**This is the first of a planned 4 part series I’ll be doing this summer on Presbyterians, Emergents, and Presbymergents in the popular virtual reality world, Second Life.***

If the birth of a real Presbyterian ministry in a virtual world isn’t evidence of the church emerging, I don’t know what is. And as strange, foreign, (or even silly) as the concept may sound to some, the more I explore the world of Second Life, the more convinced I become that this is a new context in which God is already at work, and God’s people across the world are already engaged in a diversity of ministry.  I think we should join God, and join them.

For those not already familiar with Second Life from various news reports, magazine articles, and other usual sources of hype, to explain would take up more space than would be wise in this blog post.  Instead, I recommend starting here. It’s eye opening reading, I promise.

When I first started exploring Second Life, I found plenty of evidence of minstry — from a United Methodist Chapel, to a Lutheran Pavillion, to a Taize Sanctuary 500 meters in the sky!  I found the Anglican Cathedral of Second Life, started two years ago by Rev. Mark Brown, which now has 800+ members and conducts five virtual services each week.   I also found a community — Koinonia Congregational Church – that can best be described as “emergent” and meets weekly in a beautiful sanctuary without walls or doors.

I searched for Presbyterians.  It was pretty bleak…but I did find one person — in real life she’s an elder at a Presbyterian Church in California — who has been keeping the proverbial light on, and started a group called (no surprise here) 1st Presbyterian Church of Second Life.  She reserved the name with the hope and a prayer that someday more Presbyterians would come along.  And now, that’s started to happen…

After several weeks of talking to people, dreaming and visioning, the number of Presbyterians in Second Life is growing — most of us are new, and probably feeling a culture shock not unlike what immigrants to the US feel (SL has a steeper learning curve than FB or twitter).  But we’re starting to connect, have conversations, explore opportunities for ministry that is uniquely Presbyterian, but also uniquely Second Life.  Just yesterday, our esteemed moderator, Bruce Reyes-Chow, jumped in (his SL name is Esteban Radikal), as did Philip Lotspeich (SL: Philip Lionheart) from the office of Evangelism and Growth.

So, in true Presbyterian fashion (maybe a bad thing, mabye not?) we’ve acquired some land, threw up a building (both were WAY easier and cheaper than in real life) and will be gathering on Saturday nights 9pm CST / 7pm SLT for fellowship, conversation, and perhaps eventually something like worship, too.  Tomorrow night will be our very first gathering of Presbyterians in Second Life, and anyone is welcome to drop in. May God’s Spirit breathe through the bits and the bytes into a new context (for us, at least)!

• To find our meeting place in Second Life, click here. If you don’t have an account yet, you’ll have to create one.
• If you’d like to get involved with what we’re doing in Second Life, contact Neal Locke via twitter, facebook, or email neal at mrlocke dot net.
• If you created an account in Second Life but are utterly confused and lost, use the search engine to find me: I’m Neill Loxingly in Second Life. Add me as a friend, and I’ll come to your rescue, or send another SL Presbyterian to help

Sing to the Lord a new song!  Technology opens doors in the church and in the world. One tweet on Twitter can connect pastors in ways unimaginable when my Dad was in seminary (sorry, Pops). Blog communities bring new and exciting — though imperfect — ways to discuss Christ and culture. What self-respecting youth group these days doesn’t have a Facebook group? That said, I’m also aware of the growing digital divide in our congregations. Now, when we think of our diversity, we must also remember the diversity of those with email and those without, those with a high-speed internet connection and those without a computer. Ahh, the challenges of ministry in 2009.

The Presbyterian Hymnal Committee, a group formed last year, is in the initial stages of developing the next Presbyterian hymnal. The next hymnal will include songs composed since 1990 (the publication date of the blue hymnal) and will seek to honor our rich heritage. Perhaps it will bring back some from the red book, but it’ll also put into print some of the new places that God is leading us. For all your next hymnal questions check out http://presbyterianhymnal.org , and remember the committee is just beginning its work.

Especially in these early stages, though, I want to take to the committee some ways that new technology might best be used to sing a new song unto the Lord. Copyright law is tricky enough with printed materials, let alone when concerned with electronic formats, but I want to think broadly at this stage.

(On a parenthetical note, let’s not forget the amazing “technology” of the bound paper printed book. What a remarkable, durable, cheap, easy-to-use, technology it is — and will be for years to come. The next hymnal will certainly be in book format, but why stop there?)

The committee can make no promises — we have budget considerations like everybody else — but we will consider, in good faith, how God may be calling the church to use technology in its congregational song and worship planning. That’s where you come in.

Comment away. What tech ideas — hymnal/singing/worship related — would be handy in your congregation? How do you use the hymnal for worship planning and how could that be bettered with new technology? Do you use existing online worship resources? What, technologically speaking, should the hymnal committee consider?

Pop a comment on this post, or email me at adamjcopeland at gmail dot com. Peace.

I have had more than my fair share of days when I have questioned my call to be a pastor. I read somewhere how a young man, who was thinking about becoming a pastor, asked his mentor—a pastor of many years—”When did you feel the call to go into ministry?” The older man didn’t bat an eyelash and replied, “This morning.”

I completely get that. There are days when I feel like I need to hear the call every five minutes just to assure me that I am doing what I am supposed to do with my life. Even when people tell me things that should reassure me, I struggle to believe that God would actually want to use someone like me for such an important task. I once heard that the great reformer, Martin Luther, used to feel as though the earth was going to open up and swallow him whole each time he rose to say the Mass. That comforts me a bit, really. If Martin Luther felt himself to be unworthy of his call, then at least I am in good company. Martin Luther also swore like a sailor and loved beer, which is also pretty comforting.

