I'm Speechless...

This one gets a gigantic, "Huh?"

Read this post and see if you can make any sense of it. I sure can't.

It actually sounds like one of Jesus' parables, you know, those stories that so often shamed the religious folks by pointing out that "sinners" were acting in a much more godly manner than the "righteous."

AN EVANGELICAL'S LAMENT AND JOURNEY: The Pastoral Issue

Marc Chagall
Solitude, 1933

Thus far, I have posted about the central issue that led my wife and I, recently in a position to search for a church family, to leave non-denominational evangelicalism and to join a mainline (Lutheran) church. That core issue is worship. In an early post in this series, I pointed out two other areas of concern: the pastoral issue and the missional issue.

Today, I begin to take up what I believe is the broken model of pastoral work in evangelicalism and our search for ministerial integrity.

The rest of the story...

Actually, there would be an simple way to write this post. I could simply recommend to you all the books on ministry written by Eugene Peterson. However, instead of taking the easy way out, I will try to put my own thoughts together in a series of articles. But I will use Peterson today to introduce this series by giving you some of my favorites quotes from a few of his books.

I could not easily put my hands on all the books I wanted to quote from, but I think you will get the message from what is shared here today.

When I look for help in developing my pastoral craft and nurturing my pastoral vocation, the one century that has the least to commend it is the twentieth. Has any century been so fascinated with gimmickery, so surfeited with fads, so addicted to nostrums, so unaware of God, so out of touch with the underground spiritual streams which water eternal life? In relation to pastoral work the present-day healing and helping disciplines are like the River Platte as described by Mark Twain, a mile wide and an inch deep. They are designed by a people without roots in an age without purpose for a people without God.

Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, p. 12

Until about a century ago, what pastors did between Sundays was a piece with what they did on Sundays. The context changed: instead of an assembled congregation, the pastor was with one other person or with small gatherings of persons, or alone in study and prayer. The manner changed: instead of proclamation, there was conversation. But the work was the same: discovering the meaning of Scripture, developing a life of prayer, guiding growth into maturity.

...The between-Sundays work of American pastors in this century, though, is running a church. I first heard the phrase just a few days before my ordination. After thirty years, I can still remember the unpleasant impression it made.

I was traveling with a pastor I respected very much. I was full of zest and vision, anticipating pastoral life. My inner conviction of call to the pastorate was about to be confirmed by others. What God wanted me to do, what I wanted to do, and what others wanted me to do were about to converge. From fairly extensive reading about pastor and priest predecessors, I was impressed that everyday pastoral life was primarily concerned with developing a life of prayer among the people. Leading worship, preaching the gospel, and teaching Scripture on Sundays would develop in the next six days into representing the life of Christ in the human traffic of the everyday.

With my mind full of these thoughts, my pastor friend and I stopped at a service station for gasoline. My friend, a gregarious person, bantered with the attendant. Something in the exchange provoked a question.

"What do you do?"

"I run a church."

No answer could have surprised me more. I knew, of course, that pastoral life included institutional responsibilities, but it never occurred to me that I would be defined by those responsibilities. But the moment I became ordained, I found I was so defined both by the pastors and executives over me and by the parishioners around me. The first job description given me omitted prayer entirely.

The Contemplative Pastor, p. 66f

There are powerful cultural forces determined to turn Jesus into a kindly, wandering sage, teaching us how to live well, dispensing homespun wisdom, arousing our desire for God, whetting our appetite for higher truths—all of which are good things. These same forces are similarly determined to turn us, the church's pastors and leaders, into kindly religious figures, men and women who provide guidance through difficult times, who dole out inspiration and good cheer on a weekly schedule, who provide smiling reassurance that "God's in his heaven...," and keep our congregations busy at tasks that bolster their self-esteem—also good things.

And if they don't turn us into merely nice people, they turn us into replicas of our cultural leaders, seeking after power and influence and prestige. These insistent voices drum away at us, telling us pastors to go out and compete against the successful executives and entertainers who have made it to the top, so that we can put our churches on the map and make it big in the world.

The Unnecessary Pastor, p. 1

We're not the only church in Bel Air, and I'm not the only pastor. Few places in America are unchurched. Am I going to trust the Holy Spirit to do his work through other churches in my community, or am I going to think that if we don't do it, it's not going to get done?

A great deal of arrogance develops out of the feeling that when we have something good going, we have to triple it so everybody gets in on it. Many different ministries take place in the community and in the world, and it's bad faith on my part to assume the Holy Spirit isn't just as active in them as in my ministry.

