Guitar worship
Photo Courtesy of UM Creation Justice Movement.
When we walk out of church each Sunday morning, we may not be reciting under our breath the words of the sermon, but we are likely to be humming to ourselves the hymn tune that hammered home the sermon’s impact. Songs hit at a deeper level, becoming part of our theological wellspring, the source we draw on when we most need to make sense of the world. The hymns, the liturgy, the art used in worship are the things that find their way into our hearts and stay there—so it’s imperative that we are thoughtful about what kind of theology we’re conveying in worship.
What’s dangerous, in this time of many global crises, is that churches around the world each week proclaim theology that is weak and unable to move hearts—or worse, theology that’s dangerous and death-dealing. This danger is particularly true when it comes to ecocide and the many climate crises we are facing. In part, the crises are driven by a theology—sung, prayed, and proclaimed in worship—that is harmful or neutral toward creation.
The great news is that I believe we can do better—no, I know we can do better! My home church sang songs and recited litanies that celebrated LGBTQIA+ inclusion, used female pronouns for God, and called for overturning systems of oppression and injustice—and this practice changed how I saw the world. I have a more expansive vision of God because we sang about many different names for God (Brian Wren, “Bring Many Names”). I am convicted to seek racial justice because of James Cone, Harmonia Rosales, and Kelly Latimore’s depictions of a Black Christ. I am able to accept my identity as a queer woman because we sang that all people are welcome (Shirley Erena Murray, “For Everyone Born, a Place at the Table”). What songs do you remember singing that taught you about who God is and how the world should be, in spite of the way that it is?
Though we may already subscribe to life-giving beliefs about environmentalism and climate care, our worship has to reflect that belief in order to move us to actually do something about it, to live differently—to allow that kind of life-giving theology to take root in us. Every week, when church services are planned, decisions are made about what we will sing, preach, pray, read, and display. This thoughtfulness is an opportunity to move beyond creation-neutral worship and into creation-centric worship: declaring aloud, collectively, in our sanctuaries, that Earth is God’s body, declaring that we are but one part of it, declaring that salvation must be collective and must include all creation. Creation-centric worship says to us: I know you believe that Earth is to be cared for, but now what? How then shall we live?
We can harness the power of Christian music, liturgy, and artwork for theological and spiritual transformation in our relationship to the earth, and that’s what we are lifting up, celebrating, and calling forth in this month’s UMCJM newsletter. In this edition, we hope you find inspiration and wisdom as well as practical resources for making creation-centered worship a reality.
Kristina Sinks
Kristina Sinks is a clergy candidate in The United Methodist Church, a recent graduate of Garrett-Evangelical Theology Seminary’s Master of Arts in Public Ministry program, and a member of The Many, a progressive worship and music collective based in Chicago. Her liturgical, academic, and musical work focuses on climate justice and LGBTQIA+ inclusion.