If one were commissioned to produce an alt.worship service for a bunch of creative young people in his church one could run into the problem of context. In Big Church, we tend to create services out of our own context; let me give you an example:
- I arrange access to the projector, buy candles and invite a monk to play a foreign instrument during worship and a Hindi Indian woman to sing praise songs off-the-cuff. I tell everyone we’re meeting in the basement of an abandoned art gallery downtown and to bring an item of significance in their lives to submit to God through creative worship. I light the candles, loop the group’s VJ’s meditation video and the foreigners start playing. People show up and we serve beer and light incense. It is an evironmental post-modern nu-Christian masterpiece of an atmosphere. We begin to worship.
But the people don’t respond. They sit there with their hands in their pockets, enjoying the entertainment quote easily because to them, that’s what it is– entertainment. Why don’t they worship? They are Spirit-filled Christians who love God, have a passionate friendship and devotion to Him, but they don’t engage. I propose that this is a problem of context.
There’s nothing wrong with the people who attend– they’re normal Christians struggling with deep questions, but that just makes them normal. The problem is that the service has been created without them. They just have to show up, and though they are pleased with the scene, it is not theirs, it is mine. It belongs to those who have organised it. Take our VJ for instance– he probably has some crazy-amazing way of worship at his studio… maybe he throws together incredible worshipful clips and recites a mantra about the grace of God. Or maybe he just sings Matt Redman songs, but either way, that’s not what he’s doing here at this service. He has come into a foreign land.
What can be done about this? I think there are a few key things we can learn from an experience like this:
- people have their very own relationships with God, and those must be acknowledged and supported
- people create their own methods of worship based upon The Spirit’s leading, and they should be encouraged and free to utilise those methods in collective worship – we must not prescribe methods of worship
- when people feel free to utilise their own methods, they will
The Big Church is not evil because of its numbers, quite the opposite, actually. It is strong because of its numbers, and those numbers bring great benefits to The Kingdom and the Body. But they must not eclipse the individual and that individual’s methods. To do so would be to not acknowledge their individual identity. Perhaps this is one of the causes of a general lack-of-ownership in Big Church today. People feel invisible and invalid.
Thoughts?
wow. both this article and the one before are very important. these are incredible insights! i think this needs to be a conversation among leaders and christians as this new generation starts to emerge into church leadership. if we do not do what you suggest or come up with even more creative ideas, we are going to alienate a whole generation, as Big Church seems to be doing right now.
These are important thought for all of us.
One of the most profound things our generation must learn is to pray for Big Church. It seems that sometimes we almost default into working against Big Church, but I think this is a misalignment and a misunderstanding of our Spiritual position.
i totally agree… i am actually writing an essay that is very similar to this… I got interested in under ground church… i think i’ve mentioned this to you… But how can we be an underground church in the church? instead of doing our own thing apart from these constructs of the Big Church, how can we birth this revolution out of the foundation that already exists… sort of like a dandelion bursting out of dead, hard, compact soil. everyone i know… all my old youth group friends have rebelled, done their own thing and fallen trap to the world. i saw the same inconsistencies and things i didn’t like as they did, but i stuck to it and God has blessed me tremendously.
It’s weird– I see both things happening:
1) I see some inspired by God to create something new, not necessarily out of the Big Church, and God blesses it, and
2) I see someone totally effect change from within Big Church, and God blesses it, and it rocks.
Which makes me think: Geez, it’s not about whether or not we’re supporting Big Church— of course we are, they’re just as much our brothers and sisters as our underground church friends. Maybe we can’t relate to the way they do some things but that’s just a difference of opinion.
And yet it has become a huge speed-bump for many.