Learning a Lesson, Laughing a Little, and a Sermon on God's Wild Unpredictability

I started a new appointment on July 1. July 10 was my first Sunday leading services. Everything went pretty well, but, as all first Sundays are, it was bit a rough around the edges. It's just what happens when leading a service in a space with which and with a people with whom one is not familiar. July 17 was supposed to be the polished service. You know, now that I've presided in the space, I am supposed to know how to lead those assembled through an experience that offers occasions for encountering the divine. So, I put my all into it.

I am not one of those pastors who has their sermons mapped out years or months in advance. I've gone through periods of having songs selected and themes roughly outlined for the year. Suffice to say, I'm not in that space now. Even if I wanted to be, I just started a new church and I think I need to change my prerecorded tapes in order to craft worship that is relevant for the "getting acquainted phase" with this new congregation. For the time being, we are moving in a week to week mode. Hopefully, this will change.

Despite working in a weekly mode, I worked very diligently to get all of my ducks in a row. Oh, ducks...why must you stray? On Tuesday of this week, I emailed the contents of the order of service to the office and to the folks who do the visuals during the service. On Wednesday, I met with the music people, rehearsed with them, and selected music. On Thursday, the music was sent to the office for the bulletin and to those who craft the visuals. On Saturday, when I was still struggling to find the right message, I realized that it was going to be a late night. Rather than expecting someone else to open a text file on Sunday morning and scramble to put visuals to my rather unusual sermon, I stayed up until 3 AM finding photos that would move the congregation through the sermon. Needless to say, at 7 AM when my alarm went off, I was tired...very tired - so tired, in fact, that I didn't get up. I stayed in bed until 8 AM.

The worship service at my new church begins at 10 AM. While I wasn't working with an "excess of time," I did think that I had "plenty of time" to get to church. And yet, not so. I left the house a little after 9 AM. It takes about 20 minutes to drive the distance between my house and the church. I got about half way to the church when I realized that I had left my clerical collar on my dresser. I have worn a clerical collar since 1996 and this has never happened. Never. I quickly turned around and made it about half way back to my house when reality confronted me: There was no way to make it home and to church in the amount of time left. So, I made another U-turn and headed to church. This was going to be an embarrassing but not a fatal mistake. After all, I wear a robe.

Earlier in the week, some adjustments had to be made regarding the assisting minister and the sound board. Adjustments were made. Crisis averted. But, when I walked into the sanctuary without much time to spare, there was no one to run the visuals for the service. For the first time in 3 years there had been a miscommunication. Hey, they happen. So, I pull out my flash drive and pop it in the computer (I'm so prepared, right?). I open the internet and download the file with the song lyrics. Lo and behold, neither file will open. It is now time for worship to begin. No lyrics, no prayers, no liturgy for Holy Communion. And then, grace happened.

Song books were passed out to be shared. A lay person stepped forward to pull together the communion liturgy and other necessary components. I took a deep breath, laughed, and invited the Holy Spirit to move through the assembly. You know what? It did. We worshiped. Life continued - without a collar and everything.

The funny thing about this story, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that I often tell people that I rock worship old school. Not 1950s old school. But 1550s old school. I love incense, candles, and quiet. I like singing from hymnals and reading from Bibles. I enjoy hearing stories and being pulled into the imagination of the speaker. I like quiet prayer and shared prayer. Simple worship is beautiful worship. Today, as a result of the universe's sense of humor, we got to worship a little old school.

The even funnier thing? Today's sermon was on the wild unpredictability of God. I had spent a week crafting in detail a service to introduce people to the uncontrollable nature of God. I had planned, plotted, emailed, downloaded, and printed so that nothing would go wrong while we sang, prayed, and preached about wildness, wilderness, and the holy. Today offered a great object lesson with my own need for control and correctness sitting in the midst of the service. It was humbling.

It is true that preparation is important, that we can't just "fly by the seat of our pants" and move through life. It is also true that despite our best preparations, sometimes we have to let go and live not the plan we dreamed but the reality that is before us. I find that when I can do this - let go - then there is a lot of grace in the world, a lot of joy in the midst of error and chaos, and that community will inevitably arise to the occasion.

