UUGA06: The UU cadence

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10 Responses to “UUGA06: The UU cadence”

Anonymous on June 26th, 2006 10:26 am

I was at a prospective students conference at a seminary last year when a fellow prospect remarked on the cadence. I speculated that it comes from preaching class (and then is absorbed from the minister by the public speakers from the congregation). Kind of like how you know someone is reading poetry because their vocal pattern changes so much. I resist, but sometimes I hear I’m in that cadence when I’m delivering a lay reading.
Clyde Grubbs on June 26th, 2006 1:15 pm

The preacher is taught to speak a little slower than conversational speech, and to use pauses.

Was Gail (the Sunday morning preacher) speaking in the UU cadence? Her cadence was a preacher’s cadence.

I hear people speaking too fast at GA for such a large audience
LaReinaCobre on June 26th, 2006 1:22 pm

Clyde,
I actually remember Gail’s cadence as being livelier and less monotonous as most of the others. There was a lot more expression and emphasis put on different words. It may be that she spoke faster, too. I thought her delivery was very interesting and one of the more engaging of the styles I heard at GA.
Jess on June 27th, 2006 12:13 pm

I think it also has to do with speaking into microphones in echoing rooms - it’s a strange experience to hear your voice boom back at yourself.
Roger Kuhrt, PhD on June 28th, 2006 2:40 am

I think what you are talking about is a part of an even larger issue: our communication patterns are an attunement to 50,60, & 70 year olds expectation patterns. If one is younger then the style grates on nerves and arrests attention! Given what we know about communication and interactional patterns these daze it seems very impractical that supposedly the “smartest” UUs still employ both the Hymn Sandwich form of service along with a seating arrangement that lines folks up in ROWS so we look at each other backs of heads and listen to a ONE to MANY presentation.

I hope I am not responsible for furthering the use of what you are calling “cadence” since I have taught homiletics to many UU clergy in both seminary and seminars. Even in our many mid-size and smaller churches where they have moveable chairs and open space–the place those chairs in rows and perpetuate the patterns mentioned above.

This couples with the reality that we are greying out just like the mainline–we do not provide worship that engages folks in their 40’s and if in 30’s or 20’s we aren’t even in the ball park–yet all the research is out there to suggest alternatives.

If we don’t soon experience a worship REVOLUTION we will be in the dying out mode of the Xian Mainline.

Cheerfully, Rev. Roger Kuhrt
LaReinaCobre on June 28th, 2006 3:46 pm

Roger,
Good heavens, this is my favorite response of the month! I never envisioned UU worship as anything other than rows of people sitting/standing, or a circle of people sitting/standing.

What other kinds of shapes can our worships take? I remember when I was Muslim, I would walk into the mosque or prayer area and see people praying in clusters. Sometimes there would be one person praying alone, with a group of three or four praying together with no leader, and then another group of people praying with a leader. This happened because people would enter the prayer area at different times.

Forming clusters, or facing each other somehow - what would that mean for the way worships happen? I don’t know, but it’s exciting to think on it. Thanks, as always, as for your thoughtful and interesting response.
Clyde Grubbs on June 28th, 2006 6:04 pm

Gail paused, and stopped after she made a point. The emphasis and liveliness was a product of being in conversation with four thousand listeners…….

required that she stop long enough for the audience to absorb what she said.

The people doing reports are trying to get as many word as possible in before their time runs out.
Anonymous on June 30th, 2006 6:25 pm

There are a few different cadences.

One of the least appealing to me is the “campfire scary voice” that many young UU ministers (I have a problem calling them preachers because of this voice) come to our congregations with. You know this voice when you hear it in their sermons.

Someone once told me they could tell which school a UU minister came from: Meadville-Lombard, Starr King, Harvard, or Other, just by listening to the way they preached. We actually tested this, and he was amazingly accurate.

A couple of my favourite UU preachers are Rev. John Buehrens, and Rev. Susan Smith, both of whom specifically took preaching classes in non-UU related schools. Susan used to do one out of 4 sermons extemporaneously.

Not sure what my point was anymore… these are just the ideas that your post brought up for me
Donald O'Bloggin on June 30th, 2006 6:25 pm

The above was me, Donald Wilson
Liz Schwartz on July 3rd, 2006 9:21 pm

I was at a YA conference a couple years ago and during the coffee house, i read a poem and then a few turns later, got up and read it again in what i called a “sermon voice.” It was hilarious, if I do say so. Hard to describe. Ironically, i think it sort of sounds like they are describing something that was really boring or tiring. Like if Bert from Sesame Street was saying, “And then at the end of my day, i counted all this sand, and it was speck after speck after speck, and oh what a beautiful speck, i thought, oh what a beatiful speck. Blessed be.” Yeah, that’s about what made my brain turn off while watching some parts of GA online.