Another “Submergent Church” discussion…

I do believe in the Church, but some of us in the church still are worshiping the god of growth. Yes, reach people and you will grow! But, what kind of growth? A mushroom grows in a day. An oak tree takes decades.

You have chance to read the bio of your church on her website recently? It might surprise you how common it is to list a history based on buildings rather than the stories of the people who built them.

Which is better: Growth that lasts in the changed lives of people or growth that leaves our story written by the properties we’ve built and purchased and staff we’ve hired?

I have a simple question for my readers about the evangelical church today. We have big churches, small churches. There is so much good that is done and yet so many stories of things gone awry as well. Today we see the local “church” as an institution, as something we go to, or as even as a bother. What do you think?

Do you still believe in the local church today? Why or why not?

SeanSid is a student blogger and the son of a pastor.  He is now a contributor to the worship focused Tehilla Music Blog.

Seeing as how my dad is a pastor, I have been a part of the church for my entire life. There are many things that can become old and boring on a Sunday morning after doing the same thing over and over for 16 years… such as listening to my dad for 40 minutes or “putting on a show” for some people who expect my actions to reflect my dad’s actions everywhere I go. I had kind of let these facts rule over my whole church experience not too long ago. I could not stand to go through the same routine all the time and I could not stand living under the microscope that pastor’s kids usually do.

Continue reading over at Tehilla Music Blog.

There has been a lot of stuff I have followed in the blogosphere about the American Idol singing the Hillsong worship song Shout to the Lord.  That song has meant a lot to many in the American church, so I can see why it was picked.  Here are some things people have been saying…

Shout to…who? My former pastor and author Bill Giovannetti does an incredible job reflecting on the idea of what Jesus we really are shouting to while also critiquing very soundly the emergent theologies and their origins.  A must read.

Other friends of mine simply are skeptical, jubilant or cautious and with questions about why “Jesus” was omitted then not omitted.  Chris Vacher, “Was that possibly the most awkward moment in the history of American Idol?“, Nathan Gaddis “WHAT!?!  WOW!  Then Ben Stiller came out and pooped all over a really great ending of a show..” and Fred McKinnon says “I’m blown away that this song was on American Idol.” **UPDATE by Paul Joseph, “But surely the A.I. juggernaut has enough sense to ask for permission to change a copyrighted song. Nope.”  Here’s a statement from Hillsong Church on CBN.com – no one asked.

My take is that it is awkward to hear a top worship song sung on secular TV that is modern when one might expect “Amazing Grace.”  What perhaps is positive is that faith really is in the public square today.  My hope is that faith in the Truth would be there as well.  I see this as a positive, even though the show choir deal was hard to stomach.

Your thoughts?

The very ideas of being postmodern and finding and expressing the narrative makes for fertile soil for a musician to write music.  It breaths life into the visual arts–whether film or photography or painting.  I am a hack at painting (see the photo), but I love to do it.  I love photography, too.  One concept in discerning what is good art that seems to impact is the idea of form, composition, structure and technique.

Free expression without the tools, is a mess.  Have you ever sat
through a recital of "a tonal" music?  Yikes.  That kind of music is so
deconstructed that there is absolutely no form and therefore it is very
hard to have any story telling aspect associated with it.  Without a
scale, or even repetition it fails to move the listener or even the
musician forward.

I have a jazz music background, and in that you learn "improv" where
you can be pretty deconstructed but there is form, believe it or not.
We learn the "II-V-I" progression and simply repeat the form in some
way.  There are scales that have form like the Lydian scale.  That
scale can be improvised but really only over certain harmonic
structures otherwise it would move so far from any form that it would
cease to move people forward.  The joy in jazz music is at its pinnacle
when technique, form and freedom are all in balance.  Sounds like a
balance worth seeing in theology and faith practice!

The
emerging church wishes to deconstruct, but when form is completely
removed, it loses forward motion and cannot tell a story.  After all,
stories have plots and villains and highs and lows.  In our evangelical
world artists are stifled by a misunderstanding of the importance of
the narrative.  How in the world can you create without a plot line to
express?  But, the emerging church seems like it could equally be
difficult for us artists.

If you want structure, form and balance you might be seen as one who
is too rigid to fit in.  The idea of self expression might overwhelm
the subculture in a way that really gifted artists would have to wait
in line behind the consensus of people who just took up painting a week
ago.  The value is not really telling a story in that case–at least
not effectively.  It would be like "a tonal" music.

