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?
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.
A tale of two worshippy experiences
I was lucky enough to visit not one but two new faith communities in the Twin Cities this weekend, Jacob’s Well and Humblewalk Lutheran Church. Both communities worship in new ways, attempting to be welcoming places for people not drawn to traditional ELCA congregations. Both communities are also very different.
Jacob’s Well meets Sunday mornings in two locations, both schools. I arrived a few minutes before the 10:30 service start and was greeted by many flags and signs in the parking lot. Inside the school people gathered in the hallway drinking coffee and chatted. Parents took their kids to classrooms staffed by happy-looking adults (there were lots of kids around) and a table with fruit sat to one side.
The worship space was a school auditorium decorated very nicely for worship. Several candles were lit, water was flowing in a makeshift font, two large screens sat above each corner of the stage and the four-person band was up front. The service included several praise songs, a few videos (mostly made in-house), and a few prayers but the main part — about 45 minutes — was a discussion between a pastor and a guest about the question, “What if…love really did win?” Congregation members could text questions to a number on a screen if they wanted to ask something of the speakers, and it was all done in a loose, natural, conversational style. Both speakers were women.
At the end, an offering was taken. I’m guessing a little over 100 people were in attendance. There was no communion.
Later in the day I attended Humblewalk Lutheran Church in a smal high-ceilinged converted office space in St. Paul. This service was very low-tech compared to Jacob’s Well. Since the group was a different size than Jacob’s Well — 20 or so — I was greeted personally several times throughout the evening. After a little mingling, we sat in chairs facing a decorated table. Songs were led by a single acoustic guitar and folk singer type, and ranged from more traditional hymns to contemporary praise and worship. The congregation sang very well. Several kids walked around during the service, and parents corralled them or let them wander as they felt called.
I don’t remember Jacob’s Well having any liturgy — any words I was to speak — but the flow of Humblewalk’s service is found in the newest worship book and congregation members were supposed to respond at several point. In fact, before the prayer of confession we were asked to consider and even share out loud anything particular we wished to confess.
Everything at Humblewalk was very laid-back and informal. At one point Pastor Jodi flubbed a bit of the liturgy. The congregation just smiled and she tried again. We celebrated communion — I was served by a ten year-old.
A notable different in the services (from this mission developer’s point of view, at least) is that Jacob’s Well included no scripture reading. While a portion from 1 John was on a handout on our chairs, it was never read or referenced from the stage. Humblewalk, however, included two readings from John 20 and a responsive reading of Psalm 16. I suppose other differences include the fact that Pastor Jodi at Humblewalk wore a clergy collar (though informally) while Pastor Dawn at Jacob’s Well wore a T-shirt and jeans jacket.
I’ve found this great post by Andrew Jones helpful in the past few weeks in framing the many different types of churches. In Jones’ rubric, Jacob’s Well, though connected to a mother ELCA congregation, felt most like #2 GenX, Postmodern, and “Emergent” while Humblewalk was clearly more of a #4 House churches, simple churches, organic churches (with a clear liturgy).
In broad terms, I expect Humblewalk would be less attractive for someone who is totally new to faith and formal worship, as it assumed a certain comfortability with liturgy (even though it was done in a very relaxed way, almost like church camp). On the other hand, Jacob’s Well didn’t really expect me to do a thing — nobody shook my hand or welcomed me by name so I could consider faith questions below-the-radar. Also, Jacob’s Well lack of scripture readings presumably wouldn’t scare off those who are questioning or intimidated by the Bible.
But I’m a pastor, a professional church leader, so my views surely are shaped with a bias. Have you attended a new worship community recently? Do you long for a different kind of faith gathering? Which of Andrew Jones’ ten church types appeals most to you?
update: I should have said this in the original post — Thanks, very much, to all the leadership of Humblewalk and Jacob’s Well. I blog on them mostly as a way to think out-loud, and I’m really grateful for your ministry and wish you the best.
image by TACLUDA
Muddling through: how to lead a new faith community
Leading a church that isn’t a “church,” doesn’t meet regularly, and has a loose version of itself is all rather tricky. It’s also a lot of fun. I’m four weeks into my position at Mission Developer with The Project F-M, and I’m discovering new joys and challenges each day. I won’t overshare or bore you with mundane details (like the three hours it took me to put together that damn office chair), but I am developing a series of working theories about the Project and young adult ministry in Fargo-Moorhead.
