New Celebration Service

Worship is very important to us. Our vision statement says so eloquently “As Jesus devoted disciples, We worship passionately.” This does not mean that we hold to a particular style of worship, but that we give ourselves completely to Christ during the weekly event. Do you recall how Jesus describes true worship? In response to the question about what is the most important thing he replied, “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and you mind.” We seek to worship the Lord in that way. With all our heart. With all our soul. With all our mind.

That does not indicate any particular style of worship. Passionate whole hearted worship is enacted all over the world in many, many permutations. In Korea Presbyterians enthusiastically shout out their prayers. In Russia Christians stand for hours in silent meditation as the priests and choir chant and sing the liturgy. In Africa Presbyterians dance in worship. And in America Presbyterians… How do Presbyterians worship in the USA?

You may be surprised to know that there is no set answer. I’ve worshipped in probably near a hundred different Presbyterian churches. The majority have been similar to what we call our “traditional service”. But a large minority don’t fit that picture at all. We have churches that have liturgical dancers, puppeteers, jazz bands, rock bands, even a blues band! We have churches that worship in jeans and t-shirts, churches that worship with latte’s in hand, churches that worship with Pentecostal bands. We have a church in our Presbytery where the children monthly lead the adults in worship.

Worshipping Jesus is what we are called to do. Each of us has a preference for how we worship. One author divides our natural inclinations into 4 types. Worship through the intellect, through the emotions, through silence, and through action. It is helpful to assess a worship style through that sorting screen. Roughly put, the tradition of worship at our church has been predominantly on the intellect. That is not to say that our average service does not engage the heart, nor is it to say that we don’t move, nor to say that we don’t have silence. It just means that as a body we are most comfortable engaging God through our minds. Our worship reflects this preference.

Our vision statement also adds, “Filled with God’s Spirit, We invite all to experience God’s grace.” We recognize that there are many people who are most open to God not through the mind, but through the heart. It is for these that our Session is designing our second service. The upcoming “Celebration Service” will be a designed to engage through the heart. That does not mean that it will not be thoughtful – it will be – but that the format is intentionally designed to encourage people who prefer lots of emotional contemporary songs and prefer informality and spontaneity.

May 10 is the big launch day. Please come if this service sounds like you would be encouraged through it. Please pray for its success. Please tell others about it!

Sincerely, Pastor Charlie

Coming Up... New Worship Service

Dear Friends,
The vision of our dream church life says, “Filled with God’s Spirit, we invite all to experience God’s grace.” The Session and staff have been challenged to consider how we can expand that invitation to people with different worship sensibilities.

As a Session we discussed how we all love our current worship service. And we have heard from new members that they too love it. Some spoke of seeking a church that had a choir and organ and hymns. They told us that it was very hard to find. So they felt at home when they tasted our traditional worship. And for this we are very grateful. We want to continue to provide excellent opportunities for traditional worship. Every week the Holy Spirit leads us in beautiful liturgical worship. Alleluia!

But (and this is an important “but”) many people in our area do not feel at home in classic hymnody. It is too slow and sounds archaic to them. The structured formal pace of our service is boring to them. That is how many of the youth characterize our service. And that is how many young adults who don’t return to our worship also feel. And it is also how some middle aged and more seasoned adults experience our worship. Our classic worship service is powerfully appealing to us who are here. But it is not appealing to many who are not here.

There are two ways to respond to this. One is to continue as we do and shrug our shoulders saying, “Too bad our worship doesn’t excite people different than us.” Another is to ponder this and ask, “Is there any way we can create a worship service that does enthuse them?” If you recall, that was our thinking 8 years ago. Our 1999 vision statement said, “We worship with contemporary and traditional services”. We pursued that dream and created a monthly contemporary worship service. This seemed like it might be the answer. While very good, we think it is has been a partial solution to the problem.

