Worship Tools

The church is called in every generation to celebrate the full message of salvation in the context of the particular time and place given it by God. Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, today, and for ever,"24 but the language, customs, and historical situation of the people of God are continually changing. The Book of Worship reflects the intention of the United Church of Christ to respond faithfully to God's saving initiative in ways that speak to the spiritual hunger of all people in this time and place. Several contemporary emphases that stem from this intention inform the services contained in the Book of Worship and deserve brief attention.

In many UCC services, care has been taken to avoid exclusively male terms for God. For example, the word God is frequently used where the masculine word Lord predominated in the past. Lord is retained as an important title to identify Jesus Christ, but not the only title. In general, masculine language is not used in reference to JesusChrist except where there is some necessity to identify Jesus by gender. In a similar way, diverse masculine and feminine images are used for the people of God. The witness of women of faith in the biblical story is treated with the same dignity accorded the witnessof men of faith.

Inclusive language is far more than a matter of male and female imagery .Behind the aesthetic dimension of human words towers the prophetic issue of social justice. It is obvious to people of goodwill that words have the power to exploit and disfranchise as well as to affirm and liberate those to whom they refer. Language that is truly inclusive affirms not only human sexuality but also racial and ethnic background and diverse stages of maturity from infancy to old age. It shows respect for people with handicapping conditions, people who do not live in the traditional nuclear family, people who suffer addictions, and others who intentionally identify themselves by some particular need or characteristic. If people do not find themselves in the language of worship or find themselves there in derogatory images, it should not be surprising if they absent themselves from the worshiping community.

Our Book of Worship seeks to underscore the inseparable connection between liturgy and ethics not only by means of inclusive language but also by maintaining a biblical tension between Christian nurture and Christian witness. The services show that liturgy is a recalling of God's acts in history for the world and its salvation and at the same time a communal and personal answering of God's call to service in the world. The issue of inclusive language and other concerns for social justice point toward even larger areas of wholeness. In practically all churches that are experiencing liturgical renewal, there is a deep regard for denominational traditions that have been cherished, as well as an ecumenical longing to explore parts of the gospel that have received inadequate attention within a particular denomination.