So, I'm watching the Oscars on TV and it strikes me - movies and churches have a lot in common. Bare with me here. You ever notice how all these no-name tech people and foreign film directors get awards for the first 2/3 of the night and nobody really cares? In fact, if those people happen to thank too many people, the Oscar producers look for a chance to start the into-commercial music and shoo off the recipients.
For many people, church is the worship service - never mind the Bible studies, the pastoral care, the committee meetings, the Wednesday night programming and everything else going on at the church throughout the week. For "up-front" personnel at worship services (speakers, worship leaders, liturgists, worship bands, etc.), this means that what you do reflects on your entire staff and, for visitors, on your entire church.
My wife will often wonder why I feel so emotionally burned after a Sunday morning, but it follows a pretty easy logic trail: if there's a sound malfunction or a PowerPoint faux pas, it reflects on the worship leader (nobody thinks to blame the sound booth). If the speaker delivers a poor message, it reflects poorly on the church's council and on the church as a whole - as if this is the best speaker our church can produce. Similarly, one bad acting role can ruin an entire movie - ruin a perfect soundtrack or ruin great wardrobe/makeup.
Of course, all this is accentuated by a consumer-driven church culture, but despite all the church "purists" defamating consumer-driven church, the fact is that we live in a consumer-driven (or "seeker sensitive") church world. And, quite frankly, rather than just complaining, we as churches should try and make ourselves better because God asks for our firstfruits - firstfruits in daily life and firstfruits in ecclesiology. For churches, that means good speakers and good worship. Whether you preach from the lectionary or very practically - whether you have traditional worship or modern worship - do what you do and do it well. Why? Not for the consumer, but for God.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
On Location
Fair warning: I'm re-reading the book "The Shaping of Things to Come", one of my favorites, and many of the concepts of these posts will be mental nuggets, agreement or argument with that book, even though I may not directly reference it.
Today I got to thinking about what it means for the church to physically be where people are. There's a few different directions this concept can go. The first is perhaps the simplest. We've had a rash of churches moving out of our city limits for the grassy knolls of the countryside where new buildings can be built without regulation and where signs are not distractions to passing motorists. Another added benefit/problem of moving out of town is the ability to handselect attenders. Let's face it, most people new to a community or seeking a church family are not first going to check out a church in the countryside. Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it would seem to make the most logical sense (and, since I'm Reformed, I'm allowed to tie logic to faith). For many churches, this ability to handpick congregants could be a big plus. After all, those with vehicles and the will to drive to church are also those most likely to tithe. People who walk to church could have any variety of issues - homelessness, lack of transportation, low commitment, etc. So I guess the real issue is deciding who your target group is, determining what your vision is and adjusting your location likewise.
Many churches are guilty of the we-got-given-a-property-so-we're-building-there syndrome. Maybe its not a reality where you are (although I bet it is if you look for it), but in every community in which I've lived (South Dakota, Iowa, New York, Kentucky, Michigan), churches love to set themselves up just outside of town or on the outskirts of town. You really have to ask yourself why. Some churches move to these locations because they can. Given our economy and the regulatory practice of many municipal boards, that might be a reality. Some churches deem their current buildings unable to meet their current ministry needs, for whatever reason (age of building, size of building, etc.). This seems more legitimate, but leaving town should be a last resort, as far as I'm concerned. Some churches, particularly in the Midwest, sit where communities used to sit - that is, they are the only building left in "town", or the families who built the church simply thought the current location would be some sort of half-way point. This is a harder reality, but it seems to me that the latter discussion should still be pertinent. Some churches move there so as not to offend the elderly person donating the plot of land. This seems somewhat short-sighted. Some churches move simply because they don't think through the situation logically (and get caught up in the excitement of something new). That seems undiscerning at best - dumb at worst. The final option for a church moving out of town is that they particularly decide they would rather minister to those who have the means to come to where they are. That seems simply contrary to the Gospel.
