It's OK to Have More Than One Ingredient on Your Pizza.

I had lunch a few weeks ago with a friend of mine, Ryan Ashley, who is the Worship Pastor at Life Church Reno. He was “fortunate” enough to have a 4-hour layover in Chicago. I ran up to the airport and took him to have his first Chicago-style pizza experience at Giordano’s. The look on his face after the first bite was worth the journey.

However, as we got to talking about worship, I realized that our conversation had drifted into equating music as worship. We are both musicians, so this is a natural tendency, but it made the conversation feel frustrating and incomplete. Worship has to be more than just singing a song? Right?

I freely admit that I hate to sing songs when I am not leading worship in a service. As I sit in the pew/chair/couch, singing along with the choir or band is the least worshipful activity I can think of…for me. I love the atmosphere/intent of the room as beautiful musical worship surrounds me, but I am a contemplative individual by temperament. For me, stillness, centering, and prayer are the ways I best move beyond my own petty ways and learn to give of myself to God in worship.

My friend, Steve Wallace, uses the term “trip points” to describe adding additional activities designed to expand the number of avenues available for worship beyond music. We are all unique creations of God, each with our own God-given gifts and talents. A trip point is simply an activity that God uses to catch your attention. It serves to draw you away from focusing upon yourself and into God’s presence and rhythm.

I am drawn to contemplative activities in order to fall deeply into a worshipful attitude. Others do so by creating poetry or journaling. Some use painting or other forms of art. Still others achieve deeper communion through guided prayer or other ancient practices.

The point is to realize that you have an incredibly diverse group of people in your community. Each has a special gift or ability that God can use to speak deeply into their lives. Yes, you CAN have multiple activities occurring at the same time in your church service. It does not cause unruliness or distraction. One person can draw in a corner, while someone else journals, and the majority of the body continues to sing. Sometimes it is good to add onions and mushrooms to your peperoni only pizza. It can make the experience even richer. 

This blog is full of ideas and ways to better include all of God’s children in worship. I promise you won’t regret it. 

Done! (Part Deux)

This past week I finally finished my Master in Nonprofit Administration at North Park University!!!!!!!!! (Note: an MNA is like a MBA, but for the nonprofit sector). It felt great to walk across the graduation stage after such a grueling experience. I underestimated the toll going to school full-time and working-full time would take on Lindsey and me, but I also underestimated how much I would love it! I truly enjoyed my journey at North Park. I met some great folks and got to dive deeply in to a topic I love. 

Now I just need to reintroduce myself to my wife and catch up on two and a half years of missed sleep. 

Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany

If you are looking for a way to bring deeper meaning and a healthy rhythm to the crazy commercialism of the American Christmas experience, grab a copy of Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany by Phyllis Tickle. This modern adaptation of the sixth-century Benedictine Rule of fixed-hour prayer puts preselected prayers, psalms, readings, and refrains in your hands for everyday of the Christmas season. The daily offices are for morning, noon, and vespers.

Station: Sand Prayers

Idea: Sometimes I have a hard time sitting still and listening for the rhythm of God's presence in my life. I use this station as a tactile way of shifting into a more receptive listening posture. Click here for directions.

Station: Candle Prayers

Jesus is the light of the world who overcomes all darkness. This is a super simple station that helps people move beyond themselves into thinking about and praying for others. Click here for the instructions.

Rob Bell on Working Together

This an excerpt from an interview of Rob Bell by the Burnside Writers Collective that I really enjoyed. This portion of the interview was a bit of fresh air for me. Hope you enjoy.

BWC: Turning an eye to social politics, how do you feel about news like that of Maine’s repealing of LGBT marriage rights? Granted, everyone’s got an opinion, and I’m not asking you to answer the “Is homosexuality a sin?” question. But in general, how do you feel we should respond to this news, and that of other minority groups? How should our faiths inform our behavior?

Bell: You can simply take a side, which a lot of churches do. If you’re a leader, you say, “This is where we stand” and if you’re part of it, just go along with it. The problem with that nice, neat view of reality is that in a church like Mars Hill, we have members across the full spectrum. So we have war protestors and we have parents of soldiers currently fighting in Iraq.

