I have been thinking a lot about open worship these days. Many of the larger evangelical Friends churches no longer practice open worship in their big venues for many reasons. I guess I am searching for a contemporary definition of open worship and ideas for how other large congregations incorporate their concept of open worship into their weekly big event(s).
What canst thou saith?
Here are my initial thoughts and response that I posted there but thought I’d also put here because I deeply believe that the Quaker way of worship could be beneficial for those of you in other church traditions as well (I’ll be particularly interesting in your thoughts on this subject). » Read the rest of this entry «
I am preparing my discussion for our Sunday morning meeting for worship and am thinking a lot about what Kester Brewin calls “wombs of the divine,” and creating the necessary space for something new to be born over time (See his book Signs of Emergence) It’s kind of a preference for evolution rather than revolution, or rather it sees evolution as the slow revolutionary process of change. Then I came across this quote (which mirrors Mark 2:27): “Our structures must serve us, not us serve them.”
This is an appropriate quote for all of us in the church, but especially, I think, for Quakers to observe. With so much discussion recently on whether or not some of our more longstanding institutions, meetings, and publishing outlets up for grabs these days because of smaller numbers, smaller budgets, and less interest or energy. With so many looking at the bottom line, I can’t help but think that we need to step back, stop, and contemplate the point above. What does this really mean for us?
Brewin writes:
“Only if I am still. Only if I have stopped what I was doing to listen and hold my breath and enter some spiritual apnea and wait. The perception of the new step will come only to those brave enough to stop dancing the old. The realization that we must descend this low peak will come only to those prepared to stop and take stock of their position. We fear that if we stopped for a week, a month, a service, a moment, we might be forgotten, or lose our momentum, weaken our profile, appear ill-thought-out and failing. So we feed the ecclesiastic furnaces our burned-out wrecks: tired leaders, disillusioned ministers, fatigued congregations – marshaling them to dance longer, march faster, pray harder, cry loud in earnest for God to come, come, COME and batter our hearts into change.”
What Brewin is essentially calling for is that we return to our own practicing of silent waiting, but with a fresh perspective as to why we are doing it, what we are waiting and hoping for. Or conversely, maybe our stopping and waiting is the opposite of silent waiting, maybe we need to stop with the quiet and really say what is on our hearts and minds. In either case, something needs to give. Who has the courage to stop dancing the old?
One of the things my favorite (fake) newscaster Stephan Colbert says on a regular bias is that “Major media has a well-known liberal bias.” And this is definitely something many people believe. This perspective has cropped up again recently all over the web, and yes on The Colbert Report has helped, with the new Conservative Bible Project. The ridiculous (and copy-cat) assertation that this project intends to make is that the bible has “a well-known liberal bias.” And as ridiculous as it may first appear I think they are actually right, but not in the way they think.
It seems to me that we could easily consider that major network news and papers such as the NY Times are not in fact liberal at all but rather conservative in that they all seek to put reality “as it is” on display. That is, all major network news from MSNBC to FOX seek to expose or reveal what is happening “out there.” After all isn’t that what news is supposed to be? The opinion section or segment is sectored off for a reason. “News” tries to relay information about reality, about what happened that day, or that week, in your neighborhood and around the globe. It may also seek to expose what is true about this or that issue, person, event, etc.
The problem then isn’t the object of news, the events that transpire, but rather our interpretation on that reality. What gets relayed about the “truth” is where things get a little tangled up (to say the least). Thus in my mind, it’s not that some news is good and some is bad, instead the point is to realize all interpretation is slanted, all interpretation of reality runs through a filter (our own or someone else’s) and thus has a bias. In other words, all news is opinion to some extent. The question becomes for much of how media is handled in this country, which kind of interpretation will sell better, or that tells me what I want to hear the most? Which source, according to me, interprets those events in a way that makes sense to me, connects with me intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, etc?
On the other hand, it seems like very little of what passes as “news” is “progressive” (I admit to be taking some liberties with this term “progressive”). I am taking “progressive” here to mean not taking reality at face-value, what it is, but rather what it should be. Progressive in this way means owning up to the fact that it is embedded in an interpretation of reality, and that it is putting it’s best presentation forward in a compelling way. Here then “conservative” signals trying to tell the events of the day “objectively,” and pretends to report without (subjective) interpretation, and certainly both “conservative” and “liberal” media are guilty of this. In both cases, on the right and left, these modes of relaying information are rooted in the Enlightenment, a kind of “Just give me the straitght-up facts Johnny” mentality that conceals its own embeddedness.
