Tradition, tradition...

"...And who does Mama teach to mend and tend and fix,
Preparing me to marry whoever Papa picks?

The daughter, the daughter! Tradition!
The daughter, the daughter! Tradition!"

The congregation I’m serving on internship this year has been doing a lot of work around Faith Formation using the resources provided by The Youth and Family Institute and their Vibrant Faith Ministries, including some coaching by Paul Hill. Their language has been super helpful in giving the congregation a common vocabulary around Faith Formation and the way we support families as they form faith in their homes.

Their Vibrant Faith Frame includes “Four Keys for Practicing Faith.” Our staff and members have been busy taking steps to incorporate the “four keys” in all sorts of ways in the ministry of our congregation. In fact, the Youth Room has recently had an Extreme Makeover to become the “Four Key Soul Schopp.” Check it out in this video if you’re curious. It's awesome.

One of the keys is “rituals and traditions.”

In the world of Faith Formation, rituals are viewed primarily in a positive light. It’s assumed that the things families or faith communities do in an intentionally repetitive way are seen as fodder for building faith. However, conversation in my Education I online course this week (yes, I'm taking online classes while on internship...I'm a crazy person) has also opened my eyes to something that I already knew, but had not quite formulated in this way: rituals can be negative. They can lose their meaning, or become harmful if we aren’t careful.

Rituals, with their potential power, must be handled with care. And reassessed often.

How can we balance the potential positive power of ritual in faith communities with the possibility of those same rituals having a negative impact? When is a ritual helpful? When is it harmful? And when has it simply faded into the background so as to become scenery? And then, finally, even if a ritual has faded into the background, how can it still continue to have an impact even when we may not name it or claim it?

Consider, as my classmate suggested, Fiddler on the Roof. What a great example of ritual functioning in every possible way: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I played a villager in Red River High School's performance of Fiddler my freshman year, so of course it holds a special place in my heart. But good thing some traditions are not universal or eternal. Heaven only knows how my life would look if I were to depend on my ability to mend and tend and fix. Let's not even consider if I had been condemned to marry whoever my Papa picked!