Natkirken: 'liturgical laboratory' - 2001 report to diocese of Copenhagen

Excerpts from English-language report on Project Night Church covering its first year as a pilot project at Københavns Domkirke, Vor Frue Kirke

By Signe M. Berg, Inger Ravn and Thomas Söderqvist

PROJECT NIGHT CHURCH -

A liturgical laboratory in the Cathedral of Copenhagen.

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In the late summer of 1999 a new project was launched in the Cathedral of Copenhagen. Originally the idea was to open the church to the public in the late evening hours and to give visitors an opportunity for a personal talk with a minister. In the course of the first year several new practices and ideas were introduced which have turned the project into a liturgical laboratory and a place of dialogue.

The first year of the Night Church project (Danish: "Natkirken") has recently been evaluated on behalf of the twelwe founding downtown churches. This article summarises our evaluation report (available in Danish at www.natkirken.dk).

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The ideas and visions for the Night Church project have developed gradually as a result of our practical experiences. Something unexpected may happen in the course of an evening, new perspectives emerge, new reflections and a new practice is born. When the Night Church project started in 1999 the idea was to provide an open and quiet church punctuated by a short service. Today, however, we envisage the entire evening as an extended service. The long stretches of time when "nothing happens" are part - and a most appreciated part - of the service. The Night Church thus becomes a refuge from everyday life with its career pressures and constant demands for personal achievement. Several visitors have expressed their gratitude to this dimension of the Night Church (see below). The message that many a minister tries to convey to his congregation in elaborate ways, namely, that we do not need to perform or do anything to receive the love of Christ, is here replaced by a personal experience that grows out of the simple practice of "doing nothing", just being - in the calm.

The noise generated by today's information and media society has turned people's attention to the blessing of quietness. Similarly, the common experience of a normative vacuum in today's society has contributed to a revival of ritual. We wish to develop credible rituals. Credibility is bound up with resonance and the content and mode of expression in the rituals and the service must therefore resonate with the individual's perception of holiness and sense of the fundamentals of life. That is, the service must resonate with the visitorís need to find a suitable vocabulary, a direction of mind, and a spiritual context for his or her search. Our task is to find modes of expression that are credible to the individual visitor and which provide a space for dialogue - a dialogue that (post)modern man expects to be a natural part of the state of being together, with other human beings as well as with God.

Many of our visitors can be characterised as "seekers", and we consider it one of our primary aims to establish a dialogue with this group of people. In order to enter into a dialogue with "seekers", however, we must meet them on their own terms. A well-known graffiti says that "Jesus is the answer, but what was the question?" In other words, there is no point trying to preach the gospel if we cannot see our visitorsí distress and if we cannot give them an opportunity to articulate their own questions. To "see" somebody does not necessarily imply accepting everything he or she say - to be "seen" also includes being contradicted and corrected. But whether we agree with our visitor or contradict him, his sense of having been seen is a necessary condition for his being affected.

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Berg, Ravn and Söderqvist's report is also incorporated verbatin in a newsletter of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Letter on Evangelism - Geneva, 2002. Carlos E. Ham, WCC Programme Executive for Evangelism, has a nice summary in his introduction:

... In a quiet setting, right in the middle of the city’s noise, the project provides an opportunity for “outsiders” and for the “seekers” to meet, to have a cup of tea or coffee together, to write, to walk around, or simply to kneel and pray.

Frequently Cathedrals have been used for performing concerts and this is also the case in Copenhagen, but what makes the experience unique is the way that art is used as an instrument to share the good news. Furthermore the regular church activities such as worship, Holy Communion, reading and interpreting the Bible, prayers, etc., are developed in an innovative way, enabling people to feel welcome and embraced. But perhaps the most meaningful characteristic of the project is sharing in the love of Christ “doing nothing”, just being in calm, in silence.

We are very happy to share with our readers this beautiful and meaningful project, which indeed has been a blessing for the people related to it.

There is also a YouTube clip on a NiteKirk program in Scotland. According to the Mission and Discipleship Council of the Church of Scotland, "Following the success of the night church movement in Denmark, the NiteKirk transformed Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh Festival of 2008 into a space for reflection, encounter and transformation." Quotes several clergy at length. See the Greyfriars website for ongoing services: "NiteKirk takes place one Friday evening each month and offers a place for stillness, prayer and relection. Come for the evening, or pop in for a quiet moment in our sanctuary of peace and tranquillity. There are occasional services and liturgies, prayer in the style of [Taizé], readings and music. There are volunteers you can chat with over a drink of the famous warm and spicy apple juice, or you can just take time to sit and think. We will publicise NiteKirk here on the site and on the blog, so watch this space."