All these hypotheses are very preliminary, but the little time I’ve had to tackle the Project’s next steps so far has led me to think on these things. So, in the spirit of openness, I invite you to think on these things as well. And, of course, please let’s think together in the comments.
Hypothesis One: Some new faith communities have natural starts; others have more chaotic births.
As I’ve spoken with other people who have started new missional/emergent/whatever communities, many stories are of communities that have developed quite naturally. “I almost came onto such-and-such a community by accident. Friends kept telling me to lead an informal prayer service, so when I had the time, I did, and it just took off from there.”
Or, mission developers were called with very specific tasks in mind: start a bible study, transition into a church, buy a building, go from there. Neither of these starts are simple or without many challenges along the way, but there’s a natural flow, a building of interest and energy and a clear movement from A to B.
On the other hand, other starts are more chaotic. Values and vision and energy don’t mesh as easily, and larger challenges keep cropping up. Talking through these challenges can be really helpful for all, but if they’re not addressed head-on they fester and positive growth is difficult.
Hypothesis two: paraphrasing from a conversation partner, “Most 20/30 somethings I know (myself included) would never want to ‘go to church,’ but they all are happy, even eager, to discuss faith and spirituality.”
Another side of this statement has to do with our traditional notion of what church is, and the young adult stereotype that church is boring, out-of-touch, and irrelevant. Without arguing that point one way or another, I’m totally willing to grant that the impulse to talk about faith, and to be in an accepting community of faith-seekers, is stronger (and more powerful) than an invitation to “go to church.”
Hypothesis three: smaller might be better.
Words like “community,” “friendship,” and “relationships” keep coming up in my discussions. Fargo-Moorhead boasts some very large Lutheran congregations — some totally great ones. Their size is usually a huge asset, but I find myself considering the benefits of small groups and small gatherings for now. As much as I can, I’m trying not to jump to a working image of gatherings that measure success by their size.
Hypothesis four: The elephant in the Project F-M room is how to speak of Jesus Christ without being off-putting, how to claim a distinct Christian identity without coming across as too in-your-face or close-minded.
I’ve read many places that Gen X and Y is said to belong to a community first before they believe (whereas, in the past, people first believed a certain theological framework and then sought to belong to a church that espoused a similar belief). The question becomes, though, how to move from belonging to believing with a group of people who are of a questioning/seeking faith to being with.
image here
Book Review: "The New Christians" by Tony Jones
I won a free copy of Tony Jones’ fancy new book, “The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier” a few weeks ago from Adam, and since Jones’ publicist sent the free copy all the way to Scotland, I figured it deserves a nice long post. (Actually, I won it in a contest at pomomusings, so many thanks to Adam and his blog that gets so many more hits than mine.)
I’ll begin with what has been noted by most reviewers: if you want to read one book on the emergent church, The New Christians is by far the best value for your time and money. No doubt about it: TNC is worth reading.
I most appreciated the description in the early chapters explaining how the emergent church movement developed. Quick summary: some top-notch post-modern evangelical types became uncomfortable with the direction the evangelical leadership was heading and happened upon a church movement that dovetailed with the post-modernism they lived and breathed, and the connectivity and community provided by the internet (you could also say the Holy Spirit helped out, but Jones does take a more academic approach).
Though I’ve been quite aware of emergent the past few years, I didn’t know the full story behind the beginning and was fascinated–probably my favorite part of the book. I knew emergent had evangelical roots, but I didn’t know that some of their first brainstorming sessions were funded by evangelical groups, who, later by the way, pulled the money quick.
Jones’ goes on to describe the ethos, theology, and practicality of the movement in the remaining chapters. He keeps things very approachable for non-churchy folk, or for church folk who are not familiar with discussions of post-modernity. Interlacing the entire work with stories of people touched by emergent, and with “dispatches from the trenches” meant to describe particular characteristics of the emergent church, Jones covers a lot of ground in his 220 pages. You can tell he’s a pastor, in that he’s a good communicator and addresses his intended audience well.
