I’ve finally recovered (I think) from last week’s activities, so I think I can post some thoughts now.

Last week I participated as a staff member at AFFIRM 2010. AFFIRM is a 5-day long youth event sponsored by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Southeastern Synod (SES). This year’s AFFIRM event consisted of 300+ youth participants and 80+ staff worshiping and learning on the campus of Berry College in Rome, GA. It was both exhausting and invigorating all at the same time.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect leading up to AFFIRM. I’d heard mixed reviews. My friend over at soulmunchies.com is completely in love with the event, even with its flaws. Other friends had sworn the event off, saying it wasn’t worth the time. I did my best to stay open-minded about it as the staff training weekend approached.

I first heard of AFFIRM through Bishop H. Julian Gordy. Bishop Gordy was visiting my home church a few months ago and I was leading worship at the contemporary service as usual. He stayed for a lunch at the church and I had the pleasure of sitting with him and chatting a bit. He mentioned AFFIRM to me and it definitely piqued my interest. A region-wide synod youth gathering with young leaders from across the southeast? Sure… sign me up.

Most anyone who knows me knows that I’ve felt a bit jaded by the Lutheran church, especially in the southeast. I realize that in other parts of the U.S. where there are larger numbers of Lutherans, things sometimes work differently. But here in the southeast, it seems like most local Lutheran churches are taking small strides backward even as a new generation of leaders is begging to push things ahead. I often feel tension, even in my own church, as suggestions for forward momentum are often ignored or directly opposed. I’ve felt very alone in my efforts, a feeling only recently remedied through some acquaintances made through Twitter and other online communities. Meeting other like-minded young, energetic Lutherans rekindled some hope in our church. AFFIRM served a similar purpose.

For me, AFFIRM served as an assurance that I am definitely not alone in the SES. There are indeed other young, energetic, forward-thinking Lutheran leaders in my synod. Many of them are as annoyed as I am with the way things are in our church, but they haven’t given up. They continue to press ahead and hope and pray for change. At AFFIRM, we were free to shape worship however the Spirit moved us. We didn’t have to deal with disgruntled traditionalist members coming up and whispering in our pastor’s ears. We didn’t have to deal with church councils or staff asking us to “dial it back”. We didn’t have to deal with worrying about our worship being “Lutheran enough.” We went where the Spirit took us without hesitation. It was beautiful.

Back home now, I’m settling into a post-AFFIRM depression. I checked my e-mail yesterday and saw the order of worship for this Sunday in my inbox. It’s another copy and paste from last week, just with slightly different music, dialog, and scriptures. It lacks excitement. It lacks energy. It’s the same thing we’ve been doing for years. I’m trying hard not to let my experiences last week make me feel even more jaded than I felt before, but it’s admittedly tough. I’m trying to look back on AFFIRM with a hopeful eye, realizing that there are others out there like me… expecting great things from our church and willing to press on until we get there.

I’m not alone… I’m not alone…

I’ve been thinking a LOT lately about worship services and I’m admittedly uneducated about the whole topic. In a way though, I’m sort of glad I’m uneducated about it. When I talk to other people who are perhaps more educated on the topic (pastors, church leaders, etc.), I get the impression that the education has tainted their impression of worship services. They’re so integrated with the services they’re a part of that they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a church visitor, looking for a church and a worship experience that is appealing.

Yeah, I said it. I used the word “appealing” in the context of worship.

I bet some people just stopped reading.

I typically get a lot of backlash when I use words like “appealing” to describe worship services. Usually the argument is something like this: “Looking for an ‘appealing’ worship service is a self-centered approach and worship is supposed to be God-centered.” My problem with this argument is that while a worship service may be created as a God-centric time, the choices made while designing the service are based on human appeal and preference.

Let me describe what I mean. Some churches I’ve been to have fancy (ostentatious?) lecterns or pulpits from which readings and preaching take place. Other churches have little to no supporting “props” to support such activities. One extremely large and very local church (it’s maybe a mile from where my wife and I live) typically has just a simple stool and a small table where the pastor is able to lay his Bible down while he’s preaching. Is either approach more “God-centric”? Is either more worshipful? What drove the decisions to choose such decor?

