Why We’re Changing the Bulletin

Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed that our bulletin has begun to change. It’s a small thing, perhaps. There are fewer words, fewer instructions, and less to "follow."

It has raised a real question: What is the bulletin for?

For a long time, we have treated it as something like a script, something to follow line by line, so that we know where we are and what comes next. There is something good in that. It can be helpful and reasuring. But there is also a cost, because the liturgy is not something we are meant simply to read through. It is something we are meant to enter into.

The early Church was quite explicit about this. Much of the liturgy was not placed into the hands of the worshipper. They didn't do this because they were trying to keep it secret, but because they understood something about how prayer works. What is most deeply prayed is not something we consult. It is something we come to inhabit.

Over time, the tradition noticed something else as well. Even among those who could read, and read very well, there was a danger. One could follow every word in a privitized reading party and yet not really pray. The voice continues, the eyes move across the page, but the heart drifts elsewhere.

So the question is less "Do I know the words?" and more "Am I being drawn into prayer?"

This is where the changes to the bulletin come from. The goal is not to take something away, but to make room for a different kind of attention. To allow the liturgy to be something we hear and participate in, not just something we track with our eyes.

This does not mean you have to have everything memorized. It does not mean you have to do it “right.” There is no single way to be present. It may mean, at times, feeling a little less certain of where you are on the page. But it may also open up different sorts of engagement. Perhaps more awareness of what is being said or done. Mayber a deeper sense of the rhythm. I hope also that we will gain a new appreciation of the communal aspects of the Eucharist.

These changes are, in some sense, experimental. We are trying to find a way for the bulletin to support our common prayer, and then, as much as possible, to get out of the way. Which is, perhaps, the best thing it can do.