Freddy Finkelstein said...
To quote from the article, "In the front of the room is a simple altar and a screen where Hunter’s prerecorded sermons are projected."
As I have stated on this blog before, I am all in favor of creating opportunities for evangelism. I am all in favor of a congregation calling qualified and competent (i.e. approved) individuals to lead and engage in such efforts, and I am the first to admit that, to this end, there is room for creativity. But that is not what is described in this article. This is intended to be Church -- the article identifies it as such. What's more, it is "Church" where the sermon, and thus Law and Gospel, has become ambiance -- noise projected on a screen -- and what follows seems to be an interruption to the activity people have otherwise assembled for. Such a concept strikes me as neither evangelism nor Church, but an annoyance and distraction from what people would rather be doing -- drinking coffee and having conversation.
The article further states, "We’re trying to keep it from becoming the thing that turned a lot of people away from church."
My question: "Which is what? The Liturgy? Hymns? Sound theology? The Gospel?"
My Answer: I doubt it. I suspect, rather, that it is the thing intimated in the following sentence. The Law. "We’re trying to provide a casual atmosphere where you’re free to talk about what this means to you and how it applies to your life." Coming from pop-church Evangelicalism, this is code for "honoring God by living a God pleasing life." Merit-mongering Law. Even if the thrust of the Law is not the intent here, the expression is totally ambiguous. Which "this" and "it" is being referred to? What the Bible says, or what turned people away from the Church? Both? Either way, what is described is not "Church" -- at least not in any Confessional sense that I know of.
Talking about what the Bible says is a normal desire for every person who has received the gift of Faith. We do it every Sunday, and multiple times a week, at our congregation -- in the context of Adult Sunday School or Bible Study. Many of us laymen engage in further, personal discussion, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Nothing new here. However, "what this means to you" carries no weight whatsoever, unless one is a Pietist. Seriously. This is what the ecclesiolae does -- read Timotheus Verinus (Loescher) or The History of Pietism (Schmid), both recently published by NPH, for details. Koester's Law and Gospel should be considered important, as well. The "what this means to you" approach comes straight from the modern Church Growth playbook, a reprisal of 18/19th Century Pietism, which reduces the Preaching Office to inoffensive good-buddy-ism, and elevates the Priesthood of All Believers to equal station in the Church. Wasn't this matter settled by Walther in 1862, at the convention of the Norwegian Synod -- which was then struggling with the question of lay-involvement in the congregation's ministry, resulting from the leftovers of European Pietism? Further, such discussion ensues entirely outside the context of the Divine Service. It may be part of what Christians do, but it is not "Church."
One thing I appreciate about my own Pastor, and about many Pastors in the WELS I have heard speak, is straightforward and Biblical answers to questions that people have about religion, the Bible, and Christianity. Perhaps that is all that is occurring at St. Andrew's coffee-shop location, and the article was simply poorly articulated. If the coffee-shop thing was described as nothing but a venue for evangelism, I would probably have nothing negative to say. But it doesn't. It is described as "Church," and as an alternative to the Sunday Divine Service. The article describes the Divine Service at St. Andrew's parent location as "a more traditional liturgical style." If the article accurately describes the congregation's sentiments, I predict, "Not for long." Alternative sentiments will come home to roost: alternatives to wholesome Lutheran rites and hymnody (which is non-Lutheran rites and hymnody), alternatives to Lutheran catholicity (which is anti-catholic), and alternatives to Lutheran Confessionalism (which is non- or anti-Confessionalism). Why will they come home to roost? Because it takes intellectual energy to become and remain Confessional and Biblical (which is why sound catechesis is so important -- which also seems to be something that is slipping among us). It only takes emotional drive to embrace the alternatives.
Such is my opinion, so far.
Freddy Finkelstein
January 13, 2009 9:42 PM
Anonymous said...
Great post Freddy. I enjoy your insight. You commented on a quote in the article and I too found it interesting but in a different light.
"We’re trying to keep it from becoming the thing that turned a lot of people away from church."
