The Church and Technology



 One of the ideas drilled into your head when you attend Columbia Theological Seminary, is that ministry must respond to the needs of your particular context.  Because of this, we are rarely introduced to church "models" for ministry or blueprints for how to organize or create any kind of ministry.  The reason for this is, while models and blueprints can provide a starting point, they are never foolproof plans for faithful and effective ministry.

The geography of a particular community matters (where people live vs. where they work vs. where they shop and play, not to mention the landscape realities).  The economic forces of the community matter (rural, urban, suburban, retirement community, college town, bedroom community), the history of the town has an effect and so does education.  In order to faithfully follow Jesus, a community must examine its community and see where the needs of a community and the Gospel meet.

There seems to be, however, one cultural shift in recent decades that permeates through all regions of America both rural and urban as well as wealthy and working class neighborhoods, and that is the rapid progression and use of technology.  The speed of the change and the need to adapt can feel overwhelming.  To think, for example, that when I graduated high school most students had cell phones but almost no one had text messaging.  Now, most twelve year-olds have cell phones and unlimited text messaging, not to mention the standard camera feature on cell phones now.

The internet is now the standard means for research for most people under fifty (or 60?).  To confess, Rebecca and I actually throw our phone book in the recycling bin immediately when it arrives because we find our information on whitepages.com or a Google search.  Most young adults now do not subscribe to local or national newspapers, but browse news websites for information or follow links to stories posted by friends to Facebook or Twitter.

The fast and sometimes overwhelming changes, provides both opportunities and challenges for the church (read more about these challenges on the blog of the Rev. Adam Copeland).  In my conversations, I hear a lament that younger generations will lack conversational skills because texting and Facebook posts are their primary form of communication.  As a pastor, however, these technologies allow me to communicate instantaneously with church members whose busy lives make it impossible for me to drop in for lunch or stop by in the afternoon for coffee. 

Scrolling down my newsfeed on Facebook at my office desk, I can "like" the status of a church member or make a quick comment to let them know I'm thinking about them.  I can text parents asking them if their kids will help lead liturgy for an upcoming worship service, or post an interesting article on someone's wall related to Christian faith and someone's particular profession or hobbies.  I can e-mail out session agendas with links to interesting articles about the larger life of the church (and bonus points for our session elder who brings her IPad to meetings instead of printing out the paper...).  I even know some pastors who encourage church members to "live tweet" worship services so that those outside the church who follow them on Twitter can read about what is happening.  I have also heard of recommenations to "pray your newsfeed" on Facebook in the mornings, using updates and posts from friends as ways to pray for one another.

Website announcements, blog posts, church Facebook pages, audio sermons, these technologies and more help us to communicate as a community of faith and stay in touch with each other.

At the same time, though,  I recognize the limits of technology to connect us.  Study after study tells us that young adults (often the most technologically conencted among us) are experiencing more feeligns of isolation and craving meaningful and deep relationships.  Technology keeps us informed but it does not form deep relationships.  There needs to be "dead time," when you can simply share hopes and dreams and even occasionally sit in silence, for those kind of relationships to form.

In Christian language, the word we use for that is "Incarnation."  It's the good news of Christmas: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).  God's love is made manifest in a bodily relationship to humankind in Jesus.  The kingdom he brings, then, is necessarily relational, not in a technologically connected way, but in embodied ways (for more on the relationship between technology and church, check out the Rev. Kathy Wolf Reed's article in Presbyterians Today:  High Tech, High Touch).

There is a tension for us in the church, therefore, when it comes to the benefits of technology.  It can be very helpful in getting sign-up lists filled, getting the word out about upcoming worship services, informing members about meetings or trips.  It can help us know the major events of each other's lives and give us an instant way to respond.  But I believe that technology that replaces embodied relationships is unfaithful.  We need to be able to look in one anothers' eyes, hold hands, harmonize our voices, hammer nails and set up Yard Sale tents. 

Christian ministry that takes its context seriously, recognizes the benefits of technology to carry out Christ's mission but recognizes that incarnational ministry involves embodied actions as well.

Garrison Keillor, Singing, and the Church

This week at the church has been very hectic, as are any weeks when there is a funeral to plan.  Longtime member, Charlie Piper passed away on Wednesday, and in preparing for his service in addition to other Sunday activities, I have been unable to blog. 

In an effort to still post something this week, this is a post I put on a former blog I kept while in seminary; this one is from May 1, 2011.  I believe its contents are fitting with last Sunday's Music Dedication Service

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sunday mornings after I finish leading worship at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church, I get in my car and drive down to Decatur, where I sneak in the back of a worship service at another church where my wife Rebecca sings in the choir.  I attend the second service to support her, worship with the community, and I enjoy going to brunch with our friends afterward.  On my drive between churches, which takes about 25 minutes, I typically listen to NPR, which features A Prairie Home Companion in Atlanta on Sunday morning at 10:00.

