Smartphones, Smart Pastor, Smart Church
WorkingPreaching.org recently published a column of mine at their site. It’s a great place for sermon prep, lectionary commentary, and church and culture discussion. Do check it out. My specific post is here, and below.
Next time you see a group of young adults dining together at a restaurant, take a closer look at the table. Nine times out of ten, you'll be able to glimpse at least one cell phone resting on the tablecloth or, just as likely, in someone's hand. In many cases, multiple phones will dot the table as if they were part of the place settings. One might deduce that young people today have a medical condition causing indigestion unless they eat with their phones near at hand. Come to think of it, that's dangerously close to the truth.
The dining scene hints at the fact that many youth and young adults today have a relationship with technology and social media that is core to their formation. With this access to the Internet and, through it, the world, their worldview is significantly different than that of previous generations.
In his article Preaching 2.0, David Lose explores how new approaches to preaching might address our changing cultural norms. But why stop at preaching?
Here's a list of five common phenomena among young people, and how the church might incorporate them into its worship, preaching, and communal life:
1. When young people have a question they ask it -- as a Facebook status, on Twitter, on a message board, perhaps in a text message. But, corporate worship is a time in which it is very difficult to ask questions of the people sitting beside you, let alone the leaders up front. What if worship leaders, after each scripture reading, left a time of silence followed by an opportunity for worshippers to share their questions about the passage? What if preachers invited spoken questions (and even text-messaged ones) and incorporated the questions into their sermons?
2. Social media culture invites young people to respond in some way to pretty much everything. For instance, we can "like" Facebook statuses, respond to text messages with a simple "K," and have the ability to comment on blog posts and news articles until our hearts' content. We can re-tweet a joke, share a music video, and quote a funny happening on Facebook (all while sitting in class). But then in worship, most churches shut down the sharing. The prevailing norm is to keep cell phones out of sight. What if we opened our worship culture and invited worshippers to respond with social media as well as corporate liturgy? What if, throughout our worship space, we placed art supplies that worshippers could use to respond to the Spirit's movement?
3. Young people, through the Internet, are accustomed to easily accessing huge swaths of information. Friends of mine, mid-conversation, will pull out a phone to research a curiosity. In later encounters we'll often find that each of us read further using Wikipedia and Google. But, in most worship services, it would be unusual to do something as natural as pulling up an e-Book Bible, or Googling a commentary on the scripture lesson. What if bulletins included web links and codes scanable with a smartphone (QR codes) to access more information? What if congregations posted videos of sermons on YouTube with links to further resources?
4. Young people, like us all, yearn for community. In fact, a recent Pew Study found that people who use social networking sites actually have larger social networks and more close friends than those who don't. Many of us in the church assume that church attendance and worship is a social event -- and it is -- but then we require people to sit in long narrow pews ideal for looking at the backs of people's heads. Sitting like this does not make for easy community-building or social interaction. What if we replaced our church pews with movable chairs arranged in a way that encouraged a more communal culture of worship? What if churches became a hub for intergenerational social media education, online prayer practices, and community-building?
5. Finally, young adults have a different way of assigning authority. Whereas in another age, pastors could assume a certain respect by virtue of their connection with the church, nowadays authority is more situational. Through relationships, conversation, and careful listening pastors can share wise and helpful words but, then again, sometimes a quick Facebook post will do more than an entire sermon. What if congregations made efforts to make space in their church for dialogue among the wise voices of their community? What if pastors viewed social media as a medium for pastoral care and prophetic words?
The next time you view a cell phone in front of a young diner, hopefully you'll think about its implications for the church's ministry. There are many ways to answer the questions about young adult culture today, but one thing is certain: we must start asking the right questions. What would change if we did?
Don’t take “Christ” out of Christmas, but get the tree out of the church
It’s a wonderful tradition in my house: putting on Christmas music, lugging the tote full of Christmas decorations up from the basement, making hot chocolate, getting the blasted tree straight enough, and placing the ornaments procured over many years onto the bare tree. Afterwards, color fills the house and the fresh evergreen scent welcomes all. This year we decorated our wee house for Christmas just after Thanksgiving. It was great.
Churches often have their own Christmas (or, really, Advent) decorating traditions. I’ve happily participated in several, and I was sad not to this year. So, though I’ve been known to be a scrooge, know that I am not anti Christmas decorations. I am, however, firmly against Christmas trees in sanctuaries.