There are people who say, “Well, you need to talk to the half of the church that’s wrong, and get them right.” But then that’s where your energies go. That’s all you do. Convincing all those on one side to come over to the other. The next week, though, the issue will be something different. And you spend most energy on yourself.

What we say is, “What are the things that 10 years ago, this year, and 10 years from now that we could address?” For instance, we’ve been building a micro-finance bank in Burundi for those trying to get loans. We send accountants over to see if things are sharp, filmmakers to capture it and spread the word, and show others what our money is doing…what’s actually happening. We’re also working at a local school. There are about 150 kids being mentored, and the school is asking the church, “Please send more!” The goal is to have a mentor for each child.

We pour our energies into something together. “You and you are at odds on a certain issue? Could you work on THIS together?”

We talk about being aggressively non-partisan, while acknowledging that what we’re doing will have political edges. So if we talk about the environment, for instance, it’s not because we’ve been co-opted by a particular political party. It’s because this is something pretty close to God’s heart. We talk about widows and orphans. We talk about empowering people. It’s not because we’ve been co-opted by another side. It’s because it’s helpful.

Station: Magnetic Manger

This station is designed to slow people down so that they can contemplate the meaning of Jesus’ entry into the world and then express what the Holy Spirit is revealing with magnetic poetry pieces. Click Here for Instructions

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): Music

Idea One:

I think of singing as a spiritual discipline that can be used to mine the depths of Christian history and theology. Unfortunately many churches miss this rich opportunity and wind up focusing simply on a specific style of music (i.e. only singing songs published by Passion or Integrity). Music unites disparate lives into a single body while exposing hearts and minds to bigger truths. Music can be a great reminder that God, not ourselves, is the center of all things

Idea Two:

Write your own music! Have people create lyrics or melodies that address the uniqueness of your church and its journey. Explore themes relating to your core values, create lyrics based on a scripture passage, or write a unique song to sing each week that bolsters your sense of identity such as a benediction or call to worship.

Idea Three:

Create your own music book that reflects who you are and what is important to you. If you have multiple worship leaders or teams, this will help keep some consistency in the weekly worship. In addition, the congregation can take copies home in order to sing or play favorites during the week.

The Tithe

During our first year of marriage, my wife worked for a large non-profit that dealt with issues surrounding homelessness. As she was visiting various homeless shelters that Fall, she heard a common plea from fellow staffers: winter coats. Their clients were cold and coats were in short supply. We longed to do something to help out, but the only money available to us that month was (gasp!) our tithe…

We sought advice from various ordained minister types on whether or not this was a legit use of our tithe (this was back in my litmus test Christianity days). The answer? The tithe belonged to the church, umm, I mean God and we would have to sacrifice in other ways to help the homeless. Needless to say we were disturbed by this universal lack of response to individuals who were suffering (no mission committees offered to help either).

So after seeking this advice we promptly went and filled our little Civic full of brightly colored winter coats from Steve and Barry’s and dropped them off with the staff at the shelters. It was quite a kick seeing bright yellow and red coats all over the streets of Baton Rouge that winter.

Sometimes we in the church can’t see the forest for the trees. We get so caught up in the structures, rules, and minutia of being an institution that we lose sight of who Christ calls us to be on occasion. I am certainly as guilty of this as the next person. The “what I am supposed to do” often overwhelms the “who I am supposed to be”.

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): Not Singing

Idea One:

Not everyone enjoys singing. There are a wide variety of gifts represented in the congregation beyond music. Each of these gifts can be used as an act of worship during the time allotted for singing. Simple stations can be set up that allow worship through drawing, painting, journaling, guided prayers, etc.

Idea Two:

Use twitter as a means to offer live and unedited prayers and praises during the service. Hook a computer with internet access up to a projector or TV, set up a twitter account, and let the congregation express what is on their hearts as the Holy Spirit moves.