Another example is music. The church I mention above uses loud, energetic, contemporary worship songs complete with drums, electric guitars, huge projection screens, moving lights, etc. Other churches use pipe organs and choirs. Which is more “God-centric”?

Yet another example is language. Some churches employ flowery or archaic words when they craft (yes, craft) their prayers or select their opening call and response texts. Others use simpler or more modern (more straightforward?) language.

Is an organ holier than drums?

Is a robe more Godly than jeans and a t-shirt?

What role do personal preferences play in designing a worship service? How much do the personal preferences of church leadership and members influence a typical worship service? If personal preferences drive the choices we make when we design a service, does this make our services self-centered?

My wife and I managed to get married without receiving a blender as a wedding gift. I know I know, you’re shocked. Ultimately, we ended up buying a cheap one which we use very rarely. I mean really, how often do I need a mush of multiple ingredients? We use it for fruit smoothies on occasion, but that’s about it.

The thing about a blender is that what you pour out of it is only as tasty as what you put into it. A fruit smoothie is good because the flavors you’re putting into it are complimentary to each other. All the blender does is combine them.

Blending, in and of itself, doesn’t produce positive results. The results come from combining flavors that work well together.

“Blended worship” is a phrase which is often overused, especially in the Lutheran church. For a church that’s historically slow to change, blended worship sounds like a great idea. You take aspects of a contemporary service and aspects of a traditional service and combine them for a tasty frappuccino of worship goodness. It’s a compromise. Everybody wins, right? And, it means we don’t have to commit! We’re not contemporary, so we don’t scare off the traditionalists. We’re not traditional, so we should see droves of young people flocking to our services any day now.

Seriously! Any day now. Really, any moment. Just wait, they’re coming… No really, they are!

What happens if you take a banana, a handful of strawberries, and a jar of pickles, and blend them all together? All are fine on their own, but combining them might not produce appealing results. Worship is much the same. Worship music, song lyrics, dialog language, prayers, sermons… all can have various and unique flavors. Combining them in a way that encourages worship requires similar skill and instinct as that of the chef knowing what ingredients to combine and, more importantly, what ingredients not to combine.

Many churches seem to move to this blended approach because they’re trying to make everybody happy. The end result, at least from my experiences, is the exact opposite. Nobody is happy. The folks over at stuffchristianslike.net bring up this phenomenon in #424 of their list of stuff Christians like. The author hits the nail on the head when he mentions that both parties lose when you compromise. I sense more frustration in blended worship services than I do in worship services that seem to commit to a single consistent style and language.

To make matters worse, I’ve seen many Lutheran churches claim to have a contemporary service only to walk in and find a blended one. This seems to happen a lot as these churches try to transition from traditional to contemporary. Many of them create an additional service for the contemporary approach but a combination of factors might prevent it from reaching its full potential. It may be that they have worship service planners who still think traditionally. It may be that they have a mixed bag of attendees at the contemporary service and they feel the need to cater to all of them. It may be that they just don’t understand what “this contemporary thing” is all about.

Whatever the reason, I often see these services becoming a confusing mix of language, music, lyrics, and “vibe”. The best advice I can give is this:  commit. If you’re helping to plan a contemporary service, start fresh! Don’t just take your traditional service and add a few Hillsong tunes and call it a day. Don’t just take your traditional responsive readings and try to spice them up. Think creatively. Find other creative people in your church and get them involved. Take risks!

Don’t blend things that shouldn’t be blended. Some flavors are better on their own.

Old in the shadow of new.

So we’ve established (and I believe we can all agree) that the Lutheran church is old. So, what makes me so new?

For one, my age. I’m a 20-something, soon to be 30-something, meaning I fit into a demographic that is largely missing (forgotten? ignored?) in the Lutheran church. I can’t blame this entirely on the Lutheran church of course. 20-30 something males is a demographic largely missing in ALL churches, not just Lutheran ones. However, from personal experience (your mileage may vary), I’ve found that some other denominations (and yes I count “non-denominational” here) seem to do a better job of reaching out to my particular demographic. I’m sure at some point I’ll get into the “why?” of all this, but that’s beyond the scope of this particular post.