In many Christian churches, the symbols associated with worship are prominently displayed: communion table, baptismal font, pulpit/Bible, and often a cross. Each of these symbols has a deep meaning and clear connection to the faith.
Christmas trees, in the current-day United States at least, do not have a clear connection to the Christian faith. So why put them in the sanctuary with the other symbols?
Yes, I’ve heard many try to connect Christmas trees to Christian faith. Yes, there is plenty of history there — Norwegian, German, French, you name it — but it’s confused and from many divergent traditions. For me, the issue is less that there’s no historical precedence for cut evergreen trees sometimes having Christian significance, and more that any remnants of significance are lost today on the vast majority of the population.
Christmas trees adorn Times Square, my local bank office, mall atriums, and the White House. That’s fine and dandy. They are lovely to look at with their pretty colors and shiny lights. But those trees, certainly, are not Christian symbols. So why insist on stretching to make Christian symbols out of something that’s almost exclusively understood as secular?
Many years ago, Christians co-opted the Roman December 25th celebration of the sun god to be the time they would celebrate Christ’s birth (handy for the true Son of God, light of the world, and all that). So, indeed, Christians can be sneaky about the whole “whose symbol is whose?” thing. But I’m willing to give this one up without any fight, because I think we’ve already lost.
So, enjoy your tree at home. We love ours. But, if you have any say in the matter, why not consider refraining from putting one up at church, or at least keeping it well away from the symbols of worship. Consider it an early Christmas present yours truly.
image by Graham Soult
Review: Mark Pierson’s, “The Art of Curating Worship”
For various reasons, the worship experiences I’ve been leading for The Project F-M have looked very little like Sunday morning worship in most Lutheran or Presbyterian churches. At one event, we met in a park, responded to psalm 51, enjoyed prayer stations spread out over the area on several quilts, and grilled burgers. At another, we met in an old train depot, watched a video clip, and lit some candles.
As I’ve planned these events, I’ve organized a complicated assortment of worship practices that “feels right” to me. That’s not to say it’s about worship that makes me feel good—what some friends have called worship as “spiritual masturbation”—rather, I’m getting at the idea that there’s no straightforward guide to worship with a group of “spiritual, not religious” folks who are suspicious of the church. So, instinctually as a pastor and leader, I do what I expect might work. Now that I’ve read, The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader by Mark Pierson, I have some help.
Mark Pierson’s book describes his curating philosophy as a worship leader in the Baptist Church in New Zealand. Those aware of the experiential worship movement towards interactive prayer stations, Open Space, guerrilla worship, etc. will not be bowled-over with surprise. If anything, the book could be strengthened by shortening and adding some pictures (for real!). But overall, it’s a good, thoughtful foray into the new world of experimental worship practices.
Pierson lays it out clearly in the introduction:
I’m concerned that too few church leaders and so-called worship leaders have more than a single, narrow model for what they do in public, corporate worship. I’m concerned that they seem unaware they are boring their communities to death with shallow, bland worship. I’m concerned that many of these people have spend several years in theological institutions that haven’t prepared them for the realities of worship and spiritual formation with a congregation. I’m concerned that my young grandsons won’t be able to find communities that will nurture their faith without them having to undergo cultural circumcision. All this grieves me greatly.
I take it he’s one of those tell-it-like-you-see-it people! Basically, Pierson loves the church, but also really strives to bring fresh art and culture into worship. He thinks—and shares stories of when—this sustains people in their faith in ways traditional worship does not. The book is a very postmodern, let’s-give-it-a-try, questions-are-good, Jesus-messes-with-our-assumptions type of work. It should definitely be required seminary reading.
Much of the book consists of stories from Pierson’s personal experiences curating worship. While those are helpful, I would have appreciated a broader perspective. Also, the book has little scholarly work to show for it, leaving it open to an all too-common (and worthy) critique with emerging literature: it shows little appreciation for what has come before. That said, a short book can only do so much, and Pierson showed no flippancy towards liturgical studies, he just decides that’s not his turf.
Despite it’s flaws, I’m aware of no better book to really get folks asking questions about how to worship differently. For those in traditional worship settings, The Art of Curating Worship might be a help for folks seeking to claim what about their traditional worship practices they cherish.
