Why go to Church?

So, it's been a while since I've posted. I've quit feeling guilty about it honestly; I've come to realize that it's just part of life.

I do, however, endeavor to be more active on here because as of late I've found I have ideas I'd like to flesh out. So here's the topic of the day and it's a big one that I've been kicking around for some 9 months, give or take.

Why go to church?

Before diving in, I'd like to remind the reader that this blog is specifically my open letter to the Christian church, so I'm not going to be discussing arguments for or against Christianity or religion per se. Instead my question is looking more at why a believer should go to a formal church at all. To begin, let me display some of the basic arguments/counter-arguments that many bring to the conversation. I'm going to give these in the form of affirmative statement (AS) - rebuttal (R):

AS1: Christians need community with other believers in order to reaffirm their faith and gain encouragement, correction, growth, etc. in the Christian life

R1: As a believer, one can find community with other believers in ones life without going to a formal church institution. This can be done through social groups, both formal and informal and not always in the same physical location, thanks to technology.

AS2: Christians need a church to help them learn more about the Christian life and how to live out Christ's message, usually via sermons, Sunday school classes, etc.

R2: There is nothing that a church/pastor can teach you that can't be learned by studying on your own, either at a library or online. The church doesn't hold special knowledge that can't be learned elsewhere, though to learn it elsewhere requires a certain level of self-motivation.

AS3: Believers need a place to worship God, both corporately and individually.

R3: One doesn't need to attend a formal church gathering to worship individually OR corporately. Several world religions (including Christianity) have long-standing traditions of worshiping solo and informally with other believers. The institution is simply not necessary.

So where does this leave us? 

Well I'm not certain, to be honest. I for one love going to church because I see a lot of value in the liturgy and tradition of being anchored to the catholic (little "c") church; of course this is an insufficient reason in and of itself, but it's one of my main reasons. Others are because I feel I have something to offer other congregants in the way of instruction and wisdom due to my years of study in theology and the church, but those are of course not all of the reasons.

Mainly, I wanted to point out with this brief article that there is a slew of arguments for and against being a part of or even just casually attending a formal church. I think this topic does take on new impetus for re-visitation in the current religious environment in the west as denominations are dying out and Christians of a new generation are exploring new ways to embody Christ in the world.

I'd love to hear the readers thoughts on the topic; if you are a member or even a regular attendee of a church, why do YOU go? or if you've left the formal institution that is Christianity, why did you leave?

pax,
CM

Part of a whole

In our culture (the one I was raised in; e.g. Midwest USA), we have this uncanny tendency to view the world in hyper-individualistic terms. When compared to our historical predecessors and numerous less-developed (if you could call that an accurate description) countries, our advanced technology and social structures have effectively allowed this worldview to thrive. We see it in advertising and marketing, we see it in the recent concern about the next generation losing basic social skills in favor of staring at their smartphones.

My purpose here is not to bag on technology or to complain that the Western mindset is all wrong. Instead, I want to paint a picture in your head that we are generally raised to see ourselves as the "center of the story", if you will. By way of contrast, we see many ancient cultures and some modern ones who have well-developed shame/honor systems in which the individuals see themselves as intrinsically part of a larger picture.

 

What I'm Getting At...

The reason that I wanted to get you to think in terms of how individualistic versus how communal our mindset as a people has become is because I want to make a statement that will either strike you as intrinsically correct or incorrect and I feel that whatever your worldview, in terms of seeing yourself as part of a larger whole or seeing yourself as the main character in your life-story, is going to be the deciding factor.

Your relationship with God is not a private thing

Let that one simmer for a minute....

On the one hand...

I could definitely see the argument that comes from the individualistic worldview: "Hey, wait a second, my life is my life and my prayers are private and the Bible says to not let your prayers be seen in a public place but to pray in private and do good works in anonymity. And furthermore, the Bible says that only God can judge me and so if I got God on my side, who can say what about my relationship with him? It's none of anyone's business".

Just then, I tried to come up with a couple of the most common arguments; here's why they're unfounded...

