Reflections on Liturgy in a Multicultural Context

The congregation I serve, Christ Episcopal Church in Woodbury, Minnesota, is relatively racially and ethnically diverse — far more diverse than many other Episcopal Churches in suburban Minnesota. We are about 75% white, of Northern European origins, while the other 25% of our active members come from another cultural and ethnic background.

Most are first or second generation immigrants from Africa, especially Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon. We also have several families who originally came from the Caribbean, and several families from Bangladesh and India, as well as one Lakota Native American household.

I have served at Christ Church for about a year and a half. Having previously served congregations that were almost entirely white, serving as Rector of Christ Church has been my first real experience with liturgy in a multi-cultural church setting.

It’s important to note that I, the rector, am a white woman of European ancestry. My reflections here are based on my own observations and thoughts. In the future, I hope to ask my parishioners to personally share and reflect on some of these issues and questions.

Jumpstarting the conversation about Prayer Book Revision, here are some of my observations and reflections almost two years into my ministry at Christ Episcopal Church, Woodbury.

1. Pay attention to imagery.

I love the collects and imagery around light and darkness, particularly in the Advent season. However, members of my congregation have mentioned to me how that imagery can be unhelpful.

Setting up “light” as good, and “darkness” as something to be overcome serves to perpetuate and internalize negative stereotypes about race. Perhaps a better, and still powerful way of talking about this, would be to name images of light for what we mean by them: grace, sunshine, the power of God working in our lives, etc, as well as what we mean when we talk about darkness: despair, sin, grief, suffering, etc.

We can still draw on powerful imagery, while avoiding harmful language and metaphors.

2. Movement is important.

We have an African service, led by members of our African community once a year. An important and central piece of that service is the opportunity for movement and dance. People bring the offertory up to the altar, for example, by dancing them up there.

There are many implicit opportunities for movement and dance in our liturgy — whenever we sing or play music, for example. But if we wish to be more intentionally multicultural in our revisions, we might want to explicitly name opportunities for movement. We might also want to draw out scripture and imagery that lifts up and talks about dance or movement as a way of offering prayer and worship to God.

3. Are there some liturgies or rites that are culture-specific in ways we don’t recognize?

We do a Blessing of the Animals service once a year. This service is immensely popular, and we bless pets from dogs to parrots. However, I have noticed that our African members rarely attend, and don’t find the blessing of pets to be a meaningful service. This is an opportunity to explore different cultural expectations around relationship with animals that might be important.

I am not suggesting that we do away with a popular and beloved ritual. But perhaps we might look for opportunities to liturgically celebrate other kinds of relationships with animals and with Creation, to shape these celebrations to be more multi-cultural? Perhaps we could have a blessing and thanksgiving for animals we use for food, or an intentional recognition of agriculture and farming, perhaps adapted from Rogation traditions.