Subversive Spirituality, p. 228

There is, of course, nothing wrong with a large-membership congregation. But neither is there anything right about it. Size is not a moral quality. It is a given. It is what is there—part of the environment in which the pastor works. "It is not the pastor's fault if he is born in times of barrenness, when it is difficult to do good" (Bengel). Size is mostly the result of cultural conditions. Congregations are large when there is social approval to be part of a religious establishment, small when there isn't. The pastor cannot choose his or her culture. The size of the congregations we serve is contingent on what decade we happen to be living in and what qualities of leadership happen to be in vogue at the time. While pious ways in the pastor will attract churchgoers in one place, worldly sophistication will attract them in another place. Angry preaching will be rewarded at one time, kindly preaching at another, quite apart from whether either the anger or the kindness communicates the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because these variables are notoriously inconstant, spiritual and biblical integrity is far more important than the skillful use of propaganda in doing pastoral work, the doctrine of providence of more significance than any image-making publicity.

Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, p. 165

Amazing words. Peterson's insights on the pastoral ministry cut like a laser to the heart of the matter almost every time. I regret that I did not read, digest, and figure out how to put his stuff into practice every week of my 30 years of pastoral ministry. Any further thoughts I share will be faint echoes of his strong voice.

I Love Snow...

This is what winter should look like. The news said Indianapolis received 12.5 inches of snow yesterday and today, the most in one storm in 13 years. I couldn't be happier.

A PROPHECY OF DOOM: What Do You Think?

Adam and Eve Expelled
Marc Chagall, 1954-67

UPDATE 3: Part 3 of Michael Spencer's forecast about the future of evangelicalism has been posted at Internet Monk.

UPDATE 2: Part 2 of Michael Spencer's forecast about the future of evangelicalism has been posted at Internet Monk.

UPDATE: In one of the comments on Internet Monk, the theological problem of evangelicalism has been called, "Therapeutic Moral Deism." This is a devastatingly accurate description of the kind of "teaching" that is permeating so many evangelical churches and groups today. I, for one, don't believe that such doctrinal weakness can sustain God's people for very long.

***

Echoing warnings from books like The Fall of the Evangelical Nation, by Christine Wicker, Michael Spencer at Internet Monk predicts that...

I believe that we are on the verge- within 10 years- of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity; a collapse that will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and that will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. I believe this evangelical collapse will happen with astonishing statistical speed; that within two generations of where we are now evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its current occupants, leaving in its wake nothing that can revitalize evangelicals to their former “glory.”

The party is almost over for evangelicals; a party that’s been going strong since the beginning of the “Protestant” 20th century. We are soon going to be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century in a culture that will be between 25-30% non-religious.

Is there such a dramatic sea change in the near future for evangelicalism? What do you see from your vantage point?

This would be a great article to read and discuss. Feel free to do that at iMonk or here. I'd love to hear from you.

My first Mac, 1988

Happy 25th birthday to the Apple Macintosh computer!

AN EVANGELICAL'S LAMENT AND JOURNEY: One Final Word about Worship

THE CENTRAL ISSUE: Worship (lack thereof)
One Final Word

I have hit some of the main points about worship that have influenced my journey from being a non-denominational evangelical to a mainline Lutheran. There remains just one thing to be said.

Of all that might be said about worship practices, we must not leave this subject without emphasizing THE fundamental truth about worship. It must be said, because in my opinion our worship practices fall short mainly because we forget this truth.

The rest of the story...

Here it is: WORSHIP IS WHAT GOD'S PEOPLE DO FOR GOD.

We have been conditioned to think, on the contrary, that worship is for US.

• That worship is where I go for my weekly spiritual inspiration.
• That worship is a habit of godliness that keeps me on track in my walk with God.
• That worship is where I go to get spiritually fed.
• That worship is where I go to stay in fellowship with God's people.
• That worship is where I go to get blessed and filled so that I can go out and face my daily life with God.
• That a worship service is where unbelievers come to hear the Gospel and get saved.
  

Because we think worship is primarily for us, we get concerned when someone no longer "goes to church." We think of going to church and attending the worship service primarily as something beneficial for people. And of course, it is! However, we must understand that the benefits we gain from worship are byproducts that accrue from participating in it.

Worship is for God. Worship is what we do for God. Worship is God's people coming together and participating in actions that are directed toward God.

• Bringing offerings to God.
  
• Giving gifts to God in response to the gifts he has given us in Christ.
  
• In the call to worship, we are invited to actively praise God.
  
• In confession, we acknowledge our sins to God.
  
• In the Creed, we affirm to God that we believe in the revelation of his mighty deeds.
  
• With our voices and hearts, we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to him.
  
• We present to him our material and monetary offerings.
  
• We also offer God our thanks and receptive hearts when we humble ourselves to partake of his Word and Sacraments.