Idea Three:

Have people sign up to lead an element of the worship service. No strings (or predetermined methods) attached! Allow the volunteer to express that element of worship in any way he or she chooses. Use a volunteer coordinator to organize and touch base with the volunteers. This works when you truly allow people to lead an element of worship with no limitations placed on their creativity. The liturgical piece should be re-imagined and executed in any manner the volunteer chooses (are you catching the emphasis yet?). It is the ultimate in community participation and requires radical trust on the part of the staff who are used to planning and being in control the service. Occasionally things will bomb, but over time people will begin to discover their giftedness.

Free Images

I got a few emails asking for a good place to get free/low cost (and legal) images to use in worship. I get my free stuff from Stock Exchange and my cheap stuff from istockphoto. Istockphoto has a little bit higher quality images than Stock Exchange, but with some patience I can usually find what I need on Stock Exchange (for free). The key to Stock Exchange is sorting your search by the highest number of downloads or the highest number of comments. This brings the cream of the crop to the top of your search.

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): The Sermon

Idea One:

Do sermon preparation as a group and not as an individual locked in an office. You might have a small bible study on the assigned passage prior to the sermon being written in order to allow the Spirit to reveal issues from within the body.

Idea Two:

When a preacher asks questions of the congregation during a sermon, the questions often become rhetorical in the silence that follows. Instead, use seeded interviews to start a conversation. Prepare one or two people with the intended question in advance of the service. Call on them to speak first. This breaks the silence and gives everyone else time to contemplate the question before answering.

Idea Three:

Expand the use of narrative especially in the sermon (or in place of a traditionally structured sermon). Abduct people’s imaginations so that they see their story within the context of the narrative being shared. People more readily walk away from a sermon with a story that is internalized as opposed to three easily forgotten bullet points.

Jesus Creed

I intentionally took a several year hiatus from reading books on the topic of church while I was in school. With graduation finally under my belt, I decided it was time to break my fast and begin exploring what I have missed.

I ran across a book by Scot McKnight entitled Jesus Creed which I greatly enjoyed. It was quite a refreshing look at being a follower of Christ and I recommend it. In the process of reading the book, I discovered that McKnight writes a blog on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century. It covers quite a diversity of topics and I mention here because it might be something that you would also enjoy. Plus, I realized that he is a professor at my future school and it never hurts to do a little ground work.

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): Quiet Practices

Idea One:

Occasionally incorporate silences, listening, and centering into the service. Explore a different rhythm to life and worship. A byproduct is that you will equip the congregation with several spiritual disciplines they can practice at home.

Idea Two:

My personal favorite is using Lectio Divina in the place of a sermon. Lectio Divina is an ancient Christian practice which is a slow, contemplative reading, praying, and listening to scripture. Lectio Divina can be practiced individually or corporately. If you are unfamiliar with the practice, Google and Amazon have plenty to say on the topic. In a worship setting the Holy Spirit does the teaching (instead of a preacher) through praying the scripture, listening in silence, and then small group discussion. This reinforces the ideas of stillness and silence while also allowing folks to interact in the pews.

Idea Three:

Do a visual Lectio Divina by using a painting or photograph on the main video screen. In today’s visual culture, this can be surprisingly powerful. It is one thing to read about Isaac as a sacrifice, it is quite another to see the Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio and interact with it.

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): The Video Screen

I’ve decided to offer a short series entitled Simple Suggestions. Simple Suggestions are worship related ideas aimed at the pew-bound that have the goal of broadening participation in worship by creating more trip points into God’s presence.

Idea One:

Take advantage of your video screen and use it for visual metaphors pertaining to the week’s main sermon/scripture idea. Use a series of images under the song and sermon slides that reinforce the main push of the day’s theme/message. For example: show a series of images that move from darkness to light as the service progresses or black and white pictures that transition into color, or crosses that become empty.

Idea Two:

With the proliferation of digital cameras and flip camcorders, allow the congregation to participate in creating these visual metaphors. Publish a list of future sermon topics and scripture passages. Have families or individuals come up with a series of images to help illustrate their interpretation of the scripture passage and theme. The same can be done with art instead of photographs.

