Contemporary worship and tract homes

Recently I have been asked about the difference in the contemporary worship and what might be called "ancient/future".  I will take a couple of posts to tackle this.

There are a great number of faith communities in our area (and in the U.S.A) that "do" contemporary worship and "do it well".  The flow is unique in each setting but generally it has these elements more or less in this order:

• Open with 2-4 "praise and worship" songs that are upbeat.  One song must be a "slow down" song.
• What I call the opening "Salad prayer" - this is the prayer in which the worship leader prays something like, "Father God, just 'let us' give thanks to you. Father God, 'let us' be center our lives upon you and just 'let us'..."
• Community announcements given in a casual/comical way 
• Stand and greet your neighbor time
• Scripture reading
• Sermon
• Offering (with a song sung by band at the front)
• 1-2 closing songs
• Benediction 

This is not a "bad" order of worship, it can however feel generic.  If you attend a contemporary worship Mississippi then the next week you attend contemporary worship in Washington, then they feel very similar.  This sort of "removal" of uniqueness is much like tract homes.  They are quick to build and they are great homes, but they all look the same.  There is little room for character or local charm.  Efficient yes, but not very original.  

Please hear me I have nothing against tract homes they are great in that they empower many people to have a home of their own.  Likewise, contemporary worship is great for many people to feel empowered to connect with a faith community.  The rub is that the "creative class" and the "Millennials" are people who value uniqueness, local and grassroots more than big box, conglomerate, and generic.  For instance, the Millennial lifestyle is more inclined to fuel the knitting revival than the generation before them (Gen X).  

If we are interested in creating worship opportunities for these growing demographics, then why would we look to create another 'tract worship' in our area?  Should we not instead look to create a local, homemade, authentic, unique worship expression for this context?  What would a worship revival look like if the Millennials fueled it? 

The next post will explore that question more.

Church Growth = "We need more people like us." Really?

There are efforts in the UMC to talk more about church growth.  My cynical side will say that this focus on church growth is because the church is declining in terms of warm bodies in the pew and if the numbers of people in the pews were of the 1950's then we would not focus on church growth.

However, my non-cynical side of me says this is a good thing.

My only issue with this how church growth is defined.

If we define church growth meaning that we need to get more people into pews; that is to say if we define church growth as "getting more people to be like us" and become members - I do not think that is a great way to think of church growth.

Instead of thinking that church growth means "more people need to be like us", perhaps a healthier understanding is "we need to be more like Jesus".

When talking about church growth as primarily as getting more people, we are forgetting that the church is the Body of Christ and even people who are members of a church are part of the body of Christ.  Church growth includes those who are already members of the church.

If we redirect all the resources we spend on trying to get more people to be like us to use them on getting us to be more like Christ then the church inevitably grows!

Friends, let us be honest here, if the church is growing by becoming more like Christ not only is the Church growing, but also non-Christians will be more interested in the Christian life.

I am convinced the life of Jesus is more attractive to people than any event or sermon series in the world.

Abundance of critics, prophets are rare

If one were to read the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, one would quickly see that one of the roles of the prophet is to criticize their current context.  For instance take this little gem in which Amos has a word to say to the powerful and rich people of his day: 

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan
   who are on Mount Samaria,
who oppress the poor, who crush the needy,
   who say to their husbands, ‘Bring something to drink!’ 
The Lord God has sworn by his holiness:
   The time is surely coming upon you,
when they shall take you away with hooks,
   even the last of you with fish-hooks. 

It is easy for people to critique the world around them.  From Tea Party to Occupy to the general "haters", people can critique rather well.  In the local church I hear many critiques: 

"We spend too much on the building."

"We are hypocritical." 

"We so not engage the marginalized."

"We have lame worship."

"We do no have enough members."

"We do not have a good ______ ministry."

You get the idea.

Here is the thing though, anyone can critique.  Heck, my three year old son can critique the world around him rather well.  His favorite word at times is, "No!'  

Never has my son's favorite word been "Yes!"  

Maybe we are quick to attach ourselves to the word "No" because we know that there is something wrong with our world.  Or maybe it is because it is safer to say "No" than to say anything else.  

The Church is at its best when we are able to help people mature from constantly saying "No" and critiquing the world to say "Yes."  

We are at our best when we are able to help people move from saying "I am not..." to saying "I am..."  

We are at our best when we are able to help society move from saying "We are not..." to saying "We are..."

We are at our best when we help people move from being critics to being prophets.

We are living into the role of the prophet when we are no longer held hostage to the word "No" and the worldview of critique.  We are living into the role of the prophet when we are able to see the world for what it is and what it could be rather than what it is not.  

Critics are annoying or comical and flash in the pan.

Prophets are cemented into our collective imagination and live forever.  

Perhaps the Church could re-discover the role of prophets in our time.  

Heaven knows we have an abundance of critics.