In Search of Church: A Journey, Not a Destination

The Times They Are A-Changin': A New Vision, A Renewed Mission?
(An Appendix)

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin'

Concerns, Changes and Conflicts at MVC

Note: I am no longer really a part of MVC anymore

From my observations as well as conversations with some of the congregation, it would seem that there are some strong views about the format of MVC's meetings. Some of what I'm hearing:

• the sermons are too long;
• the sermons are too canned; they should be more extemporaneous and passionate ("from the heart");
• we should sing more hymns;
• I didn't like it when so-and-so was leading the worship; he wasn't reverent enough;
• the sermons are too academic;
• the sermons are not didactic enough;
• the few times where the sermon was interactive and involved audience participation were the best learning experiences;
• so-and-so is very difficult to work with;
• I would love to attend the prayer meeting but it means being away from my family;
• so-and-so is too controlling.

This is not surprising since we have such a diverse group of people. It's certain that we'll never be able to please everyone (nor should that be our primary goal) no matter what we do. At the root of the above complaints are personality clashes and personal preferences. Can these complaints and differences be resolved?

Some Suggestions

I sometimes wonder about the feasibility of my ideas/ideals with respect to church life. The common refrain that I keep hearing is "I'm too busy". This is the reality: we are living in an age and society where people have little time to spare. Sometimes this is unavoidable; but I suspect a large part of the problem is priorities. Whatever the case may be, any suggestions for improving church life will be constrained by the simple fact that the Sunday corporate gathering is the only meeting where the majority of the congregation will be present on a regular basis. The astute remarks of Jeremy Thomson on this are apropos:

It seems to me that one of the dangers facing churches today is that of compensating for the deficiencies of certain activities by adding new ones to the programme. The result is that meetings proliferate, administration increases and people become too busy. Thus the 'committed' people have little time for their families, friends and neighbors, while those who 'just come to church on Sunday' fail to experience much of true church life. If we perceive that there are weaknesses in our central church gatherings, then it is better to improve them than to supplement them.

Jeremy Thomson, Preaching as Dialogue: Is the Sermon a Sacred Cow?, p. 22; emphasis mine.

With this stark reality in mind, how then do we accomodate the conflicting demands? How do we provide a meaningful experience for those who only come to the Sunday meeting? My wife suggested a simple principle: We must maximize the experience of our communal life together when we gather together as a body. That is to say, it's not about maximum efficiency, mere expediency or my expectations; rather, our aim should be to enhance the experience of our communal life together in Christ through thanksgiving, prayer, teaching, exhortation (and other spiritual gifts), as well as sharing in a common meal (the Lord's Supper). Perhaps we should re-evaluate all that we do in our Sunday meeting from this perspective.

I am suggesting that if we keep this in mind, we will be less uptight about "performing" and "perfection" and a rigid "programmed" approach to our corporate gatherings. We can still plan ahead to some degree, but we should come to the meeting expecting some "spontaneous surprises" from the Spirit. With this mindset and openness, we can have the freedom and flexibility to accomodate a varied approach w.r.t. the "basic ingredients" that make up our meeting together. For example:

