Rethinking Church Services

Today I came across a post on a blog called The View From Her (via a link on Mark Daniels' Better Living blog) called The Form of Church.  The author observes that churches, even the modern ones, tend to follow the same general layout... 40% singing, 60% teaching, with some announcements or a drama sprinkled in here and there.  My observations agree with her.  She suggests that churches should shake things up a bit, get more creative in the layout of their services... get out of the rut of doing the same thing every week, basically.

That is an idea that has been percolating in my head for a long time.  But, I tend to think the problem goes a bit deeper than the blog author describes.  When I ask myself why churches do the 40/60 format, I come to the conclusion that churches generally think those are the most important two things churches can do in their largest, most public services... sing worship songs and teach from the Bible.  But, is that correct?

I don't think so, really.  I think the most important functions of the church happen during smaller, less public services... but that's not really the discussion here.  Regarding the large-format, public services, I think being restored to right standing with God, worshipping God, and expressing our oneness as the Body of Christ are the most important functions of the large-format public church service.

Many would say that presenting the Christian faith to outsiders is a primary function of such a service.  I disagree.  The Christian faith is best presented to outsiders when it is being actively lived out in community.  People will come to follow Jesus when they experience His living presence, not when they hear the convincing intellectual arguments that we can marshal on his behalf.

So, how do those happen?  I think there's a great deal of flexibility, for the most part, and like the author of the above-mentioned blog, I'd love to see variety and creativity.  But, I think a few things should be consistent and universal.

First, and foremost, Communion/Eucharist.  This, in some form, should be the central activity of every large-format public church service.  It is the one public, ongoing "church act" that Jesus directly commanded of every believer.  (We are, of course, to love, serve, give, etc... but I would call those "life acts"; we are also all commanded to be baptized, but that is not ongoing for the individual).  It communicates at once the core message of what Christ has done on our behalf, the constant necessity for us to align ourselves intimately and publicly with Christ, and the unity we must share as Christ's followers.  If there was one thing I could change about my current church, it would be to put Communion (as we call it) at the center of every Sunday morning service.

I also think that in every church service, a time of silence for confession, forgiveness, and having our minds realigned with God's mind is an important thing.  How long that silence should be, and at what point in the service it should come... I'm open to much more flexibility on that point.  There are also other ways, aside from community-wide silence, to achieve the same ends.  A separate room for silent prayer can be always available, for example, where people can go that are convicted of their sin during the service, and need more time to spend in quietness with God (or being prayed for by friends or elders).

Worshipping God has the greatest degree of flexibility, in my thinking.  Music and silence can both be vibrant acts of worship.  Group Scripture readings can be an act of worship, as can dance, or art, or drama.  Public testimony of what God has done can be a great form of worship... though, in my experience, there needs to be some level of filtering on the "open" mic, or you get a few people who love to talk saying nice things about their best friends rather than about God.  There are a great deal more possibilities.

You have probably noticed my glaring (and intentional) omission... teaching.  I think teaching has very little use in the large-format public church service.  That's not to say that teaching isn't an important function of the church... I just don't think the Sunday morning service is the time for it.  Have a separate school-type system where people can choose classes to really learn about the Bible.  Have beginners tracks and more advanced tracks, and encourage people to go through them systematically, so people actually learn substantive theology.  Sunday morning sermons end up being targeted to the lowest-common-denomintor: watered-down morality or motivational messages with a nod (sometimes badly misguided) toward the Bible.  Or, alternately, churches center their entire church life around intricately "accurate" (we're right, everyone else is wrong) theology and lose (if not in theory, then in reality) the God-centered, repentant, worshipful, unified life of the church.

So, my call to the church... get rid of sermons.  Put communion at the center of the service, and build around it with vibrant worship (not music alone, but connecting with God and giving Him true honor), repentance, and unified community.  Not that any churches are listening, but it's OK to dream... :)

(And yes, in anticipation of certain commenters, I realize that there are whole large groups of churches that follow this general format, though without the variety.  They do put communion/Eucharist at the center of the service, their service is focused on worship, and they do have at least a nod toward repentance and community in their service format.  They are also the most rigid in their service formats, and the most limited in the types of interaction they allow from the congregation.  I'm not willing to give up the freedom of expression and corporate involvement of the churches I'm accustomed to.  Anyway, I at least wanted you to know I'm not unaware of the situation. :) )

Mark

[UPDATE: Additional follow-up conversion may be found at Embracing the Risk]

The AFA Gets It Badly Wrong

On the Embracing The Risk blog, one of our most involved discussions centered around swearing.  What is swearing?  How big of a deal is it?

At the time, I thought that discussion had only limited applicability to real life.  It appears that I'm wrong.

I have had plenty of reason of the years to dislike the American Family Association.  However, I think this one is at or near the top of the list.  What ridiculous self-righteous misprioritization.

