So I should have updated this last Monday, but I was so tired from the weekend I couldn't think straight.
This past Sunday Matt and I took a road trip to Dallas to go to Journey, an alternative service/church plant of Gaston Oaks Baptist Church. Why? I wanted to get a feel for a multi-sensory, "emerging" church, and I found a link to Journey at Ginkworld.
We stopped in Fort Worth and picked up our good friend Wally. He's a trucker and he's only lived in FW a couple of months. He was wanting to check out this church with us b/c he hasn't found a home church yet. First we went to Grapevine Mills mall and ate at the Rainforest Cafe. The we went over to Outdoor World cause Wally needed some fishing tackle. Then we headed to Journey.
When we got there, someone was standing at the bottom of the stairs and they handed us a bulletin/newsletter, and said, "Welcome to Journey! Go right on up, and tonight we're entering in silence." I looked at the bulletin and it read,
"TONIGHT--Sunday Gathering
Join us for a different kind of Sunday Gathering. Experience liturgy, communion, and a taste of a mass service."
So we didn't know what to expect. I think we were all like. "Ohhhh kay..." When we went in, everything was lit only by candles, and was silent. There were 5 or 6 TV's that read, "Welcome to Journey Please Enter in Silence". I immediately had the sense of being in a sacred place. The service itself was very liturgical, but with updated, cooler versions of some hymns. It really was pretty cool. The whole idea was to help us remember the past to look to the future. We had readings from the Old and New Testaments, responsive readings, and communion. There was a space in the back separated by a curtain that had several prayer stations and lots of crosses, candles, and art created by the members of the community. I think Matt and Wally were bored, but I thought it was a pretty neat experience. It reminded me that I am a part of a story that has been going on for hundreds and thousands of years.
I'd like to go back to see what their regular Sunday gatherings look like. If you're ever in the Dallas area, give Journey a try.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Thursday, October 13, 2005
A to Z of Alt. Worship
I found this cool blog today with an A-to-Z of alternative worship. I thought it was good, and informative for those who ask, "so just what is this all about?" It's a good primer. Here's the link:
A to Z of Alt. Worship
A to Z of Alt. Worship
Sunday, October 09, 2005
And the adventure continues...
Well, I said I wasn't going to write my life story, but still I wrote a very long entry. Sorry about that.
So picking up where we had left off...
As I read Dan's book, I realized what I had been feeling wasn't just me. There is more to it than this. I had always felt the church in general seemed to be a vendor of sorts, with people coming when they needed to get some help in a crisis or wanted a blessing or their relatives were sick. And it seemed the church catered to those sorts of people, doling out religious goods and services as needed. Of course it was preached that it was "all about God, and not about us," but it seems most sermons in the modern church were basically self-help inspirational messages, given by an uber-Tony Robbins character and culminating in everyone feeling good about themselves before they faced their everyday lives on Monday. Sometimes there'd be a mid-week "refilling" service. But on the whole it seemed to me that the modern methodology of church was far removed from the way it operated in the first century.
Basically what I'm saying is that today you hear about "going to church," whereas I believe the Bible clearly teaches that "we ARE the church." In the first century, there was no such phrase as "going to church". You couldn't go to church. Because the believers WERE the church. They were concentrated on being the church wherever they were, not just once or twice a week. Sure, they gathered together on a regular basis, but they didn't make a distinction between the way they lived at their gatherings and the way they lived every other day of the week.
I think we need to get back to this sort of "vintage Christianity", to borrow a term. When we attend our weekly worship gatherings, are we coming as consumers, or are we actively participating to bring something to God? Do we see ourselves as the audience, or is God our Audience? Are we being the church throughout the week instead of just the days we decide to darken the church doors?
Let me know what you think. These are just a few of the many questions and thoughts I've been having over the past several months, and I'm interested to hear what others have to say about them. Til next time!
(A disclaimer: I am not here to argue with anyone, nor blast or degrade any person, religion, denomination, or belief system. While I realize people disagree, we can still engage in conversation without arguing. That's all I'm here for is conversation. I will not respond to argumentative or derogatory posts.)
So picking up where we had left off...