A few weeks after finishing the book, I’m left with more questions than answers, which would be good news to Pierson. He writes, “Don’t be afraid to ask and not be able to answer, even during a worship event…Jesus was asked 180 questions in the gospels. He answered only three directly.” Have questions about how one curator of alternative worship practices his craft? This book’s for you.
Sing a new/old/tricky psalm to God
A Gathering Vocies post
This post comes to you live from Louisville, Kentucky where I’m attending a meeting of the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song (PCOCS). For several years now, PCOCS has met to select the contents, format, etc. of the next collection of Presbyterian songs and hymns – the next hymnal.
We’ve focused this particulary three-day meeting on the psalms, and I have a few reflections. First, a bit of history. The previous Presbyterian hymnal published in 1990 had many psalms set to music and contained in a particular section of the hymnal ordered by psalm number (rather than topical, ordered by use in worship, or some other arrangement). For a number of reasons the psalms, generally speaking, were the least sung and least popular section of the previous hymnal. This for a denomination whose roots are in psalm singing.
There are plenty of other reasons the psalms in the 1990 hymnal were less than popular – and we could certainly discuss whether popularity is the point – but I want to reflect briefly on a few other issues related to singing the psalms.
Singing a psalm from the Bible that has been set to music is singing someone else’s song as your own. This happens when singing any piece of music written by someone else, I suppose, but I feel it more strongly when I sing a psalm. Singing what God’s people have sung for thousands of years connects me to those people in a way singing a newly composed text doesn’t quite reach. And it also brings up some tricky problems when the messages of the psalms don’t fit into our neat theological categories today.
For instance, one psalm paraphrase we looked at had the phrase, “May God confirm your heart’s desire / and bring to fullness all your plans.” I found this psalm’s message curious because of how often we speak in Christian parlance today about following “God’s plan” but the psalm sings about God confirming our plans.
(By the way, since PCOCS works with texts with author’s names intentionally omitted I cannot cite them here which is fine because our work isn’t finished yet. So even if you somehow know the psalm I reference here, nobody knows whether it’ll be in the next collection. So please don’t freak out on me.)
Other psalms come up against other narratives of the Bible so that we can use the Bible as speaking different and sometimes conflicting messages at different times. This is obvious for any Bible reader, but seemed particularly tricky when working with psalms.
For instance, one psalm sets up how creation praises and responds to God then says, “None questions what you do.” But many of us do question God – which seems reasonable, right? And some of the psalms – a lot of the psalms – do the same thing!
Finally, some psalms get at the old challenge of works righteousness theology: “Those who trust the Lord are filled; all the good wrought by their labor / Is their gain, so God has willed.” Maybe this one gets at the challenge of simply explaining any theological concept in rhyming verse, but it struck me as particularly curious.
Though I’ve many more thoughts, I must cut this sort and run back to the meeting now. Unless I hurry, I’ll have to sing a song: “Please accept my apology / blogging stole such time from me.” Peace.
HolyCity Debuts in F-M. What Just Happened?
Cross-posted from The Project F-M
this is a post describing our first worship experience called HolyCity.
Last Sunday The Project F-M curated our first HolyCity event. Beforehand we were pretty sly about what exactly the event would look like. Partly, this was because we hadn’t planned it yet and didn’t really know what would happen, but mainly it’s just because HolyCity is so difficult to describe.
If we called it, “worship” people would get a certain idea that wouldn’t be right. If we called it, “scriptural meditations in a park” people wouldn’t know either (and they might freak out). So, we called it “HolyCity” and used some fun descriptors, hoping people’s curiosity and open-mindedness would bring them out.
Now that we’ve debuted and plan to hold other HolyCity events in the future, I’ll describe what happened last Sunday.
Gathering
We met in a park in Moorhead with picnic tables and green areas for different prayer stations. It was a beautiful day and folks mingled for a time and got to know one another better. We then gathered in a circle and responded to a question about a time when folks felt God’s presence or absence.
Word
I introduced Psalm 85:8-13 (which was the “Lectionary Psalm” for the day, meaning thousands of Christians around the world read that psalm that day in worship). We talked a bit about the context of the writing of the text, and we read the passage out loud. Everyone had a printout of the passage, and we shared out-loud phrases that intrigued us. Then we introduced the prayer stations and folks had 25 minutes or so to experience the stations, each of which had instructions.
