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How could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back—if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day? __from Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis__
A pleasure is full grown when it is remembered. You are speaking…as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing…. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure…. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then—that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it.
Methods and Message
This way of thinking is why most youth pastors (including my-own-self) don't survive in evangelical churches. Whether we can articulate it or not we intuitively understand that the method you use to convey a message IS THE MESSAGE ITSELF. The methods we use to attract people to Jesus do matter because they are the message that people subconciously receive. I might write some more on this later on sometime.
This is genius stuff.
Why Church Bothers Me (Sometimes), or How Not to Suck -- Part Two
(Fourth): Speaking of conclusions—you can stop making them for me every Sunday. I need something to think about during the week, something to make my own. It’s okay to leave me with some questions. You don’t have to draw everything into a nice neat conclusion, like a Greek tragedy. In fact you under nourish me when you make conclusions for me. I have nothing to wrestle with during the week. I know you’re afraid to let go of that control, being able to determine what I take away from the message. Trust the Spirit to lead honest questioners to the Truth, to the conclusions and discovered implications that He desires me to see. They may be different than what you intended. Great teaching begins the discussion; it does not end it. Jesus was the master of leaving people scratching their heads at what he meant. What he said is instructive here: “He who has ears, let him hear.”
(Fifth): Your worship services are, um, shall we say, less than engaging. Stand. Sing. Sit. Repeat ad nauseum. That’s the extent of the engagement. I want every part of me to be involved in worship, not just my voice: mind, body, spirit, heart. I want my five senses involved. I want to see, touch, smell, taste and hear God. I want to connect with the saints and creeds of the early church I want to light candles in prayer, smell the incense of my praise as it rises to the nostrils of God. I want to meditate on words, images, and icons and hear God speak to me in them. God gave me my five senses, emotions and my mind—engage them.
(Sixth): We claim that nothing is more crucial than the Eucharist, the holy sacrament of communion, the actual presence of God in our hands. However, in our services communion commands the least amount of time and is treated like a ritualistic afterthought, something we mindlessly attend to with little thought as to its reality and depth of meaning. We need communion to be central to our worship. De-emphasize the spoken word (sorry Preacher, most people don’t pay attention much beyond 15 minutes or so anyway). Instead of word-centered services we need Body-and-Blood-centered services. How much more spiritual growth could be achieved by meditation upon the life of Christ as we partake of Him, bring His life into us in the elements?
Here’s the thing: ultimately, church isn’t about you and me. The first followers of Jesus existed for one another and for others. That was church for them. Their singing, praying and instruction were secondary to the life they lived in the world. Following Christ was “church” for them. It was a gathering of people from the known world, Jew and Gentile alike, with the common bond of Jesus Christ and the singular mission of the Kingdom Come.
May our churches be the exact same way.
shalom, matt
Why Church Bothers Me (Sometimes), or How Not to Suck -- Part One
I have no specific church in mind when writing this because, to some extent or another, every church I’ve been in is guilty of bothering me for some or all of the following reasons. Not every church is guilty of each and every one of the “violations,” nor are they committed every single Sunday. Furthermore, I’m not nearly as arrogant as this makes me sound, nor do I believe that churches exist for the sole purpose of not bothering me. What I’m offering here are some “improvements” that churches could make to better engage our current cultural sensitivities and tendencies. Basically, here’s how you can stop bothering me and/or keep from sucking.
(First): Focus on stuff that matters, theologically and is relevant to my life. Your “proofs” for the Virgin Birth, while of interest to you have zero relevance to my life. Whether God “overshadowed” Mary or Joseph—ahem—took care of it the “old-fashioned way” (and the gospel writers insert the Virgin Birth as a myth to “compete” with Roman mythology of the birth of the Caesars and the gods) is of no consequence to my 6-6 factory life and how I interact with the world. Focus on the resurrection, for instance, and why it still matters today. Don’t “prove” it; tell me that it didn’t just happen but that it still happens today. I want to know what a resurrected life looks like in a factory.
(Second): Stop dealing in nothing but certainties, as if everything in life and faith and Scripture is black and white. Few things are that neat and tidy, especially when it comes to the spiritual. Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). This is not a God who is not neat, tidy, and so easily pinned down to definition. God is not “certain”; He is wild, untamable and unpredictable (except when it comes to love and grace). The Bible contains contradictions, gray areas, culturally based admonitions now made irrelevant, and parts that are downright confusing, disturbing and weird. My life is too gray and uncertain for you to deal in nothing but black and white. Show me the cloudy, disturbing, confusing gray areas. I need a faith that looks like my life so that my life can look more like my faith.
(Third): In your effort to make everything black and white and certain you inundate me with steps, lists of stuff to “keep in mind,” “take note of,” or “action steps” to undertake. It isn’t uncommon for you to have three points, 5 subpoints for each point, and, for the love of Jehovah, three points worth of conclusion and action steps. Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t have as many steps and bullet points as your sermons. Stop. Give me one thing to hold on to, one key idea to meditate on throughout the week. If you want, give me options of steps I can take to live out the teaching: “Try one of the following this week…” I can’t remember if I washed my hair while standing naked and soaked in my shower, how can I remember a main idea buried underneath 12 points, sub-points and conclusions? The 1980’s and ‘90’s called and they want their sermon structure back.
...to be continued...
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