| dc.description.abstract | Christian worship creates a formative space which takes shape through the participation of individuals and shapes individuals in return. This dissertation builds a model based on George Herbert Mead’s developmental theory of role-taking and Theodore Newcomb’s subsequent communication model of coorientation to examine worship’s reciprocal relationship with the goal of increasing its inclusive and enriching activity. Utilizing coorientation as a critical and constructive method, leaders can invite worshipers into imagination work that draws out biblical roles for God and others which have been minimized, overlooked, or excluded due to rigid categorization. By including new roles and transgressing the boundaries which define old ones, worshippers can gain new insight into their own selfhood, their relationships with others, and their connection with God. As a result, worship can spiral wider to include fuller, multifaceted pictures of others and of God, as well as spiral deeper in knowledge and love along relational bonds. This project has two overarching parts. The first three chapters theoretically build a coorientation model appropriate for worship: introducing its method, addressing its use of categorization, and incorporating its phenomenological attributes. The second part moves from proposed method to practical theological application. Chapter four situates coorientation within worship’s embodied imagination framework and analyzes two examples before chapter five narrows in on the particular role of the worship leader as facilitator of coorientative activity. By revealing how relational action in worship operates within social paradigms, coorientation enables leaders to create intentional social activity that invites worshippers into deeper and wider relationships, naming humanity’s own polyphonic existence in created connection to God’s own tremendous multifaceted Self. | |