So what is the “progressive” alternative? I take much of blogging, zines, and other subcultural forms of communication to be more progressive (laying outside both liberal and conservative). This is because these forms of media, while they are often upfront already about their biases and influences, just read the about page on virtually every blog for instance, but they are often more interested in imaginating another society, an alternative way of approacing this or that situation, and offering critique of the status quo. And that’s what is so threatening about these progressive forms of “news,” and cultural re-writing. It isn’t content with leaving reality where it is, or concealing its biases (a position that threatens those still pretending to be objective) but pushing it along, changing it, subverting, in the name of some other narrative.
(I am not on the other hand insisting that we should not read/watch major news networks, just that we recognize and are upfront about theirs, as well as our own, positioning.)
Now that I’ve said all that, I can return to the real point of this post and make my hypothesis: the problem with the Bible for those in the conservative Bible project is not that it is either conservative or liberal, but that it is progressive in this manner. In this way it exceeds the categories, continues to be re-interpreted afresh and challenge the status quo of reality. My reading of Jesus is that he is especially active in this regard. Scripture puts forth an alternative vision of reality, an entirely different way of living and approach one another, politics, economics, society, religion, etc. It is not an upside-down viewpoint as so many like to say, it is instead present the world as it should be, or right-side up. And for those who have an interest in stability, safety, and maitaing power “the way its always been” the Bible can be rather unsettling. Jesus’ message was unsettling even for his own followers, we should expect that 2000 years removed from that we will still find people trying to dodge the society that Jesus sought to put in place. And this will bother more than just one side of our polarized society.
Freedom Friends Church in Salem Oregon is currently an independent meeting that has recently written their own Faith and Practice. A number of Friends, Monthly Meetings and Yearly Meetings, have been interested in reading about this unique meeting and some of the practices they espouse. I have done a decent amount of research on the meeting for my our studies, comparing its similarities and differences with the emerging Church and the simple fact that they put together this book was very helpful for me.
They are releasing a hardcover version of it in the next week or so, here is the blurb I wrote for the back of the book:
Freedom Friends Church have created one of the first postmodern Quaker Faith and Practices to date. Here is a Faith and Practice that is creative and actually fun to read. This is because it is not only relevant both to the concerns of their own faith community and the larger societal context, it is also deeply rooted within the historical practices and theology of Friends. If there was any question whether the heartbeat of Quakerism still had a pulse, FFC has shown that the tradition is not just alive, it is kicking: the Quaker faith is indeed fit for the 21st century. This kind of hybrid Quakerism, this remix of tradition and innovation, is a promising future for the Friends Church.
Their Faith and Practice is well worth checking out.
Martin Kelley and I will be facilitating a weekend workshop at Pendle Hill this coming May (2010) that explores how tight-knit faith communities, such as convergent Friends, carry on and expand their witness via the web and participatory culture. The dates for the workshop are May 14-16 and there will be some recommended pre-reading for the weekend as well.
In every generation the church faces new, as well as old, challenges. For many years, Christendom allowed a basic stability within the culture for the church to remain in tact. It was a false sense of security, human capital because people were expected to hold membership in a local church, but security nonetheless. Thus, during the years of the church’s chaplaincy, at least in the West, much of where the struggle lay within the church was with itself. However, in a post-Christendom society, what many argue we are now in, the challenge is even greater. Not only are there the internal challenges and competing narratives of the church, but now the external crutch is corroding, or has corroded. » Read the rest of this entry «
I’m currently digging through my research on Freedom Friends Church and found a blog post Liz Opp wrote awhile back that got my attention. In the post Liz talks about hearing Peggy (FFC’s pastor) and Alivia (Clerk of the meeting) present on their church. She makes some useful observations including the creativity that gets incorporated into worship at FFC:
I liked hearing about the use of a box full of pieces of paper that have a significant quote, query, or advice on them, that worshipers could draw from, pick one out, and contemplate it during worship. I also liked that worship starts with a description of what Freedom Friends are about, especially since most attenders there seem to find the church through the internet. It takes the guesswork out of what these particular Friends believe and how they worship.
But what I really appreciated was the message that Peggy gave in response to Chris M’s query was very similar to a couple other messages I’ve been hearing lately. Liz Opp writes:
Towards the end of our time, Chris M. lifted up the question, Do either of you, Peggy and Alivia, have a message on your hearts for those of us here?
We fell into worship, and after a couple of beats, Peggy offered this:There are embers smoldering among us, and they need to be blown on.
We sat motionless and held that ministry for just a while longer before other comments were addressed.
