I found this article helpful in identifying the genealogy of the Vineyard styles of service so popular in current Evangelical and Charismatic circles.
This order for church services grows out of historic “revivalism,” a movement that finds its primary roots in the awakenings of the early 19th century. Often, its “father” is deemed to be Charles Grandison Finney, who implemented “New Measures” for bringing about “revival” in church meetings.The basic revivalist meeting order for the service looks like this: The time of preparation is designed to “warm the heart,” primarily through singing. The sermon is the high point of the service and is designed to lead those in the congregation to a crisis of decision. The service concludes with an invitation to make a decision for Christ. This may be a decision to become a Christian or to dedicate one’s life to Christ in a fresh way.
I hadn’t quiet made that connection before. It enables us to ask the question, though, whether such an order is likely to be helpful for Christian formation in the longer term rather than crisis-based decision prompting (and does that have resonances for good or ill with advertising?). Of course the ‘tweak’ has been to offer ministry-time at the end having ‘provoked’ a decision that one wants to ‘do business with God’.
Now I’m not sure that the criticism that the author makes that sometimes the sermon is too specific and not inclusive of all the congregation is entirely fair: I’m not sure it is realistic to expect every single time that everybody will be fairly specifically ‘touched’. However, that does raise the question of ‘curriculum’ and that in turns evokes the question about lectionary.
I’d also want to question a wee bit the alternative scenario -or rather the description which issues in the characterising of the ordo of a meal with friends as:
Entering. Word. Meal. Sending.
My question would arise from the observation that the ‘word’ section as described in the scenario (chatting before the meal) is probably more preparatory than acknowledged and that the real ‘word’ (and indeed whatever we might characterise as prayers) takes place woven through the meal. I fear that the author has tried to squeeze the reality into the liturgical shape that Eucharistic worship has gained since it cut adrift from real eating-together-meals.
I’m more than a little interested in this at the moment as I’m involved in working on liturgy for cafe church. There we’re trying to get away from a cafe church default where it basically becomes a sermon where people sit round tables with coffee to listen rather than in some variant of a lecture hall.
So here has come the question: how do we do appropriate liturgy for a situation which can encompass as cradle sharing of drink and some food and ‘godly conversation’. And the other factors we think are to do with building community rather than simply letting individualism and simple prima facie affinity rule. The difference between going into a cafe and a corporate liturgy resides hereabouts, I think.