the simple life

Someone recently shared their concern that some of the technology in use at our church might be directed at a crowd that has little use for it. This person’s position was that statistics and other evidences point to the idea that the baby boomers are thrusting their tech and their “contemporary” ideas on 20-30-year-olds who could care less; church is a place where they hope to escape being bombarded with technology. While I agree in theory, I am uncertain how that translates to practice.

I think the direction worship tech is going – away from flashy toward discreet - is healthy. However, I see the effective use of technology in worship as becoming less and less visible – not going away, but becoming less obvious. How can we use tech to augment rather than amaze – to encourage worship rather than supplant it. Good tech has always been, in my opinion, an attempt to "finesse" rather than "bombard."

Indeed, today’s young people appear to be leaning toward simplicity in worship and away from the over-produced excesses of the mega-church. However, in Washington, Illinois, we are still transitioning. I think the tech-savvy baby boomer is still our major demographic here, but things are shifting. This is why I am taking every opportunity to emphasize becoming more missional and why I am trying to interject more and more “low-tech” artistic contributions this year (like readings, drama, participatory worship events, etc.). I would also like to see involvement at WCC become simpler and simpler – more and more family friendly. Maybe what we need are fewer things to bombard them with?

The boomers’ worst legacy is not their fascination with technology or their eclectic musical tastes, but their relentless rat race. Perhaps the most important job of today’s church is to teach simplicity. Maybe today’s church should be about offering people help getting off the crazy treadmill of our daily lives. It is almost impossible to help people catch their breath in one hour on a Sunday; we need to teach that there is a better way. The spiritual discipline of simplicity is almost completely absent from our modern church vernacular, and we need to bring it back. How do we do this? I am not sure; I have ideas, but I’m willing to admit that they might not work. However, these seem like good questions as we move forward.

The trick is understanding that, whatever this shift is, it is not an indictment of the “classroom church” of our parents’ time or the “corporate church” of ours, but merely a culture shift. We also need to understand that the shift away from technological whiz-bangs is not a shift toward the church of the 1950’s, but toward the church of the first century; as restorationists, we should be tickled to death with this development, but we (the pre-boomers, the boomers, the busters, the gen-x-ers) are ALL creatures of habit.

Is everybody going to get on board if we start moving out of the fellowship hall and into the inner-city? Is everybody going to like it if we replace fluorescent light with candle light? Is everybody going to like everything we do? Nope. What does that mean to us? How do we keep trying to be all things to all people, that we might save a few? Not sure, but if we keep the dialog open we are at least trying.

last year's oscars

Many guys wait all year for the Superbowl, the playoffs, the World Series, Wimbledon, the Stanley Cup, the Indy 500; I wait all year for the Oscars. The Academy Awards are my Superbowl. I have watched them every year since I was about ten years old. Like most Superbowl fans, I don’t watch the Oscars because I have an inordinate respect for the participants or the voters or the presenters. Instead, like Superbowl fans who love football but not necessarily football players, I love movies but not necessarily movie makers, actors, etc. I like the tributes, the movie clips, and the inside jokes (which is why I also love DVD’s; watching an excellent movie, then learning more about the filmmakers’ motivations and the movie-making process is like a movie geek’s dream!), but I’m often annoyed by the celebrities and their causes and their misplaced sympathies.

This year, unlike years when I have a clear favorite I am rooting for, like Return of the King, I found myself rooting against a movie. I was cheering for “Anything but Brokeback Mountain”. Even though I had not yet seen either movie, I was really happy that Crash won Best Picture just because it wasn’t Brokeback Mountain. It isn’t like me to shun a movie based strictly on its subject matter, but I just can’t get behind a movie about gay cowboys. Sue me.