Psalm 85:8-13
8 Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts. 9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. 10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. 11 Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. 12 The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. 13 Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.
Prayer stations included:
- Listening to the NPR hourly news summary on iPod or iPad, stopping the newscast at points, and praying “Lord draw near…”
- Drumming Psalm 85
- Writing local elected officials considering the psalm’s phrase, “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet, righteousness and peace will kiss each other”
- Creative artistic response with drawing materials
- Examen Prayer (ancient/modern way of meditative prayer)
- Goggling Psalm 85 on a MacBook
- Writing or drawing comments on a poster board on which the whole psalm was written
After time at the stations, we all came together and shared our experiences, read the psalm together again, and then transitioned into communion.
Thanksgiving
I had never led communion before in a public park (nor while thinking in the back of my head, “I hope this goes quickly so the bratwursts on the grill don’t burn!). We remembered Jesus’ first celebration in the upper room in Jerusalem, prayed for the Spirit’s action and the world, and received the holy meal. It was informal, camp-like, and for me at least, powerful. At the end I said, “One meal has ended, and another begins.” We then enjoyed a cookout and potluck.
So that’s a quick description of the first ever Fargo-Moorhead HolyCity — God’s people gathering together, thinking praying laughing eating and creating together, and being sent to look for God’s work in our lives and in our city. It was a modest affair, but a holy one too.
Expanding my worship culture
Strangely, in my current stage as mission developer of The Project F-M I don’t have regular Sunday morning commitments. So, in recent weeks I’ve taken Sunday mornings to visit several new church plants in the Fargo-Moorhead area. I’ll be perfectly honest: as vibrant as some of them are, I need a break from visiting such congregations. Fargo-Moorhead has several self-sustaining new churches with very young populations, but they are not my cup of tea. I say this in the spirit of open reflection, not wishing to denigrate at all. It’s just true: my personal worship culture is very different from that of the congregations I’ve visited recently.
I use that phrase, “worship culture” very intentionally. The 
way I think about it, each of us has a sort of way in which we find worship most, well, worshipful. For some folks worshipful worship takes high liturgy, for others it’s raising one’s hands in praise, others prefer silent meditation. Personal worship cultures can change over time of course, or adapt to different settings. But the point is that not all people find the same sort of worship service worshipful — duh, but it’s worth pointing out. And that’s great. That’s the beauty of the body of Christ.
With that careful prelude, let me now reflect on the three services I recently attended. Each of these was at a congregation in Fargo-Moorhead launched within the last 10 years. The average age of all three congregations was well under 40, and two were probably under 30. All took a much more conservative approach to Christianity compared to my personal views and that of the denominations with which I’m affiliated. This conservative approach was most clearly reflected in their very different way of approaching scripture. (In fact, at every service the pastor in some way or another distinguished their congregation from “non Bible believing” churches — as I took it, that seemed to include the ELCA and PC(USA).)
Now to specifics which I’ll bullet. They include both “wow, that’s spiffy” reflections and “boy, that’s as shame” points too.
- at each congregation someone made a point of shaking my hand and introducing themselves before I sat down. Love it!
- all three had coffee available beforehand that you then took into worship with you. (But, answer me this: why does everyone in the Midwest insist on making such crappy weak coffee?)
- none of the services were limited by time: no rushed sermons, no songs cut, worship lasted at least one hour and fifteen to an hour and a half, and that was cool
- there was an enormous emphasis one one’s personal relationship with Jesus, whether we were saved ourselves, and the import of bringing others to Christ’s salvation
- the songs (all led by praise bands) were 90% about adoration, praise, and devotion (most contemporary Christian genre but a few old hymns thrown in too)
- the sermons were 30-45 mins long, thematic, and mentioned many New Testament passages but only one Old Testament reference (Psalms)
- obvious, but should be noted: scripture lessons were not based on the Revised Common Lectionary (in fact, there were no scripture readings per se, just sermons), none of what ones thinks of as liturgy, no creeds, no confession/forgiveness sequence
- Communion was held at one service in a laid-back understated way
- No candles in sight. Lots of talk of Satan.