What I'm not saying is that the location of the church determines its missional nature. I truly believe that a downtown or neighborhood location throws open the doors of possibility and stands as a continual reminder to the missional reality of what we must do, but many churches have put themselves on the outskirts of town ideologically. This point, to me, is far more important than where a building is located. There are really two perspectives on the church, borrowed from Frost & Hirsch:
For years, the church has asked people to come to it to get saved, come to it to grow in its faith, come to it to experience the full blessing of Christ. While Jesus did spend time in the synagogue, it was on hillsides, in homes and in Samaria where He taught His greatest lessons. For thousands of years, there have been great learned teachers in institutions or churches that have been willing to share their knowledge and understanding with anyone who would come to them. Consequently, hoardes of white collar, upper middle class students have gone through mega-church youth groups and attended Bible colleges. Jesus ministered to the prostitutes, tax collectors and the unclean. If He had set up shop in Nazareth and asked all these folks to come to Him, they would not have. Because He went to them and did "church" there, He gained the audience He desired.
Get your milkcrate - we're going street preaching!
Today I got to thinking about what it means for the church to physically be where people are. There's a few different directions this concept can go. The first is perhaps the simplest. We've had a rash of churches moving out of our city limits for the grassy knolls of the countryside where new buildings can be built without regulation and where signs are not distractions to passing motorists. Another added benefit/problem of moving out of town is the ability to handselect attenders. Let's face it, most people new to a community or seeking a church family are not first going to check out a church in the countryside. Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it would seem to make the most logical sense (and, since I'm Reformed, I'm allowed to tie logic to faith). For many churches, this ability to handpick congregants could be a big plus. After all, those with vehicles and the will to drive to church are also those most likely to tithe. People who walk to church could have any variety of issues - homelessness, lack of transportation, low commitment, etc. So I guess the real issue is deciding who your target group is, determining what your vision is and adjusting your location likewise.
Many churches are guilty of the we-got-given-a-property-so-we're-building-there syndrome. Maybe its not a reality where you are (although I bet it is if you look for it), but in every community in which I've lived (South Dakota, Iowa, New York, Kentucky, Michigan), churches love to set themselves up just outside of town or on the outskirts of town. You really have to ask yourself why. Some churches move to these locations because they can. Given our economy and the regulatory practice of many municipal boards, that might be a reality. Some churches deem their current buildings unable to meet their current ministry needs, for whatever reason (age of building, size of building, etc.). This seems more legitimate, but leaving town should be a last resort, as far as I'm concerned. Some churches, particularly in the Midwest, sit where communities used to sit - that is, they are the only building left in "town", or the families who built the church simply thought the current location would be some sort of half-way point. This is a harder reality, but it seems to me that the latter discussion should still be pertinent. Some churches move there so as not to offend the elderly person donating the plot of land. This seems somewhat short-sighted. Some churches move simply because they don't think through the situation logically (and get caught up in the excitement of something new). That seems undiscerning at best - dumb at worst. The final option for a church moving out of town is that they particularly decide they would rather minister to those who have the means to come to where they are. That seems simply contrary to the Gospel.
What I'm not saying is that the location of the church determines its missional nature. I truly believe that a downtown or neighborhood location throws open the doors of possibility and stands as a continual reminder to the missional reality of what we must do, but many churches have put themselves on the outskirts of town ideologically. This point, to me, is far more important than where a building is located. There are really two perspectives on the church, borrowed from Frost & Hirsch:
- CHURCH AS REFUGE FROM THE WORLD: The church building is seen as the gathering place of the saved at least once per week to escape the onslaught of modern society and the world around. There is a holiness to the building that is fundamentally different than the buildings of daily life.
- CHURCH AS LAUNCHPAD FOR MISSION: The church building is just another building in our community where we live our Christian lives. The difference of corporate worship or discipleship is that we gather at this central location to sharpen eachother's witness so that we may live our daily lives more consistently.