Worship is for God, and worship is what his people do. Worship is not a service we attend. It is not a concert. It is not a preaching service made up of preliminaries and then the "real thing"—the message and invitation. It is not a missionary endeavor in which an audience of unbelievers is confronted with the Gospel through public proclamation. Nor is it a Bible study or Christian meeting designed primarily for a believer's spiritual growth and development. All these conceptions of worship assume that the service is directed toward the congregation, that those up front or on the "stage" are those who act on behalf of God, and that the main purpose is for them to give something to those in attendance.

This, however, is not the meaning of worship. Worship is what God's people do for God. Each worship service is like a special occasion on which we honor our great Hero and celebrate his accomplishments in winning a decisive victory. If you and I were invited to participate in a ceremony honoring a war hero, what would that be like?

• We would come together to express our appreciation through words, gifts, rituals, songs, and other activities.
  
• We would decorate the hall with banners and flags and emblems of victory.
  
• We would put our hero front and center.
  
• Every activity would be planned for the purpose of honoring him, all the focus would be on him, and all applause directed toward him.
  
• Special speakers would tell his story and pronounce his praises.
  
• The community would feast together.
  
• Neighbors and family members would give testimonials.
  
• Presents would be lavished on our hero, and each member of the community would want to say "thank you" personally.

Now, let me ask, would that occasion be a blessing to those who participate? Of course! Such a celebration would uplift and inspire everyone in attendance as well as encourage and challenge them to live a better life. But not because they came in order to receive a blessing. No! Those who came gathered for one purpose—to honor their hero. To lift up his name. To tell the glad story of his achievements. To express appreciation and gratitude to him. To participate in activities that magnified him. As a result, they themselves were blessed. The natural byproduct of honoring another is the blessing that accrues to those who participate.

Of course, God meets with us in worship. Of course, God blesses his people with his presence. Of course, God teaches us from his Word. Of course, God's Spirit fills us and transforms us. Of course, we receive food for our journey through the Sacraments. Of course, we are spiritually formed and edified when we meet together in Christ's name. Of course, if unbelievers join us, they may respond to the Gospel and experience God's saving grace.

These are all good and necessary things. But the question here today is, what is worship? In order to get the genuine byproducts of it, we must pursue the genuine article. As Robert Webber said so succinctly, worship is a verb. We don't attend worship, we worship.

It is what God's people do for God.

The "Right" Church?

Again I direct you to Michael Spencer's Internet Monk blog today for some wise pastoral theology and counsel.

Some of you might have the mistaken idea that the search we have been going through and writing about is a personal quest to find "the One True Church," or "THE Right Church" in contrast to all others who are deficient in doctrine or practice.

Listen up! There is no such place, and the compulsion to find it can drive you crazy.

President Obama

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, ²for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. ³This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, ⁴who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1Timothy 2.1-3)

AN EVANGELICAL'S LAMENT AND JOURNEY, part five

THE CENTRAL ISSUE: Worship (lack thereof) Part Three

Today, we resume our discussion on worship by looking at some areas that evangelicals have traditionally devalued or disregarded.

Let me start by saying that, in general, liturgical worship is poetic while evangelical worship tends to be prosaic. The liturgical tradition values an aesthetic approach, while evangelicals are much more straightforward, plain and pragmatic. This has led to the stereotype that portrays "high church" worship as elitist, pretentious, and snobbish, while "low church" style is the domain of the common man—honest, direct, speaking straight to the heart.

The rest of the story...

The following quote from A.W. Tozer (fifty years ago!) represents a voice from within the nonliturgical community that shows the damage done to evangelical worship when we cling to that stereotype and promote the merely pragmatic:

We of the nonliturgical churches tend to look with some disdain upon those churches that follow a carefully prescribed form of service, and certainly there must be a good deal in such services that has little or no meaning for the average participant—this not because it is carefully prescribed but because the average participant is what he is. But I have observed that our familiar impromptu service, planned by the leader twenty minutes before, often tends to follow a ragged and tired order almost as standardized as the Mass. The liturgical service is at least beautiful; ours is often ugly. Theirs has been carefully worked out through the centuries to capture as much beauty as possible and to preserve a spirit of reverence among the worshipers.

...In the majority of our meetings there is scarcely a trace of reverent thought, no recognition of the unity of the body, little sense of the divine Presence, no moment of stillness, no solemnity, no wonder, no holy fear. But so often there is a dull or a breezy song leader full of awkward jokes, as well as a chairman announcing each "number" with the old radio continuity patter in an effort to make everything hang together.

A. W. Tozer, God Tells the Man Who Cares, p. 11f

An important element in my journey from evangelicalism to a liturgical tradition was a growing desire for less prose and more poetry in worship. I was looking for...

• A church with a worship space that puts God front and center, focusing attention on him. To put it bluntly, an altar not a stage.

