Monday Morning Musings

This past Friday and Saturday I was part of “Always Reforming: Reformed and Always Reforming”. I was apart of the planning team for this event so my opinion is obviously biased. But I think all in all this Presbymergent event was a success.

This weekend I presented a workshop entitles “Emergence in Traditional Churches: Traching Existing Faith Communities to Speak a New Language”. The idea of the workshop was to help those serving in existing churches respong to “emergence”. I defined emergence as the call of the Holy Spirit to reach out to people currently not being reached by that faith community. One person commented to me that this topic wasn’t being discussed in other venues so it was good to hear that my voice added something

A few weeks ago I presented an introductory workshop on Youth Ministry as part of a teacher training workshop. I went through some basic theological and practical foundations of Youth Ministry and then delved into some “how to” material.

In doing these two workshops I learned a few things. The first is that Youth Ministry is really my thing. I was able to present my talk with ease and address questions without too much trouble. I feel as though I’ve read enough of the “major” works in Youth Ministry and that I’ve been doing it long enough that I can speak with some level of authority and competence. I think my topic this past week was a more difficult one and perhaps a bit more uncharted which contributed to the challenge.

The other thing is I now realize that in a presentation it’s easy to sound like you know exactly what you’re doing when in reality you still have the same struggles as everyone else. Now that I’ve done presentations I don’t think as highly of the speakers I’ve heard at Youth Specialties. No doubt they were good at what they did, but they had their good times and bad times as well.

In any event presenting was a ton of fun and I hope I was able to help some fellow journeyer in the work as part of God’s work in the world.

Presbymergent.org

A  new website has been introduced for people in the PC(USA) who are interested in all things Emergent

http://presbymergent.org/

Check it out – it looks like it could hold great promise.

Doug Pagitt

This weekend Emergent Pittsburgh hosted Doug Pagitt, Pastor of Solomon’s Porch as the keynote speaker for “The Heart of the Missional Church.”

Doug has been gracious enough to post his comments on his podcast in 17 15-minute mp3 files. This is especially helpful since we lost the emergent pittsuburgh recordings for the whole afternoon session. We’ll have our recordings of the morning session available this week (they’re slightly better quality since we recorded them out of the sound system) and eventually we’ll have a video of the event available.

New Podcast…

The latest release on the Emergent Pittsburgh podcast is available… it’s an interview I did with Terry Timm, Lead Pastor of Christ Community Church of the South Hills.  This is another preview of the upcoming Heart of the Missional Church Conference.

Another church is thinking different in Pittsburgh…

Great article this morning about another church in Pittsburgh that is “thinking different” in their approach to ministry http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06256/721297-51.stm

Another common link – this one also involves a Pittsburgh Seminary graduate

Congrats to The Open Door…

The music of The Open Door, pastored by my friends BJ Woodworth and John Creasy is featured on this week’s Emergent Podcast… check it out

An Interview with BJ Woodworth

I interviewed BJ Woodworth, lead pastor of The Open Door, for the Emergent Pittsburgh Podcast.  Two weeks ago I interviewed Doug Pagitt, also for the Emergent Pittsburgh Podcast.  You can find them both here

http://www.emergentpittsburgh.org/Podcast/ 

Don’t forget – The Heart of the Missional Church, October 5th-7th

Emerging Worship

This week I’ve spent most of my free time devoted to reading Dan Kimball’s book, Emerging Worship. I first got to know Dan’s work last fall at the National Youth Worker’s Convention when I attended two of his seminars and was quite impressed. I especially liked the way Dan handled sticky issues that he raised in the “Emerging Questions: Questions Emerging Generations are Asking” or something along that line. He was honest, straightforward, but fair. I clearly remember him raising the issue about the role of women in worship leading:

Dan: Now how many of you are in churches that ordain women? (about a third of the hands – including mine – go up)

Dan: Now how many of you are in churches that don’t ordain women? (about two-thirds of the hands go up)

Dan: Okay, now one of you is wrong, but regardless within the parameters of your theological understanding of the role of women you need to find ways to have both men and women involved in the leadership of worship at your worship gatherings.

I was impressed. Anyway, part of my job at Hampton is to work with turningpoint, which is our “modern” worship service. It, in both style and content, is different from our contemporary and traditional services and is a service intended to reach out to those who are unchurched or have stopped attending church.

As I read Dan’s work I realize that he is coming at “emerging worship” from a very different perspective than I am. He is “emerging” from a traditional evangelical setting where the form of worship where as I am “emerging” from a more traditional reformed style of worship. While there are some commonalities between these two styles, there are also some major differences. Here are some of the common themes I see

1) Both traditional evangelical and traditional reformed emphasize one-way communication: In both traditional settings it is largely the worship leaders speaking to the people.