I don't know that I'm particularly glad that today's plan was not executed well. And yet, if it weren't going to go according to my plan, this was the best divergent path I can imagine. It helped those of us getting to know one another realize that becoming acquainted is often fraught with awkward moments. It reminded us all that, in the end, worship is not about our hopes but about God encountering us in community. And, while I don't know how others experienced today's service, God certainly was present for me.

Today was one of those "lesson days." And, I thank God for the gift of humor that allowed us all to laugh a little. Moreover, I am grateful for the wildness of God that constantly interrupts our plans for the sake of something more wonderful.

Interfaith Thanksgiving Eve Service: One Nation, Many Faiths

Theme for the Evening: Neighborliness

This year marks the third annual interfaith Thanksgiving Eve worship service on Phinney Ridge in Seattle. In the past two years, the service has attracted about 500 worshipers. It aims to make friends from strangers, to weaken growing tensions between religions, and to remind people that at the core of all major religions are shared values: compassion, justice, neighborliness, peace, kindness, and love.

More information about the service can be found on its facebook page.

I have been privileged to be part of the planning team for the past three years. I am proud to say that I have become friends with the other organizers. It is our goal to continue to build relationships throughout the year. We have been invited to worship at Masjid Umar Al Farooq and at Temple De Hirsch Sinai. And, at Woodland Park United Methodist Church this Advent, we are celebrating our anticipation of the birth of the Prince of Peace by inviting representatives from Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish religions to come and teach us about the basic tenets of their faith, the role of peace in their faith, and the struggles in attaining peace that they face.

The service begins at 6:30 PM at Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism (108 Northwest 83rd Street) with spinning of the prayer wheels followed by a procession to Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church where the remainder of the service will begin at 7:30 PM. If you have mobility restrictions, feel free to attend only the service at Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church.

Cecile Hansen of the Duwamish tribe will introduce the offering.
The offering will benefit the Duwamish and Great Harvest Food Bank.

Sponsoring Organizations: Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, Masjid Umar Al Farooq, Temple De Hirsch Sinai, St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church, St. John United Lutheran Church, Luther Memorial Lutheran Church, Woodland Park Presbyterian Church, and Woodland Park United Methodist Church.

The public is encouraged to attend. Dessert and fellowship will follow the worship service. Childcare is provided.

Postures During Worship

My children's sermon today was about postures in worship and how there are three basic postures in worship that are utterly different from the rest of life.

The first posture is a subordinate posture - to sit at the foot of a master. Worship is to sit at the foot of a teacher or even God and to listen eagerly and yet patiently. The second posture is the posture of prayer. In the West that posture has been head down, neck exposed - a posture of complete trust that the one whose presence you are in will not harm you, but will welcome you. And the third posture is the posture of receiving. Arms in front and open. For people more used to earning than receiving, this posture can be quite difficult to maintain. We want to fix, make right, do, be in charge, opt out, and do every other thing except receive. To receive is a vulnerable thing - what if someone revokes the gift? The challenge is to trust the divine one enough to know that the gift cannot and will not be revoked. The gospel was the story of Mary and Martha - Mary at the feet, Martha unable to lose her distractions and see the holy before her.

My word for today: accept what is handed, especially the good stuff.

Worship is Worship - What I Want in Worship

Worship is Worship. Well, that might seem self-evident, but in actuality we have done a pretty good job of transforming worship in to all kinds of things except worship.

I don't like to make universal claims - okay, I do, but they aren't very helpful...who am I, after all? I don't like to make universal claims so I'll just speak about what worship is to me and, as a leader of worship, what I hope for during worship services.

I want worship to be special time - sacred time - and to be held in a special place - sacred space: If I am to come into the presence of the HOLY HOLY HOLY, then certainly time and space are different from when I do other things and I am different from how I am when I meet other people/things. I don't think that a church has to have gothic architecture to meet this criterion or that a sanctuary has to have an eternal flame, altar candles, pews, and a pulpit, but something has to mark this space as separate from other space. Of course the goal is to see the sacred nature in all things - the God in all things - but the goal is also to honor a God who is more that all things. I also love the church calendar and I love that it is different from the annual calendar. Churches would do a much better job of reaching into the hearts and souls of people if we celebrated the church calendar more wholly rather than cramming it with all kinds of non-church items.