• A worship space that communicates both God's transcendence and immanence, lifting our faces and hearts upward and gathering us as one family together around the God to whom we look.

• A worship space that is intentionally designed and decorated with elements of beauty that stimulate the imagination and delight the heart and mind.

• A worship service that is personal, hospitable, and authentic, but not "chatty" or "casual."

• A worship service that encourages the active participation of all worshipers, not one that reduces the congregation to an audience of spectators and listeners.

• A worship service in which the leaders understand the power of words, and use them to lift us into a higher realm of thinking, imagining, and relating to others.

• A worship service that is not just all about analysis and answers, but one that invites us into the mysteries of realities that transcend what our minds can comprehend.

• A worship service that is filled with Scripture, along with time and space to meditate on what God is saying.

• A worship service that honors the sacraments as well as the Scriptures.

• A worship service that allows for holy silence.

• A worship service that both reflects what the Holy Spirit has taught the church over the ages (history and tradition) and what the Spirit is saying to the church today (creativity, spontaneity, freshness).

• A worship service that respects and includes people of all ages and backgrounds.
  

Transcendence. Mystery. Beauty. Imagination. Silence. Participation. Hospitality. Reverence. Careful and thoughtful preparation, especially with regard to words and atmosphere. These are characteristic of a transforming worship that looks up to the Father through the Son in the Spirit.

Such worship lifts us out of the prosaic and becomes a poetic window to the heavenly, spiritual realm, a foretaste of eternal newness.

The "Big Picture" of the Gospel

It has been a slow week with regard to blogging—what with sickness and all—but I'm slowly finding my way back to the computer.

Let me start tonight by recommending a good summary of the Gospel, written by Derrick Olliff.

We tend to make the Gospel into an individualistic matter, when the real point is that God, through the Gospel, is calling us to participate in his program of transforming all creation through the Lord Jesus Christ. We also divorce the Gospel message from its First Testament roots, turning it into a strictly personal transaction rather than part of a continuing story.

Olliff overturns these notions and gives a good overview of the full Gospel message.

A Man Who Walks the Walk

In sports, the troublemakers often seem to get all the press. Today was different. Today, especially here in central Indiana, was about saying goodbye to one of the truly good guys—Coach Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts, who announced his retirement from football.

His record speaks for itself...

• A regular season record of 127-65
• Overall mark of 136-74
• Ten consecutive playoff appearances
• First African-American coach to win a Super Bowl

However, as the senior NFL writer for FOXSports.com, Alex Marva, writes, "The NFL's loss will be society's gain. For all of his football accomplishments, the best is yet to come for Tony Dungy."

Tony Dungy is a man of strong Christian faith. Today he taught all prosperous American Christians a lesson by example. Success is not everything. Money is not everything. Sports are not nearly as important as many of us think. What is important is participating in God's mission in the world.

And by all accounts, that is what Dungy intends to do in a different way now, starting with devoting more time to his own family. He also has a passion for participating in good works that will help make the world a better place, especially for young African-American men.

I'm sure he won't coach again. He has moved on, letting go a life that most of us dream about.

Walk on, Coach Dungy, walk on. Lead on.

Long Days, Lost Weekend

Last Friday after work I came home and knew things were not right. All week long I had a mysterious pain in my right lower back that radiated around to my thigh. I thought I had twisted my back and pinched a nerve. It’ll work out. Except it didn’t. On Thursday I had a strong urge to urinate often, and it burned when I did. By Friday evening, after I made it home feeling dizzy and out of sorts, I crawled into bed with uncontrollable chills.

My weekend plans were set.

The rest of the story...

Since I couldn’t get in to see a doctor on Friday as I had planned, I managed to scrounge an appointment for Saturday morning. I slumped over to her office, shivering all the way, waited ten minutes and then was invited in to the exam room, after having left a urine sample. When the nurse came in the room, we exchanged a few words about urinary tract infections, and she said coldly, “Now you know what your wife goes through.” I think she had issues.

When the doctor came in, she was much more compassionate. “You know, in men this is often caused by a kidney stone, and I don’t like that flank pain you have.” Great. Two words in the English language I never wanted to hear spoken together and addressed to me: “kidney” and “stone.” “How is your pain tolerance?” she asked. I’m probably average, for your spoiled, middle-class, Baby Boomer. I don’t have any. “You know,” she smiled, “women who have had both babies and kidney stones say that they would rather have the baby.” This day has started with such encouragement.

