extravagant Sky entered and held surprise wide open ...” as a way of understanding the worship space in Carlow which is the subject of many of the essays. Giles calls that space “a room where the slates of the roof had been prised apart and the glory of God’s extravagance allowed to filter through”.

There is a spark of inspiration, aspiration running through the collection, but I read it with a certain level of frustration. It is a critique of the use and ordering of Churches we inherited from the Victorians – where there is much to legitimately critique – but used mainly as a counter-point for advocacy of one particular alternative, found at Carlow and others spaces inspired by it.

That includes Richard Giles’ reordering of Philadelphia Cathedral which he shared with the world in the 2004 book Creating Uncommon Worship (titled as a clear dig at the CofE then recent liturgical reforms). Getting Uncommon Worship off the bookshelf I am surprise to find Carlow is not in the index despite the credit Giles is giving in this latest volume for his work in Philadelphia.

I find that ordering would personally work for me, the Altar and the Word facing each other with the people gathered in between. But I think of my current setting, we have the space to do this, but I doubt it would meet the needs of our people. You need a fine tuned understanding of this arrangement embracing the people in the midst of Word and Sacrament to not see it as Word and Sacrament as opposites staring each other in the face.

A lot of the experiences shared are rooted in Religious Communities or those gathering in what the CofE now calls Theological Education Institutions – these are communities sharing a daily pattern of worship, in which ritual and meaning seep deeply into the bones of the worshippers. That is something different from the porous Sunday morning gathering in an estate Parish. I think few if any of the writers in this volume would be comfortable with words on a screen, it messes with focal points, it is difficult to offer it you have longitudinal seating, but however much I personally dislike responding words on a screen I recognise it meets a pastoral need in our context.

This feels like liturgy for liturgists, and I would be as bold as to call myself a liturgist, therefore it is liturgy for me, but I am not sure it is liturgy for mission…