As I read Dan's book, I realized what I had been feeling wasn't just me. There is more to it than this. I had always felt the church in general seemed to be a vendor of sorts, with people coming when they needed to get some help in a crisis or wanted a blessing or their relatives were sick. And it seemed the church catered to those sorts of people, doling out religious goods and services as needed. Of course it was preached that it was "all about God, and not about us," but it seems most sermons in the modern church were basically self-help inspirational messages, given by an uber-Tony Robbins character and culminating in everyone feeling good about themselves before they faced their everyday lives on Monday. Sometimes there'd be a mid-week "refilling" service. But on the whole it seemed to me that the modern methodology of church was far removed from the way it operated in the first century.
Basically what I'm saying is that today you hear about "going to church," whereas I believe the Bible clearly teaches that "we ARE the church." In the first century, there was no such phrase as "going to church". You couldn't go to church. Because the believers WERE the church. They were concentrated on being the church wherever they were, not just once or twice a week. Sure, they gathered together on a regular basis, but they didn't make a distinction between the way they lived at their gatherings and the way they lived every other day of the week.
I think we need to get back to this sort of "vintage Christianity", to borrow a term. When we attend our weekly worship gatherings, are we coming as consumers, or are we actively participating to bring something to God? Do we see ourselves as the audience, or is God our Audience? Are we being the church throughout the week instead of just the days we decide to darken the church doors?
Let me know what you think. These are just a few of the many questions and thoughts I've been having over the past several months, and I'm interested to hear what others have to say about them. Til next time!
(A disclaimer: I am not here to argue with anyone, nor blast or degrade any person, religion, denomination, or belief system. While I realize people disagree, we can still engage in conversation without arguing. That's all I'm here for is conversation. I will not respond to argumentative or derogatory posts.)
Thursday, October 06, 2005
There's got to be more to it than this...
Why create a blog?
So I asked myself, why should I have my own blog? What could I possibly have to say that anyone else would want to read? I guess it's more for myself than anything. To give myself an outlet to kind of sort through all the thoughts I'm having and issues I'm raising and concepts and traditions that I am deconstructing, rethinking, and reconstructing. To put everything down in written form and help me sort through it all, as God leads me on this wild adventure into the unknown(well, unknown for me). And if along the way anyone is able to connect with my thoughts and somehow give voice to their own, as I did by reading what others have written, well, then I guess that's just a bonus.
So, I guess a little info on myself is in order. I'll keep it brief, as I don't think my entire life story is necessary. Although I do find that my whole life has somehow been preparation in one way or another for what I'm doing now and about to do.
I've known since I was 13 that I was "called into the ministry". That's Christianese for "God had a special job for me". But I believe God has a special purpose for all of us, so does that mean we're ALL "called to the ministry"? That's another conversation for another time.
I've served as a children's pastor, an interim youth pastor, a youth pastor, and a worship pastor, along with various and sundry support and leadership positions, many simultaneously, for the past 10 years. I've seen the ins and outs of ministry, church, pastors, lay leaders, deacon boards, elders, and just about everything else you can imagine that goes on in modern evangelical Christianity, much of which the average church goer never sees. I believe God allowed me to see all this to open my eyes to the bigger picture. Somewhere along the line I began to think, in the back of my mind, "There's got to be more to it than this."
About a year ago I finally had reached the point where I didn't know where to go next. I was the worship pastor at my church, my wife and I had been the interim youth pastors for a year, and I was up against a brick wall. I didn't know where to go next. In my ministry, my marriage, and my life. Again, I kept asking myself, "There's got to be more to it than this. Surely this is not all there is, singing 3 fast songs and 3 slow songs, and just keeping up with the latest and greatest make-me-feel-good worship songs that come out." I didn't know what to do, and my wife and I were feeling the strains of being newly married and running two ministries in the church, along with various other duties, so I talked with our pastor, and stepped down.
Basically I needed a sabbatical. That's Christianese for "rest because you're stressed out". I didn't know what would happen, but I knew I needed to figure some things out, because there had to be more to it than this. Since I wasn't having to plan the worship services or in any other way lead them or pastor the team, I had a chance to objectively observe what was going on. Basically we had what I categorize as "observatory worship". Others would call this "consumer worship". It happens every Sunday all over America. People come to church for the worship "show", get warmed up for the sermon, get their warm fuzzy feeling, then leave feeling better about themselves and their lives. Everything was done as a service to the people. Because of this, we had caused people to think of the church as a provider of religious goods and services, and I realized this had been true in every church I had ever been a apart of. It wasn't my church. It was the mindset of modern Christianity, and it was about much more than what style of music we had, if we used guitar and drums or piano and organ, or if we sang hymns or choruses. Whether it was intentional or not, it was something we, as pastors and leaders, had created in our people because of the way we did church. I knew we had to do something to make this more of a "participatory worship experience" that would cause people to be participators rather than casual observers. So I began to explore multi-sensory, experiential worship.