She sent me to the hospital for a CT scan to check for stones. Maybe that’s not it after all. After stopping at the pharmacy to get my antibiotics, I arrived at the hospital (part of the health network for which I work), went dutifully to registration and gave my information, squirming in my chair to find a comfortable position. “Did your doc call and put you on the schedule?” I didn’t know, and when I said so, she shot me a disapproving look. She called the imaging department and apparently the doctor hadn’t phoned. Disapproving look number two. “You’ll have to go to the waiting room until they can call your doctor. Please tell her next time to call; we have to follow the appropriate protocol.” From far away somewhere in a gathering storm of misery, I nodded meekly.

Now to Radiology, where for almost an hour I must have looked like a homeless man taking shelter from the cold as I sat in the waiting room, head down between hunched shoulders trying to stay warm and comfortable. From snippets I heard, the delay was because the young woman at the desk could not get my information to come up right on the computer. She tried and tried again. She sighed and whined and tried again. She called the IT help line. She called in coworkers, who came, punched a few keys, shook their heads and walked out again. Some grating “crisis of the week” movie was on the TV. I had to get up and pee at least five times.

Somehow, the technical problem got resolved. I had my two minute test...then waited...and waited for the results while their people called my people and waited for my people to call back only to have to wait again for their people to call back and talk to my people. In the end, good news—a normal scan. No kidney stones.

Still, I figure I have about a 102 degree temperature, I haven’t eaten since yesterday’s lunch, I ache all over, my back and leg hurt like crazy, and now I get to drive home. Stopping to get a sandwich and a drink, I take two bites of the sandwich and then throw it away. Tastes like dust.

From that point on, the trajectory of my weekend was flat. Lying on the couch watching football. Lying in bed sleeping. Lying in bed watching football. Lying on the couch trying to get comfortable. Etc., etc., etc. We usually make remarks about how time flies and how we can’t believe it’s already such and such a date. These were the longest days of my life.

Life went on all around me, but I honestly don’t remember much about anything. Most of Friday night through Monday morning was like being shut in a closet and subjected to some sick torture treatment with a relentless soundtrack of football talk, games, inane commercials, distant sounds of family life going on without me, phones ringing, cars needing muffler work growling by my window. It was all repeated endlessly, while I turned over and over again in the bed to find a good position, alternately burning with fever and drenched with sweat. All in all, a pretty good foretaste of Purgatory, I’m sure.

I write this not to elicit sympathy. My illness didn’t turn out to be deadly serious or anything. But for one who spends his days visiting people who lie in their beds, I wanted you to know that I gained a bit of perspective over that long weekend. I hope I will never enter one of their rooms again without a new measure of sympathy and a new sense for what might encourage them.

AN EVANGELICAL'S LAMENT AND JOURNEY, part four

THE CENTRAL ISSUE: Worship (lack thereof)
Part Two

My journey from evangelicalism to a more mainline congregation, at its heart, has been a search for a community of faith that understands and practices genuine worship. If my definition of worship (given in the last post) is accurate at all, then this has certain implications about the way a congregation and its pastoral leadership goes about planning and participating in worship services.

Let me say something right here at the outset, before we proceed. I think the "worship wars" of recent years have been fought about the wrong things most of the time by all sides. Battles about worship waged in churches have primarily focused on the question of style--traditional or contemporary--and this has been applied almost exclusively to music. In my view, music is only one element of worship and should not dominate the discussion as it has. There are certainly important things to say about music, but we must not let this one small part of the matter keep us from seeing the more central and significant issues that should be our concerns when it comes to the worship of God.

In the next few posts I will explore some of "the more central and significant issues," in my opinion, with regard to worship. The first is...

The rest of the story...

DISTRUST OF FORMS
A primary attitude in non-liturgical churches is that worship should not conform to set forms, but should be free and spontaneous. In their eyes, liturgy is seen as set, scripted, vainly repetitive, dull and without spiritual vitality. On the other hand, non-liturgical worship is seen as free, lively, Spirit-led, from the heart, and open to possibility.

In my experience, this dichotomy bears no resemblance to reality.

First, in the free-style evangelical churches where I've worshiped, the worship was just as scripted as any liturgy.

• The order basically remains the same week after week.
  
• A limited number of songs are sung, thus creating a repetitive musical "tradition" within the congregation.
• An annual calendar is followed, though not the Church Year calendar. It takes into account the major Christian holy days, but is based more upon the pastor's preaching schedule, secular holidays and schedules, and church events.
• Prayers in worship, though "spontaneous," take on forms that become repetitive.

And so on. The argument is not, and never has been, between "form" and "freedom" (defined as "lack of forms"). The real difference is between one kind of form and another.

Second, those who advocate evangelical free-style worship often fail to grasp the significance of the kinds of forms we use.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard, "Pastor, it really doesn't matter what form we use, as long as we worship God from our hearts!" There is a sense in which this is true, of course. Paul and Silas were able to worship and praise God in a Philippian jail cell, without the assistance of a church building, Bibles, musical accompaniment, or comfortable seats. God has never been confined to a building or set pattern of worship, even when he gave Israel specific instructions about how to approach him.

