TheBolgBlog

The Irrelevance of Relevance

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been part of a six member team (and now seven) re-thinking worship at an elderly congregation. One of our insights came to us as we shared about our hopes for worship. "How do we connect our music to the young people?" was one of the questions asked. We had maybe ten junior high and high school youth, and they pretty much checked out during the whole service. They came because their parents were there. It tended to be one of those things they needed to endure. Our worship group naturally wanted to see them involved.

But asking what kind of music should we play asks the wrong question. It has no possible answer... because our churches consist of many age groups and many cultures (not to mention church cultures), and trying to be relevant to each is impossible. It would leave everyone frustrated, as many blended worship gatherings do. The same goes for preaching the relevant sermon, playing the right video clip, or dressing up the announcements. Trying to reach the the audience with the right cultural element when our congregations today share so little of the same culture is an exercise in futility.

Instead of trying to create worship a service for them, in what we perceive to be their culture, the right question to ask is how do we create a space for them to express their own worship to God. We don't need to figure out how to do it to them, if they are doing it for themselves! We create a venue for participation rather than produce a show for them. They are the new creators, the ones we want to see engage at deeper levels. We do it together.

The relevancy issue takes care of itself if people create worship for themselves. In planning for worship, we don't need to strategize every aspect of the service, spend money on demographics, take polls on felt needs, blah, blah, blah. What our congregations really need are deep encounters with God in worship. They experience God when they become active co-producers of worship. Our role as worship facilitators is to create that space for them and with them.

Result? At this particular congregation, the youth now look forward to 'family sunday' - it energizes them, stirs them up, and connects their faith to their everyday reality. It is the one service a month they do not want to miss and they do not soon forget. Not just with the youth, but with the whole church, we became relevant when we gave up on relevance.

Transforming Worship in a Traditional Church

I always get questions from students -- how do you transform worship in a church that has a very fixed format or doesn't really want to change? My answer is - transform whatever and wherever you can -- push at the edges, and avoid messing with the sacred cows. Where is there permission to start something truly alternative -- in the youth group, the Sunday night service, or in a small group? You never know, If you create something really meaningful, it may, like a virus, spread throughout the system...and if it doesn't, at least you created something compelling for the participants of that group.

For the last seven months, I've been part of a five-member team rethinking worship in a elderly 100-year old Presbyterian congregation with 75-100 attendees every week. About half the congregation is over 70, and the other half are scattered amongst the younger generations. Our elderly component are Japanese who lived through the internment, the rest of the congregation is mixed, consisting of Asians, Whites, and African-Americans.

Where did we start? First, we got a team in place. On the team were three people who knew the culture of the church at a deep level -- one staff member, and two elders. Another member is a former worship pastor of another church, and I was the fifth. A sixth, a new Fuller student, just recently joined us. For us, it was essential to have church insiders, who desired change, as part of the group. Their insights helped us see where we could push and where we needed to pull back. It was a real dance back and forth. "Yes, we can do that, no, that is too much."

Turning the regular Sunday service upside down was never a real option. But -- what we did have on the calendar was a vaguely understood, ill-defined Sunday each month, 'Family Sunday'. It was a time where the whole church was to worship together (no Sunday school). It was also understood that somehow the youth would be more involved on that Sunday. However, it really was not utilized at all. Maybe a little less formal, but that was it. Family Sunday would be our means for transforming worship.

Beginning with the five of us, we started to meet two hours each week to talk about worship. What were our dreams? What did we like about worship, and what didn't we like? We were in no hurry to begin an alternative service, so we met weekly until we could share a similar vision of where we wanted to go. We were not on the same page, but we wanted to learn from one another. Different desires were expressed – more kid-friendly worship materials, more connecting with the youth – more involvement with the old people.. Some were happy with a fixed liturgy and another wanted to abandon it. But we were flexible to hear from the others and we were all transformed in the process.

This process of talking, thinking, and imagining took us about six weeks -- before we could even begin creating the first service. We became one in the process -- and in all our brainstorming we received one direction from these early meetings -- one driving question that would influence every aspect of our worship planning from there on out. Our question: how might we create spaces for deep levels of participation within every aspect of the worship service?

That question created quite an adventure for us and for the church. I'll talk about what that looked like in a subsequent post...