I agree with the sentiments expressed at RedBlueChristian, where I was pointed to this news.

Mark

A Suggested Change of Terminology

If you are not interested in reading a frustrated rant about a rather silly theological issue specific to Christianity, then feel free to move on to other blogs.  I simply need to get this off my chest.

I have lost track of the number of times that it has been pointed out to me in various theological discussions that "the Bible does not use the word Trinity".  As if that matters.  I shrugged it off the first few times, but as the drumbeat continues, and comes at me from so many different sides, I've got to say something.  And, I have a (halfway tongue-in-cheek) suggestion to make.

The observation about the use of the word Trinity first came to me when I was interacting with Muslims.  They consider the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to be heresy, yet they (in theory) hold the Bible to be a holy book (though impossibly corrupted).  They were quick to point out that the Trinity (at least the word) wasn't even in the Bible.

I have also had Catholic friends with whom I have discussed the Bible.  Coming from the other angle, they have used the observation that the word "Trinity" doesn't exist in the Bible to argue that therefore belief in the Trinity requires an extra-biblical interpretive authority... that is, the Catholic church.

Quite recently, I was discussing the image of God with a friend of mine who studies theology.  I pointed out that the Bible gives us very little information about the "image of God", and that it seemed we'd be best to avoid drawing extensive and complicated conclusions about what exactly that image entails in us when we have so little information about it (and when the Bible seems to consider it quite unimportant).  His response?  "The imago Dei is much more explicit than many doctrines since the words 'image of God' are indeed in the text itself, something that cannot be said for, say, the Trinity."

Since when is the level to which a teaching is "explicit" in a text related to the number of times the title given to that teaching used in the text?  What nonsense.  We might as well say, "Darwin didn't explicity argue for evolution because he only used that word once in his writings."  Ridiculous.  We attach that word as a shortcut to what Darwin (and many others) taught, and it matters absolutely nothing whether he originally used the word or not... it's just an arbitrary title, a placeholder, a shortcut.

However, since this seems to be causing so much confusion from so many different (highly intelligent) people and from so many different directions, I have a suggestion.  I suggest that we jettison the word "Trinity", since it has no significance in itself, but only as a shortcut to a broader belief.  There appears to be a strong desire to have words that are actually used in the Bible to use as shortcuts, so I have a suggestion.

Instead of Trinity, I suggest we use the phrase:  "The One God Who Is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit".  That single phrase does not exist in the Bible, but it is a simple concatenation of two phrases that are used extensively throughout.

Now, that's a bit long and cumbersome, so it will need to be shortened.  But, rather than shortening it using the traditional word "Trinity", which seems to cause many people to think the doctrine is extra-biblical, I suggest we simply use the first letters of the words:  TOGWIFSAHS.

If enough of us make the change, who knows, maybe we'll be able to reform the world to using "biblical" shortcut language instead of the "unbiblical" shortcut word Trinity that makes so many people think the doctrine itself is not "explicit" in Scripture.

OK, enough sarcasm.

Let me, seriously, state that the doctrine of the Trinity is complicated and confusing.  The level to which it is "explicit" in the Bible is debatable.  My point here is simply that the existence or non-existence of the word "Trinity" in the Bible has absolutely nothing to do with how explicitly the Bible teaches the doctrine which that word stands for.

Phew.  I'm glad to get that off my chest. :)

Mark

Are You Really Happy?

A while back I linked to a study about happiness, which said that happiness was heavily correlated with health, income, church attendance, and being a Republican.  I was surprised to see income on that list.

That study was performed by simply asking people how happy they are with their life in general.  Today I saw results of a slightly different study performed by Princeton University researchers, which required more involvement from the study participants.  Instead of a simple answer to a general question, they were required to "record the previous day's activities in a short diary form and describe their feelings about the experiences".

The results, in summary:

"The new survey found that income was more weakly correlated with individuals' happiness from moment to moment than it was with their overall life satisfaction."

It seems that people who have plenty of money actually spend less of their time doing things they enjoy, and have more stress in their daily lives, than people with less money.

So why do they say they are happier?  Why do people without money, who yet are able to do many things they enjoy and have relatively less stress, still say they are unhappy?  Is it because we are conditioned to think that's how we should be feeling?  Is it because, in evaluating our general state of happiness, we are actually looking ahead... and those with money have the expectation that they will be able to buy happiness in the future, even if they aren't experiencing it now?

I find this whole area of research very fascinating.

Mark

Science and Religion and Faith

I came across a great post by blogger Mark Daniels this morning, referencing an interview in the Times of London with Francis Collins, director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute.

Collins discusses the non-conflict of science (even evolutionary science) and Christianity and his own process of conversion to Christianity.  Daniels adds some thoughts about the nature of faith, as well.

I'm not sure if anyone here is interested in these topics, but they have been much on my mind lately, and I'd love to discuss them.

Mark