Interface Worship
Interface Worship is a multi-year program out of St. Paul’s Anglican Church that is developing ecumenical, alternative worship services as an effective means of spiritual formation, enhancing community, and empowering mission for Edmonton area Christians. Participants spiritual and worship experiences are enriched and enhanced through the conscientious application of spiritual theology to whole person worship that is framed by liturgical considerations, centered on profound biblical themes, and encourages the use of spiritual formation processes. A description of the theology of Interface Worship is here.
Spiritual theology and whole person worship are both key to Interface Worship. We consider spiritual theology to be ‘an engaging in a dynamic congruence between spirituality (how we live with God), and theology (how we think about God’). This engaging is commonly taught through the cognitive (theologically oriented) processes. We seek to bring about this engaging through experiential worship (spiritually oriented processes) as a counterbalance, and perhaps for some, a whole new way of encountering the gospel. Interface Worship recognizes and utilizes at least twenty-three points through which God and humans interface with each other, and uses these in whole person worship as intrinsic to spiritual formation and an applied understanding of the Christian gospel. Hence the name.
Depth will be further enhanced by drawing on the rich variety of God’s provision as revealed by the church calendar; the story of God and his people as told in both testaments; the crafting of new rituals, symbols and imagery; and employing ancient spiritual formation techniques, which are sometimes modified for corporate worship.
Five series or streams of worship services are in various stages of development that use Interface Worship principles. This is a brief description of the five streams. A listing of Interface Worship techniques and principles can be found here.
Throne Room
Throne Room Worship is a series of celebratory services being developed to mark major points in the church year. These services include the extensive use of ritual, symbols and imagery of a unique but enduring quality and significance so that the services can be repeated annually. Planned services for the 2007– 08 church year at St. Paul’s include The Reign of Christ the King, Epiphany, and The Rending of the Veil (Easter).
Altarwalk*
Altarwalk is a spiritual formation exercise made of nine prayer stations and connecting fabrics. The room-sized liturgical sculpture creates a schematic frame through which participants explore what it means ‘to take up ones cross and follow Jesus.’ The Altarwalk process reflects some aspects of the ancient Christian devotional exercises of pilgrimage, labyrinth, Stations of the Cross and Veneration of the Cross. A detailed description of Altarwalk is here.
A second Altarwalk exercise is now being developed exploring Incarnation and Incarnational Living. Initial concepts were used at Epiphany 2007. Altarwalk Incarnation will be available as a stand- alone exercise in 2009.
Pilgrims’ Way Series
Pilgrims’ Way will be a series of services inspired in part on Psalm 84. They will be designed for small group, (6-15?), interactive, facilitated teaching through worship, drawing on simple liturgical worship patterns, and utilizing meditative spiritual disciplines modified for small groups. The series would occur over twelve to sixteen weeks with three to four services for each of four themes that reflect aspects of a pilgrimage to Zion as a metaphor of the spiritual life. Aiming for either 2008- 09 or 2009-10 church year for the prototype, with ongoing development.
Area 51
Area 51 is the working title for a top secret project. The only thing we will say here is that Aiming for either 2008-09 church year, or 2009-10 church year.
Friday Night Lenten Services
These services were held on Friday nights in Lent of 2005 and 2006. Altarwalk was used as a foundational piece for a group examination of Christ’s cross experience, and how the elements of that could be applied in discerning our own cross-bearing. A theme per week was considered through a blend of liturgy, meditations, shared art and poetry with integrated ritual, and personal testimony. The themes reviewed were: suffering, trust, integrity, courage, self-relinquishment and redeeming acts. The service format is now temporarily retired to allow freshening and the development of new service series.