On Robert Webber 1933-2007

Three panel experts, each representing a particular Christian tradition (evangelical, mainline, and liberal), sat on barstools facing the 1000 plus crowd. The interviewer -- Brian McLaren, was poised to ask the evangelical representative the next question.   "What does your tradition do so well that you could lead the rest of us in?"  I winced, as I had been part of some intra-faith dialogues where evangelicals did not fare so well. I prepared for the worst.

"PASSION is what other Christian traditions can learn from us." He went on, but I don't remember the rest -- I didn't need to hear it. I felt great relief -- he nailed it. I needn't have worried. For the evangelical answering the question was none other than Robert Webber.

It made me recall a conversation that I had previous to that Emergent Convention, with a social activist/professor working in downtown LA. Knowing his liberal theological leanings, I asked him how he felt about the evangelical students from Fuller that would come down to work with him. 'I love the evangelicals," he said, "they have passion -- they really think they can change the world." Yes, I think Bob Webber was on to something...

His work on Ancient/Future Worship opened up a new world for the many who wearied of singing endless praise choruses. His encyclopedic knowledge of worship served the church at a time when many began to mine the depths of the past. His work with the Institute of Worship Studies will insure that his contributions will continue to form the worshippers of tomorrow.

I only met Robert Webber once -- we served on a panel on the Emerging Church at Talbot two years ago. During the past year, I also worked with him as one of the writers aka the "Board of Reference" of "A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future". Webber impressed me with his commitment to worship, to theology, to evangelicalism and ecumenism.

Robert Webber served as an ambassador for the Christian faith -- an evangelical truly worthy of the name...

Please, no more doing church for 'them'

I just received a question from an associate that asked how to start a service to attract people from outside the church. I encouraged her to give up on this idea.

But what is wrong with starting a relevant church for seekers?

Relevant churches are rarely even closely relevant. Most Christians don't even like them. They might be better than Mom and Dad's morning service, but they usually are quite irrelevant to the outsider. The church person cannot 'guess' what the seeker wants, undoubtedly getting it wrong. What Christians need to do is create meaningful worship through bringing their very own lives to God. Worship must reflect the culture of the community that is currently part of the church, not replicate current worship CDs, nor 1980s soft rock, nor 18th century hymns. Instead of mimicking other church cultures, the community collectively brings their own idiosyncratic ways of life to God, whatever they may be. Indeed, the church may have the stray outsider finding themselves in the worship service and joining the community. But if the focus is on them, simply to be relevant, their worship will satisfy neither the church members nor the outsider.

Other reasons?
A focus on the church service as connecting point perpetuates the idea that following Jesus is about going to church. The community's life takes the form of American congregational religion rather than the fluid practices of the gospel, and this emphasis presents quite a barrier to the 'seeker' outside, as they need to be converted to the values of American religious congregationalism before they can come to faith. Thus, virtually all of those who are attracted to the relevant service were raised in church or are currently going to another church -- they are not the never-churched. In contrast, a missional congregation connects with those outside the faith by, well, connecting with those outside of the community in their world. Connecting happens not in a 'come to us' CHURCH service, but through 'go and dwell' church SERVICE, i.e. service in the community -- living alternative lives.

A focus on the service as connecting point perpetuates the sacred/secular split of modernity. When the bulk of the community's energy goes to maintaining a church service, it implies that the church service is more holy, more important, more worthy of our time than the everyday practice of our spirituality.

A focus on the service as connecting point perpetuates the clergy/laity split -- there are those who 'do' ministry for everyone else. Instead, the role of the leaders is to facilitate the worship expression of the community as a whole.

A focus on the service as connecting point perpetuates the producer/consumer form of spirituality -- those on paid or volunteer staff produce spiritual products for passive spectators to consume. Instead, the church must create a context for the community production of worship -- we consume as we produce...


What are the alternatives to connecting through the church service?

To clarify, those who desire to connect with the outsider are in synch with the God of the Universe. Truly, mission lies at the very heart of God. However, those of us raised in the evangelical tradition have been socialized into thinking that this connection needs to happen through a church service.

Instead we need to take another look at worship and mission and entertain allow for other possibilities, such as:

The worship service is no longer an evangelistic service for outsiders but a space to practice heaven for a period of time, facilitating the offering of the community life to God in worship. If a guest of the community finds God in the service, all the better, but this is not the focus.

Mission happens in the 'world' in the world formerly known as secular, on their 'turf' -- not ours. As servants, the Christian connects with the seeker through service in their world.

