John said...
I wonder the same thing about the gimmicky children sermons. Why are these held in the sanctuary during the divine service? Most often, it seems that the children don't even grasp the concept the pastor (or lay woman) is trying to get across). It seems the real target audience is the adults. How can we minister to the kids and make the adults laugh at the same time? Hold a light bulb and give a kiddie sermon.
March 7, 2009 8:56 AM
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Benjamin Tomczak said...
Freddy ~
You asked to hear something "from the ministerium" regarding some of these issues you've been discussing. I mentioned this in a comment on some other post a while ago, but now I'll put the whole link in.
This is from the latest Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, by Prof. Daniel Leyrer. It's a "News and Note" comment about the role of the Lutheran Liturgy and Evangelism. And while it doesn't do what you asked for before, that is, lay out specific rules or guidelines about things, it does make a strong statement for the retention of the liturgy and the value of the liturgy itself, the Word and Sacrament in the context of the Western Rite, as a tool for proclamation and evangelism.
I received permission from Prof. Leyrer to use this article in my congregation's newsletter and posted it here:
http://stmarklutheran.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/the-lutheran-liturgy-and-evangelism/
It's well worth a couple minutes of reading.
Grace and peace,
Pr. Benjamin Tomczak
March 7, 2009 9:40 AM
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Freddy Finkelstein said...
dk, you ask my opinion of your statement: "Christians have to understand their culture and act with prudence when choosing how to worship..."
This, and what follows in that paragraph, are exactly the direction a critique of our own culture needs to take. In pursuing such a study, one major handicap we Americans suffer in our post, post-Enlightenment society, is direct and recent experience with paganism, and with pagan worship. We are ill-equipped to recognize it in our own culture, and to run from it the way we otherwise would. In many ways, this is what pop-music has become for Americans – a form of worship (and one could probably apply this to Westerners in general...). With the complete demise of the Great Tradition in the early 20th century, virtually all Americans today lack the intellectual tools to objectively assess popular amusements and receive them purely as entertainment, leaving non-Christians and weak Christians in our society with neither mental nor spiritual armor against Satan's perversion of them.
Everyone has heard the story of a recent missionary, who brought his family to Africa to continue a mission that had just been established among some newly converted natives. His daughter brought with her some cassette tapes of Christian pop-music, and would frequently listen to them in her living quarters. Of course, the music would waft outside of the walls, and could be heard by others. Finally, one day the village leader, unable to tolerate it, strode over to the missionary's daughter, violently snatched her cassettes away, and destroyed them. Asked later why he would do such a thing, the village leader responded, “The rhythms I heard in that music were the same rhythms we used to conjure the evil spirits.” Apparently, the village leader was formerly the village “witch-doctor,” and had a clear understanding of pagan forms and a respect for their danger.
The point isn't that “we'd better watch out, because using pop-music may conjure demons.” I don't believe that rhythms or incantations have any innate power to conjure Satan and his minions – they roam the Earth freely as it is. Rather, Satan has paralyzed certain cultures with fear, and has commanded them to use specific rhythms and incantations in their worship, to increase their burden of fear and tighten his grip about them. The point is, this village leader had the experience to recognize pagan forms, the prescience to understand their danger, and the conviction to act swiftly and decisively. He did the right thing.
In the West, in America especially, Satan doesn't use fear – at least, not in the same sense he uses fear among primitive cutlures. In our culture, he uses desire – wanton desire; and desire is precisely the message of today's popular forms. And not the message only, but the means of its propagation. It is a form of pagan worship, the object not being demonic, but man himself, and the purpose of the worship being to satiate the desires of this object. But do we have the prescience to understand the danger, and the conviction to act? I don't know. I don't know because I don't see wide recognition that popular amusements may constitute a form of paganism in our culture. Instead, I see such ideas casually and uncritically dismissed, because we are supposedly an "Enlightened Society." Instead, I see Christians inviting these forms into the church precisely because they work to satiate the desires of man.
A close friend of mine, a fairly accomplished Jazz guitarist and “Contemporary Worship” advocate, laughed once as he told me how one of his acquaintances in “praise band circles” plays in the style of Pink Floyd, “Every time I go to his church and hear him play, I can't help but think of Pink Floyd.” He thought it was funny. I responded, “You think it is no more than a laughing matter when, in the course of worship, your mind is drawn away from Christ and the Gospel, and is instead focused on Pink Floyd and their message? You think it is something to laugh about when it is the worship itself that draws you away from Christ?” He stopped chuckling. It is no laughing matter. The power of popular contemporary forms, and the associations that are immediately drawn from them, is no trivial matter, either.
(BTW, my friend is now not quite the CW advocate he once was... He still needs work, though.)
Freddy Finkelstein
March 7, 2009 10:40 AM
dk said...
Anon 8:49
No no. Don't get me wrong. I'm offended by the fooling around that goes on as well. I wrote:
"well rehearsed and reverent choir (kids or adults) singing God-centered songs"
Maybe I should've wrote "well behaved" too but I kinda included that with "reverent".
I have seen well-behaved kid's choirs (up front) that truly added to the church service. But being sensitive to our culture, knowing that the majority of people want to see a kid misbehave because it's 'cute' I think you're probably right. In another age where discipline was a virtue--one where the culture respected the musical offering of our kids, I would have to suggest that kids in front would be totally fine.
You know another thing that is totally shameful is when you can tell that the kids are trying hard and out of innocence they do something silly. People laugh. What does that tell the kids about the hymn they are singing to God? I agree with you John about the kiddy sermons. get rid of em. When I was a kid I could tell when I was being patronized.
These C&Cers speak with the same condescension that the politically liberal use.
March 7, 2009 12:05 PM