2) Both traditional evangelical and tradtional reformed emphasize the people worshipping in unison, albeit in different forms. Traditional evangelical tended to do this through unison singing while traditional reformed uses hymns and liturgical elements (call to worship, unison prayers, etc.)

3) Both traditional evangelical and traditional reformed emphasize up and down motion. In both settings you pretty much were either sitting down or standing up, and that’s it. On occasion, you might come forward to respond to an altar call (traditional evangelical) or taking communion by intinction (traditional reformed)

4) Both traditional evangelical and traditional reformed emphasize the message as the central part of the worship service.

5) Both traditional evangelical and traditional reformed emphasize auditory communication over other forms, although traditional evangelical moved toward limited visuals sooner.

However, there are some key differences.

1) Traditional evangelical did away with many “churchy” elements. Traditional liturgical pieces (call to worship, unison prayers, etc.), the church calendar (Advent, Lent, Ascension Day, Christ the King Sunday, etc.), crosses, pews, communion tables, baptismal fonts, organs, stained glass, candles, processional/recessional, bulletins, robes and vestments, etc. went away. The traditional evangelical worship space looked very similar to a school auditorium rather than what is traditionally thought of as a “church”.

2) My wife pointed out that traditional evangelical worship placed a high value on energy – more upbeat music is maybe the easiest place to see this.

Now one thing I am not doing is saying which of these two forms is better. I grew up traditional reformed and know many people who that form of worship has been essential to the growth of their faith. In the same vein, I know many people who grew up in traditional evangelical circles where that form of worship has been essential to the growth of their faith. So I am not saying one was/is right and one is wrong, I’m just pointing out where I see the differences.

So what it seems that Dan is suggesting is largely a recapturing and transforming of some traditional reformed elements (greater emphasis on the sacraments, a return to the church calendar to give a sense of history, crosses and other visual symbols of the faith) meshed into a shift in values toward a community planned and driven worship gathering. Also, Dan suggests a big emphasis on multi-sensory elements that engage all the senses. So, more visuals, taste, touch, etc.

I guess what I find so interesting about the emerging conversation is how a lot of it appears to be traditional evangelicals reclaiming that which we’ve (traditional reformed) have always had and reinventing it into something fresh and newish. This isn’t to say that what is being done and suggested in emerging circles is just traditional reformed with a new face (that’s not true – the multi-sensory piece isn’t not part of traditional reformed worship)

The question that I wrestle with is what those of us emerging from traditional reformed circles do with those things that to so many have become symbols the past which is marked by dry and rote worship.

Thoughts?

Emergent Pittsburgh…

has a new site, check it out

http://www.emergentpittsburgh.org

and then check out our event for the fall http://www.emergentpittsburgh.org/hmc 

More on Truth…

My friend John Creasy posted a comment on one of my last posts that I thought was good. So, I’m reposting it here along with my reply to him in an email.

John’s Comment:

Thanks Brian, great critiques. A question I have in my mind now is: what is the difference between "experiencing truth" and "experiencing the revelation of God"? Does not the ultimate knowledge of truth come through God's revelation, precisely the work of Jesus Christ? If that is true, maybe we should talk more about God's revelation. I think it will take a big step for some of us to really believe that Christ is at work and that our experiences may include the reality of revelation.

My Reply:

Hi John,

(This response is going to double as a blog post – hence the tone)

Good comments. I think you're right on. As far as I see it "experiencing Truth" and "experiencing the revelation of God", since Truth = Jesus Christ = Revelation of God is precisely the same. The problem that I often see when it comes to talking about "experiencing revelation" is that the work of the Holy Spirit often gets confused with our inner emotions. We talk about God speaking through the world, fine and true, but how is that grounded in continuity with God's revelation?

There is a great quote from Karl Barth on how God speaks to the world:
"God may speak to us through Russian Communism, a flute concerto, a blossoming shrub, or a dead dog. We do well to listen to him if he really does. But unless we regard ourselves as prophets and founders of a new Church, we cannot say that we are commissioned to pass on what we have heard as independent proclamation" (Church Dogmatics, v.1.1 – The Word of God, Pg. 55)

People often quote the first part to say, "Look, even Barth acknowledged that God can speak through the world!" but forget the very important second part (and the rest of the page for that matter). I think we need to recapture the idea of Jesus Christ's on-going work and yes, revelation to individuals and the community. We need to have the boldness to say, "Jesus revealed to our community that he wants us to be involved in ________". But we need to make sure that we experience and believe is revelation that is in continuity with the past revelation of God and the future direction of God's work in the world (hence the important of eschatology in ministry (which will be one of my next posts). If what you believe God is revealing isn't in line with what God has done in the world and has revealed that he will do, chances are you're missing the boat somewhere.

Enjoy the rest of your vacation!

– Brian