The Art of Curating Worship

A book that has me absolutely brimming with ideas is Mark Pierson’s The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader. This book speaks directly to how worship can be a means of discipleship for a community and the needs of artists within their faith communities to grow and thrive.

It’s not often I feel like I read a book that confirms my dreams like this one does. When people have asked me how I envision a future role in full-time ministry I tell them I want to be a worship pastor. This is often met with puzzled looks.

I don’t play guitar.

I don’t sing melody.

How could I be a worship pastor?

To me, the point of being a worship pastor is to shepherd (pastor) people in worship, in a holistic sense. Just like preachers don’t accomplish their whole job in a half hour on a Sunday morning, why is it expected that a worship pastor’s sole focus is a four song music set on Sunday morning. Quite frankly, why do churches have full-time job roles for that? A worship pastor should lead and disciple people in worship.

To me, that means helping people in prayer, Scripture reading, music, serving others, discipling others, cooking, cleaning, painting, writing, etc. If we want to take seriously that all work should be worship, then the worship pastor should be uniting people’s vocation with their spiritual disciplines to bring glory to God in all we do.

This book speaks to that sentiment. Focused on doing stations based worship on Sunday mornings along with “guerilla worship” (doing worship events in the larger community, like art installations), this book shows that the role of the worship leader is to facilitate the  faith community’s participation in worship by utilizing individual talents to create art and bring glory to God. In its pages you will find dozens of examples, mostly in Australia and New Zealand, of how worship leaders are curating worship installations that allow God to speak to people through all of their senses. It is a view of worship as immersion—a setting aside of time to be immersed in the depth of the human condition and how God speaks to this depth.

I know I am not alone. I had a good friend lament to me a couple of months ago about how she set up an art event at her church and only one person showed up. This book is for people like us, who struggle with how to lead worship in a holistic way that connects with your diverse faith community and disciples people in their strengths and vocations.

The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader
Mark Pierson
Sparkhouse Press
$15.92  (Amazon)

An Epiphany About Discipleship

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a disciple lately. (Most of the time) I have the Bible reading down, an active prayer life and fellowship with Christ-followers and my neighbors.

But it still feels like there is a gap or hole in my becoming more Christ like. I would equate it to tapping on a watermelon and hearing that dull hollow sound coming from the bowels of the melon. It felt a bit like that.

I think that hollowness comes from not using our gifts and talents for worship.

“I use my gifts and talents all the time!” you might reply. And you are right. You probably do. I believe you.

What I think often happens is that we use our gifts and talents to accomplish a task and not to worship.

The story of the magi, today on Epiphany, their feast day, is the perfect reminder of what our gifts and talents should be used for.

But first, a retelling of the story of the magi in our modern ways.

The magi were men who had the gift of hospitality. Knowing that to be good Christians they were supposed to use their gift of hospitality, the men took off on a journey to be hospitable. What better way to use our gift of hospitality than to give gifts to the King of Kings! they thought. So they journeyed many months until they found the King of Kings as a little baby. The men all descended from their donkeys and camels to make their way into the Christ child’s house, weary from the long journey but excited to finally accomplish their task. The men gave three gifts and celebrated. They had used their gift of hospitality! Hooray!

This retelling is how we often think about our gifts and talents. We are supposed to use our gifts and talents to accomplish something. And while that is true, and necessary, it misses the larger point of what the true value of our gifts and talents is worship:

When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2)

The whole point of the magi using their astrology talents and traveling all that way was to use their gifts and talents in worship. If it is just to complete a task, it loses its full meaning and its ability to shape us into disciples.

As we begin this season of Epiphany, let the story of the magi remind you that our gifts are talents are supposed to be used in worship, and by using our gifts and talents to worship God we are shaped into the disciples he wants us to be.

What are your gifts and talents?

How do you think you can begin using those gifts and talents in worship?

Is Repetition Unholy?

I remember the first time I heard the bizarre statement that repetition took away from worship. It was, not surprisingly, in a Baptist church. I had, probably naively, asked why the church didn’t practice communion more often. The response was that repetition made spiritual practice meaningless and unimportant: “If you do something too much it no longer has any value, so we only practice communion every now and then to keep it fresh and exciting.”

That is an American response.

That is the response of a person who was raised on instant gratification.

That is the response of a person who expects new, exciting forms of entertainment.

That is the response of a person who values change over consistency.

That is the response of a person who values feeling more than commitment.

