At an Episcopal student ministry I was heavily involved in, the music was exciting. It was innovative. The service language was a lot more gender inclusive than the regular BCP (we modified pronouns, for example). And we shied away considerably from the top-down model of God (i.e. God as King) in the liturgy, in the music, and in sermons. And we had church on Sunday night - I like my mornings (because I am cycling, not because of hangovers).

Now, I am only one Episcopalian in a diverse church. On top of that, I wasn't brought up in the Episcopal Church, and my theology is for the most part to the left and to the Evangelical side compared to most Episcopalians. So I am not saying that all churches need to be acceptable to me.

However, almost no Episcopal Churches have made room for liturgical innovation. This is to our detriment. The Evangelicals have more exciting music than us - I would argue that the theological content of Evangelical music is poor compared to the 82 Hymnal, but the fact remains that the music is less exciting. In addition, the 82 hymns and most of the liturgies retain a very top down model of God - God as King, God as Lord, etc. I have a feeling that people my age aren't responding to a model of God that's solely top down. We need to explore different models of God - us as co-creators with God, us as empowered by God, things like that.

I am not asking to turn the church upside down, but I am asking for places within the wider church that don't look and sing the same. I'll come back if I find such places. I suspect a number of folks, not necessarily all of them younger ones, will come back if there are such places.

My kids (both late teens) hate guitar masses, and sermon gimmicks, and liturgical goofiness. The only good thing about the fact that the guitar mass at our parish claims the prime Sunday spot, as far as they are concerned, is that it means they get to sleep in. I would have thought the same way thirty years ago; the difference was that in 1980 there was not this sense of panic about losing the "yoof", so the risk of getting subjected to goofiness (other than kooky-liberal sermons) was a lot lower.

There's this odd notion that all young people are liberal hipsters impatient with their stodgy and backwards parents. It isn't so.

Thanks Ng for your honesty about your feelings.

I still observe a church full of 20-40 yr olds at the High Mass I play on Sundays at 10:30, and a church half full of 50-70 yr olds at the "relaxed" mass I play on Saturday afternoon.

One can feel and emote, be excited or not, like and dislike, find things acceptable or not acceptable, and try to turn a emotional response - excitement or not - into a statement of fact (I am very excited about "There's a Wideness In God's Mercy" sung to Blaenwern, for instance), but there is no case being made, not really, not any sort of heavy lifting kind of intellectual work that must accompany a marked change - not just an organic development - in a worship experience that has transmitted the faith forward for centuries now. It's somewhat amazing that God your Best Friend loves you deeply and intimately more than your best friend ever could, but it's unbelievably amazing that God your Eternal King and Lord loves you more deeply and intimately than even your best friend, that's Good News for sure.

What's happening today will come and go, societal pressures will ebb and flow, but there's got to be a core experience at the heart of Christianity beyond just the emotional "Oh yes, I feel Jesus with me right now, with ME right NOW!" because those things that will bring this to pass in people change markedly from generation to generation. Leaving the First Person behind because there's this Big Ol Thing that's bigger than me and what I want, that's where the living waters flow. We are uncompromising in most things as Episcopalians, and I think these are the right things. When we are new and innovative, it is because we're including more people - women and sexual minorities in particular - in otherwise ancient and fairly conservative institutions and ways. The things to leave alone are the images, sounds, smells, tastes, words, rhythms of words, etc. because these, above all else, give us what was first delivered to the saints.

Young people, in my experience, do not see this as old fashioned, but rather see this as a challenge to learn more and adapt themselves. When it always looks and sounds and feels like me, it's easy to get complacent and at the same time be always searching for more novelty. I might as well stay home and enjoy it in my living room rather than come to church.

The church where my boyfriend directs music is the same way, he directs for a Catholic University Parish and it's standing room only full of college kids and young families at the High Mass at 11, and the last chancers, old hippies and church campers who are still livin' the life that show up at Sunday 5 pm. However Ng, I will grant you this: those folks need a place to go to church too, a place they can stand, and so do you. But I will ask you this: why sing and say things that, though exciting now, probably will not age well and 10 yrs from now will be replaced by something even more exciting, new, innovative and pleasing to you? Why invest yourself and your little part of the Church in things that won't last? And I say this because I have a whole loft full of music I'm throwing away precisely because it was new and innovative and appealing to "young people", but didn't outlast the decade that produced it. Is everything meant to be appealing only to a particular time and place and set of people, which almost always results in being thrown away? Does this really reflect the Person of Jesus or anything else of divinity at all?