Before I get to my critique, here’s some of the dispatches:
Dispatch 1: Emergents find little importance in the differences between various flavors of Christianity. Instead, they practice a generous orthodoxy that appreciates the contributions of all Christian movements.
Dispatch 6: Emergents see God’s activity in all aspects of culture and reject the sacred-secular divide.
Dispatch 8: Emergents find the biblical call to community more compelling than the democratic call to individual rights. The challenge lies in being faithful to both ideals.
Dispatch 11: Emergents believe that awareness of our relative position–to God, to one another, and to history–breeds biblical humility, not relativistic apathy.
Dispatch 16: Emergents believe that church should function more like an open-source network and less like a hierarchy.
Dispatch 18: Emergents firmly hold that God’s Spirit–not their own efforts–is responsible for the good in the world. The human task is to cooperate with God in what God is already doing.
Dispatch 19: Emergents downplay–or downright reject–the difference between clergy and laity.
Jones pops these dispatches in throughout the work, and they work well as talking points or pointed descriptors of emergent.
Critique:
Here’s my main critique, and where I think Jones could have done a bit more. Because of the context of emergent’s emerging–namely, the mainly American Evangelical church movement–Jones seems to focus on distinguishing emergent from evangelical Christianity, he discusses conversations and battles between emergent and evangelicalism with little discussion of emergent and mainline denominations.
Sure, mainline talk sometimes comes up–e.g. at the end of the book, Jones describes his visits to four emergent churches, one of them being Church of the Apostles in Seattle which has Lutheran and Episcopal connections.
But what I kept yearning for–and writing in the margins, again and again–is the acknowledgment and analysis of the fact that basically every single dispatch describing the emergent church applies to my liberal mainline fairly traditional church founded in 1832. Ok, Jones can’t speak to my particular context of Old First Church Tallahassee. And sure, not every dispatch fits perfectly–not many people on the congregational care committee would describe it as “open-source” or “wiki” (though it certainly has many of the characteristics)–but I felt like Jones was leaning his writing too much in the direction of evangelicals to the detriment of mainline conversation.
This problem jumps out at you in the public relations write-up that came with my copy. The PR person says TNC explores emergent, and that “It’s a total re-examination of the gospel that has resulted in a mash-up of old and new, of theory and practice, and of mainline, evangelical, and increasingly, Roman Catholic Christians.” Come again: “total re-examination of the gospel”? Say what? If almost every member of my mainline congregation would affirm every dispatch from the trenches–or further–if almost every member of my mainline congregation could read a re-worded dispatch and think it was written about my congregation, then the “total re-examination” description is lacking something.
Emergent is not quite a “total re-examination of the gospel,” it’s a re-examination of the gospel out of one flavor of Christianity, and it has taken on many characteristics of other flavors of Christianity.
I don’t want to be too hard on Jones. He’s a great guy, a fine theologian, a strong blogger, a twin cities man, and has written a fantastic book. But I feel like he skews too much towards the evangelical conversation to the detriment of a deeper and a bit more complicated conversation with both the evangelical and mainline.
Here’s a few other ponderings the book brought up:
- The emergent community tends to be pretty darn young, as Jones notes. Why? What happens in twenty years? And why aren’t emergent churches which thrive in diversity seeking to broaden the conversation to older generations?
- I loved Jones’ description of the problem of fideism of the right (Piper) and the left (Borg) and the call for dialogue and faith in between. [p. 154-5]
- Jones’ format is really well done–it’s in six chapters, but has several threads that run through and color each chapter, as well as the dispatches mixed-in. He makes a linear and logical progression from page 1 to 220, but there’s helpful and non-disrupting stops along the way that add depth and breadth to the work. Either his editor or Jones did very well.
- Love what a member of Jacob’s Well says of his community, “I like it when Tim says, ‘People experience God emotionally, intellectually, relationally, and aesthetically,’ and this church aims to make every one of those experiences available to people.”
- My final question relates to my main critique above. It’s a bit contextual, but here it is: Is St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta emergent? It’s a bit older than most emergent, but it’s fairly hip. It’s all about emergent’s inclusivism, call for community, problems with hiearchy (tends to happen when the denomination says your pastor isn’t your pastor), worship is innovative and free, and it’s all about the dispatches. Can a church be emergent without knowing it, or trying to be. Does emergent have to stem from this evangelical break-up, or can it include an even broader community?