For the past few years I have felt a longing in me that has been difficult to define and impossible to quench. You see, God, in God’s infinite wisdom and mercy, has seen fit for me to serve in the Presbyterian Church (USA)–a Christian denomination that has been (like most mainline Protestant denominations) in decline for decades. My more conservative colleagues from not-mainline denominations gleefully point this out at every available opportunity—God love ‘em. Once I had a fellow pastor from a conservative, evangelical church inform me over lunch that in his opinion the real moment when the PC(USA) fell into ruin was when it began ordaining women.

“That’s where it all started,” he told me in sage-like fashion. “And now look what’s happening… you’re ordaining them.” I asked what he meant by “them” and he replied, “You know…homosexuals.”

He hissed the word “homosexuals” like a snake, like it hurt him to say it. I started to explain the intricacies of Presbyterian polity, and that we didn’t in fact ordain lots of different people for lots of different reasons, but that didn’t mean that they were evil, bad, horrible, hellbound sorts. The thought of explaining all of this, however, made me tired. Instead I decided to take the high road and asked him if he had any pictures of himself in his Klan robes and hood, and how many people came to his last cross burning. Lunch sort of went downhill after that.

I shouldn’t let things like that bother me, but I realize that the reason it does is pretty simple: I worry that the critics of my [supposedly] dying, mainline denomination might be right. What if they were? Would it really change the way I feel about things? I have looked into the eyes of Legalism and Fundamentalism within the Christian community and know it to be something altogether apart from God. But here I am–a self-described emergent church leader—bursting with ideas and dreams of reforming and transforming the small corner of the Body of Christ to which I have been assigned to shepherd. Here I am in a mainline denomination, serving an historic, traditional church. It feels like I am the smallest, puniest most insignificant tugboat in the fleet trying to push the grandest and most gargantuan ocean liner away from the rocks.

I spent most of my day today in meetings talking about budgets, and extremely important things like who really should have a key to the closet in the church kitchen where the good silver is kept, and why it’s important to have a church sign that matches the outside decor of the church building. Today I felt about as emergent, innovative and transformative as an old shoe. It’s days like this that try my soul, and make me wonder if I am somehow being punished for all of the misdeeds of my youth…and there were many.

The thing is, I have had these other moments when I feel so called to be a pastor that it literally makes me ache. And even further, that God—for some reason unknown to me—seems to want me to take my place in the ocean among so many others who are paddling like mad, and trying desperately to turn this big ship we call the Church around.

George Herbert is this seventeenth-century poet that I admire a great deal. I have his picture on the wall of my office. It’s more of an engraving, really—or rather, a picture of an engraving that I printed off of the Internet and then put in a gilded frame to make it look respectable. At any rate, a rendering of George Herbert sits on my wall. Once I attended a talk by Eugene Peterson, the man who created The Message–a translation of the Bible into everyday language–and about a million other books about faith and life. He said that one day he just starting replacing all of his diplomas, accolades and awards that were hanging on his office wall with pictures of people he admired and who had influenced him. He cited George Herbert as one of his heroes, along with a bunch of dead, German theologians that I was ashamed to say I had never heard of before. I went home and did the same thing. My wall contains C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, George Herbert, J.R.R. Tolkien, Eugene Peterson and Bono. The picture of Bono is a good one. He’s got on shades and a cowboy hat. I got if off the Internet, too.

I’m sorry…this story really should have begun on the streets of San Diego, which is a pretty darn nice place for any story to begin considering the weather and all. Anyway, I found myself walking in downtown San Diego on a bright February afternoon in search of a bookstore. My mission was to buy a book of George Herbert’s poems. You see, it was in San Diego that I heard Eugene Peterson’s talk–the one where he mentioned his office and the picture of George Herbert that hung there. It had been the second time in a month that I had heard the name of George Herbert, and I decided that it was the type of sign that at the very least necessitated the purchase of a book of his poetry.

A few weeks earlier, I happened to be sitting at a worship service in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London England. Yes, I realize that I just wrote that I “happened” to be in England. Well, I was. I was on “holiday,” to coin an English colloquialism, with my wife. We were celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. We were attending a Sunday night worship service on the Third Sunday of Epiphany at one of the most famous cathedrals in the world. I’m not bragging or trying to sound pretentious (well, maybe a little), but you have to admit that’s pretty cool. But this is even better… We were there five years almost to the day when we first attended a worship service in that grand cathedral. And on that day, five years before, God had spoken to me in an audible voice and told me that I needed to become a pastor. I’d been fighting the the call, you see, and I guess that God decided enough was enough. The voice that God used that day was the voice of the Reverend Canon Patience Purchas, Associate Director of Ordinands, Diocese of St. Albans. I didn’t know what it meant either. I found out her job title in plain English was more like, “The Pastor in Charge of Everyone in Southern England Who is Trying to Become a Pastor.” Her sermon that evening was essentially about how to recognize God’s will for you life. I don’t remember much of it all, but I do remember that at one point she said something like, “I feel as though there is someone here, who is struggling with God’s call to pursue a life in ministry.”

Now, I’ve seen enough charlatan preachers in my church-going career to know that old trick. I’ve witnessed a number of these performers, who, at the critical moment in the sermon—usually around the time of the altar call—will stretch out their hand in dramatic fashion and say, “I sense that there’s someone out there…someone out there who is far from God…” or something to that effect. There’s nothing particularly spiritual about this 9 times out of 10. It’s called playing the odss, and people do it all the time in casinos, riverboats and smoky rooms above meat markets.