Idea Three:

Magazines like Time or Newsweek use small sidebar articles within the context of a larger main article. These smaller, related articles are usually what I read first and they enhance what I get out of the main article. The video screen can be used in the same way. Instead of putting up an outline of what the preacher is saying during a sermon, why not put up quotes, scripture passages, prayers, images, etc. that reinforce the main idea of the sermon, but say it in different words.

Pray Without Ceasing

I have recently discovered the daily office or more accurately, I have finally started practicing the daily office after years of mild curiosity. I am hooked. I love this spiritual discipline and am sad I waited so long to start.

Simply explained the daily office (also called fixed hour prayer or the liturgy of the hours) is a set of beautiful prayers prayed at specific times throughout the day. For the hardcore, you can do this seven times a day. I like doing it three times a day.

Fixed hour prayer is the oldest spiritual discipline in the church stretching back to ancient Judaism. This type of prayer was regularly practiced in the early church, the medieval church, and even through the Reformation years. Fixed hour prayer fell out of use in American Protestantism, but is alive and well in Orthodox, Anglican, and Catholic traditions.

I use s series of books called The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle instead of an actual denominational prayer book. Tickle prints everything you need for three sets of prayers each day. A Prayer book comes with a steep learning curve and requires endless flipping back and forth to find the assigned prayers and readings.

Are these long winded time killing affairs? No. In a rush I can pray an office in 5 or 6 minutes. Taking time to contemplate and drink more deeply from these prayers takes longer of course. I was surprised to find that when I miss a day, I become miserable and long for those moments spent in beautiful prayer.

I Feel Like Esau

I have been unhappy with my last post for it does not express well what I am trying to communicate about exploring my future. I led worship this morning at Belle Meade United Methodist and Mike, the pastor, preached on Jacob and Esau and helped me realize a better way of communicating what I am feeling.

Jacob and Esau are twins at odds with each other. Jacob first tricks Esau, the older of the two, out of his birthright and then, by way of outright deception, tricks their dad into giving Jacob his blessing which rightfully belonged to Esau. This blessing was from God and was supposed to be passed on to the eldest son. As you can imagine, Esau was in anguish over learning what had been stolen from him. He cried out to his father asking if there was even one blessing left for him. His father answered no, that Jacob had received everything.

I realize that over the years in my struggles with the church, I often feel more like Esau than Jacob. I also know well that there are huge people groups out there whose encounter with the church has left them living more deeply in Esau’s story rather than in Jacob’s story of blessing. That’s who consumes my heart these days and where I want to serve next; with those who have experienced this lesser truth of a God who withholds his love and blessing from his children.

Our time in Nashville introduced us firsthand to the struggles and deep frustrations within the GLBT community concerning their relationship with the church. Many of our friends have been told repeatedly that they are somehow lesser beings in God’s eyes and are undeserving of His love and grace. This is a lie for God takes great pleasure and delight in all of his children.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan brings a broken and bleeding Jewish man to an innkeeper and charges him with doing whatever is necessary to bring the Jewish man back to health and wholeness. The church often interprets the Samaritan as being Jesus which means that we in the church are the innkeepers, charged by Christ to restore all who are broken and bleeding to wholeness with God and each other.

Our story, all of our stories, is one of God taking great delight in each of us. I want to help people discover or rediscover this delight.

Done!

I am now officially a college graduate! After 24 years, 189 hours, and three different schools, I finally hold a bachelor's degree...in liberal studies no less! I am not sure whether to laugh or cry over that last sentence.

These last few years in Nashville have been brutal to say the least. Lindsey earned her Masters of Divinity at Vanderbilt while I worked full time at Home Depot and went to school full time at Belmont (this is not recommended for the faint of heart). We are still feeling a bit dazed and worn out from the journey. Even so, we felt the hand of grace upon our lives and marriage while having amazing adventures and making new friends.

These new friends and adventures were the unanticipated part of the Nashville journey. They stretched me and reshaped my world view in some major ways. I spent the last 15 years working full time in churches. The church work universe is a bizarre other-world removed slightly from the reality "normal" lives. I knew this intellectually, but experiencing life outside the walls of the church was mind blowing.

