Worship as a spiritual feeding tube?

It it not uncommon to hear the Sunday worship is that place where we go to get "fed" for the week.  It is the time in which we learn and worship and are nourished for the coming week.

I have written in the past about worship needs to be more like skiing, less like football and more like soccer and even worship as going up musical stairs.

All of these metaphors have been helpful for me to discuss and think of worship, but the metaphor of being fed has never worked for me.

The only time I can imagine "being fed" is when I cannot feed myself - when I am really young and really old.  Even when I order food at a restaurant, I am not being "fed", rather I am given food but I do more than just sit  as another feeds me.

So when I think of worship as a place where I am "being fed" I think of a time in which I am unable to do anything and someone else (or something else) does all the work and I just sit there - unable to do anything but spit out or consume the food.

When I hear of people talk of worship as a place where they go to "get fed" I cannot help but desire to wonder at what point do we need to drop this metaphor?

My senior minister asked if I had read The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch.  It has been a while (December 2010) but I pulled off my kindle my notes and came across this little gem in light of worship:

"[People] come to "get fed." But is this a faithful image of the church? Is the church really meant to be a "feeding trough" for otherwise capable middle-class people who are getting their careers on track? And to be honest, it is very easy for ministers to cater right into this: the prevailing understanding of leadership is that of the pastor-teacher. People gifted in this way love to teach and care for people, and the congregation in turn loves to outsource learning and to be cared for. I have to admit that this now looks awfully codependent to me."


Just to clarify, codependency in this context is not a great thing.

Back in 2009 I had a post that explored the idea that while Jesus learned the trade of carpentry, he did not use many carpentry metaphors when talking about the kingdom of God.  

After further reflection on this idea more thoughts have been stewing in my brain.  

Not only did Jesus not use much carpentry language he also did not use much fishing language to talk about the kingdom of God.  It is interesting to me that Jesus did not use much insider language with his parables.  

Jesus used a lot of farming metaphors, wedding metaphors and even the occasional sheep metaphor.  These are the images that the followers of Jesus, the crowd that surrounded Jesus, could understand because it was their world - their images.  

I can understand how the disciples never seemed to "get it" even though they were with Jesus all the time.  

He was using language that was rooted in the life experience of the non-believer and the crowd.  He did not spend much time trying to appease or create insider language with just himself and the twelve.  

Is this not a way to consider the mission of the church?  

Too often we gather on Sunday morning expecting the same things that we who attend, understand and "get". We use insider language and even are fearful to change things because we might "upset" the most faithful members.  So we continue to do what we do in order that those who are in the church can be comforted and those who are not in the church can continue to feel like church is, at best, weird.  

What would it look like to take a model that we might find in the way of Jesus?  What if we created a church that was so concerned about connecting with those outside the church that those in the church would even be willing to "not get it" like the twelve disciples.  

Do you get or understand Jesus, or are you like the disciples and continually scratch your head wondering what the heck this Jesus guy is teaching and saying?  

Cooking Christian

Everyone needs to eat. As such, people need to cook. When I cook something I "get fed" and I feel good about my cooking. I get new recipes to try them out, discover there are somethings that I like and others that I do not like. I get a measuring cup to ensure I use the right amount of oil, I have an oven thermometer to ensure the temperature is correct and I get a scale to ensure my cakes are not too dense but remain fluffy. I get some books that talk about cooking and begin to work on my knife skills and even master flipping things in a pan. I am able to provide for myself as I cook and I believe that the point of cooking is to provide food.

There are many of us Christians who view the Christian faith in this way. We go to church and Sunday school. We read some books and drop an occasional prayer at Thanksgiving or during a crisis. We believe that the point of doing these things is to be "fed". When worship does not "feed us" we do not attend.  When Sunday school is not "nourishing" we bail. When the church does not give me the "recipes" for living a good life or when the "recipes" that are heard do not work - we think church is point less. When the church no longer meets my "needs" I find it difficult to lift my head off the pillow on Sunday morning. For many of us, the point of Christianity is to be fed and feed others. Why else would you go though all those spiritual disciplines if you do not "get something out of them"?

I am not sure if the point of Christianity is to be "fed". I am not sure the point of Christianity is to learn how to live life in such a way that we get our needs met. I am not sure the point of Christianity is to learn how to cook.

I wonder if the point of Christianity is to learn to be a chef.  

It is foundational for all chefs to learn to cook, but not all cooks are chefs.  

The point of many chefs is not just to be fed, but rather to bring new and beautiful and tasty things into existence. The chef is aware that the creation is not something that she did on her own, the chef is aware of the dependence upon others we all share. She did not grow the food or water it or even harvest it. She did not process or even deliver the food.  The chef however, did co-create something wonderful and appetizing that only existed in part before she worked her "chef magic".  

Chefs cook with trust and faith and failure and hope and anticipation and guts in order to bring something of beauty into the world.  

 

Cooks just make food.   

Christians are those who strive to be chefs and will not settle for cooking. And there are many people in the world who are wonderful chefs, who do not take the name Christian.  

The call for Christians is to stop looking to be fed by being a "cooking Christian". Rather, create something beautiful, enliven the world with textures, infuse flavors in your relationships.

For goodness sake, be a chef and you will be fed.