In conclusion, I think Lincoln Brewster
represents a Christian musical artist who can stand on his own in the
real world of musical ideas.  He has a voice.  Yet, can we embrace an
artist like him in our local churches?  Would we either make him a
propaganda tool or make him stand in line behind the guys who strum
three chords? 

The very gifted people I know need the church community and often
are not understood, appreciated or challenged.  We need to learn how to
tell the story and tell it very well!  We need these artists,
musicians, writers, thinkers and creatives if we really want to impact
our culture of which language they expertly speak.

This morning was an awesome experience for me as a dad, worship
leader and pastor.  My 13-year-old daughter, Emilie, helped me lead
worship with three other teens–two young adults and a high schooler
and Emilie.  One thing that gets me up in the morning is working for
the future of the Church here in America and how we need to raise up
our emerging leaders.  This morning symbolized part of what my life’s
work is about.  When your own daughter is a passionate and gifted
worship leader at such a young age it makes this vision even more
personal.  Each of these young people were invited into our “world” not
just as observers but as contributors.  How else will they learn how to
lead?

We had a special “Adopt A Child” theme where we promoted child
sponsorship church-wide and with Terrence Sutton teaching.  We selected
three organizations that our church people already support. I believe
almost 150 children were sponsored through World Vision, Compassion International and our own God’s Kids orphanages.  This response is what makes being at Sunridge a joy.  Our people have such a heart!

This service was a bit different than our normal weekend with the
sponsorships as part of worship.  This meant that a couple gaffs gaffes would
indeed happen.  However, being flexible allowed us to worry not so much
about the production sheet rather than our goal.

Here are the songs:

• Everyday – by Joel Houston (Lincoln Brewster version)
• All to You – by Lincoln Brewster
• Blessed Be Your Name – by Matt Redman
• Matchless – by Aaron Shust

How was your worship weekend?

Here is the video to see for yourself.

I think this could be an interesting case study in leadership.  Even
though Hybels had a contrary  viewpoint, I see no evidence that he
demanded this action.  Why did the event leaders ban the video?  Often in leadership we react
to conflict and lively debate with horror when really the liveliness
means passion and concern.  In leading the church, it seems we are
afraid to show our cards and often will overreact by pulling something
back or by spinning the issue or by silencing people who cause the
conflict as in this case.

We try to cut the edges off.  Driscoll has
edges, which is one reason I like him.  Hybels spoke his mind, too,
which is why I like him as well.  What is the big deal?  We could get
into a debate about gender roles in leadership in the church, but that
is something I think would cloud the point we might learn from this
event. 

Are we diminished by debate as Christians, or is this is chance to shine?

Click to Rhett’s blog and learn.  The emerging church is a hot topic and it sounds like Dr. Anderson has some sane wisdom to dispense about the theology of the emerging church.

Here is the post:  Guest Blogger: Dr. Ray Anderson on his new book, "An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches"

Maybe I had been too harsh. After all, the theologian—we’ll call him Jim—argued that emerging church leaders are trying to translate the gospel for a postmodern generation. That’s a commendable goal, I agreed. Though in their effort to reach postmoderns—who question the existence and knowability of truth—I expressed fear that they are coming dangerously close to teaching that objective truth does not exist.

A lengthy e-mail exchange with Jim followed. In defense of emerging church leaders, he insisted that truth is paradoxical, simultaneously personal and propositional. It is objectively true that Jesus Christ is Lord no matter what anyone thinks, Jim wrote. But, he added, “Propositional truth is not the highest truth. Indeed, the highest truth is personal.”

A few years ago I enjoyed a conversation with a group of us artist types (At the re:create think tank in Franklin, TN) and Kurt Bruner who wrote The Divine Drama: Discovering Your Part In God’s Story.  Bruner’s statement is that both “propositional” and “story” should be presented when we share the gospel.  He has a terrific book that puts the gospel story in the format of a dramatic script.

I do think Colson has a point about having concern for putting “personal” truth before the “propositional” and in the need for apologetics. Indeed, truth is knowable. However, I see it as a faulty position on both sides to put propositional or personal in sequence and would think that Bruner has it right in making it a “both and”.

Is the gospel just propositional, or can it be both story and proposition?