And while I made many amazing new discoveries, the one that has transformed me the most is the level of suffering I encountered. More specifically, the level of suffering people had experienced at the hands of the church (note the lower case "c"). Whether the suffering was a simple slight, overly exaggerated, merely perceived, or an outright heartbreaking injustice is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that I keep meeting children of God who hurt deeply and feel alienated from God's life giving grace.

This hurt has transformed the way I think of my future now that school is done. As Lindsey and I wait for the next steps of our journey to unfold, I at least know I that want to reach out and address the pain I have discovered. I want create trip points through worship and the arts for people to literally fall into God's love and healing.

The Old Life Update

Lindsey and I are both in our final year of school! Yeppie! She will graduate with her M. Div. from Vanderbilt in May and I will graduate the week after her from Belmont with my Bachelor's degree. The plan so far is to vacate Nashville the summer after graduation in order to make a new home in Chicago. I hope to get my Masters of Nonprofit Administration from North Park University up there. 

Meanwhile, we are off to the Christian Community Development Association's (www.ccda.org) annual conference this week. 

Patrick Swayze Was My Role Model

Patrick Swayze and Tom Cruise taught me everything I know about being a husband and how to treat my wife. It is sad but true. After Lindsey and I got married we weren’t quite sure how a husband and wife were supposed to act. After all, neither of us had ever been married before and we weren’t quite sure how to treat each other, talk to each other, or think about each other. So, we turned to what we knew: Pretty Woman, Top Gun, and Dirty Dancing.

Our individualistic/isolated/short cut lifestyle made it impossible to invest the kind of time and stillness necessary to understand the covenant we had just entered into. After some frustrating and confusing struggles of trying to figure out why marriage on the big screen didn’t help our marriage in real life, we finally received the wisdom we sought.  We set our eyes upon and imitated couples around us whom we admired greatly.

I am realizing that my faith often falters in the same way. I find myself frequently imitating Evangelical pop culture instead of Christ. I substitute cheap and easy behaviors for the life Christ has called me to imitate.  I bury myself in silly things like speaking Christian-eze or listening to the right radio station or  being seen at the appropriate church function and call that being faithful.

I long to keep my eyes focused on the author of my faith who so clearly demonstrated a life of service and care for others while mired in the everydayness of life. I look forward to getting my hands dirty as soon as I finish putting my new icthus on the back of my car. 

The Rabbit

As most of you know, I now work fulltime and attend Belmont University fulltime. So, blogging has taken a backseat to the insanity of my new life. However, I still think about blogging all the time and suddenly find myself with an extra few minutes and a thought.

I found this Dallas Willard quote on Bob Buford’s website, ACTIVEenergy.net. “One of my favorite stories,” Dallas continued, “is about the dog races down in Florida. You know, they train these dogs to chase an electric rabbit, and one night the rabbit broke down and the dogs caught it. But they didn’t know what to do with it. They were just leaping around, yelping and biting one another, totally confused about what was happening. Well, I think that’s a picture of what happens to all sorts of people who catch the rabbit in their life. Whether it’s wealth or fame or beauty or a bigger house, or whatever, the prize isn’t what they thought it would be. And when they finally get it, they don’t know what to do with their lives. This is a huge factor in finishing badly: people need a rabbit that won’t break down. But that’s not something the superficial values of this world can really give them.”

I don’t know about you, but I greatly fear finishing badly. I fear becoming distracted by physical things or issues that in the end don’t really matter. I fear catching the wrong rabbit and then realizing that what I chased and fought for was for naught. I want to finish well.
This is an issue on the forefront of my mind these days as I contemplate life after school. On one hand, I understand chasing the rabbit of the big picture; the faith rabbit. I desire to serve the Kingdom of God for all of my days and specifically to be a follower in the way of Jesus. That rabbit I get. It’s the smaller sized rabbits that confound and distract me. They tend to be flashier and more immediate.