Many people know this variety show that combines current events, old-time radio schtick, and musical guests into a hodge-podge of hilarity and sometimes confusion for listeners.  I was particularly intrigued today, however, to notice how frequently Garrison Keillor, the host of the show, sings for the various skits and parodies of songs performed.

Keillor is a funny guy and has a nice voice but he is by no means a trained professional singer.  I love the fact, however, that each week he puts his voice out there without making apologies for it.  I find it refreshing in a world where we think if you aren’t trained as a musician your role is to serve only as a listener.  Even shows like American Idol, which appear to celebrate musical talent, provoke laughter from audience members who hear the scathing reviews of poor singers by the judges.  Keillor, however, seems to make it okay to be an average singer, and without saying anything about it, he is encouraging others to sing with whatever voice they have.

Now I listen to this show between two worship services, so it is not difficult for me to connect this thought to life in the church.  I am passionate about congregational singing and figuring out ways to enhance congregational participation in the music ministry of worship.  Many people in the pews, however, seem to struggle to engage in the music of worship.  I do not know if it is out of boredom with old tunes and words, memories of ridicule they have received, or a worry that someone sitting near them might hear them, but many people who gather for worship only timidly engage in the music.  It may also be tied to the fact that our worship space is set up in a way that resembles “proscenium theatre,” where in many cases there is a clear distinction between “performer” and “audience,” and in many plays the audience are only passive observers.  This happens with preachers and choirs in many of our sanctuaries today, wherein the congregation gets lulled into being observers instead of participants in worship.

I see this happen regardless of the worship “style.”  In more “contemporary” services singers with microphones and instrumentalists with pianos and guitars dominate the singing, and there seems little work on the part of worship planners to engage the congregation beyond inviting them to “sing along” in a way similar to the way fans sing along with artists at a rock concert.  I believe the exact same thing happens in more “traditional” services as well, where a choir stands at the front to lead the singing, often making it appear (and this is done unintentionally) that the good singers join the choir and “the rest of us non-musical people” sit in the congregation and enjoy it.  This differentiation is only furthered when congregation members say to a new member or visitor with a nice voice, “You have such a lovely voice.  You should join the choir.”  As though no one in the pews could possibly have a nice singing voice (as I said, this is unintentional but implicitly promotes this distinction between “singers” and “non-singers”).

The “professionalization” of music in our culture, I believe, has rendered Christian worshipers helpless in many situations.  They doubt their own ability or find singing intimidating or removed from their experience.  We will sing alone in the car or in the shower, but the minute another person might hear us, we become worried about how our singing might be perceived.

And that’s why I’m grateful for Garrison Keillor.  He is not a professional musician but he sings week after week on national radio, singing whatever song he and his crew have written.  I wonder what doors could be opened in the church if we invited “mediocre” singers to help lead us in singing, showing that no professional training or education is required to sing to God but simply a willingness to try and to celebrate the voice God has give each of us.

Crafting Holy Space

Last week, the Rev. Landon Whitsitt, vice-moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) titled a post on his blog "10 ways being a Theatre Major prepared me for ministry."  In the post he outlines how his undergraduate studies in theatre at a liberal arts college gave him many tools and skills that have helped him in parish ministry.  As a fellow Presbyterian pastor who majored in theatre at a liberal arts college, I resonate with many of Whitsitt's comments, but I'd also like to add something to the conversation.  Many of Whitsitt's reflections deal with very practical areas of theatre: organization, budgetary thinking, hard work, being willing to do what needs to be done. 

I agree with these, but I believe the greatest gift for ministry I received from being a theatre major was the recognition that theatre (and Christian faith) cultivate holy spaces that allow for transformation.  When I refelct on this, I can't help but remember Jerzy Grotowski, theatre theorist and director, who talks about the essentials of theatre in his 1964 work Theatre's New Testament.  In this work, Grotowski seeks to define what is "essential" to theatre.  First, he outlines the many different interpretations made by various people involved with theatre- academics see it as a written text, common audiences as entertainment, “culture seekers” desire to experience certain emotions to give them self-satisfaction. And then, of course, there are actors who think of theatre as all about them, designers who think it is about them, directors who think they are the most important, and producers who, because they provide the money, believe they are the essential element to theatre.

Ultimately, however, Grotowski strips off many of these elements, lights and sets and money and even a written script, and he states, “But can theatre exist without actors? I know of no example of this… Can the theatre exist without an audience? At least one spectator is needed to make it a performance. So we are left with the actor and the spectator. We can thus define the theatre as ‘what takes place between the spectator and actor.’”

It is not the actor nor the spectator individually that are essential to theatre, but it is the undefined "what" that happens between them, the shared experience, the level of communication, that makes theatre.  In that interaction there is a space of truth, exploration, vulnerability, and a potential for change if each party is willing to give in.