Weiwen, we miss you at Canterbury House! C. Wingate, I hate guitar masses too, and I am WAY older than your teenagers. Clint Davis, a Jazz Mass at Canterbury House is anything but "relaxed." It is demanding, in-your-face, participatory worship, and the students love it. We have to think about the whole liturgy, including the music, all the time. No music lasts forever; but good music, performed well, will always make a connection. Young people, old people, and all people, respond to aesthetic excellence in worship. They deserve it. Why should we not give it to them? If the students at Canterbury House can appreciate "I walk the line" by Johnny Cash - written well before most of them were born - as much as they appreciate "Break forth, o beauteous heavenly light" by J.S. Bach - and they do! - then why should we not have both? In September my music director, an outstanding Jazz musician, will write a Psalm tone that I fully expect your congregations will be using thirty years from now. Let's all get to work on writing music and liturgy NOW that WILL last, eh?

Reid Hamilton

I'm 21, and now returning to the Episcopal Church after I quit attending back in early high school.

The beauty of the liturgy combined with a genuinely progressive social/theological vision is what attracts me. I appreciate and draw meaning from traditional music, hymns, rituals and worship.

I'm 21 and in college, and began attending an Episcopal church this spring, coming from another, non-liturgical mainline tradition in which I'd grown up. Religion hadn't had any role in my life for the first few years of college.

What drew me back was the sense of a need for connection to something deeply rooted and beautiful. The liturgy of TEC did that for me. I had previously attended a congregation of my former denomination in the city where I live; I found that its messing around with language to increase gender-inclusiveness, its unrecognizably modern hymns, and its incredibly-informal aesthetic made it completely unappealing to me. If I had attended the local Episcopal parish and found the same, there's no way I would have kept coming.

Greg Johnston (added by ~ed. Please sign your name when commenting on the Café - thanks)

I think the discussion that's taking place in the comments regarding worship style has little to do with young/old. It has been pointed out that there are older people who like the 'younger' style and vice versa.

We tend to assume in general either that what is older is more authentic/ of greater value, or that what is newer is more relevant / of greater value. Sometimes we seem to hold both these seemingly contradictory positions at once. But of course neither is necessarily true.

When it comes to music in the context of worship, I feel pretty strongly that it should access the emotions without exploiting them. And for me, much of the music in 'contemporary' services, in my experience, exploits. But a hymn doesn't have to be contemporary to be sentimental; there are plenty of old hymns that make me cringe, though they may not be in the episcopal hymnal, since I grew up in much more evangelical denominations.

Likewise, I don't think a hymn has to be old or traditional to have a place in corporate worship. In fact, I remember an absolutely riveting mass composed by a university student of music a couple of years ago. I wish there was more of that, and less of the pop-style stuff that's meant to be 'relevant'. And I think, no matter what style of service, we need to remember the importance of silence as a space to meet God.

Finally, I had my own experience of frustration in the Episcopal Church as a young adult that had nothing to do with the style of worship (actually I disliked the guitar/chorus services that were supposed to appeal to my age group). It was simply that, because I was single and out of university, I sometimes felt out of place in a church that seemed to assume you would disappear in college and not return until you were married with children. Everyone needs to feel like they're a valuable part of the community, like they can contribute (something besides just babysitting). I was lucky enough to be in a parish that recognized how eager I was to participate and gave me opportunities, but I can't help but feel that, as a whole, the Episcopal Church (and many other denominations I'm sure) has a bit of a hole to fill there.

I'll second what Charlie said. I'm in my early 30's and returned to the church a few years ago. There are many seekers of my generation who crave exactly what the Episcopal Church has to offer. We seek a deeper meaning to our lives, but evangelical churches are too narrow-minded, Unitarians too anti-Jesus, the Catholic Church too dogmatic. We want to connect ourselves to ancient traditions while embracing the modern world. We want the Nicene Creed and social justice, the Eucharist and LGBT rights. Only the Episcopal Church offers that kind of beautiful tension.

Finn - please sign your first and last name when you comment at the Café - thanks ~ed.

Worship style is a discussion worth having. But this old fart would like to see this conversation (here or elsewhere) get onto another topic. What is our intrinsic identity? What is it that makes us who we are or aspire to be as a community of worshipers. We are more clearly asserting that our beliefs come from our theology, that we don't adapt our theology to fit the times. Knowing who we are or aspire to be, the question becomes are we failing to communicate that to our young people, or is that people know who we are, may even admire us, but know what they want and would rather simply bowl alone?

I hasten to add, I'm not precluding other obstacles - what we may hope parishes do to communicate may not match up with what they do do in terms of welcoming. And we all know parishes who think they do a good job, but visitors would tell you otherwise.

As a 29 yr old, I would say the biggest draw, for me, is the sense of continuity; a beautiful and exciting history. At the same time, I see the Episcopal Church willingly dealing with contemporary issues, socially and theologically. It seems that it's hard to find a Christian institution that both honors the people and traditions of its past, but doesn't condemn or negate the people and potential new traditions of its present and/or future. Simply put, we are strong because we draw from our lineage, but we don't let it hold us back. We are enabled to see and seek out God in the here and now. That has evolved into an identity for some of us.

