C.S. Lewis: Consistency and Novelty in Worship

A Church article with View Comments posted 17 March 2010.
Tags: liturgy, worship

Of course your favorite kind of worship is an All-Time Hit!

Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And [churchgoers] don’t go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best – if you like, it “works” best – when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance…

Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity. I can make do with almost any kind of service whatever, if only it will stay put.

- C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, 1964.

Lewis is both right and wrong.

On one hand, many of our worship resources encourage creativity for its own sake. It’s leaving people without consistent touchstones they can commit to memory and rely on in crisis. He emphasizes consistency – and we could do with more of that.

On the other hand, there is “foolish consistency.” What we choose to be consistent about is key. Anyone want to argue that Lutheran consistency is appealing to 18- to 30-year-olds? Theoretically, our ancient-modern approach should be, but empirically, it ain’t so.

Are we doomed to constantly chase the culture, flirting with entertainment? Are we doomed to wave goodbye to our teens when they leave for college, only to welcome them back when they have kids of their own?

Or can we find another way? Can we both engage the culture and still be faithfully consistent? I’d welcome your thoughts in the comments below.