But at that moment, in that place, I knew that it wasn’t anything like that. God was working through this very proper Englishwoman in her rather stiff Anglican robes, who had no way of knowing that in that small crowd of visitors and downtown Londoners that there was indeed someone who was struggling with God’s call in his life. I began to weep uncontrollably, overwhelmed with the knowledge that God had found me 6,000 miles from home, where I had run like Jonah from a destiny I was afraid to embrace. Six months later, my wife and I were driving a huge truck filled with our earthly belongings from Florida to Chicago. We’d sold our house, a car, my lawn mower and deep fryer—nearly everything that wouldn’t fit in a downtown apartment, and headed for the midwest so I could attend seminary. That Third Sunday of Epiphany changed my life.

So there I sat, five years later in roughly the same spot where I had heard God speaking to me through the Rev. Canon Patience Purchas, and I was expecting more of the same. I know that lightning doesn’t strike twice and all of that happy horse-poo, but there I was. I wanted to hear God’s voice tell me what I was going to do next, what the next five years would bring. The truth was, I was kind of at a crossroads–at least in my own mind. I’d been feeling antsy, wondering when God might be ready to promote me to something bigger, better and hipper. I knew that I was ready to lead my own church, or to engage in a larger ministry than the one to which I had been called. I also knew that I wasn’t getting any younger, and that time was soon going to be working against me. If I wanted to be bright, young reformer I only had a few more years to make that happen. In the business world there is a window for upward mobility and when you get to a certain age, the window becomes more and more narrow until it finally closes. I just knew that God had something in mind for me, because that’s how it works, right? That’s the kind of thing that happens to preachers and other people who go chasing after God-dreams—they hear voices, they get visions, they have epiphanies while sitting in the middle of a centuries-old cathedral with the smell of incense and candles in the air. And then success finds them. By success I mean that they are granted entry into the most hallowed halls of Christendom—halls that are reserved for people with big book deals, television shows, and really big churches. I knew this was coming because the story of my life that was being written needed something dramatic to put in the introduction.

Then I looked at my worship bulletin.

“Prominence & Obscurity: The Poetry of George Herbert,” it read. I remembered reading Herbert in a Renaissance poetry class that I took in college. The only thing I could remember about him was that he’d written a poem about Easter that was in the shape of an angel. That was the extent of my Herbert knowledge. When I realized that the entire worship service was going to be one big Herbert love-fest, I was devastated. I had come to experience a life-changing worship service, and I was going to be treated instead to some sort of glorified poetry reading. Still, I was in St. Paul’s–in London. I was resigned that although it was the Third Sunday of Epiphany, there would be no epiphany for me that day. I decided to be content with just being there.
At one point in the service, one of the liturgists read from Herbert’s poem The Priesthood, which exemplifies in so many ways what Herbert was all about. He had tasted success and had tasted power and chose in the end to dedicate his life to serving God. I remember hearing these words being read:

Blest Order, which in power dost so excel/That with th’ one hand thou liftest to the sky/And with the other throwest down to hell…I am both foul and brittle; much unfit/To deal in holy Writ…Wherefore I dare not, I, put forth my hand/To hold the Ark, although it seem to shake/Through th’ old sins and new doctrines of our land/Only, since God doth often vessels make/Of lowly matter for high uses meet/I throw at his feet…

I realize to a lot of folks that last bit sounds pretty much like seventeenth-century poetry would sound: formal, stuffy, old… But to me, on that day as I sat there in that ageless place I felt like time had been stripped away and the words of Herbert found me sitting there and wrung out my heart. I thought of him, this poet, this would-be wealthy and powerful up-and-coming scholar and politician, who flung it all away to become the pastor of an obscure parish, and I was ashamed. As my wife and I walked out of the church that night and on to the busy London streets, it began to rain. I let it pelt me in the face. It felt like baptism. And the London rain soon mingled with the tears that began to fall because I am just like that–a big baby… at least when it comes to the important things in life. Nothing, in the end, is more important than doing what you are called by God to do.

I should return to the San Diego part of the story, which is where this all came together in a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook up way. I was attending the National Pastor’s convention (where Eugene Peterson was one of the keynote speakers). I was probably one of twelve Presbyterians who attended out of probably a few thousand or so other pastors, most of whom were Southern Baptists or “non-denominational,” which is the same thing as being a Southern Baptist—only more profitable and with a more casual dress code. I walked around the convention feeling more than a little out of place. Nearly all of the pastors I encountered were older, had higher hair and introduced themselves and their wives by saying, We pastor a church in [insert southern city here].” I have never really been fooled by that use of “we” to be perfectly honest. It’s patronizing, especially coming from people who often do not believe that women have the gifts for ordained ministry. If my wife wanted to, she would make an awesome pastor, and we happen to belong to a denomination, which (despite the fact that it is “dying”) would affirm that call. There are many things that don’t feel very emergent about my denomination (remember the silver closet?), but the fact that we believe Scripture upholds the fact that God calls whom God calls is about the foremost “emergent” quality we Presbyterians (the USA kind) possess.

Anyway, I decided to take a break from the convention so that I could take the trolley into downtown San Diego. I figured that I would wander around the Gaslamp district for a bit and hopefully find a bookstore that would miraculously contain a book of George Herbert’s poems. Besides, I just really wanted to get away from Christians for a while. I put on my Johnny Cash t-shirt, and put in all of my earrings (all three) because I feel safe enough to wear them when I am not anywhere near my own church. Figuring that I looked suitably un-pastor-like, I walked to the trolley stop and got on. After a brief interlude to eat at In-And-Out Burger—only the best burger place in the world–I boarded the Blue Line trolley into downtown San Diego.

