Here is my first post into this conversation. I’ve been following McLaren and Bass and Jim Wallis and have liked what I read from them. I attended the conference at Columbia Seminary a couple of weeks ago. I am blessed to be at a church which is pretty open to new ministry ideas even though we are 152 years old. We are in a rapidly developing area outside of Charlotte, NC. My question concerns what I saw at the CTS conference. To be honest, I did not get a lot of help concerning what good, quality emerging worship looks like. I know what I see in my head and I’m trying to help create that. Does anyone have any real help concerning good reformed worship in the emergent community?
Sam,
Great to have you jump in the conversation. You may (or not) remember that we corresponded by e-mail about a year ago when we ran across each other on the NT Wright list.
I too was sorely disappointed by the worship at the conference. Now, don’t get me wrong the music was fine, but the overall worship experience was very much lacking…I thought part of the deal with emergent worship was much more about trying to re-incorporating some of the traditional elements (you know candles, icons, incense and things that make us Presbyterians very nervous!!!) that got thrown out with the Protestant Reformation. Another element is also increasing participation in the whole worship experience.
It would have been very helpful to have incorporated some worship labs in the conference so we could have been given a taste of what different churches are doing. I would have especially loved to have had Karen Ward lead a worship session or two.
My best advice is not to look at what others are doing, but to keep one eye on your tradition while working with the people at your gathering to develop worship together in way that reflects the values and fits the styles of your community.
This might not look like what some people have labeled “emerging worship”–or it might. The important thing is that we are not copying some style or buying into some program, but discovering how the gospel gets lived out in the context in which we find ourselves.
I imagine that was very intentional, because the idea of prepackaged material–especially for how-to worship looks–is counter to an emerging understand that it grows from within the community and your particular context.
Whether there are candles, or incense is periphery to central issue, especially as a presbymergent. Worship should balance between our reformed tradition’s understanding of it centralizing on the Word and discovering ways for it to be relevant within our particular context/culture.
First I would look within your community to see what sorts of things (music styles and leaders, candles, powerpoint, etc.) God has provided for. Don’t bring in the new fad from some conference or sorrounding area-because then you are forcing an agenda and not allowing things to emerge. Instead foster a community that would give rise to its own worship expression whether through praise and worship, incense and icons or even retain 16th century Genevan standards (hopefully not).
Now that is the vague answer, I am familar with a tremendous variety of churches in the Charlotte area (used to work/live by the Arborteium–never could spell it though) trying to give face to reformed and emerging worship. Perhaps you are familiar with them, but send me an email if you want other churches down there to contact.
Peace,
Wes
PS-just read Drew’s reponse…mine is the longwinded answer to his exact point.
ditto other folks, looking for “an emergent worship” is like trying to nail down what “emergent” is in the first place. still we must try, so i would say an emergent reformed service would have some of these characteristics:
:: liturgical elements are present in ways that makes sense for the community;
:: there is an intentionally relational component;
:: folks feel compelled to do something afterwards;
:: there is a mystical/experiential atmosphere;
now i have not thought long and hard about this, as our service has simply evolved out of the community into what i think is safe to say is an emergent styled worship service.
I get what wb and drew are saying; we just can’t wrestle this things down into a pre-packaged buy off the shelf program or .
However, I really like Bruce’s points… I hope to be moving my own un-emergent congregation in those particular directions.
I still think that a worship lab led by Karen Ward might have gone along way to help us along in this conversation.
I sense based on her talk about her community on the last day that she has done an excellent job of incorporating the liturgical with the contemporary with the experiential with the relational.
For those of us in un-emergent (??pre-emergent??) contexts it would have been great to have had the opportunity to experience just a taste of that. No matter how imperfect that might have been.
Drew wrote:
“My best advice is not to look at what others are doing, but to keep one eye on your tradition while working with the people at your gathering to develop worship together in way that reflects the values and fits the styles of your community.”
I think Drew’s balance is extremely important and want to point to it lest folks read the last without the first. That is, there is a theological risk in developing worship merely around values and style of a given community or context. With theological discipline, this can be done, I think. But we have a deep tradition that helps us, the importance of which is reflected by the very existence of a PC(USA)-centric emergent conversation blog.
Our tradition helps shape, propel, test, and at times, constrain us. When we feel the constraint, we know it is time for diligent and sincere theological reflection _in_community_, for often that constraining force is beneficial. There seems, to me, much in the emergent conversation and po-mo reflections that chafes under this idea of constraint by the established order. Indeed, it is often THE tension point for me in things emergent-esque.
We maintain the balance Drew has articulated (and Wes, as well) lest we worship at the altar of cultural relevance.
$0.02