Is the Church Being Neighborly?

On this past week’s This American Life, the third act, “Wary Home Companion,”  told the story of an elderly woman with a middle aged son who is autistic. Knowing that she only had a few more years left to watch over her son, the woman began to ask her neighbors if they would begin to take a bit more responsibility for checking in on her son in case she passed soon. Her neighbors declined. She ventured off to the police station, where she inquired about a big brother program or an officer who would try to befriend him. The police didn’t know how to help her. Still not deterred, the woman went to the mayor’s office and asked if the mayor knew of anyone who could help with her son. Surely, she thought, the mayor knows everyone, there must be someone he knows that can help my son. The administrative assistants didn’t let the conversation go on too long, and politely changed the subject with a referral to the Health Department. The woman was dismayed that no one in her community wanted to help with her son.

She brought up in the interview how she would watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and noticed that the neighbors would all pitch in to help a family, and that she thought surely her community would want to watch her son, who now lived alone in a house next door, but needed some companionship.

This story naturally caught my attention because of the despair in the lady’s voice. What really made me pay attention was that this is happening in my backyard, in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, the town that is adjacent to my own. This mother and son are probably five miles or less away from me.

What struck me about this story was the absence of the church in the midst of this. I know there are plenty of churches in Fair Lawn. This is a complicated issue, and some questions arise from this:

How can the church become an institution or body that people think of when they need help? This mother never thought to approach the church. Also, what does it say about the church that a woman thinks of the mayor or police station as a source of help and companionship before a church?

Photo by Scott Foster.

Hazing, Horror Stories and Hacked Narratives

About three hours into an eight hour birthing class after hearing our wonderful teacher go through a laundry list of stories, remedies, or tips that our mothers, aunts, grandmothers, or friends may have told us about birth that are simply and unequivocally untrue I began to feel a bit angry about some of the ridiculousness my wife has been told for the past  months. Don’t get me wrong, she has received plenty of excellent and praiseworthy advice, but in the midst of it has been what are quite frankly attempts at hazing, horror stories and hacked narratives of childbirth. I was a bit discouraged thinking about what my wife has had to deal with, and then became a bit more disillusioned when the voice inside my head questioned me: “what about how people in the church haze, tell horror stories and hack God’s narrative?”

Over the next few posts I want to journey into a discussion about how the local church can hold fast to its good news, the story of God’s people, and learn to weed out the incidents of hazing, the telling of stories, and the hacking of God’s narrative in the community.

A few of the questions I will be dialoguing with over the next few posts:

What are the aspects of hazing you have participated in or been presented with in a faith community?

What horror stories are told within the church? How does this affect the faith community?

What hacked narratives have you experienced?

What should the local church do about misinformation?

How can the local church use God’s narrative to weed out hazing, horror stories and hacked narratives from within?

Is There Room for a Theologian in the Local Church?

In announcing his resignation today, Biblical Seminary professor John Franke stated that he is taking up the position of Theologian in Residence at a Presbyterian church in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Theology has typically been in a separate realm from the local church, much to the disdain of theologians like Eugene Peterson, who view the role of pastor as a theologian and teacher (and poet). For the most part, local churches have tried to stay away from theology and academics, mostly because they say that theology is “too hard” or “impractical.” They say it belongs in the seminaries, but not in the church.

Should a local church have a theologian in residence? What role should the theologian fill?

5 Reasons Theological Diversity is Important in a Post-Christian World

I believe thinking about theological diversity within the local church will become a necessity of the church in the post-Christian era. We can no longer afford to be divisive and turn on each other when the world has turned on us. There are five big reasons that theological diversity within the local church is absolutely necessary:

1) The local church is becoming increasingly ecumenical. Church attendance is becoming more diverse as Americans become more comfortable with spiritual alternatives. With a more post-modern perspective, people who were raised in one denomination or stream of Christianity are more comfortable leaving that stream for another one. This is seen in such movements as the recent trend of young evangelicals migrating to the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions.