For years, the church has asked people to come to it to get saved, come to it to grow in its faith, come to it to experience the full blessing of Christ. While Jesus did spend time in the synagogue, it was on hillsides, in homes and in Samaria where He taught His greatest lessons. For thousands of years, there have been great learned teachers in institutions or churches that have been willing to share their knowledge and understanding with anyone who would come to them. Consequently, hoardes of white collar, upper middle class students have gone through mega-church youth groups and attended Bible colleges. Jesus ministered to the prostitutes, tax collectors and the unclean. If He had set up shop in Nazareth and asked all these folks to come to Him, they would not have. Because He went to them and did "church" there, He gained the audience He desired.
Get your milkcrate - we're going street preaching!
Monday, February 02, 2009
WAR and Sympsi....ummmm
This is me finding my way back onto the map once again after (yet another) hiatus. I get in these funks sometimes where blogging isn't a priority. Some of you know what I'm talking about - the rest of you probably stopped reading my blog months ago.
I wanted to reflect a little on the last two weekends for myself and others who attended both the Worship Arts Retreat in Greenville and the Calvin Worship Symposium at Calvin College. First, WAR. Our first attempt at a modern worship conference in mid-Michigan can't be viewed as anything but a success. When you take into account the fact that we spanned six denominations and had churches from up to three hours away for our first go-round, it makes me grin from ear to ear. However, I think it was the content that set this WAR apart. The temptation, of course, was to put on something that was low-quality the first time around so as to not set next year's expectations too high and give the people what they paid for (entry fee was $0). However, our speakers were fantastic, our sectional leaders were of great quality and the amount of pure information that was distributed over the course of 8 hours was absolutely phenomenal. For me, that's the trick - the information is all out there, but the true test is how quickly and how efficiently you can get that information into the hands of those who desire it most.
In contrast, this past weekend, I attended the Calvin Worship Symposium at Calvin College, mostly because it was free to me as a last-year seminarian. I'll move right past preferences here to feelings: Symposium disappointed me. It was not for a lack of information, nor for a lack of qualified individuals teaching, nor for a lack of resources. What disappointed me was Symposium's lack of validity for the future Church. As a guitarist, as a modern worship guy, as someone who had just put on a meager attempt at a conference the weekend before, I was saddened that the Symposium has not only trended towards traditionalism in worship (or what I like to call Reformed neo-traditionalism) - it has sold out wholesale to organists, choirs traditional worship.
I am not here to say that I think there's anything wrong with traditional worship. In many ways I prefer it and envy those who put together traditional services - there's less things that can go wrong, less musicians needed, less monitoring of cultural trends that must be done. But it is pure folly to think that Symposium is resourcing the Church of the future. Rather, it is accommodating the Church of the past and roughly a third of the Church of the present (at least in the US). What blew me away were the amount of Reformed people that told me outright that they would rather attend my fledgling Worship Arts Retreat at a wholly Wesleyan church than attend the Symposium at Calvin's campus. Its true for young pastors, as well. One of my old professors commented that he was shocked to see me at Symposium.....not because I work in a Wesleyan church, but because I was under the age of 40.
There is nothing wrong with leading a conference on traditional or neo-traditional worship. Go ahead. But isn't a travesty that the premier worship institute in the Reformed world can't offer a handful of sectionals and worship services to teach Reformed churches how to do modern worship well - especially when so many are foaming at the mouth for it? I have no solid research, but common sense would seem to support the following logic: CICW (Calvin Institute for Christian Worship), think about all the churches in the CRC (its home denomination) that are growing. Now, what percentage of churches are running a modern worship style and what percentage of those churches are running a traditional or neo-traditional (world music) style? I would dare bet the vast majority on the cutting edge of growth are also on the cutting edge of worship. If that's the case, why are we throwing 70% of our energy into supporting the dying ones to keep them doing what they're doing?
