Prayers of the People - Worship and Spiritual Formation Sunday, September 26, 2010

This is the meditation on prayer I gave today as our church begins exploring spiritual disciplin and formation through corporate worship.

"We have a rich tradition of prayer here at Pope UMC as seen in the Pastoral Prayer element of the service. Every week we take a moment to make our requests known to God (Phil 6:4). We are going to shift things a bit today. Your prayers are important but they aren't my prayers and they aren't Pastor Robert's prayers. We do pray together these requests as a community but these prayers are yours. Just because someone is a pastor doesn't mean God listens to them more.

We see that prayer is very important even in Jesus' ministry. Jesus initiated his ministry by going into the desert for 40 days to pray and to fast. Near the end of his ministry in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus came before the Father in prayer saying "If you can Lord, take this cup. But when it comes down to it let your will be done and not mine." Christ knew that prayer is how we align our heats with the will of God "... your will be done."

Prayer brings us to the heart of God and it also gives us a venue to listen and hear his plan for us. Prayer is not just about making requests but God's requests are also made known to us. It warms our heart to Him. Not only that but prayer is just talking to God.

So we are going to start the next few moments with silence to focus our hearts and minds on God. To clear out the busyness and really listen for His voice. After our time of silence we are going to go through the Prayers of the People as listed in the hymnal on page 877. I will start by praying "Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer. Together we pray for... the people of this congregation..." Either out loud or in your heart take a moment to pray a sentence prayer for those people. After a few moments we will move onto "...those who suffer and those in trouble..." You can see how this flows in the hymnal. After our prayers for the church universal I will close our time of prayer. Again you can choose to pray silently or openly. But I encourage you to pray a loud so that we may agree and pray with you.

Now don't think of this as a strange or odd thing. Think of this as an exercise. Like walking for heath or practice for proficiency at your job or something like that. I want to challenge with with a spiritual workout. This is also something tangible and practical you can integrate into your everyday lives as we desire to be apart of God's plan for his world and our own lives. So, let us pray together. "

503 Project Refinement Monday, August 09, 2010

I have found that I best work on my projects in my head. The following was all in my head until last night. Actually, most of it was on bits of paper here and there, but I have been honing it down and I think I am at a good starting point. Please join in the conversation on this one. If you have any ideas or experience to share please do!

1. Address a particular ministry issue relating to postmodernism.

a. Is it possible for a traveling summer music ministry team like Wellspring plant seeds of worship renewal?

2. Point to particular theological propositions or positions under which the project is developed

a. “Moving from program worship to participatory worship.” Constance Cherry in her article Shifting from Professional Programs to Participatory Worship

i. Is it possible to move Camp worship from listener-observer (passive) and individual focused programming to active (shachah, proskuneo) and participatory-fellowship focused (koinonia) worship?

b. “Worship is doing God’s story.” Robert Webber in Ancient-Future Worship

i. How does a traveling summer music ministry team introduce worship in the context of doing God’s story?

ii. What are the challenges?

iii. What are some of the available opportunities?

3. Offer viable, concrete, and tangible solutions to issues in your context

a. Interview past Wellspring members on their experience at camps

b. Song Pairings

i. Good food is enhanced when paired with good wine, what are ways that worship song can be linked in pairings and combinations to create arcs or a flow that purposefully and intentionally tell God’s story?

c. What are ways we can introduce the idea of God’s Story into team training?

i. Emphasis on individuals coming together to join God’s Narrative.

ii. Encouraging community dialogue among team members as they create a team narrative.

1. Like tributaries into a river: Individual Narratives -> Wellspring Narrative -> God’s Narrative

4. Discuss how those solutions are more appropriate for your particular context than other solutions are—that is, how they are localized and contextualized solutions

a. Different ministries approach summer traveling music ministries in different ways.

b. I will be talking about specific camps, other camps may not have this problem.

c. Does having a Worship Arts major give us an advantage in this pursuit? If so how can we use that advantage? If not how can we benefit from the program?