2) The local church is becoming missional. The attractional model functioned in American Christendom because it fulfilled the needs of both church and attendee: the church continued to exist by bringing in numbers and the attendee received spirituality while remaining a healthy arms-length away from engaging in the heartbeat of discipleship and faith. Now that the culture at large is okay with not being part of a spiritual community, the local church must become missional since this is how the Church has learned to live in cultures that are secular. The missional church needs theological diversity because it is no longer attracting people to a particular mode of worship or set of doctrines but instead to a framework of spirituality and discipleship that needs to remain open to a person’s (a)theological background and ethnic and/or cultural heritage.

3) The local church is becoming discipleship oriented. Disciples are followers of a certain way. The way of Christ has many streams in it, as can be seen by the huge amount of denominations, conferences, collectives, and sects within Christianity. These streams are all one manifold witness for Christ, to borrow from John Franke. With so many streams of discipleship, it is paramount that the local church not have a one-size-fits-all approach to discipleship but instead allows the believer to grow into an authentic relationship with Christ, whether that takes on the form of belting out contemporary worship music or chanting Psalms.

4) The local church is becoming the ambassador of Christianity in a broader culture. With more and more people being raised completely outside of a religious or spiritual context the Church is becoming counter-cultural (not because we’re cool, but because Christendom is dead). As ambassadors for Christ in the local community we can no longer afford to treat our fellow Christians who are different in doctrine, worship, or spiritual practice as the ugly stepsister. We need to stick together in our diversity because that is the greatest testimony to a post-Christian world: “we are not divisive like the world is, we are one kingdom under Christ.”

5) The local church is becoming a safe haven for spiritual exploration. With so many young people now growing up without any spiritual heritage it is crucial that the local church be a model of theological diversity. Not only is this a testimony of our unity to the broader culture, it is also a sign to those that are spiritually seeking that the local church is a safe place to think about mortality, God, the afterlife, sin, evil, justice, and equality. Those that are spiritually seeking are looking for a spiritual center without the rigidity of a faith community that claims to know all the answers. In essence, people are now seeking faith communities built upon faith as the center and not an airtight system of proven beliefs.  The theological diverse local church is a safe place for people with spiritual questions to come and ask them without fear of rejection.

When Hipsters and Worship Collide: An Interview with Brett McCracken

Reading Brett McCracken’s Hipster Christianity piqued my interest in how to refrain from making worship “cool.” It’s a temptation that we all fall into, as worship has suddenly become something that is commodified and has a market value. The fact that people may pay $30-40 to go worship with a cool worship band as opposed to a free worship band (e.g. the one at your church) has created a whole new value for worship. The worship of God, at least in the American church, now has a monetary and cultural value, and with value comes the “cool” factor.  Worship has become branded with bands like people buy brand name clothes. I wanted to hear from Brett on this issue, so we sat down at our respective computers and had a chat about it.

Thomas: So, after reading your book it really got me thinking about hipster Christianity and worship, because for me as a creative person who coordinates some of the liturgy for the church I attend I have notions about how to frame worship, mostly from an ancient-future perspective. It made me wonder about the whole advent of CCM that came about because of the Jesus Movement, and how our worship is a cultural response, not just a spiritual response.

Brett: Yeah, totally.

Thomas: So, I guess my first question is, how do you see cool/hip influence worship in the church today?

Brett: Well, I think a lot of it has to do with what you just said about the “cultural response vs. spiritual response” shift that happened when “Christian music” became an industry that tried to compete with, or at least copy, the styles of the broader world. The emphasis on worship music in the church thus began a shift in the “seeker-sensitive” direction—away from hymns and songs full of complicated theology or difficult-to-sing harmonies, etc.—toward a more simple chords, simply lyrics, path-of-least resistance approach. It became this thing that could be used to attract people to the church, to get them in the door. Worship music in the church became something that was asked to “do” rather than just “be,” if that makes any sense.

