Birmingham, Alabama
2022
To learn from and with an ecumenical group of churches unfamiliar with the practice of corporate lament to gather the most important questions and pastoral concerns related to practicing corporate lament, and to develop practices for retrieving and employing lament in worship.
Project Summary
Lament is a common biblical expression of worship, and yet some churches rarely practice it. We aim to offer our expertise in biblical scholarship and liturgical theology in a collaborative effort with an ecumenical cohort of churches to develop practices for retrieving and employing lament in worship.
Although we will focus on particular congregations, we aim to gather from them the most important questions and pastoral concerns related to practicing corporate lament. We will articulate these findings for a broad audience and respond by creating a platform for resource creation efforts, designing a portfolio that will be multi-media and multi-audience.
What questions about worship and your discipline will be guiding your project?
Our project aims to learn from and with an ecumenical group of churches unfamiliar with the practice of corporate lament to gather the most important questions and pastoral concerns related to practicing corporate lament, and to develop practices for retrieving and employing lament in worship. It will be guided by the following questions. What does lament contribute to both individual and communal experiences of Christian faith? How can we better connect this biblical practice with contemporary churches? What prevents churches from incorporating lament in their liturgies? How can we encourage them to do so? What are some effective liturgical practices for lament?
How do you envision this project will strengthen the worship life of congregations?
We aim to support the work of local congregations whose leaders seek to foster public forms of lament in their corporate worship settings through liturgical practices that allow their worshipers to respond to suffering and hardship with greater honesty, sincerity, and vulnerability. While we will particularize our work and learning among a cohort of participants, we will allow for the subsequent creation of resources that are applicable in a wider context as we articulate questions and challenges, create and practice liturgical forms of lament, and reflect together on those experiences. We will disseminate our learning through a robust, multimedia and multi-audience resource platform, the bulk of which will be publicly housed on a Samford-sponsored website dedicated to the project.
What do you expect might be your greatest challenges (or challenging opportunities)?
Our first challenge will be encouraging pastors and worship leaders to be honest about their practice of lament and the obstacles they face to incorporating it in their liturgy. We will then face the challenge of conveying the value of this practice and the biblical justification for it. Monitoring and encouraging eight churches as they develop their own practices will then pose some practical difficulties. Finally, it may be challenging to help those church leaders communicate the practices they develop in a way that will be helpful to other churches. We want these practices to connect well with the particular needs of their churches but have potential to benefit a broad range of other churches, as well.
What do you hope to learn from the Grants Event and other grant recipients?
We look forward to learning some best practices for encouraging the type of genuine engagement with our research questions mentioned above. We would also like to get some guidance on working with church leaders, who bring different questions and goals to these issues than scholars. We hope to be inspired by the exciting and innovative projects being pursued by other grant recipients and potentially find beneficial interconnections between our projects.