5. Explain how such solutions are going to be implemented in resolving the issues.

a. Discuss the philosophy behind the “Christian Camp.”

b. Interview Wellspring team members to see if there opportunities for change.

c. I have kept track of the songs the teams have used this summer, see if there is any.

d. Present my findings

e. For the second part of my project I would put together a training service - Finding God’s story in our lives and applying that to the Wellspring Narrative. Also, show examples of participatory, corporate, God’s story focused worship song pairings. Do this in the context of a service/practicum for the team members.

Do Worship Tuesday, August 03, 2010

As I talk about worship, I easily find myself thinking “what is worship and how do we go about worshiping?” I am very pleased to find that most people when asked this question will say that worship is our lives. As the corny t-shirt says, we were “Made to Worship.” Great, we made to worship, but I seem to lose people when I talk about what being made to worship implies. If I had a dollar for every time I heard an announcement guy say “wasn’t that great worship?” or a pastor say “we are going to have more worship in a minute,” or even a worship leader say “Let’s get ready for (some) worship!” I would certainly have enough money to pay someone else to write my blogs. The problem is that we have been conditioned to compartmentalize worship. Worship is something I 1) do at church for 15-20 minutes near the front half of a church service 2) do while cranking Tomlin at 11 as I cruse through town or 3) am only participating in when I feel the Lord moving. I heard a youth pastor explain worship like this “we are like lightning rods, and worship is happening when God is striking those lighting rods.” Seriously? Worship seems to have become synonymous with God responding to us or specific songs and feelings. When we feel God’s response worship has been accomplished.

In our attempts to be contemporary and unleash passion in worship we have created strict boundaries to what (and when) actions are worship. This is worship music, this is worship time, when this song plays it is the worship portion, the sermon is definitely not worship, or my favorite tweet of all time “My favorite worship music is the kind I can go nuts to.” And in a way the expectation of feeling in worship is a significant part of these boundaries. There needs to be a line drawn that says there is a difference between this false “time to do worship” and doing worship. Robert Webber says “Worship is Doing God’s Story.”(1) According to Scripture God’s story has a lot more to do with creation, redemption and recreation than it does with whether an up-beat song is better to worship to than a slow song.

Even Christ dealt with this. When talking to a Samaritan woman at a well, the woman basically asked “Isn’t our worship better than their worship?” And Christ responded “No, you say you worship on this mountain or in this temple, but there will come a time where you will worship in Spirit and in Truth.” (2) To worship in Spirit and in Truth. Wow. To worship in Spirit – to worship with the entire family of believers throughout the ages, to worship with one breath at the eternal wedding banquet, one voice to the Father, in the name of the Son, through the Holy Spirit and to do it in Truth – United and living out the Triune message in the world. This doesn’t sound like the Sunday morning “do” worship to me. Worship shouldn’t just seep into the cracks of my life; it should be what every brick of my being is made of. And it isn’t even a matter of should because it is whether we know it or not because well, we were made to worship.

Are there elements that are more conducive to a worshipful mind set? Sure. But let us not get carried away. We must continually question whether or not a worship of moods and creative resources has surpassed our worship of the Creator.

1 - Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God's Narrative. Robert Webber. Baker Books, 2008.

2- From John 4:21-24

MWS503 Project - A Proposal Monday, July 26, 2010

What we sing about God is what we know about God. This is especially true in a contemporary worship setting. The songs we sing and the way we sing them shape our view of God and the part we play in Worship and His Story. If we are looking for a renewal of worship we need to start with the songs we are singing. With purpose, intention and time contemporary songs can be used, in context, to reshape our view of who God is in a very positive and healthy way. In a contemporary setting, worship renewal really begins with a song – not just a song, but an arc or flow of songs - So, what happens to Renewal when we have to run a Summer Student music ministry team? The team is out on the road, playing in situations where Worship Renewal, God’s Story and Worship flow may not be understood. Since Worship Renewal is also relational and requires commitment and care, and the summer ministry context is short, (for example, you are at a camp for one week) is it possible for this team to convey Worship Renewal at all? I don't know if they can in the way that Worship Renewal is usually spoken of but they can plant seeds of Renewal. And everything the team does should be focused around planting those seeds. But if a team is to plant they must be willing to step into the current of God’s Story and own it themselves. If the team is on board, God’s Story will flow wherever they go.