I soaked up everything I could in the form of books, magazines, websites, blogs, and audio. But a funny thing happened. I kept running across these phrases: emerging church and emerging worship. I'd heard of Dan Kimball's book, Emerging Worship, but had never read it. I decided now was as good a time as any.
What I read struck a chord in me. Here was a guy, from California no less, who wrote like he had a direct audio feed from my brain. All the issues and thoughts he proposed were things I had been feeling for years but never knew how to express them. I knew there had to be more to it than what we were doing, and I had just begun to discover what it could be...
to be continued...
So I asked myself, why should I have my own blog? What could I possibly have to say that anyone else would want to read? I guess it's more for myself than anything. To give myself an outlet to kind of sort through all the thoughts I'm having and issues I'm raising and concepts and traditions that I am deconstructing, rethinking, and reconstructing. To put everything down in written form and help me sort through it all, as God leads me on this wild adventure into the unknown(well, unknown for me). And if along the way anyone is able to connect with my thoughts and somehow give voice to their own, as I did by reading what others have written, well, then I guess that's just a bonus.
So, I guess a little info on myself is in order. I'll keep it brief, as I don't think my entire life story is necessary. Although I do find that my whole life has somehow been preparation in one way or another for what I'm doing now and about to do.
I've known since I was 13 that I was "called into the ministry". That's Christianese for "God had a special job for me". But I believe God has a special purpose for all of us, so does that mean we're ALL "called to the ministry"? That's another conversation for another time.
I've served as a children's pastor, an interim youth pastor, a youth pastor, and a worship pastor, along with various and sundry support and leadership positions, many simultaneously, for the past 10 years. I've seen the ins and outs of ministry, church, pastors, lay leaders, deacon boards, elders, and just about everything else you can imagine that goes on in modern evangelical Christianity, much of which the average church goer never sees. I believe God allowed me to see all this to open my eyes to the bigger picture. Somewhere along the line I began to think, in the back of my mind, "There's got to be more to it than this."
About a year ago I finally had reached the point where I didn't know where to go next. I was the worship pastor at my church, my wife and I had been the interim youth pastors for a year, and I was up against a brick wall. I didn't know where to go next. In my ministry, my marriage, and my life. Again, I kept asking myself, "There's got to be more to it than this. Surely this is not all there is, singing 3 fast songs and 3 slow songs, and just keeping up with the latest and greatest make-me-feel-good worship songs that come out." I didn't know what to do, and my wife and I were feeling the strains of being newly married and running two ministries in the church, along with various other duties, so I talked with our pastor, and stepped down.
Basically I needed a sabbatical. That's Christianese for "rest because you're stressed out". I didn't know what would happen, but I knew I needed to figure some things out, because there had to be more to it than this. Since I wasn't having to plan the worship services or in any other way lead them or pastor the team, I had a chance to objectively observe what was going on. Basically we had what I categorize as "observatory worship". Others would call this "consumer worship". It happens every Sunday all over America. People come to church for the worship "show", get warmed up for the sermon, get their warm fuzzy feeling, then leave feeling better about themselves and their lives. Everything was done as a service to the people. Because of this, we had caused people to think of the church as a provider of religious goods and services, and I realized this had been true in every church I had ever been a apart of. It wasn't my church. It was the mindset of modern Christianity, and it was about much more than what style of music we had, if we used guitar and drums or piano and organ, or if we sang hymns or choruses. Whether it was intentional or not, it was something we, as pastors and leaders, had created in our people because of the way we did church. I knew we had to do something to make this more of a "participatory worship experience" that would cause people to be participators rather than casual observers. So I began to explore multi-sensory, experiential worship.
I soaked up everything I could in the form of books, magazines, websites, blogs, and audio. But a funny thing happened. I kept running across these phrases: emerging church and emerging worship. I'd heard of Dan Kimball's book, Emerging Worship, but had never read it. I decided now was as good a time as any.
What I read struck a chord in me. Here was a guy, from California no less, who wrote like he had a direct audio feed from my brain. All the issues and thoughts he proposed were things I had been feeling for years but never knew how to express them. I knew there had to be more to it than what we were doing, and I had just begun to discover what it could be...
to be continued...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)