I felt it again last night; that deep sense that young people just do not care one bit about what the Church has to offer them nowadays. I had been looking at the website for a local rock band (Common Heroes) in which a friend of mine plays, and as my mind began to wander, I started to ask what the place of those types of peoples would be in the Church... and I simply drew a blank. Sure, they may see it as being the "right thing to do" (to go to church as they always have), but their heart is for the stage and what is happeneing there every weekend. They see the "message" going out through a different medium. And to be honest, they seem to be speaking to our generation and the ones before it in a way that I, as a preacher, simply cannot touch. People my age don't hear the truth in pulpits and pews - they hear it in clubs, in concerts, in raves, in malls, in bars, and in pubs. These are the places seen as carrying the greatest weight and bearing witness to the deepest realities of our modern day society. Anything that a pastor would say would certainly be heard (if they haven't chosen to fully abandon the Church just yet), but those people care more about the lyrics of their favorite song by their favorite artist. What is our role as pastors to be in that? Do we even still carry a voice with those people, the ones who stand next in line to shape our culture, society, and even our world?
I know of a couple pastors throughout the US who are actually finding great success in their style of communication. And the common theme is that they simply open up the Scriptures and invite the people into it, to look at it, to journey through it, to search it out for what it might (does) have to offer. They don't have liturgy, or rather, if they do have it, it is offered in a fresh and new way... almost as a sort of new experience to try (which is a package that tends to always be successful in our postmodern culture). They don't have three point outlines, but rather they offer what they see (typically with the plain eye), stuff that anyone could get from first glance, but they are in fact offering people in a powerful way that first glance. They are giving people new lens, even new eyes, with which to view the Word.
But such pastors, and such churches, are few and far between.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Dave,
ReplyDeleteWhen I was "hired" to be a church planter, I thought about this stuff a lot. I loved preaching and was pretty good at it (if I do say so myself ;-), but I wondered if that form of communication was effective in the world we live in now. Was it even effective for me?
When I did start my church plant, I decided to try something different. I got my church plant team together and decided to "have church" with them for a few months before we actually started opening up to new people. My idea, was to have a more organic church, one that wasn't predictable, one that did not involve innvocation, worship, invitation, and benediction every Sunday.
The "church" was to be based on cell churches and a weekly "worship experience." The cell churches were to be more than simple Bible studies. For instance, our leadership church (which comprised the first cell church) would meet to worship and share together. One week, we all brought two songs that had some kind of "spiritual significance" to us. Everyone printed out the lyrics. Each person introduced his/her song and explained the significance. Then we listened to the song. I remember that everyone got a lot out of it. Another night, we got together and all brought cookbooks. We decided on an italian theme and wrote certain italian dishes on slips of paper (two of each dish). People would draw out which dish they would be working on, would find their partner, and all of us drove to the grocery store together. We bought our groceries and went back to the house and cooked our meal. As we sat down, we discussed the significance of feasts in spiritual life and we prayed for all of the people that had a hand in our meal (the people who grew the food, picked the fruit, etc.). We watched that clip from the movie, Chocolat, and talked about the significance of food in community.
We had lots of small group experiences like that. My idea for the (eventually) larger and (eventually) weekly meeting was to present some kind of different worship experience to the people every week. Perhaps one week, instead of a sermon, a sculpture would create a bust of Jesus to worship music, or we would have artisans make a wine-press for our communion. Different people would be involved in the service. Some would offer an essay, others a song, others a sermon.
My thought of my role as a pastor was that I would be a director of worship experiences. I would direct events that would involve everyone. I would make everyone pastors.
Of course, then I came to believe that the Christian God did not exist, so that kind of screwed up my plans, but I still think I had a good idea at the time, huh?
Atta boy!!! That's exactly what I am talking about. Hey, you wanna come work at my church? I figure a guy who isn't afraid to say what he thinks could have quite an impact on it. Thanks for leaving your thoughts! I just might have to swipe a couple ideas from you, that is as long as you aren't gonna use them! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI think I'm a little past the point of church work at this point ;).
ReplyDeletePlease, swipe away. I think I still have entire notebooks full of stuff that I came up with lying around somewhere. I'll see if I can find them.
I sometimes wonder if I could come up with some kind of completely secular "church" (can't think of a better word for it). There is something powerful about the community that churches offer (they just screw it up with all the God and religion stuff ;-).