• utilize a variety of communicative styles and formats for teaching:
  1. traditional monologue sermon;
  2. interactive dialogical teaching;
  3. Q & A session after the sermon;
  4. have someone share a personal experience that supplements the sermon;
  5. an extemporaneous exhortation from someone in response to the message;
  6. a "content-rich" didactic exposition of a text or doctrine (e.g. propitiation) instead of just devotional and inspirational messages;
  7. have a panel discussion on a difficult or controversial doctrine;
  8. a multi-perspectival, symphonic approach: have 2 or 3 speakers give short talks (10 min.) on the same topic (e.g. prayer);
  9. have listeners get into small groups in the middle of the talk to discuss a question and provide feedback;
  10. allow the congregation to suggest sermon topics;
  11. have an open Sunday where anyone in the congregation can share a question or concern that we as a body can wrestle with together.
• perhaps a current event (war in Iraq), hit movie (The Matrix) or best-seller (The Prayer of Jabez) can be the springboard for a time of open discussion. How else are we going to learn how to engage/critique culture and society using the scriptures? How else are we going to develop a Christian worldview? How else can we as a Body learn to discern?
• why can't the congregation suggest a song to sing during the course of the meeting? Perhaps the Spirit has placed a particular song on a person's heart as he/she listens to the sermon or someone's sharing. We can sing it acappella if the musicians don't have the music handy
• solicit feedback from the congregation as to what ideas they may have for changes and discuss them
• have a series of interactive teaching sessions on various aspects of NT church life. How else are we going to reach a greater degree of consensus if we don't read, study, and discuss the Bible together??
• from time to time, celebrate the Lord's Supper as a full common meal with festive joy
• have occasional "focused" meetings: one Sunday would be a prayer Sunday: a short teaching on prayer, then the rest of the meeting is given to praying; have a praise Sunday, where the bulk of the meeting is given over to praise/singing - both hymns and contemporary songs; have a contemplative "Silent Sunday", where a large block of time is set apart for quiet reflection after some short scripture reading. What I'm getting at is this: Who says our activities have to be of the same duration or follow a set order week after week??!! Can someone say "Variety"? "Creativity"? Or, to borrow the language of Deleuze and Guattari, we need to be more rhizomatic in our practice, in the sense of being more decentred, improvisional, and (potentially) more "messy" (i.e. not as polished or programmatic).
• experiment with the "atmosphere" and environment (as mentioned elsewhere)
• incorporate drama (e.g. a short skit to illustrate a point)

However, as helpful as the above suggestions may be, we must keep in mind that it is our everyday lives, lived Coram Deo, that sets the tone for our corporate meetings. While we can't totally disregard the mechanics of the meeting, we also cannot manufacture an experience of God. Therefore, we must be careful not to be so "meeting minded" that we lose sight of the larger picture of discipleship, which must be integrated with our everyday walk. Our meeting together corporately should simply be the overflowing and sharing of our life in Christ.

I remain optimistic (though very much aware of the resistance to change) about the prospects of renewal at MVC. For example, the overwhelmingly positive response to a more participatory alternative to the monologue sermon is a very positive sign. The unduly elevated status of the monologue sermon needs to get "down to earth". In the words of Francis Watson, "if the movement from distorted, monological communication to undistorted, dialogical communication is interpreted by the church as both redemptive and anticipatory of the eschatological future of the kingdom of God, then this interpretation must itself be dialogical ..." (Text, Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspective, p. 115). I strongly encourage the reader to have a look at Stuart Murray's fine article on "Interactive Preaching" as well as the other resources I've listed elsewhere. In Murray's article, he notes three important shifts that have challenged the traditional sermon approach:

1. "a cultural shift away from passive instruction to participatory learning"
2. "societal shift away from an integrated world to a world where networks overlap, a shift away from simplicity to complexity"
3. "a media shift away from linear to non-linear methods of conveying information, from logical argument to pic 'n' mix learning"

He then argues for interactive preaching as a viable alternative, "characterized by four features":

1. "it is learner-focused, concerned more about what is learned than what is taught, more about the outcome than the methodology"
2. "it is multi-voiced, not dominated by one voice but open to participation by many people. It recognizes that nobody has a monopoly on revelation or wisdom, that there are resources in the congregation that will enable the Word of God to be heard with much greater power and clarity if these are released"
3. "it is open-ended, prepared to leave loose ends and to live with uncertainty, to run the risk of allowing people space to think, to reflect, to explore, to ask how biblical teaching might apply to their situation"
4. " it is dialogue-based, making room for questions, comments, challenges, ideas and exploration"

But he is aware that there are obstacles to overcome:

• "Congregations are locked into monologue preaching and are threatened by anything different"
• "The sermon is seen as sacrosanct"
• "Preachers are very wary of interactive methods. We may feel insecure, liable to be put on the spot, doing something we were not trained to do"
• "Preachers prefer to preach monologue sermons. Not only is it safer, it feels more satisfying, more fulfilling, more 'anointed'. Putting it bluntly, preacher satisfaction takes precedence over congregational growth"

Murray concludes by saying, "If interactive preaching is to catch on, both preachers and congregations will need to be re-trained and re-orientated. This will take time. It will require persistence and courage. But it may be that nothing less is required for church life in the 21st century." I believe he is correct. In singling out the traditional monologue semon, I do not intend to disparage it as totally useless, but because it is a primary factor for the passivity of the congregation, and because I do not believe it is the most pedagogically effective way to foster learning, I feel we need to move to an interactive mode of communication more often.