I noticed that this guy got on at the same I did, and he was–shall we say–a little wobbly on his feet. He was barefooted, carrying his worldly belongings in a clear plastic trash bag and reeking of alcohol. I glanced at him when he wasn’t looking and noticed that he was dirty and wearing a battered, filthy baseball cap that was slightly askew on his head. He had on a pair of reflective, wrap-around shades. When the train lurched forward he almost fell. I saw him take a look at the young man standing next to him–a guy who was well-dressed, well-groomed and looking like he was on his way to a job interview. They couldn’t have been more un-alike. The dirty guy gave his neighbor the once-over.

“How’s it going, man?” he asked him.

“Cool, man. How about you?”

“Just chillin’ man, you know. Just chillin’,” the dirty guy responded.

“Outstanding,” his neighbor said. Then the dirty guy went to sit down. Every time he would do something differently he would announce his intentions. So when he went to sit down, he told everyone, “I’m going to sit down, okay?” then he did it.

I put on my own shades for no other reason than I wanted to watch him a bit longer, but didn’t want to make eye contact. I had learned from my three years living in Chicago that if you made eye contact with every dirty, drunken fellow on the train, you would spend every ride listening to their tales of woe, and would most assuredly end up getting solicited for money. This wasn’t always the case, but it was the case enough of the time for me to form a preconceived notion about making eye contact with dirty, drunken guys on the train. Still, I wanted to the see the complexities of the human drama unfold, so I put on my shades to stare.

The Guy, as I will call him henceforth, was trying to make conversation with everyone, who was seated next to him. “I’m trying to get downtown,” he proclaimed. No one responded. “Man, I need to find a liquor store,” he said. No one said anything, nor acted surprised, for that matter. All of a sudden he looked at me and got up from his seat. “I’m going over here,” he told everyone.
I immediately looked away, out the window, at my seat, but to no avail. He sat down in front of me and looked right in my face.

“Hey man, give this ticket to someone who wants to take a round trip back. I don’t need it.” He stuck out his blackened hand and handed me a crumpled round-trip trolley ticket. “Find someone who needs it,” he added. “I’m going to stand over here,” he told me, and stood up by the door of the trolley and peered at the route map that was above it. I didn’t know what to say.

“Cool, man. Thanks.” I put the ticket into the book I’d been reading.

“Hey man,” he said to me again. “Does this go downtown?”

“Yeah, it goes downtown, dude.”

“Oh yeah? Well which stops are for downtown?”

I looked at the map above the door. For a moment I thought to say that I didn’t live in San Diego and didn’t know anything about which stops were which, but that would have been a lie. I had taken the same trolley two days before, and knew where it was going. Besides, over time I have skillfully used public transportation in lots of major cities: New York, London, Paris, Rome, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Miami… yeah, that’s it. I figured that I could handle giving directions to a dirty, drunken, ex-hippie. On the map there was an area that was outlined in grey and labeled, “downtown loop” or something like that.

“Do you see that grey area?” I asked him.

“No,” he said.

“Well, that’s the downtown area. Pretty much every stop will put you downtown somewhere.”

“Cool man,” he said, after a long pause. We rode in silence for a bit. “Hey man, what do you play?” he asked me in a stage whisper.

“What?”

“What instrument do you play, man?”

“I don’t…play an instrument,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“Dude, come on. I know you play an instrument. It’s cool.”

“No, I don’t.”

“What do you do then?” he asked.

“I’m a pastor,” I told him. “Like a pastor of a church… you know?” I finished lamely.

“What?”

“A pastor,” I said in a kind of stage whisper of my own.

The Guy sat there for a moment staring at the floor. Then all of a sudden he brightened.

“I get it! You’re going incognito. That’s cool, man.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about but, but cool,” I said at last.

The Guy grinned at me, and said, “I know that Bob’s in town, man. Yeah, Bob’s in town, man. House of Blues. You’ll be kicking it with the band, right?”

“Bob?”

“Yeah, right. I get you man. You’re concealing.”

Since I had no idea what he was talking about, and couldn’t convince him that I wasn’t a musician and did not know Bob, I figured he was making some sort of drug reference.

“No man, I’m not concealing,” I said hoarsely.

“Do you play bass, man?”

“No, I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.”

“Cool.”

The trolley came to a stop and he asked if it was a downtown stop. I told him that it was.

“Dude, I have to find a liquor store?” he said.

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

He stumbled to his feet and tried to go out the door before it closed, and didn’t make it. The trolley door shut in his face. He cursed. I started to tell him that all he had to do was push the button by the door and it would open for him, but he sat down again.

“Guess I won’t be getting off here,” he muttered.

“Try the next one,” I told him. Luckily for both of us, the “next one” came almost immediately. He rose unsteadily to his feet and headed for the door.

“Later man,” he said to me. “I’ll see you up on the stage.” With that, he exited the trolley. I saw him immediately approach a black man with a shopping cart and begin asking directions. I gave a short laugh and looked around at the other passengers.

“I don’t think the liquor store would be a good idea.” I said. A few of them laughed. I noticed that they were all looking at me strangely. I began to wonder if maybe they actually believed the Guy, and thought I was the bassist in Bob’s band, whoever Bob was. I got up and prepared to exit the trolley, feeling their eyes on me. When the trolley stopped and the doors opened, I bolted out of the car as quickly as I could.