Robin reflects a similar message given during extended unprogrammed worship at our convergent Friends this past February:
One Friend read to us the parable about the farmer who sows his seed on the road, in the weeds and on fertile soil. Another Friend said to us, ?Mind the fire.?
In the middle of the two hours, I noticed that the fire that had been burning hotly in the woodstove when we came in was dying down. I tried to get up and put another log on the fire quickly and quietly so that we wouldn?t get cold, but not waste too much wood since we would be leaving in another hour. By the end however, I was given to understand that you can?t stoke a fire on the cheap. It may flare up but it will also burn out quickly. You have to lay the foundation properly and put in the time it really needs. A later suggestion from another Friend: always add two logs to the woodstove at one time. It greatly increases the chances of them catching fire.
I think the same is true with ministry.
And interestingly enough another message was given at the Northwest Yearly Meeting pastor’s conference last week was:
“Tend the fire.”
One interesting thing about these three messages is their context: one was given at an FGC gathering, one was given during a gathering of convergent friends representing a spectrum of Quakers, and the final one was given to a group of pastoral Quakers. Apparently, God is speaking to all Friends a similar message about how we Friends are to be working with our tradition and call to the Gospel. A second observation is that in each of these settings there were “convergent” friends present, that is to say there were Friends there who weren’t necessarily automatically assumed to be a part of that context or community. God is blessing the cross-pollinations, inter-visitations, and friendships these friends are encouraging. Rather than being unequally yolked, these friends are tending a fire all these groups have and need.
I feel that the Holy Spirit is continuing to be set forth before us this message and is addressing all Friends. This nicely summarizes what I mentioned a couple days ago in my post about the difference denominations and traditions: let us continue to run this race fanning the flame of the faith that has been passed down to us.
Quaker blogger Robin Mohr has written a really thoughtful post, if you are interested in ministry in a web 2.0 culture this is a must read essay. Here are the three key points she brings up and then a few I add to the list:
For me, the first point is that my blog is an outlet for the essays that were composing themselves in my head. It has offered me a means to improve my writing and editing skills, and a chance to share my theological reflections with others. Unlike most forms of writing, blogs also come with the opportunity for frequent interaction, unlike writing a book, for example, when it may be years before anyone else reads it.
The second point is that Quaker blogs are a source of religious reading material. I still subscribe to a couple of Quaker magazines, but they only come once a month. Every day there are new blog posts on different aspects of spiritual life, and whenever I’m ready they’re there. As Martin Kelley has reminded people, blogs are available every day and at all hours, when you’re stuck at home with little kids or an illness or a physical disability, if you work irregular hours, or when you are too far away from a meeting to attend regularly…
A third point is that Quaker blogs are part of an ongoing conversation about what is happening in our spiritual lives, including events we go to, books we read, theological questions we wrestle with, and our everyday joys and concerns. They offer a chance to stay in touch with Friends in a substantive way, between conferences, meetings, without travel costs, and often with photos of mutual Friends.
Along with this I’d like to add a few things of my own:
Blogging (at its best) exemplifies a kind of Faith as a work-in-progress. That is to say we have the ability to write short reflections, ideas, “theologies” if you will in a playful and creative manner in order to help think through what these things mean. I don’t know about the rest of you but I do some of my best “believing,” when I write. That is to say that writing forces me to really name what it is that I believe (and what I really do with that belief). In this way I see blogging as way to track our journeys of transformation.
Most blogging is done in real-time, we write about things that are happening now, things that are relevant questions and concerns to the people of God today not in the 1800s. This is to say that ministry is always local, present, and of the times. This isn’t to say that what we reflect on isn’t in one way or another rooted in some ongoing history, because it is, but rather to say that those in ministry are always dealing with a two-way dialogue: the timeless and the timely.
Blogging invites participation by asking people to join a community in dialogue and inviting them to add to the collective intelligence of that conversation. Rather than believing in isolation, blogging has the opportunity to create open, and very public, channels of Christian expressions in our world today.
Blogs are open for change and revisions and so is our ministry and faith. While I am not a part of the reformed tradition I do appreciate their motto, “Reformed and always reforming.” This is the church in a nutshell, there is tradition but that tradition is always open to reinterpretations and revisions for each new generation. In this way blogs can help remind us of the need to not live in a world of rigid dogmatism but playful and joyful obedience to God’s Spirit.
