Lenten Prayer Scape Worship Experience

Worship Experiences and Knowing God

by Carolyn Leah, Director of Christian Discipleship

Our worship environment during Lent has featured a unique prayer scape with elements that express the themes of this holy season. You might say, “Well, that is different!” or “What is that doing there?”  As we have explored the scriptures in Job this Lenten season, this prayer scape has added a visual aspect, a reflective aspect and even a tactile aspect to our worship experience. Why might that be important?

Howard Gardner is a developmental psychologist, educational theorist and esteemed faculty member of the Harvard School of Education. In the 1980’s, Gardner worked on a ground-breaking area of study called “multiple intelligences”. Gardner explained that intelligence might not be able to be measured in a standardized way because we compute information using multiple intelligences, some using linguistics, some musically, some visually, etc.  He estimates that human beings have 7 to 10 distinct intelligences. We all have the multiple intelligences but we are dominant in some more than others.

Gardner revolutionized how teachers began to teach, how curriculum was written, and the way we present information, so that we may come to know using different intelligences. The eight multiple intelligences that have been most explored by Gardner are visual/spatial, linguistic, musical, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, logical/mathematical and natural. Each of us has the capacity of every one of them, but we generally work with two or three dominant intelligences. So, what do multiple intelligences have to do with a door in the corner and our experience of worship? We each use our intelligences to know God just as we would use them in any other way. Worship happens to be a place where we come to know God through God’s Word being read and proclaimed (linguistic), singing and instrumentation (musical), reflection (intrapersonal), communal actions (interpersonal), liturgical order (logical/mathematical), movement (bodily/kinestetic), colors/symbols (visual/spatial) and even sometimes flowers, etc. (natural). 

What if the intelligences most dominant for you were never or rarely used in worship experiences?  It might hinder your way of knowing God better. To explore and expand the ways that we can reach everyone is to explore and expand ways to know God better. So, when doors, prayer scapes and other new opportunities to learn through worship are presented to us, let’s embrace the difference and ask God to help us grow in one of our less dominant intelligences. We might help someone else come to know God better too. If you’d like to know more about this concept, please contact me at cleah@beulahpresby.org.

To learn more about worship at Beulah, please visit our website worship page.