How To Plan A Worship Service When The Congregation Is Grieving Or Hurting

Molly McCoy,

“Happy, happy, happy, boing, boing, boing.”  That’s the stereotype of modern Christian worship, which you hear and read about in many forums online and elsewhere.  It’s fresh-faced, bouncy people with permanent smiles, singing about how great they feel since Jesus came into their hearts. 

But what happens when a loved one suddenly dies?  When someone you look up to is caught in a tawdry sin?  When a child turns away from Christ, or when the forces of nature wreak havoc on a city?  Do you plan a worship service as if nothing is amiss? 

I remember the Sunday morning in 1993 when I woke to hear that a childhood friend had been murdered the night before, just weeks after getting her first apartment.  I didn’t want to sing “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.”  Then I remember a decade later, sitting in my office at work and hearing the news report that terrorists had smashed airplanes into the Twin Towers.  I didn’t feel like singing “Everybody’s singing now, ’cause we’re so happy/ Everybody’s dancing now, ’cause we’re so happy.” 

Dr. John Witvliet has a lot to say about the subject in an essay entitled “Praise and Lament in the Psalms and in Liturgical Prayer,” which forms chapter two of his book Worship Seeking Understanding.  He says that if we model our cries of lament after psalms (and use psalms verbatim as well) we can teach worshipers to structure their lament in constructive, God-honoring ways.  The psalms provide warrant for honestly challenging God, “Why me?  Why this?” while at the same time providing a limit to this experience by teaching three themes:

1. Their suffering is real
2. It is not the last word
3. It is spiritually significant

Witvliet writes that biblically shaped liturgical laments provide grieving Christians a sense of solidarity with worshipers throughout the centuries who have prayed these prayers through times of extreme sorrow and pain.  He suggests specific psalms to use in worship planning for various situations:

• Psalm 69 — a crisis of shame
• Psalm 51 — a crisis of guilt
• Psalm 38 or 41 — a medical crisis
• Psalm 88 — times of despair
• Psalm 71 — afflictions of old age
• Psalm 143 — occasions of oppression or victimization

If your church does responsive Scripture readings, Witvliet provides a model for improvising with a Psalm text — in this case, Psalm 13.  He asks us to envision a scenario where a church learns that one of their own is suffering from abuse:

How long, O Lord?  Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my soul,

and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

“Lord, our Lord,

we feel forgotten.

This abuse rips apart our faith.

The victim, our sister _______, is alone in despair.

How long must this persist?”

Witvliet continues to demonstrate a model for improvising within the psalm that takes us through the movement from questioning through the expectation of God’s comfort.  And not necessarily all at once!  As he mentions, sometimes Christians (particulary in ministering to one another) move too quickly to the “happy ending.”  One way to make sure we don’t gloss over the “hard part” (using the responsive reading suggestion above) would be to break it into parts which could be read in linear fashion at different parts of the service.  This way, you take an entire service to move from “How long, O Lord” to “I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.”

Can you think of other helpful ways to deal with pain and sorrow in corporate worship?

See Rebecca Dennison’s article on lament in modern worship music, and her song “Crippled Soul”

The artwork above is entitled “Make Me Whole,” by Molly McCoy.  See a larger image, read more about it, and view more Sojourn art at sojournvisualarts.com