Technorati Tags: mission, worship

Ancient/Future

Chris, in responding to my post on Emerging Church and Cultures, asked if ancient/future leanings are aspects of local theologies. That brings up another topic and I thought I would start a different thread.

Chris,
Yes, I see the ancient/future disposition as an element of developing a local theology. Within postmodern culture there is an eclecticism, one that seeks to borrow from the marginal voices outside the mainstream. Correspondingly, emerging churches borrow from many traditions and feel limited by just one. Traditions that seem to be the most retrieved are those that exist (ed) outside of the modern world, either in 1) ancient times or 2) modern times outside the West, or within 3) Western culture as minority faith traditions.

Besides a healthy eclecticism, there is nothing magic about the ancient per se. The key missiological benefit of these retrievals, in my opinion, is the positive example of communities whose lives embodied a faith that overcame the sacred/secular split -- where their spirituality encompassed all of life. These communities are exemplary role models for those looking to construct a 24-7 faith, one of our most pressing tasks today...

Technorati Tags: ancient/future_worship, Emerging_Church, Local_Theology, sacred/secular

Biola Pix

  Here are some pix from Biola -- on May 13th -- Thanks to Mark E. Henze for these...

 

Emerging Church Conference Biola -- May 13

A friend and former student (Troy Johnson) asked me how Biola went and asked for my opinions on it -- A few thoughts -- Biola, the professors, administration, and students went over the top in welcoming us -- no small feat -- they exemplified the kingdom in that regard and my respect for them increased  a couple of big notches.

I felt like it was a friendly first gathering. As some of the bloggers have mentioned, many of us talked past each other, as the topics were quite broad. I don't think this is entirely bad -- I think we need to walk before we run. If another conference is to happen, specific questions can be posed to which we respond. The final roundtable at the end of the day had this characteristic, and it might have been the most productive encounter of the day. Overall, I think what happened in the various dyads and discussions is the realization that the Emerging Church and Biola share a common passion.

That is not to say there weren't differences. I felt like the early presentations focused on the church service -- changing worship forms, adding this approach or that. To me, that is not the primary difference of Emerging Churches -- it is the primary caricature however. In our book, we see technique changes to church (adding visuals, candles, narratives, raw preaching, round tables) in the category of young adult services, GenX/Y services, churches-within-a-church, but not Emerging Churches.

Emerging Churches do not focus on creating a relevant worship service. The energy and creative passion is directed towards the culture, to those outside. As Mal Calladine told me, "we want a sustainable church service, where 85% of our energy is directed outside the church rather than inside". So, from my vantage point, if the energy is on the show, it is a young adult service; if it is on embodying the way of Jesus within the culture, it is emerging. I see emerging churches as a subset of the missional church (church is not a place or time, or a vendor of religious goods and services, but a 'sent' people).

So, at Biola, I tried to direct the conversation to mission. I see Emerging Churches as a missional movement within Western culture, not 'tweaks' on a church service. Tweaks on the service is Christendom, 'come-to-us' rather than missional, 'live-with-them'. 

I better stop, this is already becoming a long post...

Lectured Three Times Yesterday

It was really fun but more tiring than I thought -- twice I lectured introducing the emerging church to people -- I have a 15 min. version, an hour version, and a two, three, and four versions.

Another time I actually taught on worship. I usually de-emphasize the worship aspect, because the biggest misunderstanding outside the movement is that it is all about a service. For example, at Biola, I felt like much of the conversation was about the service, tweaking it, making it more creative, narrative, multi-media, etc. So, I looked to bring out what I think are the primary elements in Emerging Churches, a life modeled on Jesus, the transformation of secular space, and community before 'church'...

But, once a community has things in proper perspective -- they are a true community pursuing Jesus in embodied forms within our various subcultures, then a discussion of worship can be appropriate. Usually I spend so much time taking about the missional aspect, I never get to the worship...

So, the unusual thing about yesterday is Roberta King, our resident ethnomusicologist, asked me to teach on worship specifically...

I discussed participation and creativity in worship --

Participation as Producers - that emerging church is not about style but about putting the tools in the worshippers hands - and giving the spectator virtually nothing to consume. My English Alt worship friends, such as Jonny Baker, Steve Collins, Kester and others at Vaux are my teachers here. Karen Ward has adopted their perspective on this side of the pond. I will go into more detail on the corporate production of worship in the days ahead -- but believe me it is an entirely different animal -- and deeply missiological...