However, I don't think that is what folks mean when they protest forms. Rather, they are suggesting that they are free to do whatever they enjoy and call it worship, and if a friend comes along and suggests there might be more to it than that, they resist as though someone were trying to deprive them of their liberty.

It is the responsibility of pastors to start, not with people's preferences, but with the God we worship, as revealed in creation, Scripture, and in Christ and his Gospel. The first question to ask is not, "What will attract people?" Rather, we begin by asking, "Who is God, and what has he done for us?" That question should be our main guide in choosing the forms we use.

That does not mean everyone has to use exactly the same forms in shaping worship. Nor does it mean we have to use only old forms or traditional forms. We need not sing only hymns and reject gospel songs or praise choruses. We need not have only certain forms for hearing Scripture or participating in prayer. We are free in the Spirit to creatively adapt our forms, as long as the forms we use maintain a sense of integrity with God's revelation.

I'll give one example. I think contemporary evangelicalism misses the mark and fails to recognize the impact of the forms our worship takes in the area of congregational participation.

• Church buildings now being constructed have auditoriums that are more like concert halls than sanctuaries. These buildings mold us into stage-actors and audience. The form of our architecture tells us that a worship service is something that we attend and others perform.
  

• In many church services, the only opportunity for congregational participation is through singing. However, even in churches that sing a lot, it is not uncommon for the band and singers on stage to be so dominant that the congregation does not have a sense of lifting their voices together in musical praise. The atmosphere is more like a concert where people show enthusiasm for the music without really being the choir that produces the music.

• In these same services, often the only people who speak during the service are those who speak from the stage. The congregation learns that its main job is to sit and listen.

Now, contrast this with a typical service from the liturgical church we attend:

• Welcome by pastor, with response by congregation
  
• Gathering song, sung by the congregation (with no "worship leader"—we all sing together and follow the instruments—same with all hymns and songs)
  
• Responsive greeting between pastor and congregation
• Sung Kyrie ("Lord, have mercy"). One singer, standing at congregation level, leads us by singing the verses and congregation sings the refrain with him.
• Hymn of praise (congregation)
• OT reading, by reader who is member of congregation
• Choral Anthem by adult choir
• NT reading, by reader
• Gospel song, sung by congregation
• Gospel lesson, read by pastor
• Children's message, children gather at altar and are taught by pastor
  
• Sermon, by pastor
• Hymn (congregation)
• The Creed (said together by congregation)
• Prayers of intercession (said responsively with reader and congregation)
• Offering, followed by offertory sung by congregation
• Responsive prayer before communion (pastor and congregation)
• Communion, made up of many elements that are responsively read or sung by pastor and congregation, including the Lord's Prayer, said together in unison. Communion is taken at the altar, distributed by pastor and reader, and a couple from the congregation
  
• Blessing, by pastor
• Closing hymn
• Announcements, given by pastor and other congregation members

Whatever you might think of the individual elements or how they are practiced in this particular church, you must admit that this service is overwhelmingly congregational. The only extended period of sitting and listening is during the sermon. In every other part of the service, the family of God is actively involved in giving worship to God. In this church, we don't attend worship, we worship!

Congregational participation is a Gospel value that is integral to genuine worship. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is creating a forever family, and he wants his whole family to be actively involved in worshiping him together. He wants to hear from each one of us, as well as speak to each one of us. He desires that we experience the unity of the Spirit as we lift our voices together to give him offerings of praise.

The word "liturgy" means, "the work of the people." No spectators allowed when it comes to worship! We should reconsider any forms of "worship" that diminish congregational participation.

Two Posts on Pastoral Integrity

Today, I'm recommending two posts that deal with the pastoral issue, the second matter that I will be considering in my own series, "An Evangelical's Lament and Journey" (see posts below).

The first is by Michael Spencer (aka Internet Monk), the second by Scot McKnight on his Jesus Creed blog.

I encourage you to read them and join in the conversation. There is certainly a great deal of confusion about the nature of the pastoral office in the church today.

NO JOY IN INDY...

The Indianapolis Colts football team is a class act, and a very successful franchise. Coach Tony Dungy and QB Peyton Manning have led them to the playoffs for a record ten straight years. However, last evening in the Wild Card round of the AFC playoffs, they couldn't stop 5' 6" Darren Sproles, who ran around, over and through them to lead the San Diego Chargers to a 23-17 overtime win over the visitors from Indy. The little guy did everything but the equipment manager's job for the Chargers, and fittingly scored the winning touchdown.