So here is what I am thinking - In a College Music Ministry context - Shifting from Modern/Pragmatic (Emotional/Popular/Topical/Situational) music sets to a Narrative/Story driven worship flow.

This project will focus on the following areas:

-During team training help team members engage in God’s Story for possibly the first time through digging into personal context and attempting to see how our stories fit into God’s Story.

-To help exemplify God’s Story in a corporate contemporary worship music setting.

-Restructuring and critiquing common thought progressions concerning the purpose of corporate contemporary worship music.

-Apply above points in a College Music Ministry context (camp/retreat/gig) where worship may not seen in light of God’s Story and individuals vary in their own story in the worlds of Modernism and Post-Modernism (or as Weber puts it Traditional Evangelical, Pragmatic Evangelical, Younger Evangelical)

-Create song and set lists that convey God’s Story so that the Story can be told even in a 15 minute set.

I will also explore the following questions:

-How has the shift from Modernism to Post-modernism changed the way we minister to youth? (The Younger-Younger Evangelicals :) and is this change in the way worship ministry is done even necessary.

-What is God’s story and how do we fit into it?

-Why is telling God’s Story important in worship; either corporate or personal?

-What are some examples of Narrative driven worship?

-What are some common misconceptions about the purpose of corporate worship; specifically in the contemporary realm?

-Is it possible to develop a ministry team through narrative based training as opposed to text book step by step training?

-What are some of the challenges of Worship Renewal in a summer ministry context?

-How can we overcome these challenges?

I would like any help I can get with this so if anyone has experience in this area, or thoughts on any of my purposed questions please let me know!

Do you understand the words you are putting into my mouth? Part 2 Tuesday, July 20, 2010

As someone who has worked most of my life in the arena of Christian worship I know that one of the biggest struggles in worship planning, whether people know it or not, is song selection. Two posts ago I wrote about contemporary worship music and finding value in some of the more popular songs. So how does this fit with what I was rambling about in part one? It is easy to select songs on auto pilot, to just pick a song because it is powerful or emotional or says some nice things. Even when being intentional, song selection is a difficult task. This past Sunday I was in a service where a song contained one line that referenced something from the parable of the Prodigal Son, one line that referred to some Old Testament prophecy about Christ dying and one line that was something nice Christian people say – kind of like “Pray a hedge of protection.” (that wasn’t the line, but you know what I mean… who says hedge of protection anyway??). I felt like you needed a degree in Biblical Literature to figure out what the song was about. The point is, as lead worshipers, we cannot just pick songs on auto pilot, shove words, terms and phrases into peoples mouths and expect everything to be OK. Picking songs without considering its inherent context and then neglecting the context of your congregation is a travesty. Moving to a model where all imagery and metaphor is left out is not necessary. However what is needed is for song selection to become more of an art form rather than a "thing to do."

Every person has their own context; their own story. But that doesn’t mean we water down the message – Service content and structure is the most important thing. Songs shouldn’t just be thought of thoroughly, but I would take it a step further and suggest that everything that happens in a corporate worship service must flow from the same point.

The purpose of a corporate service should be obvious not because the pastor says so half way through, but because there is a clear focus on the content of worship. The beauty liturgy is that everything focuses around the content – living out God’s story for the world. The beauty of freedom in worship is that we can tailor the structure around that content to fit our local context and community. Even if common sense is untrustworthy we are not left to our own devices. Things like Calvin’s Five Points or the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (scripture, reason, tradition, experience) do come from men but have proven themselves through time. We can also look to the early church fathers and even Christ as our example. Even then we are one with Christ through the Holy Spirit. But as leaders in worship we need to start with self sacrifice; we lay down personal preference and truly consider the community. The truth in the message may only count in the hearts and minds of a specific community, so we must be careful – truth may end up being missed all together. I don’t think corporate worship will ever be perfect until we reached heaven, where we will no longer be corrupt and faulty. But I do think we need to consider the whole person, physically, mentally and spiritually, into account before when planned how they will meet God as a community.