The street where I exited happened to be the very same street where the House of Blues was located. I looked up at the marquee. “Bob Weir & Ratdog – Feb. 9″ it read in big red letters. I looked around and saw that the entire street was flooded with disheveled, filthy young people. Most of them had dreadlocks. All of them were carrying backpacks or rucksacks of some kind. They were gathered in small groups around the House of Blues waiting to be let inside. It all came to me in a rush. Bob Weir had been in the Grateful Dead. “Bob Weir & Ratdog” was the band he had formed and was apparently touring with that month. Suddenly what the Guy had been saying to me made sense—sort of. These were modern day Deadheads–the people who used to follow the Grateful Dead around the country, attending all of their concerts and living in an endless haze of pot smoke and tie-dyed shirts.

I began to weave my way through the crowd of Deadheads that were waiting for the concert. More than a few of them had dogs that growled at me menacingly. The hippies themselves were not friendly. They stared at the rest of us as we passed through their gauntlet of body odor and pit bulls. I felt decidedly unauthentic as I went. Here I was, trying to be incognito, trying to be cool with my Johnny Cash t-shirt and my earrings. I had my iPod going by now and was listening to a “Gospel & Christian” playlist. The song that was playing was David Crowder’s “Rescue is Coming.” I turned it up so that I wouldn’t have to hear if the Deadheads were saying things about me, indicting me, calling me out, commenting on my fashionably ripped jeans and my hip Pony walking shoes. I felt as though they knew that despite my efforts to conceal who I was….they could spot my phoniness, my denial. And if they couldn’t then the pit bulls sure as hell could.

David Crowder sang in my ear There’s nothing wrong with me/It’s just that I believe/Things could get better/And there’s nothing wrong with love/I think it’s just enough to believe… I wondered if it was just enough to believe. I believed once that I was called. I believed that God had a task in mind—thissemper reformanda kind of task. Semper Reformanda is that wondrous Reformation-era phrase that seems to be bandied about so much these days. Everyone seems to want the church to reform, but no one seems to understand how to do it, or where to even begin. As I walked the streets of San Diego feeling the accusing stares of the nuevo-Deadheads, I felt my shoulders slump and my heart grow weary. Who was I kidding? I didn’t even feel like a pastor, much less some sort of church leader, much less a part of the emerging church conversation—even less like a reformer.

After wandering around in the Gaslamp District for a while, I finally found a Borders bookstore and went inside. Moments later I was standing in front of the Poetry section staring at a copy of “George Herbert: The Complete English Poems.” It was the only Herbert book on the shelf. I opened it. There was a poem on the page called The Offering. The first two lines read, Come, bring thy gift. If blessings were as slow/As men’s returns, what would become of fools? My eyes filled with tears. Come, bring thy gift.

At the cash register, the young woman who rang up my sale commented on my purchase.

“I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone buy a book of Herbert’s poetry. Well done.”
I smiled a small smile, and wished that I could convey to her the journey that I had undertaken
to stand before here with my money in one hand and Herbert in the other.

“What do you do?” she asked me. “Are you a student, or an English teacher?”

I took my receipt and paused a moment before starting for the door.

“No,” I said. “I’m a pastor.” I pushed the door open and stepped out into the street. The trolley
went by across the street, turned a corner and headed away. A young man wearing a tie-dye shirt
and dirty pants passed me on his way toward the House of Blues. I nodded at him and smiled.

He smiled back.

A few months ago I wrote short essay that was published on this site entitled “Living In Two Worlds: Existing/Emerging Leadership.” Somehow the essay got into the hands of Eilleen Lindner, an author and Presbyterian minister who offered a presentation at an Ecumenical & Interfaith Network gathering in 2007. She read from my essay (among others) as part of a presentation that she did on “Post Denominational Identities and Emerging Ecclesiologies.” Her title was better, I must admit. I also have to admit that it was kind of nice to be noticed. Mind you, there are no literary agents pounding down my door to offer me a book deal (Seriously…Anyone know a literary agent? Anyone?), but the realization that someone responded to what I wrote and actually discussed it was gratifying.

That little essay was born out of the struggle that I was going through at the time as I began to identify more with Emergent or Missional theology and ecclesiology and sought to lead the church to which I was called accordingly. At the time, the church I was serving could be defined as containing both “emerging” and “existing” traits. On Sunday mornings the existing aspect of my church met for worship, and on Sunday evenings there was an emergent worship gathering/community that regularly met in the same space. These communities could not have been any different, but they both formed and informed one another in interesting and exciting ways. It was good to reflect on my struggle as an emerging leader in an existing church, though. Because of that time of reflection I came to understand that in many ways I was embodying the very struggle in which my church had become engaged. My efforts to put my feelings into words was a part of that struggle—an effort to write a story that was far from complete. But there was something unsatisfying in that effort, to be honest. It felt like I (and to some extent my church as well) had come to the end of a chapter, but didn’t know how to finish the last sentence in a way that felt good and right. We had both come a long way, but not far enough.

In the end, neither one of us could put a period at the end of that sentence.

When I wrote that first essay, I knew that my time at my emerging/existing church was going to be cut short. The senior pastor of the church accepted another call, and I became the interim pastor/acting head of staff for over a year. All the while, I was also exploring other opportunities and trying to discern where God might be calling me to serve. I imagined and dreamed about the possibilities of serving a community of faith that was already part of the “emerging conversation,” a place where the word “missional” did not have to be unpacked. I dreamed of a place of diversity–in worship, in mission, in ministry and constituency. These dreams carried me through some fairly tough times of doubt and uncertainty, but they were my dreams, and no one else’s.