I had heard good things about Crash, and now it had won Best Picture, so I ran out and rented it and I am so glad I did. Crash is a complex movie – the language is rough and there are some scenes that are difficult to watch – but it is an important movie. Take this passage, spoken by Graham (played by Don Cheadle), at the beginning of the film, “It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”

On the surface, Crash looks like a story about prejudice and hatred, but it is actually a modern-day retelling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It takes place in a fictional Los Angeles where everyone is the beaten man in the ditch and everyone is the priest or Levite, but maybe everyone could also be the Samaritan. People are walled off and emotionally distant. The characters are products of our 21st-century American culture. All of their connections are either inappropriate or impersonal or illegal; their relationships are all defined by prejudice and distrust until they find themselves in a ditch themselves and have to reach out to the untouchable Samaritan man for help, only to find out that they are just as untouchable to someone else. There is fear and there is pain but there is also hope.

This is what being human is all about. It is what Christ showed us when he risked His reputation to eat with prostitutes and tax collectors. It’s what He modeled when He shared His life and ministry with His circle of twelve comrades. We must share ourselves. We must risk our safe lives behind all this “metal and glass” and touch. Otherwise we will be fated to crash into each other just to feel something.

What are you doing to reach out? What are you doing to overcome your prejudices? Could you reach out to the prostitute or the tax collector? How about the gay cowboy? Maybe I will see Brokeback Mountain after all.

That's the Spirit!

I recently finished coursework for a class I am taking called "Theology of the Restoration Movement," which was an excellent class and there was TONS of reading involved. This post borrows liberally from North's excellent RM history, Union in Truth. If you haven't read it, do.

Probably the biggest thing I discovered through all of our reading was the continual and everywhere-evident wrestling match our brotherhood is engaged in over balancing the influence of the Holy Spirit with the authority of Scripture. You can see it in the jabs the Restoration Herald takes at the Christian Standard (e.g., I read in the RH a vitriolic and comical criticism of an editorial in the CS about a “definite calling to ministry,” which the RH writer completely discounted because the CS writer could not or would not be more particular about “how” he was called. Are we, as a movement, so convinced that the Holy Spirit can not prick a man’s conscience toward action, as to jest about it? I am afraid I am not that convinced of the Holy Spirit’s impotence.) or in the resistance to non-thru-the-Bible Sunday School offerings (“Why do we need to study Larry Burkett? The Scripture teaches everything about money that is profitable for Christians.” Again, I am afraid I am not so convinced of Burkett’s lack of inspiration that I will recommend a single mother wait until we get to the part about keeping her out of the poor house). The three issues that plagued the early Restoration Movement in this way were multi-church organizations (missionary societies, Bible societies, etc.), located, salaried preachers, and musical instruments in worship – all issues of “Biblical authorization.”

I think this issue is easily described in the tension between two Restoration Movement slogans: “Where the Scripture speaks, we speak; where the Scripture is silent, we are silent,” and “In doctrine, unity; in opinion, liberty; in all things, charity.” Can we really live both of these slogans? Can we balance this tension? The tension stems from our definition of silence; if the Scripture is silent, do we claim no authority or do we claim nothing at all? Does silence imply liberty or prohibition? It is this central concern and the tension it creates that tore our movement in two in 1906.

Perhaps the most difficult implication is that, in order to claim that silence denotes prohibition, we must discard the prompting of the Holy Spirit and the liberty necessary to follow it. Do the current proponents of the Restoration Movement so wish to silence the Holy Spirit that they would deny His guidance in the absence of clear instruction? Does doing so qualify as liberalism? While I am not sure that anything we studied in this class provides a clear cut answer to these questions, it has definitely helped me to better frame the questions so that I can wrestle with them myself.

I frequently run into direct application of this issue within the framework of my position as discipleship minister and as a small group leader. Our congregation is a heterogeneous hodge-podge of different religious backgrounds, attitudes, and doctrines, all vying for position. Standing our doctrinal ground (“in doctrine, unity”) requires an understanding of the differences and I believe those differences often stem from our understanding of the work and influence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and our lost neighbor.