Why do we need a participative liturgy?
Liturgy is the backbone of our life of faith in community. In our different home churches, there are different liturgical forms because our cultural contexts and histories are different. But how can people engage with their own liturgy? How can they feel included in this effort of speaking about God and God’s relation to humanity? How can they be called to participate more and not letting the entire liturgical work to pastors or theologians? In the following, you will find some liturgical propositions for the preparation of a common prayer in your community especially with teenagers and young adults.
We invite people who are interested in doing such a project to meet before to discuss their liturgy with the help of the documents below. We recommend that they meet at least one week before the event and that they organize the room in a circular disposition (chairs forming a circle) on the preparation day as well as on the prayer day. It is so nice to see each other! During both times it is also important, in order to be welcoming to everyone, to make sure that the place is not too noisy. Finally, it is important for us to make sure that everyone feels good with the roles they received. We want people to participate more but we want that they do so with consent. The prayer should be a safe space.
The most important role is the role of the person doing the greetings at the entry of the prayer room which is not necessarily the pastor’s role. They have the task of welcoming the participants but also of allocating the different “liturgical roles” and explaining how the prayer will take place. About the allocation of roles: We suggest using coloured stones with one colour affiliated to one liturgical role. Example: the person who picked the red stone is going to read the Scripture. The stones are given by the “greeting person” at the entry.