God’s dreams for the community of faith I was destined to serve were quite different from mine, as it turned out. I was called to serve an historic, traditional, established, corporate, existing congregation in a small town in Central Florida. I was called, and I knew deep in my heart that I would go as soon as I heard the invitation. When I realized that God’s dreams for me did not include any of the things I thought I wanted for myself, I grieved a little, to be honest. Further, shortly after I accepted the call to serve my historic, traditional, established church, I was contacted by three different churches who were extremely interested in calling me as their pastor. They had been the three churches who were at the top of my wish list when I was dreaming of the kind of community of faith I [selfishly] longed to serve.

As I pondered all of this and grieved a bit more over what might have been, a friend of mine told me a story from her own life. She said that her father, a Presbyterian minister, once visited the “perfect” church to determine if he was being called to serve there. Her mother loved it, she remembered. The manse was large, the church was in a beautiful mountain community in North Carolina, there were no financial worries, it was well staffed and the congregation was happy and motivated. But her father declined the church’s offer. My friend remembered him saying, “I don’t want to go somewhere that doesn’t need me, and they don’t need me.”

Then I realized that the period had just been placed at the end of that troublesome sentence.

The first pastor of my church was called 125 years ago. His name was [seriously] The Rev. Dr. James Hair Potter. You can’t make this stuff up. There is a huge Tiffany-style stained glass window in the sanctuary–a sanctuary that was dedicated in 1914. Dr. Potter’s picture is in a glass case in the parlor [complete with huge wingback chairs, coffee tables and large oil paintings depicting deer, landscapes, etc.]. He was an austere-looking fellow with a beard that reached all the way down to his waist. Potter served my church for 20 years. I think about him sometimes when I stand by myself in the sanctuary preparing for my sermon. You can’t help but think about him, really. The stained glass in his honor is huge, beautiful and stately. I like looking at it.

A friend of mine who was part of the emergent worship gathering I used to lead visited a worship service at my new church recently. As I greeted her before the service she looked at me all decked out in my robe and colorful stole, peered at the pipe organ and all of the old wooden pews, the Potter stained glass, and said to me, “I cannot picture you in a church like this.” I considered what she said as I made my way up to the somewhat high chancel [six feet above all controversy] to begin the service. She was right. I would have never pictured myself in a church “like this” either, but God did, and I am glad that God has a more active imagination than I do.

I happen to love my new church…a lot. I understand a bit more about what God has called me to do here. You see, I’ve spent a lot of time talking and thinking about what it means to be an emergent church leader. I’ve led what people have come to call “emergent” worship services [which is really a misnomer, if you ask me], and I have had long, passionate discussions and debates with colleagues on what the Church needs to do to become more missional. And God in God’s infinite wisdom and mercy has seen fit to make me put my money where my mouth is.

This thing that has come to be known as the Emergent Church has moved from idea to reality in so many ways, but still is hard for most of us, who care about these things, to define, and even more difficult to put our arms around. I recently read that some of the pioneers of the emergent movement have broken from it because it was too all-encompassing, too ecumenical, too open and affirming of different beliefs, Biblical interpretations, blah, blah, blah [indicates my impatience and frustration]. But I see things a bit differently. I feel so strongly that in order for the Church to be shaken from her sleep she must be missional and relational, embodying what it means to be the Bride of Christ and evidence of the kingdom of God on earth.

But the Church has become fearful and anxious in recent years—fueled in large part by huge declines in membership, conflicts over theology and the interpretation of Scripture and yes, even by the emergence of new ways of understanding what it means to be the Church. Fear and anxiety [as we have seen in our own country over the past 7 years] can result in irrational behavior, acts of radical self-preservation and perhaps even destruction. Edwin Friedman prophetically wrote of these kinds of things in his book, “A Failure of Nerve.” Friedman stated that when good leaders dare to rise up and take a stand for what is right and healthy, our sick and anxious society does everything that it can to sabotage them. In order to be an effective leader, according to Friedman, one must become a non-anxious, reflective presence–a voice that speaks the truth, and works to help the community, culture, society become healthy enough to fight off the diseases that plague it. A leader like this requires the kind of nerve to remain steadfast where they are called, even though it would be easier to retreat, easier to find a corner of the world where everyone tends to agree, speaks the same language… understands what it means to be missional.

Theologian Wesley Carr once wrote that the Church needs to be formed and informed by the Spirit of God that is calling to it not only from the past, but the future. For me helping my congregation truly see this is an epistemological task. I know beyond any doubt that I have been called to my historic, traditional, historic church to journey with them as they emerge from their past and move toward a new and uncertain future. I desire so fervently that my church will begin to see itself differently, will understand what it means to be the Church, the very hands and feet of Christ in the world. I pray that this desire, this call, will not be weakened by my own fear and anxiety. I pray that I will have the strength to stand and to speak the truth in love. I pray that this emerging leader will be able to carefully guide this existing church. I pray that I will be a good and loving pastor. I pray.

What's wrong with this picture? Is there a better way?

First, the background.  My congregation is more “traditional presbyterian”  in appearance, but I think emerging church terms.  Thankfully, a new church is emerging from the existing body.

In the meantime, some of the former habits are still around.  One of them is the “children’s sermon” and children’s worship (separate from the whole community).  More and more I have come to think that these practices are not healthy/effective/faithful (because we divide the community, because we make the kids a “show,” because the practices engage neither the children nor the adults that serve them.)

But I also know that we have to intentionally engage and demonstrate our value for people of all ages, but children especially.  Frankly, sometimes the Bible talks about “adult” things, and at those times, I am glad that the kids are getting a separate program.  I also wonder, because the first question that parents ask when they consider a church is “what is your children’s program?” if answering, “the whole worship celebration is kid-friendly, and we consider them and involve them every time we plan worship,” would be sufficient.  I also wonder if we could really do that and continue to serve/value the the older, “traditional” crowd.