Finally, Robin’s notes above were taken from a presentation she recently did at an ecumenical gathering where she talked with a number of people some of which were bloggers and some of which were not. Of interest to some of you is a really cool activity that could be done in any small group setting that sounds really fun to do:
…we did an exercise I call low-tech blog commenting. We chose short blog posts, printed them out in large type on paper and hung them on the wall next to large sheets of easel paper. The instructions are to go around the room, read the post, write down your reaction, your questions, agreement or disagreement, and then move on to the next one, and then as you move around, to come back and read what others have written and perhaps comment again. This exercise was Chris M.’s idea a few years ago for a workshop he and I led at SFMM. I’ve also done it with the teens at PYM’s Junior Yearly Meeting. It works well as an introduction to blog commenting, except for people with visual disabilities, so a couple of times I or another participant have read the posts and scribed for people who had difficulty with that.
One thing that came out of our weekend retreat was a number of practices I want to work on and integrate into my life. This mostly came from the morning workshop on contextualizing the “testimony to plainness.” In other words, how do we cut out the excessive parts of our lives in 2009? And the following question, what are excesses in our culture today?
In our conversation on the way home, I talked with my wife about how I often struggle with feeling really agitated and anxious because of the amount of schoolwork (and related projects) I continually have. This can translate into home-life where instead of relaxing and being present with Emily and L, I feel like I need to work on something. I asked Emily how I might be able to surrender this drive, this urge to God and remain open to God’s call everyday and be more available to the family? She suggested looking at Richard Foster and what he says about re-collection, or centering, prayer.
So when we got home I opened up the Celebration of Discipline and read about the practice. He writes that “re-collection” or centering “…is a time to become still, to enter into the recreating silence, to allow the fragmentation of ours minds to become centered” (30-31). The prayer is a simple “body prayer,” here are the two movements:
Begin with Palms down – This signifies release, surrender, giving everything up to God. Make whatever confessions, petitions seem fitting here. I’ve been using this period to release my worries, my desire to excel, and to confession these urges as taking me away from my more direct call from God. I like to end this portion with the first two lines of the Lord’s Prayer (which I read as surrender), “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Then turn your Palms Up – This signifies receiving, openness to God, and communing. Here I try and open myself up to God’s call, find out what I am being called to for the day, receive peace and forgiveness, etc. I then end with the final verses of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.”
This is one practice I am working on doing regularly, it’s an experiment in cutting away the excess and remaining centered in God.Do you have something that’s help you in this are?
This past weekend at our convergent Quaker retreat we had both programmed (planned) and unprogrammed (silent) worship. For the programmed worship on Saturday morning I planned an interactive worship time based around the Lord’s Prayer (a topic I am deeply interested in). In this post I’ve included a video and pictures of the various stations, here and at the bottom you can download all the instructions and list of needed materials. I have not included the descriptions and instructions for each station, you’ll have to read the documentation for that. In each station one person read the petition from that portion of the Lord’s Prayer, there are queries to help reflect reflect on the prayer, an activity and then time for silence.
Here is where I explained the basic idea:
Be sure to give yourself some time and get some help if you can because It took a little time to set things up. There is a list of materials in the downloadable packet below.
Station One: Santify
Our Father in the heavens, may your name be sanctified (Matthew 6:9).
Query: Consider the ways we can pray this prayer in three forms: inward, upward and outward.
Activity: Light candles and say opening prayer
Station Two: Witness
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).
Query: ”How can we be a part of the kingdom’s coming on Earth?”
Activity: A Body Prayer “To Become Useful In God’s Plan” Face the four directions
Station Three: Eat
Give us today the bread we need (Matthew 6:11).
Query: ”Do we seek to share our resources, belonging and food with those who need it? Am I available to share daily bread with others? Does my table reflect how the kingdom of God looks?”
Activity: Slice a piece of bread and give it to another person
Station Four: Forgive
Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors (Matthew 6:12).
Query:”What do I owe you God? What debts have I incurred against you and others?”
Activity: Write out a debt you owe God or one that another person owes you on a piece of paper and tear them up together at the end.
Station Five: Cleanse
Do not bring us into temptation, but rescue us from the evil one (Matthew 6:13).
Query:When do I let temptation overcome me? How can I live a cleansed life?
Activity: Read a confession and wash another person’s hands.
Take five minutes per station and we had five small groups that rotated after the five minutes were up (we rang a bell). At the end, after everyone had gone through all the stations, we returned together for a time of silent worship. The feedback was the most people enjoyed the experience of going through these and appreciated the interactivity in the stations.
Adrian Halverstadt, a Quaker pastor, asks this question on the QuakerQuaker forum boards:
