Here's an edited version of an email I've just sent to my co-leaders at the Glen Eira Christian Community Church, where I've begun an interim pastoral ministry: Happy New Year to you and yours! May 2003 be a growing, learning, or perhaps healing year for you! * From time to time - mostly weekly, I'd like to 'think aloud' with you all. As the 'new boy on the block' I have a lot of learning to do - and I need your help in that process. My church-consultant mentor, Lyle Schaller, has taught me to use 'redundant communications': 'share your thinking with people often, and in many formats, for it to be understood!' So here goes: * I talked with a couple of the 'previous members/attenders' who came on Christmas Day, and got a small feel for the pain some of them have experienced as they exited our Fellowship. I want to get a feel for your history - recent and not-so-recent - so that we can process some of this together. I am the only one of you all who has not lived through your history, so I am at an advantage and at a disadvantage: you can figure out the implications of either of those positions! But let me say I love the way you 'bless' those who leave - either the Church Fellowship, or a ministry within it! Most Churches don't do that well! * I want to say I loved Mick's communication-style (and of course his content) in his preaching on Christmas Day. It was the first time I'd heard you Mick, and I could take more of that! Thank you! And thanks to those who led our worship-in-praise time. I personally liked the way you allowed the words and music of the songs to minister to us (and to God) without a lot of your words cluttering up the process. And I get a regular procession of people coming for counselling who object to praise-leaders 'geeing up' congregations. They tell me: 'If I want to feel sad or introspective, I don't need someone at the front telling me to cheer up! I want to feel my feelings, rather than deny them, in the presence of a healing God!' Food for thought there... * A reminder of my understanding of the pastor's calling: To get to know God-through-Christ-in-the-power-of-the-Spirit very well; the Scriptures - God's revelation of his Truth - very well; the world and church and current trends in both very well; and people very well - and introduce one to the others. One of these without the others is likely to lead to error, or at least a distortion of reality for the people of God. * And a re-emphasis of the two groups God has given me a heart for: the marginalised (whether in society or the church); and actual and potential leaders. In worship-services I tend to be asking myself all the time: how are these two groups reacting to whatever we're doing together? (I may share with you the feedback of a recent church leader's visit with us, if he 'releases' it in terms of permission. Very thoughtful). * I'm wanting to get a feel for those who have a ministry of hospitality in our congregation. Who are they - for what kinds of visitors? If [certain visitors] come again who's best to get to know them in their homes - or in a restaurant - after the service? * Re Communion: what are your thoughts about regularity? First Sunday of the month - always? Or what? * I'm hoping my daughter Lindy will be with us next Sunday. As you know all but $50 of my stipend is re-routed via John Mark Ministries to her strategic evangelistic/missionary work with marginalized people under the umbrella of the missionary order affiliated with the Churches of Christ - 'Urban Neighbours of Hope', based in Springvale. Maybe not this Sunday, but some other time I'd like you to experience her 'worship-leading' (she teaches piano), and hear her speak. A sample of her preaching can be found at http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/2324.htm * A few quick ones that come to mind: do you have a practice of at least two people counting the offering simultaneously? Good idea that. What's your feelings about who should do what in the area of accounting / treasurer etc.? Or is that sorted out? * See you Sunday. I'm wanting to unpack the notion of 'Happiness' over the next two Sundays either side of New Years' Day, and also in a talk I've been asked to give at the New Years' Eve occasion. * Finally, something with which many of you will want to argue. One of our Victorian Baptist pastors posted this today on the Baptist Pastors' e-Network. It would be interesting to discuss this sometime: ~~~ from the "Biblical Recorder", North Carolina Baptist State Convention Friday, Dec. 13, 2002 Emerging church makes 'contemporary' obsolete By Norman Jameson LAKE HICKORY - Church leaders struggling to blend "traditional" and "contemporary" styles into their worship learned from blended worship guru Robert Webber that a third style already is making "contemporary" obsolete.Webber, president of the Institute for Worship Studies and emeritus professor of theology at Wheaton College, told two dozen N.C. pastors and worship leaders at the Hollifield Leadership Center that the "emergent" church is gaining ground from the impetus of "20 something" Christians who find worship comfort in ancient rituals.To these serious young Christians, "contemporary worship" is too loud, too intimate and uses language too romantic in reference to God. They prefer majesty, mystery and awe in worship, and they want their worshipping companions to be their community, Webber said.These young Christians, said Webber, who is also the Myers Professor of Ministry at Northern Seminary, reject the "huge Wal-Mart church with something for everyone" in favor of very small churches in which they find community. They reject the suburban lifestyle and churches spawned by the "great disruption" after World War II that pulled people into ever more isolated, individualistic and consumerist lifestyles."Community" is very important to the emerging church. Oddly, perhaps, community is not found in worship, Webber said. Instead, people who have found community in shared experiences then meet together to worship.Worship in the emerging church touches the ancient. One of Webber's books is Ancient-Future Faith. He says young Christian adults in this post-modern, post-denominational era are "sick of the noise" of contemporary worship. They also reject the false "intimacy" in worship that says we can have a personal, love relationship with God. Instead, they point in worship toward the transcendent, unknowable, mystical God."Worship as a program or performance is unbiblical," Webber said. "Romanticism is junior high stuff. Don't tell me how you feel after worship. Tell me if you're obedient."This attitude leads to a radical Christian life that is countercultural, in that it is intergenerational, cross-cultural, urban and committed to the plight of the poor. Their approach to evangelism is a process and journey, rather than the mass evangelism and instant conversion of the traditional evangelicals, or the seeker evangelism of the contemporary or pragmatic evangelicals.The seminar was part of an ongoing series in which Hollifield brings nationally prominent thinkers to the retreat center on Lake Hickory for learning experiences.Most participants in the seminar expected to find answers to satisfy the diverse elements in their churches that debate traditional and contemporary modes of worship. The main comfort they found from Webber was that younger Christians are actually turning back toward what can be considered "traditional worship." It's the worship style they grew up with and as they return to the church, it's most comforting, he said. While "traditional" evangelical worshippers cling to their style as if it were handed down on tablets from Mt. Sinai, it actually dates only to about 1950, Webber said. The "contemporary" style that threatened to usurp traditional dates only from about 1970. Those for whom traditional worship is most comfortable, are print oriented. They like programs, prayer books and hymnals. The contemporary worshippers are broadcast and performance oriented. The emergent church group is oriented toward the Internet and participatory worship. These 20-somethings are "connectors" Webber said. They connect to history, to people of all stripes, they create multiple networks, are intergenerational and cross cultural in their thinking and like a geographically tight community. Their philosophy would prompt a return to a parish church, a faith community responsible for a small, geographically defined area of their community.In all the struggle over styles of worship, Webber cautioned participants to remember content is the most important worship feature. Substance should never be subjugated to style.In the emergent church, "the minister's primary responsibility is not to run the church, but to be Jesus among us," Webber said. Twenty-somethings reject absolutely the CEO leadership model of the contemporary church, and emphasize the radical, servant style Christianity of Jesus. Shalom - and Happy New Year! Rowland Croucher
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