Of course, to maximize interaction, consideration of the physical setting is important. Our current proxemic design of rows of pews facing the front is optimized for one-way communication flow, and is thus incongruent with the posture of open dialogue and mutual learning.

"... life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue."
Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogical Imagination, 293.

Space stands for divergence, multiplicity and possibility; while direction stands for convergence, uni(formi)ty and certainty. Direction is needed, otherwise people will adopt an "anything goes" attitude. After all, an overdose of space will lead to nihilism and relativism. ...

Dialog stands for a way of interacting that contrasts with our dominant, one-sided way of interaction that mortgages other possibilities ...

In dialog, people balance silence and proximity, i.e. strangeness and familiarity towards the Other. The destructive side of silence is turned into a constructive element of both passiveness and receptivity to the other ... A non-judgmental attitude by means of which one abstains from evaluative reactions prevails .... In proximity, people interact in mutual involvement. They construct shared identity, build on shared responsibility ...

The idea of "community of difference" represents a shift from a politics of power towards a politics of identity through which the other-i.e. different, suppressed, minor-voices are also included ...

Sven De Weerdt, "Dialoging: Exploring the Dialectics", Emergence 1:3 (1999): 67,68.

In keeping with many Christian's infatuation with "pomo", many are turning to a storytelling/narrative alternative to the traditonal sermon as a means of communicating God's truth. See for example, Mark Miller'sExperiential Storytelling: (Re) Discovering Narrative to Communicate God's Message (forthcoming).

Although I have refrained from serious theological reflection in my paper, this does not mean that I have not interacted with the scholarly community. Indeed, the more I have reflected on the theological aspects, the more I'm convinced that our church praxis is out of alignment with the Biblical portrait. As mentioned in the Introduction, I have not attempted to lay out my theological foundations in this paper; however, for the interested reader, here's a small sampling of the books I am engaging with:

• Stan Grenz, The Social God and the Relational Self
• Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity
• Robert Banks, Paul's Idea of Community
• Alistair McFadyen, The Call to Personhood: A Christian Theory of the Individual in Social Relationships
• Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom
• John Zizioulas, Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church
• Joseph Hellerman, The Ancient Church as Family
• Leonardo Boff, Holy Trinity, Perfect Community

In short, I believe that a more trinitarian and communitarian understanding of the Church would compel us to reflect that reality in our church life and practices. Are we prepared to let theological reflection and biblical fidelity shape our corporate gatherings?

Some Obstacles

"Free your mind" - Morpheus, in The Matrix

There are times in my frustration where I feel like shouting, "Let's drop the pious platitudes and put our beliefs into practice. Do we really believe that the Spirit will lead and direct us in our gatherings or not? Or are we afraid and unwilling to relinquish control, safety and security? Do we trust each other or not? Why is there a "hegemonic homogeneity" orchestrated by a few? Are our meetings a showcase for our planning genius and performing prowess or an expression of our communal life together and corporate doxology?". Fortunately, the Lord has been teaching me about patience, though I'm a slow learner!

Therefore, patience and prayer as well as ongoing dialogue and mutual learning must lead the way if we are to see changes at MVC. We all must remember to respect one another with love and humility. Above all, we must remember that MVC belongs to the Lord not to anyone of us.

As such, we must ask ourselves: Are we willing to scrutinize our traditions and prejudices in the searchlight of Scripture? Are we truly willing to let the Bible be our authoritative guide for our faith and practice? Are we truly a dynamic community of believers under the Headship of Christ, who respect one another and are willing to hear each other out? Are we unwilling or afraid to rock the boat, to upset the status quo? How can we help others see the need for change without causing undue stress, unhappiness or division? In the end, true change must result from the work of the Spirit in our midst.