I can’t, and won’t, speak for the folks referenced in the article but I can relate to this. Some insight on me before I elaborate…I’m a PK (Pastor’s Kid) from Mequon but not from the Seminary. That narrows down my identity significantly. I’ve been WELS educated from Kindergarten to Undergrad. Went to church every Sunday. Said my prayers, learned the differences between what I believed and what other “religions” believed. I was a very good, conservative, WELS member.
As I got older, by the grace of God, I kept going to church. Through no engagement of the Church and Change, Church Growth stuff, I started asking myself on Sunday mornings “What am I doing here?”, “Why am I doing this?”, “Am I really worshipping God right now?”, “Why do I believe what I’m saying right now?”. This was very troubling. I shouldn’t have been asking those questions…I’m WELS…I can recite the Creeds from memory!
I went back to the Bible and my Catechism to try and figure out what was going on. Sadly I realized that I was just playing church. I was going through the motions. Not only was I doing that but people that I was close to, some who were un-churched, began to notice this. What a terrible witness I was!
I was pushing people away because they saw me only going through the motions, yet I was the one telling them that they need to start coming to church! I then looked around and realized I wasn’t the only one “playing church” and I saw little to no effort from the pastors or from anyone else in the church to fix this. Nobody was engaged in what they believed. Everyone was content in “confessing” what they believed by coming to church and reading what was placed in front of them. They were content in being a number in that church and they were not engaged.
I once heard a Pastor say to his congregation “If you want to come here to go through the motions and fill our seats to just be a number, please leave. There are plenty of congregations out there that want you as a number and who don’t care if you just recite what they tell you.”. That was it for me. I had to admit that I was just being a number. I realized I had to get into a church where there is Law and Gospel and where I had to become involved and active.
That is what people are looking for. Confessions are not enough anymore. People want to be at a place where they hear God’s Word and see Jesus and not just people reciting things at the same time. Are they rejecting liturgy? I don’t think so. I think we just ruined it for everyone else but ourselves. Are they rejecting doctrine? No, they want more, but they need to see it in action before they can buy into it! Does that mean we have to take a different approach? It appears by your post that you are open to it. My position is that we have must. Anything that isn’t unbiblical must be fair game.
Freddy, in my opinion, that is what is turning people away and what they are looking for. I don’t think it has to do with the Law as you suggest. I attend a rather “contemporary” WELS church now and have almost been in tears because of the Law. I also know that I have not described you in my comments about being content as a number. There is enormous value in being Confessional but we (the WELS) have seriously screwed it up. Many churches do a great job at reciting it but not a good job of living it so we have to change our approach.
JW
January 14, 2009 12:16 PM
Anonymous said...
"Many churches do a great job at reciting it but not a good job of living it so we have to change our approach."
This is a perfect one sentence summary of what Spener taught. For those who are too busy rocking for Jesus or sipping your coffee to know who Spener was, he was the founder of Pietism, the movement that almost completely destroyed the Lutheran church by turning people away from the Means of Grace and focusing people on living for Jesus.
January 14, 2009 1:50 PM
Benjamin Tomczak said...
It's a tightrope we will walk for our whole lives, that is, between Christ for us and our lives for Christ. Because we're called to see and do both.
Paul spent chapters 1-3 of Ephesians talking about Christ for us, and then chapters 4-6 talking about what that means for us. 1 Corinthians is filled with how we live for Christ, in the midst of Paul's repeated proclamations of Christ crucified and those things of first importance (Him for me)!
Yet, as you say, it's so easy to blitz past the means of grace and Christ for us and just focus on me for Christ, WWJD, being purpose-driven, etc., that we can or have, as Pietism does, leave the objective means of grace behind.
Or, we fall off the other side of the tightrope (or the donkey, if you prefer Luther's picture from "Bondage of the Will"), and totally ignore the role of works in our life (as James had to deal with), forgetting that it is indeed necessary for the Christian to live his Christian confession.
We see Paul deal with it masterfully in 2 Corinthians 5: "And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again....God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (5:15 and 21).
Our life for Jesus is eternally intertwined, based upon, and compelled by Him for me, heard only in the Word, offered only through the objective means of grace -- the Gospel proclaimed, poured, and eaten. Fed on the Bread of Life, there is only one God-pleasing way for us to burn off this energy -- serving Him!