Thoughts?
Reading, writing, ruminating
I’m a little bogged down this week with a cold, four sermons (one Wednesday, two Sunday, funeral Friday), a few meetings and the like, but I did manage to get a golf game in this morning which was just the respite I needed–even if I played horribly.
Strangely, though, my most busy week also has me finished two books I’ve been reading.
I wasn’t overly impressed with Cloud Atlas. I could tell Mitchell almost wrote an amazing book, and that he has great writing skills and is a good story teller and all that, but I never bought it. I felt too much that Mitchell was showing off–like a good preacher who thinks, “watch me wow you with my preaching” rather than simply preaches the gospel.
For a change of genres, John Pritchard’s The Life and Work of a Priest was most enjoyable. Writing as the Bishop of Oxford (Anglican), Pritchard reflects on the duties of a priest in contemporary England. The hopeful account of the task of priests does acknowledge the contextual
challenges of British church. For example:
- 20% of the UK population regularly or irregularly attend church
- 40% have had don’t attend but have had some church contact at some point in their lives
- 40% have had virtually no contact with the church
I’ll probably post more on Prichard’s description of a priest later, but overall I find his vision somehow realistic, doomed, and hopeful the same time. He’s aware of the church’s decline yet it doesn’t move him to attempt to reinvent the wheel. He’s aware of the emerging conversation, sees value in it, but views it very much from a traditional perspective in which change occurs slowly, thoughtfully, carefully. He sees churches closing, but he doesn’t freak out because he also sees faithful work continuing.
I’ll close with a spiffy quote:
“…to that extent a clergy leader is a liminal figure, living in the borderland between the Church and the world, the present and the future, inherited church and emerging church” (p. 103).
PC(USA), Emergent, and a Savior
So I’m copying Shawn and will post my response to Adam WC as well.
For the context, Adam Walker Cleaveland’s post is here. In it he opines the fact that some mainliners are looking for emergent to save the mainline church. He argues that presbymergent is emergent, and should not be confused as a PC(USA) revitalization movement.
I appreciate how Shawn just muddied the waters in his post. His final question to Adam WC is a good one. “If you are not concerned about the dying PC(USA) then why be a part of it?” In fairness to Adam WC, I don’t think that’s what he was saying at all.
Perhaps there’s a theological way to ground this discussion. A few weeks ago I spoke at St. Columba on eschatology. After the talk, a retired minister came up to me and said, “I’ve been a minister for 50 years. I can’t recall one sermon I ever preached on eschatology. Nor do I remember hearing one.”
Eschatology is about hope–hope in Christ’s return, hope in Holy Spirit’s continuing work within and without the church, hope in God’s faithful love. Many mainliners don’t speak about hope much, but it’s exactly what we need in the PC(USA). (And, by the way preachers, it’s all over those Advent texts. Tom Long just wrote something on it, if I recall correctly.)
To confirm my church nerd status, I’m going to use an illustration from General Assembly a few years back. Then a small group of young people, but mainly a guy named Tyler Ward, led a campaign handing out buttons that said boldly, “I’m enthusiastic about the PC(USA)!” The campaign was a success and many hundreds of buttons were passed out. I think the Presbyterian News Service even did a story on it (props to someone who finds it.) Part of what Tyler aimed to visibly instill hope within and for the denomination. And for many commissioners, seeing young people handing out “I’m enthusiastic about the PC(USA)!” did the that.
So to strike a balance between Adam WC and Shawn, I think folks are discerning a strong hope attached to emergent. That’s great, and we can all pray that God is doing a new thing with emergent. We can also pray that a more palpable hope becomes established within the PC(USA). One should not cover the other. Part of the very nature of emergent, in fact, is that its difficult to confine and may very well help instill hope in the mainline denominations. Adam WC just doesn’t want denominational-recharing to be their focus, and I’m cool with that.
I might as well end with the Bible. Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Thoughts? I’m particularly interested in what folks outside the PC(USA) think about all this.
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