A Volley from the Canon, Number 122: The Fallacy of Peterkin Music

A VOLLEY FROM THE CANON, NUMBER 122 THE FALLACY OF “PETERKIN MUSIC” Campers at Peterkin tend to love worship in Strider Chapel. I’ve even seen evaluations from kids stating that daily Eucharist was the camper’s number one favorite camp activity! That is remarkable, and it certainly needs to have some attention paid to it. The campers particularly love to sing in the chapel, and they do so loudly and with energetic hand and body movements. It is participatory worship in the Anglican tradition, squared. Lives are changed at Peterkin, and there is no doubt that Strider Chapel is a key element of that reality. Ergo—this just makes sense, right?—if we can just transfer Peterkin music back to our home congregations, the local youth and young adults will return in droves, bringing their friends. The worship of the whole congregation will be enlivened, and the Holy Spirit will descend like a very happy dove upon all present. Not. There are factors involved other than song selection and instruments used. Put a bunch of old people (God bless us!) into the mix, even with the words to the songs clearly projected on a screen (even if it were visible from all parts of the room, which it never is, and even if we could read it, which we never can), and even so, you still get “dud” worship. The magic is gone. At Peterkin, the young campers make up the majority present. Even at Family Camp, Young- Campers-With-Many-Years’-Experience still make up the majority. Most of them not only know the songs, but they form a chorus to help carry the others who don’t know the songs yet, and it is easy enough to add a new tune to the mix occasionally. Of even greater importance, music at Peterkin camps is peer-led, or close to it. The counselor staff are college students, quite responsible adults, but still, just a few years older than our older campers. They are downright glamorous. They are much-admired and respected “older siblings” to the campers. Someone said last summer, “Those counselors are ‘rock stars’ to these kids.” O. K., imagine your favorite rock stars knowing your name and paying attention to you, as a kid! If it is true that music is crucial to the worship at Peterkin, it is also true that it matters greatly who leads that music, and who comprises the bulk of the congregation, youth and wanna-be youth. Our kids are very open-hearted, inclusive, and non-ageist. They have no problem with the fact that the celebrant(s) at the altar is packing some years. (It could be noted, though, that many of our clergy leaders at the camp are younger clergy, and that the preachers through the week include counselors and younger staffers as well as clergy.) The celebrant doesn’t do that much, anyway, and the kids have gotten to know him or her along the way. Communion is distributed by those same rock-star counselors! The kids don’t even mind if there is a gray head in the orchestra. Nevertheless, that balance on the age scale has to be tipped toward youth for the miracle to happen. If we want meaningful worship for young people and young-at-heart people, we can’t over-simplify. If we just bring in a couple of guitars on Sunday morning at 10:30, or even at a special time later in the day, and impose Peterkin songs, projected or printed, on our regular congregation, all involved will be disappointed, and they will say so. To make it work, we have to have youth leadership, youth involvement all the way in planning and presentation, and a core body of youth to bring the thing off, even with the weight of some older, more restrained worshipers dragging on it. In most of our congregations, which have just a handful of young people to start with, unless they do some serious evangelism before beginning to secure the participation of their friends from beyond the church (or plan the worship ecumenically from the beginning), that Peterkin spirit is unlikely to happen. We all need to provide some variety in our worship experiences, as the bishop has challenged us to do. A more contemporary style of worship, in addition to, not replacing, traditional worship, is a great place to start. We just need to be sure to lay the groundwork first, and not assume it will be an easy transfer for us. We might do well to consider this, too: maybe God likes for the Peterkin worship experience to be special.