As a part of the"ministry in context requirement" for Trinity, seminarians are encouraged to visit houses of worship that are not Lutheran. Tonight I went to a Reformed synagogue. It was kind of strange, but strange in a familiar way. They were having a youth service of sorts, so there was Jewish praise and worship music, if you can imagine such a thing. The service was in Hebrew and English. I was fortunate, because it was an out of the ordinary service the leaders were very diligent in helping the congregation follow along.
I was left with the oddest feeling. The closest think I can think to compare it to is walking down the halls of a familiar building that has been recently remodeled. Things seemed to make sense and have a familiar order, but something wasn't quite right.
One of the most valuable things that I took from that experience was a sense of uncomfortability. It has been a while since I was in a worship setting where I didn't know what was coming next, or if my next move would betray me as an outsider. It really made me think about the mindset of a seeker. What does it feel like to have an unsettled stomach when walking into a sancuary? Why did they do that? What page are they on now? I don't see that in here anywhere! Why did we do that?
Seeking is difficult.
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1 comment:
hmm, is the moral of the story then to construct a church service that seekers would be comfortable with? what pre-existing contexts would a non-christian be familiar with, that contain elements found in a typical church service?
- rock concert (or classical, depending on your liturgical style)
- lecture
it seems to me that there is no way to fully create a seeker service that will not in some way be new to people. fundamentally there is something different about church, to people coming from a non-churched background. no secular institution, culture, or group that i know of, meets once a week to imbibe a sip of wine/grape juice and a thin plastic-tasting wafer/uber-small piece of bread. and almost none of them, short of self-improvement gurus, will talk to people about inner peace and finding yourself, etc.
perhaps the answer then, is not to bring them into church, but to bring church into the world? an example of this, might be U2 reading Scripture at one of their concerts, or leading their audience in singing "hallelujah," or Psalm 40 (just "40" to U2)?
thoughts?
kmin.
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