The Joys of Sandwiches*
There’s a discussion running on
one of the Unitarian pages on FaceBook just now about the pros and cons of the
Hymn Sandwich service.
It is, I should add for those of
you not in the know, brought to you by the denomination who are also currently
debating the relative merits of and the differences between the macaron, the
macaroon, and the whoopee pie. If we can
debate cakes, believe me, we can debate something as central to our being as
the form our worship takes.
The hymn sandwich is that type of
service with hymns, readings, prayers, music . . generally something along the
lines of: opening words – chalice lighting
– prayer – hymn – story – collection – hymn – reading – hymn – address – musical
interlude – address – hymn – prayers – hymn.
If you were brought up attending
a mainstream UK protestant church, or if you’ve attended church much, it’s probably
the sort of pattern of worship you’re used to.
Personally, I love it.
But some people think it sucks
the inventiveness out of worship, that it becomes stale, and that it puts
people off coming to church.
I think it’s true that it puts
some people off. If people aren’t used
to all the standing-up-sitting-down-joining-in-listening-singing-listening
stuff, I would imagine it can be a bit daunting.
I also agree there’s a risk of it
becoming a bit dull, a bit of a default position: sometimes, when I’m leading worship, at the
back of my mind I’m half-thinking “I’m not sure I have the energy to do
anything different this time. I’d like to just retreat back to my little
safety net of the sandwich.”
Sometimes it’s good to do
something new and different and to be invited to change a pattern. Sometimes doing something in a different way
is refreshing, and gives us a new way of approaching something.
But I still love it, and I still
there’s a central place for it in our worship.
I definitely don’t think every service should necessarily be a
sandwich. Neither do I think the
sandwich should necessarily be in the same order every week.
But familiarity is
comforting. If I sometimes want to retreat
to the sandwich-safety-net when I’m planning worship, I also very often want to
retreat there when I’m just worshipping.
Even if you’re brand new to
attending church – and someone attending for the first few times is being
braver than we often remember – I think turning up the second week having some
idea of what will happen is also comforting.
I like, a lot of the time, to
know more or less what I’m getting (it’s also why I like having orders of
service, but that’s another blog for another day).
And the hymn sandwich has
developed over . . . actually, I don’t know whether it’s developed over decades
or centuries, and I’m sure some of my more ecclesiologically-minded friends can
tell me. But it’s developed over
time.
And it’s developed that way
because it works.
The overall pattern of the hymn sandwich
gives the congregation a good balance of standing, sitting, listening,
participating, speaking, not-speaking, singing . . . when the sandwich is made
well, you don’t sit for so long that you get too cramped; you don’t listen for
so long that you get bored (no, really); you have a variety of voices talking
to you at different times; you get to stand and stretch and sing at regular
intervals.
And while the format can be
mundane and familiar and, yes, perhaps, a bit dull, I think the format is what
gives us more freedom for the message to be more complex and challenging.
If I’m in worship and I’m
distracted by the form of the service, or put off by being asked to dance, or chat to a neighbour more than a tiny bit, or express myself through the medium of
drawing (ugh) or wash someone’s feet (these have all come to pass, trust me,
though not all in Unitarian services), then I find it far harder to work out
what the service is about.
I prefer, personally, to remember
a service as “that was the one that encouraged me to think about x” rather than
“that was the one with the Morris dancing . . . “
I’m not necessarily right. I’m mainly rambling. I am necessarily rambling.
I just think ditching the hymn
sandwich altogether would be a terrible shame.
Also, I don’t much like macarons or whoopee pies, but I’m very partial to
a macaroon.
*Other forms of sustenance are available.