Worship is ritualistic and therefore repetitive. Repitition doesn't have to be boring. It sure can be boring: "Bueller? Bueller?" However repetition can be inspiring and calming: "I have a dream...." What makes repitition work is whether it's performed with intentionality. Few things sadden, anger, and disappoint me like rituals poorly performed, dead, without joy. Are rituals understood by those performing them? Are they rushed and hurried? Are prayers "prayed" or read? For example, the Lord's Prayer is a prayer not a recitation or words. Enfuse rituals with intention, joy, and care. Then the repitition invites us into something familiar to our hearts.

Worship is both joyful but not chaotic and quiet time is not dead time. I have been in too many worship services that confuse noise for joy. Chaos, noise, and overstimulation are not the same things as joy. I have also been in worship services that are deader than a door nail. Slow and dead are not the same as intentional and reverential. I find meditation important for worship services to reach into my soul, but intentional quiet time is different from dead time. Get it right and it makes a real difference.

Worship is participatory; it is not a spectator sport. A lot of worship services have attempted to become participatory by using "culturally relevant" music, images, and media. I know this works for a lot of people. Most of the time it does not work for me. I feel like I'm at a concert; and while concerts are highly participatory, they are things that I consume. They are consumerist based. Worship is not something to "consume," to "purchase," or to "meet my needs." Worship invites my whole being into a separate world where God's kin-dom is manifest so that I might return replenished to this world where it has yet to come fully. Worship reminds me that I am needed and necessary as a part of the body of Christ. Worship requires me to use my mind, my body, and my heart.

These are just a few things that help worship to be meaningful for me. I know that I'm getting old now and that I'm no longer part of the demographics that count, but am I alone? I can't believe that I'm the only one out here who still wants sacred space, quiet prayer, the occasional organ, incense, chanting, musical variety, discreet media, and an emphasis on the sacraments. But sometimes I wonder...

Worship and Sustainability

I am wondering how other congregations deal with sustainability issues in relation to worship. We are still a church that produces a bulletin to help people move through our service. In fact, we do not have integrated multi-media technology as a part of our sanctuary. From time to time I do use a projector, but it is cumbersome and ill-suited to the space. I am one of those folks who tends to believe that no high-tech is better than bad high-tech. But I digress...

On the one hand, I like the idea of bulletins - something for visitors to hold on to, to look at, to find security in. I feel lost when I attend a new church - as I did on vacation last week - and there is nothing to let me know what's going to happen and when it's going to happen.

On the other hand, producing tons of paper for a one time use seems very wasteful.

I have been to churches that don't use bulletins. They opt for a more media-oriented presentation of worship. Aside from whether or not this is a type of worship that speaks to me, I can't get in to those services because I don't know what's going to happen next. Therefore, our church most likely won't be dispensing with worship guides altogether. I did visit a church once that produced generic worship guides that included the general flow of worship without printing specific hymn titles and other details that change from week to week. These cards were gathered up and used again. This would require a fairly close adherence to the same order of service each week.

Paper, of course, is not the only sustainability issue that our churches need to face, but paper is the one thing that we waste more than any other material. It goes without saying that we recycle. However, we'd rather not use up trees in the first place. It's an issue of life stewardship, of living the care for creation that we preach.

Has your church begun to face the issue of sustainability, especially in relation to worship? If so, what have you tried? What do you find working? What have you found not to work?

As always, I welcome your replies.

Neil Young's Hymn and Cultural Relevance in Worship

Churches can easily be caught up in culture wars. I don't just mean cultural issues like abortion or homosexuality, either. Rather, the cultures of many congregations are stuck solidly in the 1950 (or possibly the 1960s if you have lots of Boomers in the congregation). Culture wars reveal themselves in a number of places, most pointedly in the music we use. If faithfulness is the most important aspect of worship, it is vital for us to honor the power of cultural contexts without becoming divided by culture. We become sidetracked from our purpose: to honor and praise God, to be inspired by the proclamation of the Word, and to be transformed by God's holy sacraments. True worship isn't about us, it is about God and for God. The joy is that when worship is oriented in a God-cetered way, we receive the benefits - our souls are comforted, our spirits lifted, our hearts touched, and our lives transformed.

Several years ago Neil Young wrote a hymn called "When God Made Me." Is this a song that could be sung in your church? Or is it too human-centric and too musically dated for a postmodern congregation?

