RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 21138, 25 June 1932, Page 3

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

[By Forward.]

INTERMEDIATE DEPARTMENT AND WORSHIP. (Concluded.) The programme of worship for intermediates should include certain formal elements. In the personal approach to God, which wo call worship, there are certain activities and materials which facilitate individual and social fellowship with Him. Those most common in worship and of importance to this period are music, hymns, prayer, meditation, Scripture reading, responses, giving, and instruction. Music in itself may be made to assume great importance in the service of worship. Rightly chosen, it has unusual power to stir the emotions, awaken desires, and secure reverent responses. Music for adolescents should be of the very best, because it is during these years that it has its greatest natural appeal. Music should bo of the best. Flimsy and catchy melodies are not suitable, but tunes of dignity and strength should be used. Hymns.—ln choosing hymns for adolescents, three principles should be followed: picturesqueness, simplicity, healthiness. The words are of first importance, but the music is the medium through which these arc conveyed and interpreted and enforced. Set to poor music, the best words will lose power and moaning, but not the best music can redeem words unfit for young people’s hearts and voices. It is not a bad working rule to know why we put down a certain hymn and what its work and effect aro to be.

Scripture.—Only that much of the Bible is yours that has become so through experience. In selecting passages of Scripture for devotional use in connection with worship programmes this fact should be borne in mind, and Biblical passages that are far beyond * possible life experience or situation of young people omitted. To read certain parts antiphonally, leader and young people in turn, is to destroy the sense or blur the vision. Any uniform rule of leading verse about with young people should be avoided. In class reading, probably tho best way of reading most destructive to the sense of the passage, to its message or its beauty, is to have it read round the class, one member to each verse. Mumbling and inaccurate reading should ho discouraged. One person should read the passage, and should do it effectively. Some parts of course lend themselves to responsive readings. Extra Biblical material may be drawn on as supplementary to the Bible verses, helpful comments from books, poems, and excerpts from literature prayer. The leader who plays for ten minutes is joining himself with the many influences which destroy in young people the capacity ior prayer and the desire for prayer. If this part of the worship is to preserve reality and reverence, pravfirs must bo short, direct, and simple. To secure interest, it is good that the young people should bo told what the prayer is about. It is not enough that _ the desires expressed are of great importance to the leader or adults in general, they must be of importance to the young people, and the actual prayer is not tho place to win the young people’s interest. The interest must bo won in the preliminary explanation. Responses and Utterances in Prayer. unison prayer can be made very effective, all joining in voicing their petitions aloud. (2) Then tho young people may show agreement and sympathy by saying “ Amen,” clearly and distinctly, at the end of each clause of the prayer. To keep this sincere it is necessary of course that each clause, whether petition, thanksgiving, intercession, be of real interest to the young people, (.‘s The subjects of prayer are presented to the young people and they are asked to speak to God themselves about these in silence. (4) The young people may' he taught one or two sentences of agreement and prayer, (o) Hymns that are song prayers; it will he found wise to use these at their lull worth as prayers, not supplementing theni by spoken prayer for the same object. It is not proposed that all these forms of offering prayer be used at one service: if tbe prayer is to be kept real and interesting for young people there must bo much variety in method as well as familiarity with the forms used. All these ways of prayer involve preparation and thought, and that the leader of prayer should know what he is going to pray about before he begins. The‘Lord's Prayer.—ln many schools the Lord’s Prayer is said or sung by the children and young people. In either case the chief danger is that by constant use it loses meaning and power, and becomes formal. The boys and girls will find more meaning and reality in “ Our Father, which art in heaven," when they are brought to feel that the One Hundredth Psalm is founded on that hame, and expresses our worship of the Father; that our prayers for foreign missions rest on God’s Fatherhood: that our relations to each other in kindness and help become natural brotherhood through our own Father, and so on. We can constantly refer other expressions of thought and desire hack to that prayer; and it will remain fresh and real, growing in meaning and power. Unless wo arc so opening up its fullness to the young people and exploring with them its depths, it is perhaps better not to have it in constant use.

The Offering.—This may bo ono of the deeply moving elements in young people’s worship. It is good to use such words in intimating the offering as will keep, before the young people the truth that they are bringing a gift to God. “ The collection will now be taken ” is inadequate and its emphasis is wrong. There are four essentials. When the offering is collected it should bo brought in orderly

fashion to the front of the meeting place; then a short prayer or hymn prayer asking God’s blessing is given. There are four essentials that should bo remembered; (1) Interest awakened in the object for which the money is to be used; (2) Emphasis laid on the fact that the offering is to God lor this object; (ft) Collection of the offering with such simplicity and dignity ns are worthy of an act of worship; (1) Consecration of the offering. Along with all this offering of money, and, at the same part of the service, them should sometimes he presented to the young people for their sympathy and prayers some special need of the world, usually gathered up in an individual or local case. Then prayers arc asked for this, without reference to money, and the need gains the benefit of these prayers, while they learn that prayer is a real gift to those in need. Talks are frequently a part of the worship service, but should seldom be regarded as the chief clement. The person who is to give the talk should understand his time is limited, and that his presentation is to relate itself to the theme of the service, and to that which precedes and follows. Stories read, as well as told, are most effective, but great care is needed in the selection of materials, such as great missionary stories, stories about hymns and their writers, etc., being most suitable.

Silences.—Nothing is more effective in securing both reality and reverence in worship than to train young people in the practice'and use of silence. At every service there should bo spaces where neither music nor voice is heard, and wo wait in perfect stillness, expectant silence. These need not be, and should not bo, long spaces, but the value of them is out of all proportion to the time so used. There are certain parts of the service where most naturally the silence can be given. After the invitation to prayer let no word be spoken till there is absolute stillness, and then let that stillness last for perhaps half a minute before beginning the spoken prayer. Half a minute will seem a very long time at first. The noisest and most irreverent class will respond to the silences, and the question of discipline and order will bt to a large extent solved. Building Worship Programmes.— Themes fitted to the lesson. These should be carefully thought out and stated preferably in writing. Through this it is possible to be exact. Haziness will spoil any programme. It is hardly necessary to say that these aims as they are put together ought to carry out a larger and unified plan. A series of isolated programmes can do little —a series of consecutive programmes can carry through a great idea to full development. The second step is the gathering of materials. Nothing is too good—music hymn, prayer Tf the programme is to be rich in material it will take knowledge of the finest material available and the best results will come from the highest type of materials.