I find that in ministry, it's the undefined "what" the occurs between people and God in worship and study and service that is really the heart of our life together.  Many of the elements of our common life are merely ways in which we create space for those holy moments, be they the moment of complete stillness after a moving choir anthem, the energy that builds in a particularly exciting Bible study, the shared moment of vulnerability and brokenness in the middle of a mission trip. 

My theatre background, then, is a calling to strive to create these holy spaces, wherein the Holy Spirit can take what we offer and turn us again toward the Gospel.  It takes a certain humility (sometimes which I'm not quite willing to admit) that acknowledges that most of my work is extraneous so the essential task of creating space for transformation, and it takes a unique focus to worry lesss about the bottom line, the names on the sign-up sheet, the announcements for the bulletin, the lesson plan for Sunday school, and instead to see what is essential, a community for honesty and sharing, where people can learn to let go and trust in a goodness greater than themselves.

It isn't about the preacher or particular worshippers, or the work of the session, instead is "what takes place between people and God" that makes Christian faith, and it has been my experience in the theatre that taught me the importance of creating opportunities for transformation to occur.

Forgiving Yourself

In my final year at Columbia Theological Seminary, I took part in Clinical Pastoral Education at Grady Memorial Hospital in downtown Atlanta.  Grady is a 900-bed hosital and serve as the Trauma 1 unit for northern Georgia and also serves indigent patients in Fulton and Dekalb counties.

Through other seminary colleagues who still work there, I was recently turned onto a blog by one of the doctors who works and teaches at the hospital, reflecting on the tragedy, the pain, and the occasional beauty of working in that difficult environment of caring.

One particular post caught my attention (thanks to my wife's recommendation) called "Slip Sliding Away."  (Please note that this post contains descriptions of drug abuse and several curse words)
------------------------

When I read this post I could not help but think immediately of Jesus' parable in Luke 15:11-32 about the entitled young son, the shamed and overly forgiving father, and the jealous elder brother.  When I read about this young man in the blog post whose life had been destroyed by addiction, even when he had obviously had many chances to succeed, when I read about the mother who came to the hospital each time and took him back into her home, it was like a contemporary retelling of Jesus' parable.

With a twist.  In Jesus' parable we hear these words regarding the younger son who burned through his inheritance through wild living, "But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough nd to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!'" (v. 17).  You can picture him, laying there the morning after, recovering from a hangover, out of money, a dead end job, and realizing all he can do is return home.  No more drug money; time to face the music.

And we hear of the faithful Father, the one who paced in front of the window each day staring down the end of the road, hoping the son would return.  This father whom everyone in the community avoided since he had broken all appropriate custom and handed over his son's inheritance before his death.  This Father, who had been hurt and wronged and yet would not give up.

And when he sees the son coming, thin from lack of food, dirty from sleeping under overpasses and alongside creekbeds, and with dark rings under his eyes, the Father runs (and no respectable first century Palestinian man would run for anyone, much less a son who disobeyed and embarrassed you to the community) to meet him and takes him up in his arms.  The fatted calf is killed and the party begins!

But the reflection of this doctor at Grady Hospital, regarding the young man she encountered makes us wonder what happens to the son once the party is thrown and he is home again.  When she asks him about his addiction the doctor asks,

"Is it the craving. . .like. . feeling sick that makes you keep coming back to it?"  I asked this really dumb question, yes. But only because I was curious.

"It's the hating myself, really." You looked down at your arm band and twirled it on your wrist. "That's what makes it so hard when somebody is trying to love you through it. It's really, really hard to have someone loving you like that when you don't love yourself."

This young man's faithful mother forgives him; she is ready to start again and kill another fatted calf, for the son she lost is home again.  Yet, if the son cannot forgive himself, cannot learn to accept the grace he has been offered, the forgiveness of his mother and the chance at a new life is for nothing.

I believe that for many of us, learning to accept grace is one of the hardest things to do.  We let our guilt keep us trapped in the past; we carry the shame that we believe somehow should continually define us.  We believe we must earn any kind of favor we receive; nothing is truly free.  The open arms of others can be faithful and continual, but if we cannot accept that grace, it will bear no fruit.

But that grace is the very heart of the Good News we try to allow to define our lives.  God loves you and God forgives you and you don't have to hold onto your guilt or shame or sense of unworthiness any longer.  God is the one who runs to you and embraces you in the street, wipes the tears from your dirt-stained cheeks and kisses the top of your head.  God knows our guilt and shame and sorrow, and God's grace is real. God's grace is freely given, and God's grace can free us. 

So you can tell that guilty or ashamed part of you that you no longer need it to manage your life, for you are an inheritor of grace. 

There is a balm in Gilead

to make the wounded whole

There is a balm in Gilead

to heal the sin-sick soul.