I've been wondering about how to maintain the integrity and power of traditional liturgy while presenting a culturally relevant worship service. Are there worship services equally comfortable with gospel, hymns from the 1600s, music from the 80s, and music written today? Every now and then I run across a worship service that deeply moves me. Usually this occurs when I find some kind of familiarity in the liturgy, a lot of honesty in the liturgy, comfort with silence in the service, a joyful expression of the sacraments, and music that is indigenous and intentional - intentional in its place in the service, its theology, and its musicality.

So, is Neil welcome in your service. If not, who is? And how does the overall liturgy include a variety of musical expressions that are found in our culture today?

Contemplative Advent Service Liturgy

Each Thursday of Advent, our church is hosting a moment of silence and Holy Communion to help people quiet their minds and settle their hearts in preparation for the coming of the Christ child. Here is the liturgy for the first service; all those following will be similar. The prayers have been inspired by Henri Nouwen and by Brother Roger of the Taize community. The service itself relies heavily upon Taize; both congregational songs are from the Taize service:

Meditations on the Peaceable Kingdom

During this series of Advent services, we will pray for God’s Peaceable Kingdom. Each week will highlight a different theme: Hope, Love, Joy, Peace. We know that you bring your own hurts and hopes to these services, however, and you are invited to pray to God in any way that is most meaningful for you.

Week 1 - Hope

Prelude
Please enter in an attitude of prayer.
Messiah Hwv 56 (Complete)
Panis Angelicus
Missa Papae Marcelli: Benedictus - Hosanna
Requiem in D Minor, K 626: VI Benedictus

Welcome

First Bible Reading – Isaiah 11:1-9
The Branch From Jesse
1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling [a] together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
Song – Wait for the Lord
Wait for the Lord,
Whose day is near.
Wait for the Lord:
Be strong, take heart!

Second Bible Reading – Matthew 6:25-34
Matthew 6:25-34 (NRSV)
25 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.

Meditation

Prayer
"We welcome you, small child of Bethlehem, whose coming we await with quiet attention. ...[E]ncourage us to turn our hopes to your coming. We know that the promise is hidden in the stable in Bethlehem and rooted in the offspring of Jesse; let us look for our salvation there." (Advent and Christmas Wisdom from Henri JM Nouwen, Compilation, Prayer, and Action by Judith A. Bauer, Liguori Publications, 2004).

Silence

The Great Thanksgiving

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,
forever. Amen.

Sharing of the Bread and Cup

Bringing the Light
You may light candles as an act of prayer.

Song of Light - Our Darkness
Our darkness is never darkness in your sight:
The deepest night is clear as the daylight.

Silence

Concluding Prayer
Light of all lights and Life of all life, you move among us in the lowliest stations and bring life and justice to those who most need. In the depths of this winter, let us find the offspring of the root of Jesse in such a way that our world becomes a vibrant green even amid the gray of the skies and dark of the early evenings. Raise us up in this growing tree of life to have hope that your kingdom will one day come, perhaps even this day. Amen. (Katie M Ladd)

Postlude
You may remain in prayer and leave at your own bidding.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
O Magnum Mysterium
In Dulci Jubilo
Lift Up Your Heads

31 atheist/agnostic writers take to churches across seattle

In "The Stranger", Seattle's waaaaayyy Seattle-liberal, hyper-sexualized, sarcastic, ironic, and anything-that-pisses-others-off-must-be-art newspaper, 31 (mostly atheist) writers took to worship on the same day to see what all the buzz about religion is about. While you can tell that "The Stranger" isn't my favorite paper (I'm over their too predictable, too caustic, too self-involved writing), the article has some interesting reflections on what folks who don't go to church/synagogue/mosque experience the first time they attend.

What struck me most is that this group of hyper-hip writers found emerging worship insipid and high church worship just fine, although it still didn't do anything for them spiritually. They wanted to maintain their anonymity, wanted the church to be unapologetically church, and wanted the message to be hopeful. Read on...

worship and love

Bishop Will Willimon has posted on his blog a Peculiar Prophet a great article about the function of worship. It is in response to an email question submitted to him and is called "Why Do Worship?" It begins:

Frankly, I just don’t get much out of the Sunday morning thing. A lot of the time, I like the music, particularly when it’s contemporary. But there is a lot that goes on Sunday morning that doesn’t do much for me. Am I supposed to feel something? I would think that being a Christian is more than sitting and listening. It is also doing. What is the good of the praying and the singing and the sitting and listening?