Another thing that makes me “new” is the time I’ve spent in Lutheran churches. I was raised in Southern Baptist churches and have only recently migrated to the Lutheran church for my wife. I say recently, but it’s been about 8 years now. So, I feel it’s long enough to have learned a few things about the church, and short enough to still consider myself “new”. One of the things I’ve found is that most Lutherans I encounter, especially in the south, were either born into it quite literally, or came over from a Catholic upbringing. In either case, most Lutherans seem very comfortable in the traditional Lutheran church environment because they’ve spent most of their lives either in the same environment or in one that feels very similar even if the theology differs.

Since I essentially defected from the Baptist church, I don’t feel “at home” in a traditional liturgical setting. I could barely spell liturgy until I joined the Lutheran church. The robes looked funny. The constant sitting down and standing up was tiring. Even the language seemed different. My Baptist church sang old hymns. My Lutheran church sang OLDER hymns. My Baptist church dunked. My Lutheran church sprinkled. My Baptist church had parent/baby dedications. My Lutheran church had confirmations. My Baptist church had a Bible. My Lutheran church had a BIGGER Bible… and a Lutheran Book of Worship… and a Catechism or two…

It all seemed pretty foreign to me. But hey… I’m new. I figured I’d get used to it, but I don’t know that I ever will.

The bottom line for me is that while I recognize that the message of Christ is timeless, the church should recognize that the delivery of this message may not be.

Let’s take hymns as an example. Hymns have been, and will continue to be, an important tool for churches to ensure that the church body is communally exalting Christ and proclaiming the word of God publicly. I get it. I understand the purpose of them. However, have you read a hymn lately? Especially an old hymn traditionally espoused by an old Lutheran church? The English language has changed so much over the years that quite frankly, the words of these hymns make very little sense to me now. Granted, I may just be too dumb to understand them, but even when I can understand them, they don’t feel like my words. They don’t feel like they come from me. Is this really what I want to say to God in song? The text in the Bible that I read is newer than most of the hymns that are sung in a traditional service in a Lutheran church. I remember hating hymns when I was a kid growing up Baptist and those hymns seem like rock songs compared to the ancient songs being sung in some Lutheran services I’ve attended. Beyond the lyrics not making much sense in the context of today’s society, the music makes very little sense. As a musician, I find the tone and the pacing of the music of most old hymns to be completely inappropriate for a worshipful mindset. Why would I sing a song of praise in a slow, march-like, minor key? This is the same sort of musical approach that the writers of a funeral dirge would take. Most of these songs are not timeless classics, they’re just plain old.

Even the buildings themselves and the trimming of the interiors seem to be begging people to be uncomfortable. You walk through a big red door and all of a sudden you enter another world filled with wood and stone and robes and strange colored stoles… oh yeah, and organs. I find myself distracted by all of this. I’m supposed to be focusing on God, or on my own need for grace, or on the sacrifice Christ made, and instead I can’t stop thinking about how weird it is that the pastor is wearing a funny little rope around his waist. I don’t think I’m alone here. I don’t think I’m just being insensitive. I’m sure that all of this tradition has a purpose. It’s just that instead of being symbolic for me, it’s a distraction from what I believe should be the central focus of worship on a Sunday morning (or any other time for that matter). Some may argue that it’s because I don’t understand the symbolism. Believe me, I do. I’m inquisitive by nature so when I don’t understand something I ask or read up on it. I understand the intended symbolism for much of what I’ve mentioned here. But understanding the intent of it doesn’t mean that it works for me.

Why does so much tradition get handed down through the life of the church? Why is it so slow to adopt new traditions, as long as they don’t compromise the message? It seems like the churches that are reaching my demographic are the ones that are sort of continually reforming themselves, stripping away the trapping and trimmings of tradition while trying to stay true to the message of Christ. What would Luther say to this? Would he have 95 theses for today’s church? Would he be out of line if he nailed them to the door of my own church?