In terms of cool/hip specifically, I think they influence the music greatly.  When you get in this mindset of “what does the audience want to hear?” then you begin to select music that is “on trend” and reflective of what is cool at the moment. Basically, it makes the music much more disposable and quickly replaceable. It’s all about “what’s next.” Songs sung a few years ago like “God of Wonders” are hardly ever sung these days, because it’s passe to be singing something that was trendy 8 years ago.

Thomas: Yeah, worship seems to have this trickle down effect where worship music is on a delay. David Crowder listens to Sufjan Stevens, then covers a song, then it gets picked up by worship leaders, then people worship to it.

Brett: Right.

Thomas: Meanwhile Sufjan’s put out another album by then, and no one who worships to “O God Where Are You Now?” even knows who he is.

Brett: [Laughing] yeah. This is one of the problems with a “what is cool”-based methodology of worship music. It’s always behind trend. As long as you are actively trying to be with the trends, you’ll always be reactive and not proactive. So, a better route I think is to be trying to innovate and create new things, rather than reacting to or chasing after that which is deemed trendy or cool at the moment.

Thomas: So, culture making, in other words?

Brett: Definitely.

Thomas: What do you think people involved in the worship practice of a church need to learn or unlearn when it comes to how we let culture affect our worship?

Brett: I think we need to attempt to shift our focus away from a utilitarian view of music in worship that looks at music in this cause-effect model (some call it the “hammer approach”). The cause-effect model wants music to be this “performance” that somehow attracts outsiders. Rather, I think we should look at worship more as a “window into heaven” or just a reflection of what the saints are called to do: worship God. It should be less about what’s cool and more about “is this praising God?” I think we need to stop worrying so much about whether the congregation is liking it or enjoying it (though to some extent we must think of this) and more about whether it is turning us toward God and the cross.

Thomas: I think that’s a good way to put it. An example from my own church: there is an Armenian family at our church and one of their sons played the doumbek, and Armenian instrument in church one day. It was a bit out of place, a rock band and some Armenian percussion, but I look back on that and wonder why are we stuck in rock band mold? Should we begin to let the church community shape worship in unexpected ways?

Brett: Oh, definitely. I am always wondering to myself when I go to evangelical churches across the country: “Why am I only seeing this homogeneous, 5-piece U2-esque electric guitar sound?” Why are we only singing these soaring, emotional, me-centered Hillsong anthems? Can’t we do better than this, experiment with our own home-grown talents, explore the rich hymns of yesteryear in new and interesting ways?”

It’s strange to me that we’ve sort of landed on this very specific “rock band mold” as you put it. Why did we land here, and why is our conception of contemporary worship music so narrow?

Thomas: I think part of it is that copying is the destroyer of creativity. We go to conferences to copy successful churches, we listen to certain musicians to copy successful music, and we read certain books to copy successful theology. We don’t care about the local or genuine, we just care about the success. What ways do you see to bring creativity back into the church?

Brett: Well, one of the things I talk about in the book is the need for pastors and church leaders to come to a more honest understanding of what they like and why they like it. I think we need to evaluate and train our tastes, so that we can have a more mature, developed sense of appreciating art and culture rather than just “trying to like” what the populace says should be liked. So, instead of saying “the kids love such-and-such worship style; I want our band to try to play songs in that style,” I think a pastor or worship leader should say: “Hey band members, what music moves and inspires us as creative people? What do we like to create and perform?” I think we need to put more of an emphasis ourselves as artists rather than as hired hands meant to give the audience what it wants. Not that I think we should be narcissistic or anything, just that perhaps we should be more personal and honest about the whole process by emphasizing vision, innovation and creativity.