It was a great game to watch, but in the end the Blue Crew and their fans are blue once again.

AN EVANGELICAL'S LAMENT AND JOURNEY, part three

THE CENTRAL ISSUE: Worship (lack thereof)
Part One

The most important issue to us in our journey has been that of corporate worship. For thirty years now, this theme has always been at or near the center of our thinking and practice in ministry. In the last post, I summarized my critique of what passes for worship in many evangelical congregations today, especially in the pacesetting megachurches. Today, I give my own definition of worship.

Of course, worship can be defined or described in various ways. In its broadest sense, we worship God whenever we faithfully respond to his grace and live for his glory (1Cor 10.31). Paul also uses worship language to describe our total response of faith to the Gospel (Rom 12.1-3). However, we are talking about something more specific here—corporate worship—when God's people gather for what we call a "worship service."

Before giving a more detailed critique of contemporary evangelicalism's approach to worship, here is how I define it...

Worship is a meeting with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in which a congregation of believers, in response to God’s revealed character and acts, presents offerings of...

• praise
• thanksgiving
• confessions of faith
• confessions of sin
• prayers of petition and intercession
• vows of obedience
• readiness to hear and respond to God’s Word.

For his part, when his people gather to meet with him, God applies the benefits of his saving grace in Christ to them through...

• the living Word, by which the Holy Spirit renews and transforms his people
• his Sacraments, by which the Holy Spirit reassures and sustains his people
• the koinonia of the Holy Spirit, which produces unity and mutual edification among his people
• the filling of the Holy Spirit, which empowers his people for love and service.

What do you think of this definition?

AN EVANGELICAL'S LAMENT AND JOURNEY, part two

A few months ago, I wrote a post called, “Where’s a Pastor to Go?” I began that post with these words:

How does a pastor find a church when he is between churches? What does his family do when their life has been built around the routines of church life, and then the rhythm changes?

An unexpected journey, it eventually led us to a surprising destination. After thirty years of worshiping and serving in mostly non-denominational evangelical or fundamentalist churches, we chose to become members of a mainline congregation—a Lutheran church (ELCA).

The rest of the story...

In retrospect, this should not have been so surprising. My own studies and experiences have led me to question many aspects of the contemporary evangelical approach, particularly in the area of ecclesiology. I have long been a contrarian against conventional church culture and practice, and found it difficult to not to laugh (or cry) at the all too common assumption that following Christ is to be equated with participating in someone’s clever church program.

My critiques grow out of a personal disillusionment, not only with certain church practices, but with a much larger culture—the culture of American middle class suburbia. At its root, my critique is that contemporary evangelical churches have, by and large, uncritically adopted the perspectives and values of American suburban affluence rather than allowing the story of the Bible, Jesus, apostolic Christianity, and the history of the church throughout the centuries, to inform their ecclesiology and practical theology.

In this post, I will give a general outline of three areas of dispute that caused me to look away from the contemporary evangelical church to other options when we were looking for a church home. Succeeding posts will add detail.

THE CENTRAL ISSUE: Worship (lack thereof)
Worship in the evangelical church has consistently followed patterns established by the American revivalist tradition. The “service” is essentially a stage show. Music and other elements prepare for and build up to the main event: the sermon. After the sermon, the preacher calls for response through an invitation. The “actors” are those who hold forth on the stage. The congregation is the “audience.” The preacher is the “star.” The sermon is like a sales pitch and the invitation gives the listeners the opportunity to buy in. This inevitably leads to a performance mentality on the part of those on the stage and a spectator mindset for those in the audience. Even those who do their parts with best intentions can’t overcome the unspoken messages they are sending.

Let me say unequivocally—this is not worship. I'm not saying that these services don't serve a purpose, particularly in mission settings, and it's true that some may find a way to worship while they sit in these shows, but on the corporate level these types of services are not designed so that God’s people may offer worship to him. We chose to seek a church that prepares and practices worship, not a stage show.

THE PASTORAL ISSUE: Hey Look! I’m an Entrepreneur!
It seems the primary models for church leaders today are celebrity megachurch pastors, successful business leaders, and media-savvy spokesmen. The successful pastor’s study has been transformed into his office, complete with a staff to insulate him from people who might waste his time. He imposes his will (sorry, vision) upon the congregation. His main tool is not his Bible but his Blackberry. He dresses cool, refuses to stand humbly behind a pulpit when he preaches, and majors in “practical” messages filled, of course, with pop culture references.

Eugene Peterson once said he was horrified to hear himself answer an inquirer’s question about his work with the sentence, “I run a church.” But this is the evangelical model, and it has run amuck. We chose to seek a tradition in which the pastoral role is defined and practiced differently.

