Category Archives: Engaging worship

Thinking about an “emergent” liberal church

How can liberal churches reach the emerging generations? How can liberal churches successfully negotiate a post-church, post-Christian world? Since so many liberal churches are already post-Christian, you would think we would be the perfect haven for a post-Christian people — but so far we are growing at the miniscule rate of about a percent a year. I’ve been thinking more and more about the possibility of an “emergent liberal church” (while recognizing that the real Emergent/Emerging Church movement is theologically conservative) — and this post represents the first post in a new category on new and “engaging worship.”

It all comes down to changing the worship service….or does it?

From Unitarian Universalist Contemporary Worship, a page on the Web site of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) that also advertises a conference on “contemporary worship”:

Traditional UU worship services are often derisively called the “sermon sandwich.” Thin layers of music and readings surround a huge chunk of sermon, given in one voice from one perspective….

While there are many people gifted at presenting exciting and interesting sermons, contemporary worship services are generally more energetic and engaging than the sermon sandwich, and draw from a broad and post-modern array of voices and perspectives….

The next important aspect of contemporary worship is the format. Unlike in the sandwich, in which the sermon is one large (and often indigestible) chunk, contemporary worship spreads the message out. There’s not necessarily any less of it, mind you, but it’s given in manageable chunks and intermingled with other things, and more balanced in proportion to those things. Music, readings, and candle lighting or dancing allow people with different ways of learning to hear the message better.

From The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations by Dan Kimball (Zondervan, 2003), pp. 178-179:

Don’t insult people’s intelligence or desire for spiritual depth….

…People in emerging generations attending a worship service hunger for a deep experience of God’s wisdom. If we distribute sermon notes, they should be comprehensive and give the historical context for the Scripture passages we use.

One time, when preaching on Romans 6-8, I felt like I was teaching an English class, because I walked the audience through the definitions of “sanctification,” “condemnation,” “imputed righteousness,” and other terms. I put together extensive sermon notes to hand out, and that night, we actually ran out of them and had to print extra sheets for several weeks afterward because the demand was so great. Emerging generations are starving for deeper teaching, and our job is to respect them enough to give it to them.

We don’t have to limit sermons to twenty-minute quickies. Should messages always be under thirty minutes? On occasion you may want to limit them to that, depending on the worship service design for that night. But I know of several large churches drawing hundreds and thousands of younger people in which the message is forty to fifty minutes long.

The advice offered on the UUA Web site sounds like typical advice for developing a “contemporary” or “seeker-sensitive” worship service. Some advocates of the Emerging/Emergent Church movement, while acknowledging the continuing success of these services, point out that seeker-sensitive services were originally developed for the Baby Boomer generation and may not always work for the emerging generations.

Nor can we assume that there is one type of worship service will serve every person in the emerging generations. Tim Keel is lead pastor at Jacob’s Well (JW), an Emergent church in Kansas City, Missouri. From an article in the September 19, 2006, issue of Christian Century magazine:

Some aspects of JW — its post-Christendom political posture and its postliberal thological tone — are hardly unique. Even its effort at grunge worship and to be an artistic haven has imitators and precursors elsewhere. But Keel says, “I’d hate to think that JW could be imitated elsewhere,” since, as he sees it, churches need to be “environmentalists” — to take the temperature of their particular place and serve it accordingly….

My take on all this for Unitarian Universalists:– Forget trying to replicate Soulful Sundown worship services; there is no one answer to the worship needs of emerging generations. Do challenge every assumption you may have about worship. Do assume that the people who walk in your door have no idea how to do church: assume they don’t know how to use a hymnal; assume they don’t know why you sing hymns; assume they don’t know why you light the funny candle in the candy dish at the front of the church. Do assume that your place, and your location, are unique.

Is there anyone else out there thinking about trying to do “emergent” liberal church?

Cranky again

Hmm. My evil alter-ego, Mr. Crankypants, is definitely up to something. He has been grinning to himself when he thinks I’m not looking. I have to step out for a minute, and I just know that while I’m gone he’s going to try to post something on this blog. If you don’t like cranky people, best to stop reading right now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

(Hah! Thought he’d never leave.)

Mr. Crankypants here, feeling particularly cranky this week. Why so cranky? Well, wouldn’t you be cranky if you started thinking about children and church?

Most religious liberal congregations do not allow children to stay in “adult” worship services. The “little darlings” get sent off to Sunday school, where, presumably, someone educates them into full humanity. What really happens in Sunday school? Most adults don’t know, because they never go near the place; nor do they particularly care.

In “progressive” congregations, children are allowed in with the adults for the first fifteen minutes or so. The children are often put on display, for the amusement of the adults, during “story time.” “Story time” is when the adults pass off dumbed-down religion on the children.

Once the children leave, the adults stay in in the sanctuary. (By the way, what are the adults taking sanctuary from? Mr. Crankypants suspects most of us are taking sanctuary from the children.) The adults sit and listen to highly intellectual sermons. The adults know these sermons must be highly intellectual, because the sermons are too intellectual for children to understand.

