Friday afternoon was the new Bishop of Oxfords (The Right Reverend John Lawrence Pritchard) Inauguration to which I had been invited to be one of three representing Licensed Youth Ministers in the diocese. It was a great service and a real privilege to be invited to such an event, the processing as mentioned over on Youthblog (where you will also find a bit of a write up here) was not as bad as first thought. The biggest problem actually came with getting in as I had forgotten to take the letter with me! Once in and processed we were in a side chapel which meant we had a wide screen monitor to watch most of the service on (and very little space) but the bishop did come round to the chapel to be anointed with oil so I suppose that made us feel a bit more a part of it.
I suppose the question it leaves in my mind is to do with how much say a new Bishop gets in his Inauguration service, there was a lot of Choral stuff, all very good quality but I just wonder how much of the service is put together in consultation with the Bishop (or whoever is being whatevered) and how much is because this is the cathedral and this is what we do? Did the service reflect something of the Bishops spirituality or more of the cathedrals churchmanship? Im not trying to dis it, its not my kind of thing but I know for others it is and that is great, the church is made richer by its diversity and I think it is good to be challenged by going to services that are not of the style we would personally chose and I find often causes me to reflect somewhat on what I do and why, its just something I was wondering.
Wish I could have been there! Sounds fab.
The worship thing usually works that the bishop would get to choose hymns/songs and maybe readings and some of the prayers but the hosting church or in this case cathedral would do all the HOW that happens stuff. So the organ would have featured strongly as would their excellent choir. However I don’t think they HAVE a band so they just wouldn’t have thought of it. I think it’s a shame. They could ask another church in Oxford to help make it all more divers on such occasions btu you can’t underestimate how much they think they already have done some “modern” stuff in doing the songs they did I suppose.
How true, I totally agree with what you say but that last comment I think says such a lot to all of us as individuals, everything we do or we attend we have a view on it but it will be completely different from those around us who see things from a different angle, i.e. you could take one person from a very traditional background and one from the raving charismatics (this is a generalisation, I am not saying all charismatics are raving or otherwise) to that service and one would have perhaps felt it quite radical in places and the other very old fashioned. I think it is good to have both, to go to both and those in between if we are to gain a greater understanding of our own spirituality.