How do you all do kids in worship?  How should we?

I’ve been preaching recently in a number of congregations encouraging them to consider starting new congregations of various kinds.  The text I’ve used is Exodus 3, Moses at the burning bush.  One of the noteworthy aspects of this verse is the “sign” given to Moses that it is God who has called him and sent him (the missional identity of the text).  That sign is that Moses and the children of Israel will worship God on the mountain where the bush is not consumed.  The sign of Moses sending is worship.  I know this isn’t prescriptive or “the” sign of every endeavor, but it is a curious sign.  No lightening bolts, no miraculous moments….unless you consider a worshiping community a miracle.  In this day and age I think it is.

In the conversation about contemporary or emergent worship etc, we need to move far beyond techniques as has been noted.  Worship is shaped not by what we can buy (people and equipment) but by the gifts God has bestowed on us (people and ?).  The word I choose to use when talking about worship is “AFFECTIVE”.  Often the conversation about worship is “effective”.  “What works?” is our major concern.  “How do we get the most bang for our buck?” is a constant measurement.  This efficiency conversation is completely a modern construct.  It is far from what is emerging in the communities where God is at work.

AFFECTIVE worship seeks to move people without manipulating them.  In this sense it can be three traditional hymns, jazz, gospel, liturgy of the highest order, a combination of anything, or silence with the Word read.  What moves people in our communities to honor God with their lips and hearts and hands?  Worship is AFFECTIVE not effective in my way of thinking.  What will produce worshipers?

I could go on, but then I’d have my first chapter written for my book.  Any takers?

This last post has started a great discussion! Thanks for “outing me”, Clay. I think that worship styles and ecclessiology ebb and flow from one another. And so it is interesting to see the conversations in worship look to define the church’s mission or seek to be defined by that mission. I wanted to keep the pot stirring and so here are a few of my thoughts on Clay’s post and the comments that have posted so far.

1.@ clay: what is church for? I think a clearer way of shaping this is to consider church as a verb- those Spirit filled moments (synchronicities, to borrow Jung) when Word and Sacrament are ordered to join and anticipate God’s purposes in creation. This is more incarnational and avoids the platonic urge to pre-design an air-tight formula.

2.@ clay: can deep shifts happen in a 1/3 of the congregation? I can;t think of a time when transformation does not originate in “practices” or “postures” that catch on. In other words, a few folks begin to “do” and “act” differently and their minds are then transformed. Until a few more join them. And then a few more. So why not start with this third and invite them to include those from the other 2/3rds to reflect with them on what is happening. The “traditional” services do not need to change their style to join this more participatory way. An imaginative Traditional Worship Leader like Tony describes is a great way for this to start.

3.@ david: what is contemporary? David, most american church goers who consume pre-fabricated worship formats see contemporary as a closed genre. It is the byproduct of CCM’s successful branding in the 80s and 90s. Try introducing the word “contemporaneous” (remember this from Greek tenses- I believe it was Aorist) and asking how does the worship style or material we use in worship come from the actual everyday world around us (you can grab You-Tube videos, newspaper clippings, popular music, folks music, movie quotes, and styles/chord progressions). We can learn from the Word of God whom/which we follow into the world (C-67) as much as from a Word of God remembered.

4.@ steve: Interesting to pair up “force feeding” and “calling.” CCM and denominational(or ecumenical) top down curriculum has created a consumptive Christian way. How do we reverse this tendency and equip worshipppers to produce, to make their own testimony? Borrowing some of Tom Wright’s pneumatology, the community is sent gifts from the Spirit almost like the Israelite sampled fruit from the promised land brought by the spies. As such, the fruits of enthronement, adoration, and lamentation are gifts from the promised eschaton for worshipers to taste and enjoy. So worship is born out of calling and not out of a top down “force feeding.”

5.@ tony: You wrote, “gatherings exist for the sake of the world.” I love it! Spot on. Somehow blending our “target audience” to include God with us, the body of Christ in which we are united, and the Christ of the Emmaus way- these are how worship looks beyond our congregations. A friend of mine says it this way: the church is not the end user of the gospel. I agree, and neither are we the end users of worship.

6. @ tony: to paraphrase you said, “our worship and everything else would be better if it were subservient to the Word.” I have found folks use this to marginalize order/art/testimony to only “illustration of the preacher’s sermon or the platonic idea presented by the Bible.” I would suggest that the Word is hidden and being revealed, and that the risk of missing is unavoidable… The Word is hidden in our past (such as Jesus’ exposition of the collective memory of the Emmaus road disciples) AND the word is also being revealed ahead of us (such as the angel instructing shepherds to go and see these things, and the voice telling peter to get up and go meet…). As such worship is discovery and not “explanation” or “illustration.” We meet God as we sing and pray. Our bodies are put into play as we kneel and raise hands and kiss one another and wash feet and ‘pray double’ through song. And as such, worship that serves the Word is less of a coersive predetermined posture and more of an open receptive posture. I might be splitting hairs here, but my purpose is to suggest that we cannot avoid the risks of stylizing or crafting or “ordering” our acts of worship by being more “Word” centered. Instead worship is to enter into that risk. Perhaps we can, however, make space for the hidden Word to be revealed in our sacramental habits. And, then, to make space for faithful-yet-risky responses of conversion.