What is the chief end of humanity?

The proper answer from the Westminster Confession: The chief end of humanity is...

Read the whole article.

Liturgical worship places this love in the midst of a long tradition of loving God. That is why we respectfully stand for portions of the service, follow a certain order of service, and why we return time and again to our sacraments and rituals. How liturgy and love interplay is worth a great deal of exploration. Perhaps they sometimes diverge. It is, of course, always possible for liturgy that once glorified God to simply function as a relic of the past. We need to always be intentional about the ways in which we live into our liturgy and be mindful about how we introduce newcomers (and old hats, for that matter) to liturgy. Liturgy exists to point us ever closer to God and to bring us into closer and closer relationship. When it doesn't, we lost the act of loving God as the primary goal of worship.

what is the role of the small urban church?

It seems like every time I turn around I hear how the"emerging" or "emergent church" is the magic bullet that will save institutionalized Christianity. Just a few years ago all of the literature produced for churches was on church growth. Now the trend is toward smaller, more experiential, and ritual based communities. Through all of these conversations, I have become increasingly interested in the potential role for small churches in the urban environment. While there clearly is a place for the large, growth-oriented church, and while there is a newly developing place for the emerging church movement, I believe that there is a resurgence of interest in the small church in urban neighborhoods, especially if the small church can find a way to embody a message of justice.

I currently serve a small church that seems to function in between the Alban Institute's categories of "family" and "pastoral" size churches. With a membership of 112 and around 70 in worship each week, Woodland Park United Methodist Church is bucking many of the trends established by small urban churches. Data indicate that churches need at least 80 people in worship each week to be able to afford a full-time pastor. Data also show that small urban churches are in decline. The church I serve doesn't follow either of these trends - at least not yet. WPUMC is an active, vibrant church that is intentional in providing for families and its dedication to justice and radical hospitality. Unlike some churches that focus on social justice to the exclusion of spiritual and family needs, WPUMC has a deep desire to provide for people who have never been to church or who are returning after a long absence so that they will find a place to ask questions of faith, find healing, and provide for the spiritual needs of the whole family. Those who are coming and staying at WPUMC want a small church where the whole family is known, where their gifts are wanted and needed, and where they can find a community with a level of intimacy not found in other organizations in our society.

For years I have noticed that small churches live with a stigma of "not being successful." However, I think that in urban contexts in which so many of us are transplanted from other regions of the country (even the world), where we work in large corporations, where our children attend large schools, and where everything we do is on a large scale, the small church can provide a sense of family and belonging that other organizations cannot provide. Additionally, small churches that retain the liturgy of their traditions extend to people returning to church a feeling of the familiar that is often desired by them. I also think that small churches that maintain "traditional" architecture have an additional gift for their communities. I know the popularity of warehouse churches and coffee shop churches and the resurgence of house churches, but even so some people desire traditional architecture for their churches. There is something powerful about set apart space that we call sacred and establish for the worship of God. There is something familiar and understandable about entering a different world on Sunday (or whenever we worship) that acts as though God's kin-dom has already come.

Small churches that maintain liturgy and architecture and that also embrace a message of inclusion and justice can be a new locus of spiritual life in our urban centers. WPUMC is striving to be one of these places. We have many of the struggles of small churches (money, leadership, diversity), but thus far we have been able to provide a place for people to come and experience tradition re-interpreted, allow the time and space for people to ask fundamental questions of being and faith, provide a home where all people can belong, and maintain programs and strucutres that encourage the entire congregation to pursue justice.

This is just the first of several ramblings on the power and place of the small urban church. In future blogs, I will cover the function of liturgy, the importance of justice, the power of asking questions, and the value of children. One of the drawbacks of the emerging church is the narrowness of its scope. I certainly applaud the movement on many accounts, but it doesn't provide the necessary familiarity for multiple generations to meet together in worship and prayer. It is still the traditional church that does this, and I believe that there is something incalculably important about having 9 month olds and 90 year olds in the same worship.