Saturday, January 6, 2018

George Herbert on Inside-Out Worship Leadership

George Herbert was a priest in the Church of England who lived from 1593 to 1633. Before his untimely death he wrote a book about how to be a pastor of a church. It was published posthumously, with the pithy title of A Priest to the Temple, or, The Country Parson: His Character, and Rule of Holy Life.

Herbert was writing at a time when ideas about spirituality were shifting rapidly in the English-speaking world. Faith was becoming less something that you enacted or demonstrated in a corporate worship service; it was increasingly thought of as something that you primarily thought and/or felt internally. As the English Civil War was brewing in the early 17th century, and as dissenters against the state-sponsored church were combining forces, some Christian groups (like the Puritans) insisted that one's eternal soul was free from any forced or required demonstrations done in church. According to these folks, one's own spiritual status could be confirmed in a personal way, outside of the gaze of church and state.

Herbert wrote before those anti-establishment ideas were fully en vogue. But he already noticed the need for "authenticity" (my word, not his) in worship leadership. Take, for instance, his instructions to pastors who would lead their congregations in prayer, using outward actions to prompt internal affections. Remember, at this point the prayers were not made up by the pastor -- they were read word-for-word from the Book of Common Prayer:

The Country Parson, when he is to read divine services, composeth himself to all possible reverence; lifting up his heart and hands, and eyes, and using all other gestures which may express a hearty, and unfeigned devotion. This he doth, first, as being truly touched and amazed with the Majesty of God, before whom he then presents himself; yet not as himself alone, but as presenting with himself the whole Congregation, whose sins he then bears, and brings with his own to the heavenly altar to be bathed, and washed in the sacred Laver of Christ's blood. Secondly, as this is the true reason of his inward fear, so he is content to express this outwardly to the utmost of his power; that being first affected himself, he may affect also his people, knowing that no Sermon moves them so much to a reverence, which they forget again, when they come to pray, as a devout behavior in the very act of praying. Accordingly his voice is humble, his words treatable, and slow; yet not so slow neither, as to let the fervency of the supplicant hand and die between speaking, but with a grave liveliness, between fear and zeal, pausing yet pressing, he performs his duty.*

I would not change much of this advice for worship leaders today. For Herbert, the pastor's outward motions reflected an inward piety, and those very movements and gestures in turn encouraged the faith of others. The leader's role is to prompt a spiritual response in the worshippers, but this is not faked ("feigned" in Herbert's words) as a mere performance, because the pastor's own faith comes from a real (and internal) place.

Herbert, I believe, had a good grasp of human nature. We are neither unthinking animals nor disembodied spirits. Our minds (and its related powers of reason) work in a coordinated way with our "hearts" (think emotion and affections), and both of these aspects affect what we actually do with our bodies -- actions that can turn into habits, which in turn shape our will and affections. Some days we "feel" God more than we "know" God, and other days it is just the opposite. Worship is both a response to what God has done and a means to form our spirits to grow in faith. Those who lead worship need to recognize that faith is neither merely internal nor external; mind and body work together to express what we think and feel, even as these expressions strengthen our faith -- in ourselves and in others.

* Quotation taken from an edition of Herbert's works edited by John N. Wall, Jr., published by Paulist Press in 1981. Pages 60-1.

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