Most importantly, that is not a Christian response.

The Christian response is that our spirituality and worship are everyday, every hour, every minute happenings. We are admonished to take communion each time we gather, to pray without ceasing, to pray in a certain way, to sing songs, confess sins, listen to the reading of Scripture, meditate, teach, learn. These are all things we repeat. Unceasingly.

Repetition is not unholy. It is a deep, elongated experience that should make us into disciples.

Repetition in worship is just like when you tell a family member you love them.

Repetition in worship is just like when you take a drink of water.

Repetition in worship is just like when you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Repetition in worship is just like when you go to sleep.

Repetition in worship is just like when you go to work.

Repetition in worship is just like when you turn on a light so that you can see clearly.

Yes, I can readily admit that we can stumble into laziness or unfocused action in repetition, but that is not the fault of the spiritual practice, just as much as it is love’s fault when a spouse just mumbles the words “I love you” without any thought or care. We need to learn to embrace repetition in worship, the normalcy and comfort of sameness in worship, just like we accept this normalcy and comfort of routine in the rest of our lives.

I repeat: we need to learn to embrace repetition in worship. And when we do, we will become aware of the slow and steady movement of the Spirit in every aspect of our life. When we do, we will become aware of how God is steadily working on our holiness: through repetition.

Are We A Lamenting Church?

Two events in our area are kind of coming together into a season of lament for the communities in the New York City metro area. Thankfully we were spared damage in the hurricane, but many of my friends and people at church suffered damage. As I drove to a friend’s house on Tuesday to help with flooding, I went through detour after detour. Frustrated by how long it took me to travel what is normally such an easy trip, it was haunting to witness destruction from my car in stop-and-go traffic. Rivers undercutting interstate highways. Submerged houses. Block upon block of damaged property stacked high and wide for trash pickup that will take weeks. The police called in for looters and garbage thieves. It was enough to make one numb.

And in just a week will be the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attack. As someone who moved to this area a few years after the attacks, its been a bit bewildering to be placed into an area where so much suffering has been pushed aside for necessity as life goes on. But the hurt is still there, and this anniversary many are finally preparing to deal with some of the emotions they have held in check for so many years.

Our church is basically entering into two straight weeks of lament. This Sunday will be the hurricane. Next week will be September 11th.

The question is: do we know how to lament?

In our contemporary American Christianity when every church advertisement and production is all smiling families and up beat well groomed pastors, do we know how to properly lament before God?

I think we know how to respond to tragedy as best as we can. But in the Scriptures we witness so many of the prophets and stories of God’s people not only respond to tragedy but actually become tragedy. To dress in sackcloth and ashes. To indwell destruction and horror in order to overcome it.

We respond so that we can cope. What we need to do is participate in the grief so that we can do more than cope, we can become despair.

How can we through Christ actually become grief, so that those around us may grieve? In other words, how do we not only voice our despair and lament, but become despair and lament, that others may see through us to Christ, who dispels the darkness?

Worship Music Bingo

Have you ever been standing in church and thought I’ve heard this before? or this word gets repeated a lot? or every song sounds the same!

Well I have news for you: the answers are yes, yes and of course!

That’s why I created worship music bingo. Now you have the opportunity to actually track the repetition, cliche and myopic viewpoints reinforced by much of modern worship music in real time and with your friends! It’s like sabermetrics for church! And the best part is that some one wins!

Here are the rules for worship music bingo:

1. Print off worship music bingo cards for you and your friends
2. Use the bingo cards to keep track of when different words are used
3. The first one to get bingo wins!

Variations:

• See how many weeks it takes to fill up the whole card.
• Give cards out to your friends who attend different churches and compare your cards at a Sunday brunch.

You can download your own Everyday Liturgy Presents Worship Music Bingo™ card by clicking the download button.

A Question of Aesthetics

One of my recent obsessions has been the design blog Design*Sponge. I love design, and I love to think about ways to re-decorate around our place.

The world of Christian design is wide open, from iconoclastic white washed Baptist churches to flying-buttressed cathedrals, Thomas Kinkade kitsch and Makoto Fujimura abstraction, and simple lecterns to rock and roll stages. Design in Christianity is deeply tied to function: the need to communicate spirituality and to actually perform spiritual actions and works: preach, baptize, serve communion, read, play music, etc.

This begs the question: Do you think that the design of the church—colors, architecture, ambiance—should be a central focus of church?

And more: How do you think they influence worship? Do you think they should influence worship?