Its not as if the CICW doesn't have modern worship practitioners at its disposal. Greg Scheer, Paul Ryan, Ron Reinstra and other in-house options could at least run a second track - a modern track - for Symposium. It causes me to reflect on the Hymn Society of America: when you base an organization or a conference on a dying art, you will eventually end up dead. Yes, they may be the ones who support you financially now, but down what path are you leading them - innovation or perpetuation?
I'm not asking for a complete overhaul of the Worship Symposium, but for pete's sake - can't we acknowledge the large percentage of Reformed churches already doing modern worship and, even more so, those who deeply long to but are hopelessly lost?
I wanted to reflect a little on the last two weekends for myself and others who attended both the Worship Arts Retreat in Greenville and the Calvin Worship Symposium at Calvin College. First, WAR. Our first attempt at a modern worship conference in mid-Michigan can't be viewed as anything but a success. When you take into account the fact that we spanned six denominations and had churches from up to three hours away for our first go-round, it makes me grin from ear to ear. However, I think it was the content that set this WAR apart. The temptation, of course, was to put on something that was low-quality the first time around so as to not set next year's expectations too high and give the people what they paid for (entry fee was $0). However, our speakers were fantastic, our sectional leaders were of great quality and the amount of pure information that was distributed over the course of 8 hours was absolutely phenomenal. For me, that's the trick - the information is all out there, but the true test is how quickly and how efficiently you can get that information into the hands of those who desire it most.
In contrast, this past weekend, I attended the Calvin Worship Symposium at Calvin College, mostly because it was free to me as a last-year seminarian. I'll move right past preferences here to feelings: Symposium disappointed me. It was not for a lack of information, nor for a lack of qualified individuals teaching, nor for a lack of resources. What disappointed me was Symposium's lack of validity for the future Church. As a guitarist, as a modern worship guy, as someone who had just put on a meager attempt at a conference the weekend before, I was saddened that the Symposium has not only trended towards traditionalism in worship (or what I like to call Reformed neo-traditionalism) - it has sold out wholesale to organists, choirs traditional worship.
I am not here to say that I think there's anything wrong with traditional worship. In many ways I prefer it and envy those who put together traditional services - there's less things that can go wrong, less musicians needed, less monitoring of cultural trends that must be done. But it is pure folly to think that Symposium is resourcing the Church of the future. Rather, it is accommodating the Church of the past and roughly a third of the Church of the present (at least in the US). What blew me away were the amount of Reformed people that told me outright that they would rather attend my fledgling Worship Arts Retreat at a wholly Wesleyan church than attend the Symposium at Calvin's campus. Its true for young pastors, as well. One of my old professors commented that he was shocked to see me at Symposium.....not because I work in a Wesleyan church, but because I was under the age of 40.
There is nothing wrong with leading a conference on traditional or neo-traditional worship. Go ahead. But isn't a travesty that the premier worship institute in the Reformed world can't offer a handful of sectionals and worship services to teach Reformed churches how to do modern worship well - especially when so many are foaming at the mouth for it? I have no solid research, but common sense would seem to support the following logic: CICW (Calvin Institute for Christian Worship), think about all the churches in the CRC (its home denomination) that are growing. Now, what percentage of churches are running a modern worship style and what percentage of those churches are running a traditional or neo-traditional (world music) style? I would dare bet the vast majority on the cutting edge of growth are also on the cutting edge of worship. If that's the case, why are we throwing 70% of our energy into supporting the dying ones to keep them doing what they're doing?
Its not as if the CICW doesn't have modern worship practitioners at its disposal. Greg Scheer, Paul Ryan, Ron Reinstra and other in-house options could at least run a second track - a modern track - for Symposium. It causes me to reflect on the Hymn Society of America: when you base an organization or a conference on a dying art, you will eventually end up dead. Yes, they may be the ones who support you financially now, but down what path are you leading them - innovation or perpetuation?
I'm not asking for a complete overhaul of the Worship Symposium, but for pete's sake - can't we acknowledge the large percentage of Reformed churches already doing modern worship and, even more so, those who deeply long to but are hopelessly lost?
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