-John Shirley

I'm a 26 year old layperson who has spent the last four years working for the Church. I'm about to move to a new city and when I do I'll be looking for a parish with Catholic piety and worship, a regular Bible Study and/or prayer group and a serious and sustained commitment to standing with and assisting the least among us. (Friendly and welcoming congregants wouldn't hurt either!) What brought me to the Episcopal Church was its "old" liturgy and spirituality and inclusion of ALL of God's people. The Church should (and in some places does) take seriously the critiques from the recent NY Times piece. The author doesn't get everything right and gets plenty wrong but if our love of reason and commitment to mercy and justice isn't FIRMLY rooted and grounded in authentic scripture and tradition, if our first priority isn't God and our second isn't charity (in the Old sense of the word) and justice - we're doing something Profoundly Wrong.

My husband and I are in our late twenties. We love the traditional liturgy. In LA, there's not much escaping from the progressive claptrap but you take the good with the bad. We participate in the 20s/30s group when we feel like it.

I am in my late teens and, although I was baptised into the Episcopal tradition, I now live in London and go to a Church of England church. I would like to point out that while these videos highlight the more conservative views of some members of the C of E, there are plenty of members of the C of E who disagree. My church is much more similar to the Episcopal tradition, with women priests and an emphasis on welcoming people no matter what their religious background or sexual orientation. Even though there aren't many teenagers at my church, I like going there because of the strong sense of community support and because of the open-mindedness of the parishioners and the clergy. Unlike in some more liberal C of E churches, there is also a deep focus on faith and Scripture. Most church-going teenagers want a church with rock music etc., however I think that a sense of fellowship and community, whether in the form of youth groups or special youth worship, is more important for attracting young people. Episcopal churches shouldn't try to change their beliefs to attract young people, so themes like social justice needn't be pushed into the background; however a network of support for young people is key.

Folks, my first name is Weiwen. do not address me directly by my last name.

Some commenters responded that they know buildings full of younger folks who love traditional music. Good for them. However, if young folks IN GENERAL love traditional music, then why don't mainline churches IN GENERAL have higher youth membership?

I take offense at the suggestion that anything innovative in liturgy will fail, therefore let's stick with what's worked in the past. The system we sign in to this site on was an innovation that some probably thought was a fad. The Internet we connected to this site on was probably thought of as impractical at some point. Many innovations do fail, but the good ones succeed.

Also, some commenters assumed that liturgical innovation must necessarily displace prior liturgy - that's not actually true. It's not a zero sum game. However, the more people refuse to change, the more I am going to act like it's a zero sum game. Either way, innovative liturgical approaches can coexist with the deep sense of tradition that is inherent in our approach - some readers may not have got this, but I said in my first post that I found much Evangelical music to be too shallow.

"However, if young folks IN GENERAL love traditional music, then why don't mainline churches IN GENERAL have higher youth membership?"

On the other hand, if young people in general love liturgical innovation and a conscious emphasis on progressive issues, why aren't the Unitarian Universalists bursting at the seams with 20-something's?

I'm 32 and am not in the least interested in "liturgical innovation." If I wanted that, I would go to some Protestant denomination. I'm Anglican because 1) I believe in the doctrine of apostolic succession; 2) I believe that Jesus Christ is made manifest to us in the 7 sacraments; 3) I believe in the Nicene Creed; 4) I believe in social justice, loving my neighbor as myself, and LGBT rights; 5) I believe that church music should be "other-worldly" and not even remotely the same as what I hear on the radio.

Start messing with gender inclusivity, liturgical music, devaluing baptism by intentionally inviting the non-baptized to the communion rail...start turning me off to church.

Start teaching that God wants us receive his rich and extravagant grace through Jesus Christ (meaning through repentance from sin and humbly receiving the sacraments), that He longs for us to fully devote ourselves in service to the poor and needy, that the Church believes that the fact that my partner is a male is irrelevant…turn me on to church.

In my experience, many smaller parishes don't really know what to do with younger people, unless it's to put them to work on local service projects, etc. If you're in a parish like that, I'd encourage you to map out a written plan to welcome young people, even if it's just coffee or happy hour from time to time.

I also remain concerned -- and I know that I have said this previously on e-cafe -- is that we may have gone too far in setting boundaries. One of the things I loved about my college years was hanging out with clergy, having coffee, talking about everything from bad music to random sex. Concededly, the conversation often was banal, but at the same time it was both formative and reassuring.

Today, however, both resource constraints and fears about being overly familiar likely would prevent this sort of campus outreach. Yet, in retrospect, this interaction was one of the greatest things the church could do for young people in the area. Let us just hope that in the mad rush that is the day-to-day life of the average parish priest she or he is still able to make time for this sort of unstructured outreach, and to recognize its value.

Eric Bonetti

Eric, I totally agree with you!!! I was blessed to have clergy that were willing to just hangout and discuss anything and everything, without the heavy hand of an agenda, but, at the same time, bringing our questions, conversations, and life concerns into a Christian sphere, particularly an Episcopal/Anglican response. In hindsight, it was the best form of evangelization and outreach I have ever seen or experienced.

-John Shirley