For you see, religious liberals are actually pretty much like the Calvinists they claim to have revolted against. Religious liberals, like the Calvinists, feel that children are essentially depraved. Unlike the Calvinists, religious liberals do not feel that children are spiritually depraved. Instead, religious liberals feel that children are intellectually depraved. Because children cannot think as well as adults can, they are not fully human. Because they are not fully human, they cannot listen to sermons. Because they cannot listen to sermons, they must be intellectually depraved. Q.E.D.

Oh, but Mr. Crankypants has it all wrong. It has nothing to do with depravity. It’s just developmental psychology. Hah, hah, hah! silly Mr. Crankypants! It’s not theology, it’s all very scientific!

(Uh, oh. Here he comes, back again. Gotta run…)

What’s all thi– Good grief, what nasty, cranky things Mr. Crankypants has written! I just can’t leave this blog unattended for a minute. Dear, dear. My apologies, dear reader, that you have had to listen to mean old Mr. Crankypants. Tomorrow I’ll have a nice, low-key post on birds to make it up to you.

“Why I’m a Universalist”

This Sunday, I’ll be preaching on P. T. Barnum, the great showman and circus empressario. Barnum was a Universalist, and later in his life he wrote a pamphlet titled “Why I Am a Universalist.” The pamphlet sold 30,000 copies in its first year, and over 100,000 copies within a few years of publication.

I wanted to use some of Barnum’s words in a responsive reading in this week’s worship service. But some of Barnum’s sentiments sound a little dated to this 21st C. Universalist — and he’s a Restorationsist whereas I’m a Ultra-Universalist (or “Death-and-Glory” Universalist). So I picked out some his best phrases (avoiding gender-specific language), assembled them and edited them slightly, and cast them into a responsive reading. And to whet your apetite for the worship service this Sunday, here the’s completed reading.

____________________

Why I Am a Universalist

I base my hopes for humanity on the Word of God speaking in the best heart and conscience of the race,

the Word heard in the best poems and songs, the best prayers and hopes of humanity.

It is rather absurd to suppose a heaven filled with saints and sinners shut up all together within four jeweled walls and playing on harps, whether they like it or not.

I have faint hopes that after another hundred years or so, it will begin to dawn on the minds of those to whom this idea is such a weight, that nobody with any sense holds this idea or ever did hold it.

To the Universalist, heaven in its essential nature is not a locality, but a moral and spiritual status, and salvation is not securing one place and avoiding another, but salvation is finding eternal life.

Eternal life has primarily no reference to time or place, but to a quality. Eternal life is right life, here, there, everywhere.

Conduct is three-fourths of life.

This present life is the great pressing concern.

— Phineas Taylor Barnum, recast by DH

Music and religion

Recently, I posted an entry about Mark Johnson, audio engineer and musician extraordinaire. Mark sent me email pointing me to some of his more recent work that he has posted publicly.

So go check out some of Mark’s work, where he has taken recordings from worship services and added some very hip music. Now, I know some of you Unitarian Universalists are not going to agree entirely with Mark’s theology, but I think you will like “God Will Make a Way” even if you have to do a little translating around the word God. (And click on his other two screen names, “Black Mark” and “X Mark” to listen to some of his non-religious work.)

Besides, the theology is what I want to focus on. I want to focus on what somebody like Mark can do with a recording of a minister. Why can’t we make our religious message danceable? And hip? And fun? As Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution” (she really meant to say “church,” not “revolution).

Why is it we Unitarian Universalists stick with four-square hymns and old hippie music and Beatles songs? Those kinds of songs are fine, but every once in a while I would like something a little more… contemporary.

Sunday morning worship

Fort Worth

At Sunday morning worship this morning, we got a good old-fashioned Universalist sermon. But the rest of the worship service was anything but old-fashioned. The music was not 19th C. Western European classical music, it was jazz, gospel, and world music. The children’s story incorporated dance and drama to tell an ancient Sufi tale. And worshipping in the Fort Worth arena with about three thousand other Unitarian Universalists did not feel like traditional church — it did not even feel like the old-time Universalist camp meetings. No, the worship was contemporary.

But the sermon, given by Rob Hardies, minister at All Souls UU Church in Washington, DC, gave a message that the 19th C. Universalists would have recognized. The line from Hardies’s sermon that stuck with me went something like this: “The spiritual life isn’t about dabbling here and there, it’s about giving your whole life over to love.” Hardies gave new life to that old Universalist theme that love is the most powerful force in the universe, by pointing out that love will transform us as we use love to transform the world into a more humane and just place.

Hardies also had a good line about the name of his church. His church is called All Souls, which he contends is the best name for Unitarian Universalist churches because we aim to invite all persons in. But, said Hardies, “Can you imagine a church named ‘Some Souls’?” Everyone laughed, and then he added, “But isn’t that the defacto name of dominant religion in America today?” Murmurs of recognition greeted this statement.

Hardies went on to add, “The good news that Unitarian Universalism must deliver to the world… the good news that has literally saved my life, is that a god who picks and chooses is not god at all, it is an idol.” Then he said we must “preach the old Universalist gospel that all souls are invited to the welcome table.”

Well, this Universalist agrees with Hardies wholeheartedly. The professional musicans and well-rehearsed worship service for 3,000 people is fine and good, but what really matters is getting that message out to the world.

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