Not your fathers church
A quick stop at Starbucks (my daughter Heather loves Mocha Frappachinos) and we were off to Mosaic, our second church for the morning. If Sierra Madre Congregational is like California in 1975, Mosaic (to me, mind you) is like, well, um, lets see, the Planet Zork in 2053. No sanctuary, no hymnals, pews, ushers in suits, no organ, no pastors in robes, not even a cross.
Ok, so right there, just now, I guess I exposed some of my questions and "issues" about the whole emergent church thing. Those of you who have been with me since the beginning of my personal Blogorama know that I love the church, in quite all its forms, dearly. But the Emergent Church, for me, is like that strikingly hip couple that moved into the condo next door. They dress so cool, it hurts. Their interior decorating involks all sorts of wild ideas and themes, but not a feeling of home. They have jobs in the internet, and can actually speak entire sentences without using any terms I can understand. And they give you looks on occasion that seem to say, "You are so old school, dude." Sigh!
That said, I would have to also say that in this church (rented auditorium at a Christian school campus, complete with outdoor tents for various ministries of the church) the gospel is proclaimed. But this church is truly emergent, baby. Good, and fairly generic praise music, with three guitars, drums, bongo, and synthesizer. Good vocals. Then a segue video about the theme of the sermon for the morning. Then a short drama/comedy presentation which also illustrated the theme of the morning. An artist off to one site painting the logo of the theme for the morning during the service. Strikingly cool. Complicated, yet simple. Sensory overload, to a point. Is this a movement of God, or another trend. Funny to think, that compared to this, the Vineyard is old and boring.
The demographic: 20s and 30s, and very close to the age and racial demographic I noted for the area I noted below, in that there were all sorts of races present. Lots of crying babies, and "Preschool #s" would occasionally appear on a big screen (quietly) during the service. My daughter and I surmised that this meant if you got the lucky number, your kid was somewhere, at that moment, raising heck, and you'd best go rescue that preschooler. Like leaving your car lights on, only different. I was probably among 50 or so people over 40 years old, in a room with about 1,000 present. So, if you are closing in on your AARP membership, you might feel out of place.
The spoken Word you ask? Very good. Clearly, this sermon had not been dialed in by the pastor. He walked us through four separate New Testament illustrations of Jesus and the Christian life well, making his point, and making it in the context of modern life. Ancient and modern (very modern) connected well. Glory to God.
My one big problem. The thematic of the preaching series of this church since Easter has been "Imagine - Creating the Life of Your Dreams". Ok. This bothered me. So, is this what the church should be promoting - the "Life of Our Dreams"? What if my dreams are selfish, and pointless. What if my dreams sort of, but not really, involve the guiding of the Holy Spirit? What if my dreams are about 14 degrees off of True North of what Christ is really calling me to do and be?
Your dreams? My dreams? I don't trust my dreams. I can only cling to the dreams that God in Christ has for me. Seek out those dreams; pursue God. Perhaps its just my semantical problem, but I cannot be trusted by my own dreams, they must be slowly, daily, painfully sometimes, conformed to the will of Christ.
Better idea for a theme: "Imagine - Creating the Life of His Dreams for you"
For some other very interesting perspectives on this sort of thing try reading here, and here.
Parting thought. In neither of these two places did I feel at home. No one offered to ask my name, or how I was, or how I got there. At least in the Congregational church we got to shake hands during the service. In the end, is not our best experience of the church through the touch, the smile, the listening ear of a human? All the forms of liturgy and pomp (or lack thereof), of worship and order tend to recede in meaning unless we are met by others in a personal way.
Enough said. Grace and Peace
4 comments:
Excellent post, my friend.
It reminds me of the whole analogy of riding a bike with God. When you're young, you want to pedal and steer and it's hard work getting up the hills with God freeloading the whole way. Then you decide he can pedal, but you still want to steer and that's better, but sometimes he wants to take the curves way too fast. Finally, you realize that he has been both pedaling and steering the whole time and you never had anything to fear. Now you get to sit back and enjoy the ride and work on the coloring book God gave you to keep you happy during the trip.
In my opinion, if worship does not center on God, then it is not really worship, is it?
XT
Steve-
Great comment on the whole "Creating the Life of Your Dreams" scenario. This is a real problem because so much of Christian Pop Culture today is based on the premise that Christianity is a way for you to get what you want out of life. The concept of dying to sin, to self, and of taking up your cross and following Christ is just gone. No one dares talk about sin...too much of a turn-off.
Would you want a doctor to tell you everything was OK when in reality you had a terrible disease which, if left untreated, could kill you?
Very interesting post. I appreciated the observations. If you were to design a church service from scratch what would it look like, who would come, etc?
David-
It's really me, Bill Jones...but Blogger signs me as VanMorrisonFan for some complicated reason.
I would focus on the substance, not the style of the Church. Every service would have worship. I'm flexible on style, but I would not have a lot of repetition...what Chuck Swindoll calls the "7-11 Songs" (the same seven words repeated 11 times). I'd look for substantive, good music, and I wouldn't be afraid to use some of the hymns. Somewhere someone has written something good. There's this guy named David, and he wrote a lot of Psalms, and some of them have been set to music. If they're good enough for God, they should be good enough for us.
There would be three passages from scripture read during the service -one of praise, the other from the law, and the third from the gospel.
The preaching would be Christ-centered and expository. Jesus said the scriptures all pointed to him anway. He told that to the Jewish leaders and to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (or Emaus?). Interestingly enough, He never told His followers that the scriptures would tell them how to succeed in business or have a better golf game.
I wouldn't worry about who came. It's not a popularity contest or a TV sit-com that has to get good enough ratings in order to make it. It's not entertainment, either.
If nobody came at all, I would conclude that God had other things in store for me and move on.
Fortunately I go to a Church right now that is pretty much like this. It doesn't have that many programs, but it does the basics and does them well.
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