Some of the best church worship music I saw on my church research trips were the ones that really seemed to be organic and true to their own congregation’s tastes and talents. At Resurrection Presbyterian in Brookyln (the church pastored by The Welcome Wagon guy, Vito Aiuto), the music was of the same low-fi folk, hymns-on-banjo style of the whole Sufjan Brooklyn community. Another good example I would say is Mars Hill in Seattle. They have different bands play at their different campuses, and they are all just organic, self-made bands that have widely variant styles (math-rock, hard-rock, acoustic, etc..). They were sort of given free reign to create experimental worship music, often covering hymns in their own distinct styles.

Thomas: Music is so important to set the tone for a creative church, because a church can then embody the music instead of being spectators before a band. Pushing it further, how then do you see the worship music intersecting with the other elements of worship like preaching, prayer, and communion?

Brett: I think all of those elements are “worship,” and should (ideally) be integrated in some sort of cohesive way. The music we sing should interact with the preaching topic, the prayers being offered, etc. I’m a big fan of churches that are mindful of the church calendar, playing music and reading prayers that are specific to the church season (Lent, Advent, Easter, Pentecost, etc.). I think in general it’s just better to be more thoughtful in picking out music that reflects the other worship elements in a service, both in musical tone and lyrical content.

Thomas: Last question: in your book you implore Christians to be counter-cultural, but not necessarily “cool.” How can worship become counter-cultural?

Brett: Great question. I think being counter-cultural in worship just means being fiercely devoted to who God is and the fact that he is God and I am not. It means being passionately deferential and active in the constant, probing process of meditating on—and responding to through our own creative means—the attributes of God. It means caring little for whether or not we are “on trend” but caring instead that we are facilitating a culture that is honestly, creatively seeking God through its worship praxis. But also, and I think this is important to remember, it means that we rightly understand the broader universal church and seek unity and diversity through it whenever we can. This means that we find a balance between the local (our own individual culture of worship) and the global (the “common songs” and universal liturgies that bind us together as Christians). It means we have to fight against our western obsession with individualism and “what I want” and sometimes put the community above ourselves. We are Christians in community, and our worship should reflect collaboration and unity.

You can read my review of Brett’s new book Hipster Christianity here.

If you don’t know whether you’re a Christian hipster or not, you can take a quiz on the Hipster Christianity website.

The Slow, Beautiful Goodness That Is The Local Church

Christians in the blogosphere spend a good deal of time critiquing the church.  I spend a good deal of time on critique as well.  That’s fair enough.  The church deserves the criticism.  We need the accountability and opinions to keep us on the right track and in unity with Christian tradition.

What I don’t hear enough, in the midst of all the critique, is what the church has done for us lately.  A testimony if you will.  Those of us who spend our time critiquing the church still show up on Sunday and still worship each day.  Our critique hasn’t made us lose our need for the church.  And that is because the church is good.

Sometimes we don’t see the goodness of the local church because it is a slow, beautiful goodness.  At the wedding I was in this past weekend it struck me how over several years so many people within our local church community had been wrapped up in each other’s lives (in a good way).  We have lived life together, worshiped together, gone through the same sacred moments together.

The goodness comes only through the long, slow look.  It is best savored.

I stumbled upon the joyous thought that our local church has been so good during the rehearsal when I watched our friends practice their vows in the same place Sarah and I had done so four and a half years ago. In retrospect we were just a small yet integral couple to the ever increasing life of our local church.  When we look at so many of our friends wedding pictures we all have the same background.  We all have our church’s baptistery behind us, and the communion table whispering to us “Do this in remembrance of me.”

And we have remembered him, all of us, for better or worse. So much good has happened since we joined this community of faith.  The local church, for better or worse, whether richer or poorer, through good times or bad has done its job.  We have held our vows to each other, to be the body of Christ to the world and to one another.

Sure the local community has failed me and other people over the years.  But that critique stems from events here and there and the collective humanity of us all.  The collective, when compounded by time, is a testimony to the beautiful relationships we have all fostered with one another and the sharpening of our spirituality as we proceed through life together.

It happens so slow, this beautiful goodness.  And I delight in the thought that the longer we sit at the table together and love one another through thick and thin we will not be disappointed.