A couple other fine examples of balancing the objective proclamation of Christ for us with the inevitable result of fruits of faith:
"In view of God's mercy...offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12:1).
"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (1 Peter 2:9).
Pr. Benjamin Tomczak
January 14, 2009 3:06 PM
Anonymous said...
Whenever the discussions move toward the topic of sanctification, I get a little nervous. I really have a hard time discussing the third use of the Law. But maybe that's just me.
If you have a few moments, do a Yahoo search for "Hitting for the Cycle" by Don Matzat. It's a short article and worth the read. I've found this summary of Lutheranism helpful (and in layman's terms).
Rob
January 14, 2009 4:22 PM
Freddy Finkelstein said...
JW,
Thanks for sharing. Up until the final couple paragraphs, your story very much reminds me of that of a good friend of mine from my own congregation – a competent Lutheran of balanced temperament, in my opinion, and a reliable leader in our congregation. He, like you, is congenital WELS (although not a PK) and was educated in WELS schools. As with myself, and many Christians I know, early in adulthood he finally began to ask himself the same questions that you indicate: “Why am I doing this?”, “What does this mean?”, “Why do I believe this?” etc. He studied and thought, and realized that if he believed what he confessed to believe (and he did believe it), then there needed to be conscious connection between his actions (and especially those in the context of worship) and his public Confession. At first, being himself an accomplished Jazz musician, he headed the direction of contemporary worship and other forms of popular expression, being under the youthful impression that, despite its irreverence, overt emotionalism is the proper and genuine way that one externalizes internal convictions. It took him several years, but he came to understand that he was wrong. Convictions are present in one's conscience, and one's public confession, not his emotional fervor, is the voice of his conscience. Today, my friend rejects contemporary forms, and points to his prior interest in such forms as a maturity problem. He also refers to these same contemporary forms as a problem for our Synod, as something that is drawing our people further away from our common Confession, away from Unity under that confession, and is causing confusion between Faith and Works. He finally points out, from his own personal experience, that it is very difficult for musicians to admit this, that most choose to school themselves in strictly popular forms, are enamoured with the celebrity of pop-performers, and view themselves as more than merely worship accompanists, or as co-worshipers in the congregation. In his experience (and I concur, with my “praise-band” experience as a former pop-church Evangelical), musicians – and especially guitarists and vocalists – see themselves as co-pastors, with their own message to bring to the congregation, and their own means of motivating worshipers to action.
You indicate the difficulty of associating Rites in the context of the Divine Service with living out the Christian faith, specifically, I gather, in corporate recitation of the confession and creeds, the responsories, and probably also the singing of “traditional” hymns. You also quote a pastor who stated, “There are plenty of congregations out there that want you as a number and who don’t care if you just recite what they tell you.” What we recite in the context of the Divine Service is not “just what our church tells us to recite.” Thinking so is a mistake of ignorance – a catechesis problem. What we recite is what we believe. Further, it is what we agree to as a matter of Christian conscience. Moreover, it is the basis of our visible Unity not only as individual congregations, and not only as a Synod, but is our weekly declaration of Unity within the Body of Christ, the Church Universal. I have come to discover that this Unity is the essence of liturgical worship and the seat of our catholicity. Contemporary worship forms, on the other hand, are not expressions of unity, but a visible rejection of unity in favor of individuality; they are not expressions of our catholicity, but of sectarianism. In a Confessional sense, from the standpoint of our catholicity, contemporary forms, far from being relevant, are in fact irrelevant.
This final point is important. It must be realized that our Confessions, the Augsburg Confession especially, stand as our answer to the enemies of the Gospel and of pure doctrine. When the Romans accused the Lutherans of being outside the Church – that is, of being sectarian – Luther, Melanchthon and company, vigorously defended against this accusation, saying we are not outside the Church – we are catholic: “We have not abolished the Mass, we celebrate it weekly, and more often if the people want,” “We embrace the Rites of the Church,” “Nothing is done among us that has not been done since the earliest of times,” etc. (my paraphrases). Catholicity is more than what we say, it is expressed in Churchly practice. When we reject the Confessions, when we fail to consider them, when we act and speak carelessly with respect to what separates us from the Gospel's enemies and what binds us in Unity with each other and the whole Church, we rob ourselves of our defense against the accusations of Rome and all of Scripture's enemies. We automatically exchange our catholicity for sectarianism. This was Richard Neuhaus' point – he hated Church Growth for driving Lutheranism outside of the Church into sectarianism.