Why does the Session no longer believe a monthly contemporary service is the best we can do? It has inherent problems. For those who really groove to worship music driven by bumping bass and heavy drums, it is frustrating to only have one service a month. Visitors that enjoy it don’t return when they discover it is only monthly. And on the other side, some of us who cut our teeth on “All People That on Earth do Dwell” simply find the music unattractive or even repellant. For some of us even once a month is too frequent!

And so we are going to do a new thing. We arecreating a second alternative service which will begin Sunday May 10th at noon . I mentioned this at the annual meeting and in a few worship services. Session has discussed it for 4 months. The appropriate committees (worship, personnel, CE, evangelism) have been working on this. Questions we asked were, “Is it needed? Does it come out of our vision? How would it affect the classic service? How would this affect CE classes and Middle School program? How would it affect our staff and lay leadership? How would it affect the budget? How would we advertise this?” The discussions convinced us that this fits our mission and would be blessed by God.

So -- we begin this new venture on May 10th at noon. We had a test service on Easter and if was great. There was a lot of enthusiasm and we look forward to this being a great new adventure for our congregation.

It is exciting that we as a church are always seeking how to serve the Lord and others more effectively. Please encourage our leaders as we lead us to create this new thing.

Living in Exile

Ponder this picture. Heavy wooden doors in a stone church – closed. Ancient vaulted ceiling over flagstone entrance with a man lying on the ground. He appears to be poor or sick and unable to rise. My eye wants to bypass the figure to meditate upon the graceful arch and inspiring architecture. This disturbing image is the cover of the book “The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call to Justice”.

The author of that book was brought by our presbytery to lead a conference in February. Mark Labberton is the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. He believes that Christians often walk around that man in need to get to church without a thought to the absurdity of it. He wanted us to be awakened to caring for the needs of hurting people as we worship and as we live.

He talked a lot about the difference between living in the promised land and living in exile. To refresh your memory, in the exodus account the Egyptians are the enemies who God defeats for the Israelites. He leads them to the Promised Land where they can live as his people. He believes we misread the story of the exodus. Instead of it being a story about God’s victory over oppression and sin, it becomes a story about God freeing us from hardship so we can enjoy a pleasant life. In this light, our faith becomes all about ourselves. “What can God do for me? What can the church do for me?” We might say in defense of this view, “Isn’t Jesus’ purpose to lift my burdens and smooth my brow?”

Mark said, “No that is not why Jesus came. He didn’t come to make our lives simpler, but more complicated. Not easy but hard!” He had us think about the Exile. In that story, God’s people have turned from Him and have become the enemies of his purposes. God then removes them from their land and comforts so that they will learn to depend upon Him. “The challenge for Israel in exile is not to escape. Their vocation is not to get out. It is to stay and be changed by seeking the welfare of their enemy: “Seek the peace [shalom] of the city where I have sent you into exile . . . for in it’s peace [shalom] you will find your peace [shalom]” (Jeremiah 29:7)”.

Living in exile, he said, is to focus on how to bring love to those in pain. Not because they are nice people, but because you want their lives to be made right. When one lives like this, then one looks for the pain in others and come alongside to share in it.

This is not a call to masochism, but a call to genuine Jesus life. It is a way of life in which we take seriously the injustices in others lives and take actions to repair them. This is a call to genuine peace, not one built on circumstances. It is a call to share the heart of Jesus.

I would offer that Jesus also came to take away our burdens and heal our wounds. But not perhaps in the way we first think. Sometimes through our sufferings we learn hard to explain lessons which God later uses to expand our compassion. Sometimes through a long time of waiting upon Christ we develop deeper faith out of desperation. A faith that later strengthens us and matures us to better love others. So that we become the answer to anothers prayers.

Back to the cover of the book. I think the author wants us to think about why we would walk around a man in trouble to go to worship. If I think that worship is for me, then it follows that it is more important to get through the doors than get involved with that suffering person. But if I think that worship is to help me see the world as God does, then I’m more inclined to miss worship by helping the man.