Have been conversing with Troy Bronsink about emergent church. He has convinced me not to look at emergent as contemporarier.  I continue to be intrigued, however, by the relevance of emergent questions to contemporary services.  So here goes it.

I am a associate pastor at a Presbyterian church that has a “contemporary” service.  It was created using a Willow Creek recipe: 1 part praise band, 1 part drama, 2 parts charismatic leadership (song leader and preacher), mix with video clips = manage the crowds with pepper spray.

The service is four years young, and the novelty has waned, the dramas have grown tired, the attendance has dwindled.  We worship in a fellowship hall with forward facing seats (we have worshiped at tables and in the round).  Worship attendance ranges from 80 to 120.

Have created an ad hoc task force to do some communal introspection regarding the contemporary worship service.  Rather than a conversion about rearranging the chairs, I hope we will delve into some deep ecclesial questions.  “What is church for?” (a la W.Berry) “Why do we gather?”

Certainly, our hope is to become more incarnational, non-hierarchical, and missional.  So wanted to do a little corporate musing about contemporary services entering the emergent conversation.

Why it may work? This service formed because their was a deep need for something more than what was being offered. Sound familiar?

Why it may be a ridiculous idea? The contemporary service represents a third of the congregation.  Can deep shifts and radical commitments be made by a segment of the congregation?

Peace,

Clay

Diana Butler Bass - Marcus Borg - Brian McLaren

New Ways of Being Church

Conversations on renewal and transformation in mainline congregations

March 15-18, 2009

Yes, there are signs of hope for the Church in the post-modern and post-Christian era! In 2009, Louisville Seminary welcomes a celebrated trio of church leaders/scholars who are spreading the news that the Church of the 21st Century can and does re-think, re-tradition, and re-invent itself.

• Diana Butler Bass, historian and author of the popular book Christianity for the Rest of Us, brings with her inspirational presentation solid research showing that mainline congregations are thriving as communities that practice ancient Christian traditions.
• Marcus Borg, a prominent New Testament scholar, speaks for many who seek a fresh, credible, and progressive understanding of Jesus Christ for this age. His forthcoming book is simply titled Jesus.
• Brian McLaren is a pastor and author who best represents the “Emerging Church” from an evangelical perspective, but his presentations and books, including A Generous Orthodoxy and Everything Must Change, elude simple labels.
• With closing worship led by LPTS Alum Preacher Mike Pentecost (MDiv ’98), pastor of Brentwood Presbyterian Church in Brentwood, Tenn.

For more information about this event, contact David Sawyer, Director of Lifelong Learning and Advanced Degrees, dsawyer@lpts.edu, or Leah Bradley, Director of Alum & Church Relations, lbradley@lpts.edu, 1-800/264-1839.

The Christian Peace Witness for Iraq events of 2008 were centered around diverse worship experiences in over 12 houses of worship in Washington, DC at noon on Friday, March 8. The intent of the day was to bring people from different faith traditions together to bear a worshipful witness for peace in the conflict in Iraq.

The worship I attended was at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, and it had been billed as an emergent worship. It opened with music from Ryan and Holly Sharp, and Jared Milos of The Cobalt Season. They did a masterful job of setting up a time of contemplation of scripture. It was one of the highlights of the service. For fifteen to twenty minutes Jared played a slow, sliding line on the bass guitar, drawing on the root chords of a sung chorus. Four liturgists, each reading from a different passage, alternated reading portions of the texts aloud. When they finished reading the passage through the first time, we repeated the chorus before they began to repeat selected verses of the text, alternating all the while with one another.

During the music at the beginning of the service as well as during the reading, two video projectors had been set up and were projecting images on top of each other. The first projector was simply playing a slideshow of words in white type (“community,” “peace,” “solitude,” etc.). The second projector was playing the DVD film “Koyaanisquatsi,” which shows scenes from various world cultures. (The sound from the film was muted, but I recommend the soundtrack by Philip Glass on its own merits.) The effect was engaging and intriguing. Intentionally chaotic, the words were not timed to the film, but were in random order. Some words matched well with the overlaid film, some word associations were confusing, or outright contradictory, but the blend of the bass line, the visuals, and the slow scripture reading created a contemplative environment that engaged me in the texts in very different way. It was worship leadership very well done!

Gilda Carbonaro bore witness the way that war has torn at her with the death of her son, 28-year old Marine Sergeant Alessandro “Alex” Carbonaro. Alex died of burn injuries sustained by an IED explosion on May 1, 2006. As a member of Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out, Gilda read aloud numerous emails and letters exchanged between her and her son during his deployments. The vividness of her memories shone in her voice, as did her pain and her resolve to end the war in Iraq. After the service, I was so moved by her words that all I could do was ask her to tell me the birthday of her son: April 19, 1978. He would have turned 30 last Saturday.

Brian McLaren took to the pulpit after Gilda had finished, and though he was setting out on a new book tour for Everything Must Change, and on the verge of a conference in Vienna, VA of the same name, he knew when enough had already been said. I was a bit disappointed – and surprised – that he cut his remarks short, but it was a significant lesson that even a keynote speaker and powerful preacher can sometimes have his well-prepared and refined words pale in the face of powerful scripture and raw experience. It’s better to recognize it and cut it short than to take away from the whole (Note to self: Mother’s Day/Pentecost sermon: keep it concise– May 11.)

As a concluding act of worship, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated by intinction. While for some this was a new experience, it was a fitting way to nourish our spirits as we prepared for further action. (See PCUSA News article)

I hope this review of the worship service gives you some ideas, raises some questions, and challenges you to new ways of thinking about how social justice actions can be grounded in worship. Questions?

Peace, Ivan Herman