One may ask, “How can I make a conscious connection between the words I speak and sing during the Divine Service, and what I believe?” This is an important question. I know very well that many of the individuals I worship next to on Sundays speak and sing the words as if the object is to form the sounds with their mouths in unison with others, without a thought to their content. This is rote practice. It is thoughtless. It is worthless and empty. It is wrong. Yet the solution is very simple. One needs only to think the words as they are said or sung. Make the words your own, and give expression to them as you join with others thinking, “These are my words, this is my confession, this is what I believe, this is what my Christian brothers believe, this is what the Church teaches and has always rightly taught, and I want everyone to hear it!” This is how one connects wholesome Christian ritual with Christian conscience – they pay attention, they think about what they are saying or singing, and give it due expression as word and song proceeds from their conscience. I discovered this for myself. My friend, above, discovered it for himself. No one told us these things – so we were rather surprised to discover one day that we had both landed on the same conclusion. Such a solution, though simple, is a matter of catechesis, for most folks, I would imagine. Pastors must teach these things.
I think these final two paragraphs, above, cover your statement that, “there is enormous value in Confessionalism” -- that is, rather than merely being valuable, Confessions and Confessionalism are necessary. But to the other points in your final two paragraphs, I'll submit that the reason for restlessness, for the desire among the laity for more and to do more, isn't dissatisfaction with liturgical worship, per se, or with Confessionalism at all (and I think you admit this), but is really that teaching among us hasn't caught up with the intellectual capabilities of the modern American. Our own demographic is shifting. We're not principally agrarian or blue collar workers, anymore. We are educated professionals, many of us with multiple advanced degrees. Even those without advanced education are forced, more and more, to engage society on increasingly sophisticated terms. Teaching that is well suited for those without education, does more than leave the rest of us feeling unfed – it is offensive to us. Another member of my congregation, a very competent student of the Scriptures, commented on this very thing recently. Himself having grown a little restless, he has spent some time investigating other WELS churches in the area, only to come back to us simply aghast, deeply offended that he could not find a single congregation outside of ours, where he did not feel as if he was being spoken to as a semi-literate child. Add to this the fact that this gentleman does not have a college degree, and one should see the point.
Anyway, I'll make this the end of another long-winded response. Just know that I have thought what you thought, and others I personally know have thought the same things, as well.
Freddy Finkelstein
January 14, 2009 5:17 PM
Freddy Finkelstein said...
Rob,
I checked out the article you referenced. An enjoyable and quick read! To quote from that article,
"He continues to run the bases and his understanding of sin deepens. He grows in the knowledge of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. His Faith increases and good works freely flow from his life. Much to his amazement, as he reads the Bible, he discovers that this is exactly what God wants for him.
"As he grows, he learns to love the worship of the Church. He discovers that various elements of the liturgy deal with either the Law, Gospel, Faith, or Good Works.
"The traditional hymnody of the Church enhances his experience of Christian growth. He sings with enthusiasm 'Alas, My God, My Sins are Great,' 'Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness,' 'My Faith Looks Up to Thee,' and 'May We Thy Precepts Lord Fulfill.' In so doing, he is running the bases again and growing."
In many ways, this is what my friend, above, meant when he referred to his flirtation with Contemporary Worship as a "maturity problem." Partly age and experience, mostly just immature faith.
Freddy Finkelstein
January 14, 2009 10:11 PM
“The most important thing is determining what it is going to take to reach people that aren’t coming to us,” says Hunter. “Anything that isn’t unbiblical is fair game. Let’s just try it! It’s up to our churches to step up and see what we can do to get the gospel out there.”
http://coffee hour is now church time
I thought readers might find this article interesting. Instead of going to the coffee house. Rev. Randy is bringing the coffee house to church. After the sermon the folks gather for a little coffee clutch.
If you look closely you don't find any mention of holding up the sacraments.
posted by John at 6:26 PM on Jan 13, 2009