- people were dressed in casual clothes, worship leaders included
- all the worship locations were rented spaces in public buildings; each had a screen up front and rows of movable chairs
Suffice it to say: some aspects of these worship cultures were lovely, some were unfamiliar to me but positive, and some aspects were just painful (mostly theological statements that I consider blatantly wrong). But, I am very glad to have worshiped in these communities, in these new ways, and gotten a glimpse of some of the worship cultures in Fargo-Moorhead. Next week, who knows where I’ll go…there’s always worship at St. Mattress with the gospel of Sunday Times.
image by Carter Perrier
Book Review: ‘The Hospitality of God: Emergent Worship for a Missional Church’
Article first published as Book Review: The Hospitality of God by Mary Gray-Reeves and Michael Perham on Blogcritics.
In my new work as mission developer for The Project F-M, a new faith community in Fargo-Moorhead, I think a lot about what a new worship gathering might look like. I also try to attend a wide variety of worship services in the community so I get a feel of what the worship scene is in these parts. If I’m honest, most of those visits leave me pretty wanting. But reading the book, The Hospitality of God: Emergent Worship for a Missional Church, got me really excited about alternative, creative, and faithful forms of missional and emerging worship.
The authors, Mary Gray-Reeves (serving in California) and Michael Perham (serving in England) are both Bishops in the Anglican tradition. The book is their take — simple reporting and thoughtful analysis — on 14 Anglican-related emerging worship communities in the US and England. The result is a readable comprehensive study that’s chockfull of smart reflections that critique carefully and judge with humility.
Organized according to topic rather than worship community, in each section the authors give a generous snapshot of a worship community or two, and then reflect how this community connects with traditional Anglican principles.
For example, “Authority is a Conversation” explores how the traditional notion of pastoral authority and institutional church authority is often supplanted in emergent/missional communities. Instead of giving authority because a priest wears a collar, emergent communities function with what the authors call, “indigenous authenticity.” The congregations they visited were connected to their ministry context, invested in their communities, and cared for their partners but from their own very intentional terms rather than those dictated from a church hierarchy. Along those lines, sermons in emergent churches the authors experiences “were preached by laity, sermons responded to in conversation during a feedback time, or individuals creating their own reflections by participating in Open Space.”
Though the variety of the faith communities the authors visits is vast — from house churches, to once-a-month worship experiences connected to traditional congregations, to a very traditional Compline service which attracts 500 folks in their 20s and 30s — the one thing the churches seem to have in common, the authors write, is an open communion table with much emphasis on all being welcome regardless of age, baptismal status, or belief.
I also appreciated their description of Open Space worship (which my buddy Adam Walker Cleaveland curates) from a few different settings. The authors conclude the chapter with their assertion: “What is evident here, despite a huge variety of approach, is a deep and reverent commitment to the Bible, serious study of it, and frequent use of it, most of the time in step with the rest of the church.”
As I visit congregations in Fargo-Moorhead, I find myself pretty-much being able to guess what their worship services will be like from their website whether they’re a traditional ELCA congregation or a Baptist new church start. It could be argued this is a good thing for sure. But, in many ways, that seems problematic to me.
For folks who want to go to church there are options — an attractional service with big band and long sermon in an auditorium, a high church liturgical service in an old building with pews, to name two. But what of the woman who says to a bishop, as quoted in the book, “I don’t go in for that church shit, but I need something more, and this [worship experience] is my something more?”
In the closing chapters, the authors make this clarifying — and telling — distinction. “Emergent churches,” they write, “do not hold as their first matter of importance the survival of the church…This distinguishes them from many institutional churches who are primarily concerned with their own survival, and only secondarily with the spirituality hungry, or those otherwise in need.” The authors mean it not as a crack on the institutional church, but merely an observation. For this reader, however, it was both telling and true.
More and more books are being published which look at emergent congregations, but this analysis of Anglican-related emergent and/or missional faith communities is the best I’ve read yet. It has it’s flaws for sure — the authors’ voice is sometimes confused by different use of American or British English, I couldn’t stand the lack of pictures and videos, and the included liturgy just left me questioning more — but I wholeheartedly recommend this little gem.
If you’re a member of a traditional congregation, read this with your Worship Committee. If you’re not, read this book for a glimpse into what creative new faith communities can be, or at least, what the emerging faith communities the authors studied are exploring right now.
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