"You can sit and watch it"

"You can sit and watch it."

This is what my 3 year old son said in response to the question we asked him about what I am to do when he plays "church".


"You can sit and watch it."

My son attends worship regularly, and while only being 3 years old, I think that he has and understanding of worship that is similar to what many people might consider worship to be.  If is something that one can sit and watch.  

 Currently, I am reading "Preaching in the Inventive Age" in which Pagitt addresses that the sermon is, which is dominated by monologue delivery, is something that contributes to the understanding that church is that place where you can "sit and watch".  

Pagitt argues for a "progressional dialogue" with clergy and laity in the preaching moment.  I cannot tell you how great this book is.  If you preach, you ought to consider Pagitt's book.  

Here is a link to all my highlights so far.  And for those of you who are like me and would just like a sampling, here you go!

• "This dependence on preaching as speech making has become a form of communication I call "speaching""
• "Speaching is not defined by the style of the presentation but by the relationship of the presenter to both the listeners and the content: the pastor uses a lecture-like format, often standing while the listeners are sitting. The speacher decides the content ahead of time, usually in a removed setting, and then offers it in such a way that the speacher is in control of the content, speed, and conclusion of the presentation"
• "Preaching has so uniformly been equated with speech making that any other means of sermonizing is thought to be trivial and less authoritative."
• "There are those who assume that if more people are allowed to share their understanding of teaching, theology, and faith, then there's a greater risk of the church losing truth. But the history of heresy shows that it's most often the abuse of power-not an openness of power-that creates environments ripe with heresy. The church is at a greater risk of losing its message when we limit those who can tell the story rather than invite the community to know and refine it"
• "I have come to believe that there's a kind of dehumanizing effect when, week after week, competent people aren't allowed to share their ideas and understanding; when, week after week, one person is set apart from the rest as the only one who is allowed to speak about God; when, week after week, people willingly, or by some sort of social or spiritual pressure, just sit and take it; when, week after week, they're taught that the only way to be good learners is to be better listeners."
• "It's simply untrue that people need their information in small, bite-sized or even "pre-chewed" pieces. The issue may not be that we have too much information or that we aren't presenting it in compelling ways but, perhaps, the information we've chosen is not all that interesting. New methods and exciting delivery will do little to solve that problem. A better or more tech-savvy speach is still a speach."
• "What I know to be true is not negated by others knowing more or other things. Truth is progressive, not regressive or zero sum. When someone knows something to be true, it doesn't remove the legitimacy of other truths but adds to it. We may not agree with the conclusions people draw, but we're better when we're moved to additional ways of seeing the world."

Worshiping worship - Part 1

Among many of the leaders of the area of the UMC which I am located in, there is a premium placed upon worship.  Worship is often described as the most important thing that we do as a Church.

A previous post touched on this idea which you can read if you would like.  

It is not clear to me that there is one thing in the Church that ought to be the most important thing.  To say such a thing seems more of a reflection of the priorities of the person saying it than of the reflection of God's priorities for the Church.

Can we really think that corporate worship is more important than working to eradicate slavery in our back yard?  Or that teaching about the message of Jesus is more important than prayer and meditation?  

How can one hold one aspect of the Church above another?  Did not Paul speak of the Church being a body that is made of different parts and no one part is greater than the whole?  Can the hands of service tell the heart of worship that they do not need it?  Of course not.  

When we elevate worship above the other aspects of Church I would submit that we are in danger of moving toward an idolatry of worship.  We worship worship.  

From the infamous golden calf to elevating sacrifice above mercy to worshiping Cesar, the Bible shares of of many stories of humanity struggling with idolatry.  

The Church also seems to struggle with idolatry in that different parts of the Church elevate one expression of God over the others.  Mainline Church elevates God, Evangelicals elevate Jesus, and Pentecostals elevate the Holy Spirit.  Try talking about the 'Holy Spirit' in the mainline and you will find it to be more uncomfortable than talking about 'God'.  

The Trinity is a teaching about the nature of God which says, of many other things, that no one aspect of God is greater than another.  Yet, our Churches fall into the idea that there are aspects of being Church that is greater than others - namely worship is the "most important" thing we do.  

What if we were to take the idea of the Trinity and apply it to the Church?  

The next post will explore this a bit more...

Why would you come to my family reunion?

In November of 2010 I attended a conference in which Brian McLaren noted the differences in movements and institutions

Movements are organizations which call institutions to new social gains.
Institutions are organizations which conserve the gains made by past movements.

Both are important and both are needed.

Lately there seems to be a trend in the UMC circles I move that the UMC needs to reclaim being a movement and move away from being an institution.  And that language is very populist and raises a lot of "amens" from a usually silent UMC congregation.

With all the rhetoric of getting back to a movement as a denomination, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect going on with the implementation of that "movement talk."

What I mean is that is all the talk of reclaiming "movement status" we still put a lot of emphasis on the importance of the institution.  That is to say we still place a ton of emphasis on the importance of worship.

While I think worship is important I am not sure it is helpful that only one aspect of the church is elevated to most important.  This elevation of worship sets up a potential to actually worship worship.  So you end up getting things like the worship wars.

Let me share an example I have been pondering.

You do not want to come to my family reunion.  It is nothing personal about you or me, it is just when you come to my family reunion you will be subject to hear from people you do not know, about things that happened in the past to people you never knew.

Family reunions are the institutional aspect of the family movement.

Family reunions capture the stories of the past.  People break break together.  People recall celebrations and advances the family made over the years.  (Sounds a lot like worship...)

Why would you come to my family reunion?  You were not a part of the movement of my family.  You were not a part of the movement when my dad followed his dream and hit many obstacles.  You were not there when my grandmother and grandfather moved in with us.  You were not there at graduations or birthdays.

You are not interested in the institution of my family unless you have been a part of the movement of my family.  Which is why my wife, who has been apart of our family for 10 years is more comfortable at our family gathering than you might be.  She has been a part of the movement of our family.  She appreciates the institution and works to keep it moving.

Because we have elevated worship as the "most important thing we do" as a church, we have made the most important thing an institutional aspect of our Church.  And why would anyone who has not been apart of the movement sides of the Church want to be apart of the institutional sides of Church?

So my beloved Church, let us consider that while the institution is important, people will only be interested in preserving it if they were apart of the movements of the Church.