In this Lindsey and I pray that we can live in community one day with a group of people willing to be open about these issues. A community that interprets each other’s lives in the light of the Holy Spirit. A community that helps keep the right rabbit locked in our sights.

Fastfood Christianity

A Lifetime of attending church, Sunday School classes, and weekly bible studies; and yet I learned more about living as a Christian in three encounters at McDonald's than in all those church activities combined.

OK, maybe there's more than a little hyperbole there, but check this out. One day I'm eating lunch and this homeless guy abruptly plops himself down at my table. His story/sales pitch was good. He had me hooked from the first sentence with just the right blend of hard luck mixed with pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. I really enjoyed talking to the guy and gave him the cash in my wallet to help out.

Fast forward three days and I am eating dinner after a long day at work at the same McDonald's ( I know, my wife rags me about eating there too). Suddenly the same homeless guy walked in and sat down at my table. He launched into the exact same spiel as before. I finally got a word in edgewise and dismissively told him that I'd heard the pitch before and that he'd already hit me up for cash once that week.

When I said that, he jumped up and stormed across the lobby mad as heck. Over his shoulder he yelled, "Maybe you heard it before, but it don't change the fact that I still need help and that I'm still hungry!" I felt awful.

Encounter Two: One month later I was ordering breakfast at different McD's drive through on my way to church. I was the worship leader that morning and running really, really late. The woman taking my order wouldn't pay attention. I had wait forever to be acknowledged and then I had to repeat my order three times (a sausage biscuit) before she got it. I was mad and got super sarcastic with her. I did my best to put that woman in her place. As she handed me my food, she simply said, "Why you so dressed up? You belong to a church? I can tell." Ouch. I really advanced the Kingdom that morning.

Encounter Three: A few weeks later at yet another fine McD's lunch I was interrupted again. This time it was a well dressed middle class guy. Let's call him evangelism guy. He had been lying in wait watching me eat and sensed the Lord telling him that he should come sit with me, tell me about Jesus, and pray for my lost soul. Obviously he'd just graduated from the Wednesday night evangelism class at his church. He was visibly relieved when I let him off the hook and he made a quick exit out the side door. I guess he'd fulfilled what ever requirement he needed in order to pass the class. But my encounter with him got me to thinking about how he was just following a script/program and not really concerned with me as a person.

Intellectually I understand Jesus' incredible love for the people he met during his lifetime. He modeled the importance of relationships, community, and loving your neighbor. But I fear that as much as I disdain what the evangelism guy did, I'm not much different. I'm guilty of reducing evangelism to some type of program: three sure fire steps to winning the lost, free bottled water or the speech that conquers all objections.

The McD's encounters have given me a real sense of freedom. I am realizing that the "structured evangelism" I learned over the years caused me to miss the point most of the time. Instead of winning souls or conquering the lost I need to slow down and just love people in the small moments of my day. Maybe as I love in the little things doors might open for bigger encounters down the road. Or maybe not. Either way, it's in these little moments that the imprint that Christ has on our hearts has a chance to become visible

Absence

Sorry about the long delay with no posts. Lindsey and I hit one of those really busy/intense seasons of life. Hopefully I can jump back into the rhythm of writing once again. I miss it and I miss all the neat interactions and new relationships that are a part of my life because of the blog.

OK, so it wasn't ALL crazy during the absence.I did get to hit the beach for a week with the family...in St. Thomas!

Thank you for your support and kind words! Vic

CBF Resource List

Here are a few suggestions for continued reading. If you can't find what you are looking for, please drop me a line. I can send you a more complete list.

Web Resources
Next Wave
The Ooze
Jacob's Well
Ecclesia

Cultural Analysis
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
By Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams
Trendwatching Newsletter (Free)
Fast Company

Emerging Church
Live to Tell: Evangelism in a Postmodern Age
By Brad Kallenberg
The Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy, Community, and Small Groups
By Joseph R. Myers
New Theology/Thinking
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith
By Rob Bell
A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey
By Brian D. McLaren

Worship Tools
Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations
By Dan Kimball, David Crowder, Sally Morgenthaler
Preaching Re-Imagined
By Doug Pagitt