The "Curators" term comes from The Prodigal Project.
Curators of alternative worship seek to fund a counter-imagination of the world by crafting environments in which people might gather as mutual ‘learners’ around scripture and tradition, yet creatively improvising according to the contextual arena.
What would happen to the worship I prepared if I looked at it differently? What if I saw the task not as a mechanical, logical, modernist one of putting stuff in the right order so that it ‘progressed’ through a form to give a predetermined message with an anticipated outcome, but instead saw myself more like a curator of an art gallery? A curator who considers the space and environment as well as the content of worship and who takes these elements and puts them in a particular arrangement, considering juxtaposition, style, distance, light, shade, and so on. A maker of a context for worship rather than a presenter of content. A provider of a frame inside which the elements are arranged and rearranged to convey a particular message for a particular purpose. A message that may or may not be overtly obvious, may or may not be similar to the message perceived by another worshipper. So instead of Worship-Leader, or Worship-Planner, I become an artist, a framer, a reframer, a recontextor, a curator of worship. I provide contexts, experiences for others to participate in.
Here's a summary of my main points from the session (explantion later):
“Alternative worship” is not “better” worship, but an alternative sought by a particular group that reflects their culture and world-view.
“Alternative worship” is a particular term to described a loose movement in worship stemming from Protestant churches in the UK, with developing links world-wide.
Alternative worship is not youth worship. It does not seek to be trendy evangelism or entertainment.
Alternative worship highly values ritual, environment, community, tradition, creativity, contemporary, culture, participation, encounter, narrative, senses, and risk.
Church education must be bilingual, forming people in the “language” and world-view of faith and with the capacity to engage with the “language” of society.
The task of liturgy is to fund a counter-imagination of the world.
The tensions in worship have (wrongly) been more about aesthetics than ethics.
In a postmodern world, we need to look to cross-cultural mission for insights about the nature of Christian worship and community beyond the ‘mainstream’.
These concerns are in the arena of contextual theology, cultural ‘translation’, and ‘indigenous’ worship.
The challenge for worship is to invite people into a Story in which they might both lose themselves and find themselves. How might such a story be made known when our cultural assumptions no longer hold true?
Worship shapes life, so does life shape worship.
Learning to live out a story is like an actor performing a script.
Performance requires contextual improvisation.
Alternative worship operates more in the sphere of contextual improvisation.
Improvisation relies on adaptive rather than instrumental teaching and learning.
Alternative worship invites us to gather together around a great script.
Alternative worship leaders seek to provide the building blocks from which we might construct a counter-imagination.
A curator of worship sees herself or himself as a maker of a context for worship rather than a presenter of content.
Curated worship seeks a more sacramental aesthetic – immersive, liminal, participatory rather than discursive, static, presentational.
Curated worship is often: high-context: and :polychronic".
Curated worship seeks iconic use of imagery - images that re-present, evoke and invoke.
In the use of time, such worship is often more like Taize than 10.30 am Sunday morning, looping not linear, open-ended not limited.
In the use of space, such worship is often more like a museum than what we might expect of a ‘traditional’ church sanctuary – multi-directional, multi-sensory.
In its approach to preaching, it often allows and invites mutual conversation and inquiry – people gathering in a circle around the great script.
In its use of image, it seeks to re-present old and create new ‘icons’ in ways that invite participation, even re-mixing.
In its use of tradition, it seeks to translate and reappropriate the old within the current context.
In its approach to culture, it seeks discernment and transformation within the worship environment rather than simply beyond it.
I'm going to claim some of the credit for introducing magnetic poetry into alternative worship. You have it on your fridges, but it was a short step to using it by candlelight next to a looping video clip. I remember using it in a worship setting for the first time last August at a national gathering here in Adelaide. People were amazed. Such creativity!
But then, wait for it, we discovered that the 
Saturday night in the Mitchell house is Pizza and Movies night. First we hand made the bases, then the bread machine made them for us, then the bread machine broke for a while and we started buying bases, and REALLY looked hard for a decent pizza base.
Here's the first episode of the "what is alt worship" saga. it could take a while. it was a synod-sponsored launch of our church's new national worship resource book. about 60 people, a range of folk, but most over 50 and interested in 'book' related liturgy with substance and order. I have to say that the book (and CDROM) seemed much better than I thought it might be, and the gathering more open than I had hoped as well. (really, I thought it would be dreadful)