THE MISSIONAL ISSUE: Living in the Temple
Large, “successful” evangelical churches now have “campuses” filled with buildings in which a multitude of programs take place. Those who defend them say that they are designed to attract the community so that they can hear the Gospel. However, they are much more successful in providing safe, “Christian” environments for the faithful and their families. In my generation, we have also seen the establishment of an alternative Christian culture that has created a world of its own, from homeschooling conventions to stores filled with “Jesus junk,” from Christian amusement parks to creation “museums,” from lucrative music and publishing industries to media empires. Christians need not ever leave the evangelical fold and venture into the world. And many don’t. Since, in the suburban world we relate to others according to “networks” rather than “neighborhoods,” believers can plug into the evangelical network and never have a meaningful conversation with a non-Christian if they so choose.

The evangelical church has become an artificial cosmos unto itself. It is of the world, but not in it. We chose to seek a tradition and church practice that is more organically related to real life and Jesus’ mission in the world.

PRAY FOR GAZA'S CHRISTIANS

Source: NY Times

Lost in the news stories about Israel's bombing of Hamas targets in Gaza is the fact that there are many minority groups caught in the crossfire. The Christian community in Gaza is one such group. There are about 3,000 Christians in Gaza, and they are unwelcome in either the Muslim majority of their own communities or in Israel. They are trapped in the midst of the violence, and we should pray for them.

For more information, read this Mission Network News piece, which quotes Carl Moeller of Open Doors...

"It's remarkable how much that the church is facing there," Moeller said. "And yet the Christians continue to pray; they continue to cry out to God; and when they can, reach out to their neighbors with comfort."

Let us continue to cry out to God for them.

AN EVANGELICAL'S LAMENT AND JOURNEY, part one

This is part one of a series on leaving the contemporary evangelical church and returning to a mainline congregation. My wife and I recently joined a Lutheran church (ELCA) after having pastored and served in mostly non-denominational churches for 30 years.

The rest of the story...

Here's a bit of background about us...

• We met at and graduated from a fundamentalist, dispensational Bible college
  
• Served in an independent Baptist church in New England
  
• Went to seminary at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Ev Free Church), one of the most prominent evangelical seminaries in the world
• While there, served in a fundamentalist Bible church (IFCA)
• Moved to Indianapolis, where I was an associate pastor at a non-denominational, evangelical "Community" church
• Moved to a sister church, where I was the senior pastor
• Resigned and began serving as a hospice chaplain, a ministry I hold to this day
• While exercising my chaplain ministry, I helped at a couple of independent churches—one with more of a Bible church/Baptist background, the other with folks who came from the Nazarene tradition

Let me also share some facts from my journey that are pertinent to this series of posts.

• Bible college taught me to love the Bible as God's Word, and that one of my primary duties as a pastor would be to mine its riches and give God's people the tools to do the same.

• My first pastoral experience, in a small, rural New England village church, taught me that people matter most. That congregation really trained me to have a pastor's heart and not to put too much stock in programs or strategies. I did a lot of visiting, leading worship, teaching, and pastoral care.

• During those early years, I began to study about worship. A few significant trips to Grace Chapel in Lexington, MA, an evangelical church with a high view of worship, introduced me to the subject and whetted my appetite for deeper understanding in this area.

• In seminary, I took the first class on worship they had ever offered. My teachers also introduced me to Eugene Peterson and his teaching on the pastoral role, which is deeply critical of the way the vocation is being practiced in contemporary America.

• Seminary also helped me focus my attention on the Apostle Paul, not only his doctrine but also his pastoral theology. I began to hunger to see the same convictions and priorities that moved him motivate me also.
  

• As an associate pastor I was responsible for worship and music. This proved to be an apprenticeship in learning and teaching about worship, as well as overseeing the practical details of planning and implementing worship week after week. Robert Webber's writings began to have more of an impact on my thinking, and I had the privilege of having him come to our church and lead a worship seminar.

• My last senior pastor position was in a troubled church, and though many good things came from our stay there, ultimately I resigned in the midst of insoluble problems and found myself for the first time wondering about my vocation and not knowing where to turn next.
  

• In God's providence I was able to find a position as a hospice chaplain. This work has been an unmitigated blessing. As one who goes every day to people's homes, hospitals and nursing homes, I began to experience more than ever before the great joy of ministering out in the world and not just within the "temple" (church programs).

In a nutshell, this summarizes some of the formative experiences and influences that have shaped my view of the church, worship, the pastoral ministry, and the mission of God's people in the world. Of course, this is just a summary. There is so much more to say, especially about the specific people who have blessed and influenced my thinking and life.

These points will help you understand a little bit of where I'm coming from in upcoming posts, as I lament the condition of evangelicalism today and relate why our journey has led us in this season of life to a mainline congregation.