What I Would Do (2)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss. Section Three was talking about "secular ministry." Section Four looked at what I've learned in these three years in "secular ministry."
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (1)
3. Secular Ministry: Part 1, Part 2
4. What I've Learned: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (2)
5. What I Would Do: Part 1
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I preached on Sunday, substituting for my pastor who was celebrating with his daughter on her graduation from high school. How easily one falls into the rhythm and mode of leading worship. Of course it is the church where I am a member and you know generally the routine and flow of the service. But you still look out and get an energy as you preach and look at their faces and hope you're reaching their souls.

Which takes me to going back, part 2. How would I do worship differently than before? What would my preaching look like? This makes me think of the development over the past decade or so of "seeker-sensitive" worship and whether that is what we should be about in worship. The goal of the mega-church developed seeker sensitivity is attarctiveness. It is, as is being described in some circles as "attractional" church (as opposed to "missional" church.) It's purpose has been to make worship "friendly and familiar" to non-Christians, to the "seekers" who are looking for something but still haven't found what they are looking for.

Hence seeker sensitive worship was often about looks and the surface of theology. In the larger churches the more "in-depth" worship for those who are further along in their faith was held on another night of the week. Things like Holy Communion may even be reserved for the non- seeker sensitive worship. It seems to me that such a set-up is a good way to develop a hierarchy of worshippers, a class system.

This attractional view of church presupposes that people have to come to us. We have to be attractive to them. When they walk in they have to feel comfortable. So we make it easy to understand and try not to struggle with hard questions. We may present a happy, smiley-faced worship. Obviously (?), this isn't wrong- to a point. But one of those points is that it easily turns into a bait-and-switch.

A number of years ago a friend of mine was attending one of these seeker-sensitive mega-church worship experiences. He was not a newcomer to the faith and had a deep and missional faith. He liked the worship, it's music, the preaching, the atmosphere. It was moving, and did provide more than the basic superficial stuff. But obviously not as much as was under the surface. After a few years he and his wife decided that they would explore joining. Now, all of a sudden they were presented with a lot of things they never knew before. There were requirements that were seldom if ever publicly shared. Once you joined there were rules, rules, and more rules. Once you wanted to be on the "inside" things changed. They left. Not because they were afraid of commitment, but because they felt misled.

I can agree that they should change. If one makes that committment to Jesus and his community discipleship comes along with it. That means living out the mission. But in these type of settings they are often church-directed, institution-driven, not discipleship building. And there was never a hint of these things to come at any time before they expressed a desire to join. Jesus wasn't worried about such attractionalism. He made it clear about having to carry yokes and walk narrow paths- although he also promised that such yokes and paths would be easier because they were his and not those of the world.

The worship service needs to express the mission, life, and needs of the church and community. It must represent the fullness of life in Jesus and the fullness of the life of the congregation. What you see is what you should get. Which means that the style, mode, feeling, and direction of worship must reflect the unique circumstances of the congregation's mission. Therefore it will be different in each church- within whatever liturgical, non-liturgical, historical, non-historical tradition that the congregation is part of.

It will also be determined by the size. One of the powerful moments in our cogregation's worship is the prayer time. All kinds of concerns are raised- joy and fear, celebration and sadness. There was one week when I was in a deep and sorrowful time right after we realized that our friend Sue was losing her battle with cancer. I was restless for three days waiting to get to church to have her in prayer time. It was an essential mission of the church and I needed to participate for Sue (and all of her family and friends.)

That won't work in the same way in a worship service with 200 or more people. It is often tried, but just as often feels out of place. The same would go for testimony, witness, and updates on mission that is happening. Some churches have used technology well to highlight these; others the old tried and true standing up and talking. The amount of "insider knowledge" that is necessary in order to appreciate what is happening can be a drawback.

Which comes back to the seeker-sensitivity. I'm not sure that what we want is to "dumb-down" what we do, but rather "open-up" what we do. This is actually an issue of postModern culture. As I have commented earlier the culture is no longer steeped in the language and rituals of Christendom. We can no longer assume that people have even a basic knowledge of what Christianity is. We absolutely must be aware that people may be completely lost when we begin to use big fancy words.

I think we often need to keep the words- and expand and unpack them. For example, there is power in the word Eucharist. It is an ancient power that can build into a life-changing understanding. We shouldn't lose it. But we can't assume that people know it, either. To build the unpacking into the service can be done quite unobtrusively with a welcoming attitude leading into the experience. We can do the same for things like "baptism" or doctrines like "Trinity" or "repentance". Yes, it may take some work on the part of worship leaders, but if they are listening to the people and paying attention to the culture it can be a redeeming (there's another word) experience.

Again, all this is built around the mission of the community as it incarnates the Missio Dei, the mission of God in their community. Tale a look around the Internet for "Missional" or "Emergent" churches for some examples. Better yet, maybe each of us should sit down with our brothers and sisters and see how we would describe- in a worship experience- the life of God's mission in our own midst.