While it's true that we have private lives and that maintaining a healthy internal spiritual life is vital to the human experience, the Bible in no way promotes or supports the kind of individualism we have wedged into the Christian tradition. When it speaks of not letting your prayers be seen and of doing good works secretly, the Spirit-inspired authors were talking about our pride: don't let pride be the reason you pray passionately or do things for others. Addressing the last little argument above, the Bible says that Christians are to allow God to be the judge of those who wrong us instead of trying to exact vengeance ourselves. This, however, is not equivocal to saying "only God can judge me"; no, everyone can judge you - most people will - but it is specifically because everyone has the capacity to judge that the command to not judge is important to the Christian life. Don't judge, it's God's job - not "only God can judge me".

On the other hand...

Christians believe that the Bible is perfect for describing how humans are to live with God and each other. If we believe this, then the first bit of my argument above ("my life is my life...) is total smoke; it doesn't hold. This is because the type of community and life that Christians are to live is to be one where Christ is the center of the picture, the main character of the story and the head of our community. So, the individualistic worldview that we've received from our culture is to be completely forsaken in favor of the communal and Christocentric worldview of Jesus. This is why our relationships with God are not private: our lives are not private.

How does this work with maintaining an internal spiritual life?

I will attempt to reconcile these two important facets of the Christian life - private spiritual life and communal faith - by way of an analogy. Let's think of this in terms of a sports team. I train Crossfit in which all work out routines are timed or scored in some way. This naturally evolved into competitions in which there are some partner events, individual events and team events. In some competitions there are teams of four or five in which they compete against other teams to accomplish the exercises set before them. 

As a member of a competitive team, everything I do in training as an individual is going to affect the whole, so there is a large portion of my training regimen that must keep in mind that there is a bigger picture at stake here and more going on than what I do as an individual.  However, this needs to be balanced with the fact that I am an individual and have personal strengths and weaknesses to contend with and, in training, these are things to focus on not to the end of becoming a greater me, but to make the team a greater contender for victory.

So...

A Christian faces this kind of tension; we are to be mindful of the fact that we are bringing the Kingdom of God to earth and that everything we do affects this overall goal and big picture. We are part of a larger community: the Church throughout history and the world. We are, however, individuals who have personal baggage and spiritual lives that need cleaned up, improved and maintained. We should not, however, let ourselves ever be deceived into thinking that we can focus solely on one of these two modes of spiritual living. We are both a community and individuals. Hold this tension because our individual relationships with God are public, communal and not private; they are part of a whole.

peace,

C.M.

 

Don't Build Communities

Have you ever had one of those days where you think that you'd be just absolutely happy with life if you were locked away in a log cabin somewhere in the back mountains of Canada or something? No? oh, well, I have those moments.

Truth be told, despite being a very outspoken and out-going person and despite having been exposed to stages and performance of one type or another since toddler-dom, I am a very introverted and private person; that is, I am refreshed by solitude and quiet. The level of quiet that I enjoy can drive some people batty; but it works for me. I think that this is partially why I have a natural affinity for the mystic corners of my Christian faith and find asceticism very attractive; namely, because I like to sit, think, be out in nature and embrace solitude. While there is great benefit to being able to stop, think, meditate, work through, feel and meet with the divine, I think that there is also a greater calling on the life of a Christian.

We are to love

Simple, right? Well, yes and no. If we're to love like Christ did and be known by our love...furthermore, if God is love....then one thing is certain: we must be with people. For some, like my brilliant wife, people are where it's at. She thrives off of hosting gatherings and going out to do things for people; it's one of her most beautiful qualities; this is not so with me. In fact, sometimes after being in large crowds for a long time, I feel drained and empty. What does this mean? well, what it doesn't mean is that I have a free pass to disconnect with people - even for "holy" reasons.

Love, you see, is intrinsically social - you need people in order to do it. Sure, there's self-love or a certain love for inanimate objects, but the deepest and most meaningful types of love are reciprocal.

As a member of the millennial generation, I know all too well how easy it is to disconnect because we're so "connected". Call me old fashioned, but it makes me sad to be in a room of people and observe all of them staring at little plastic boxes of wires, circuits and electricity in the palm of their hands. What happened to conversation? What happened to meeting new people? My dad is a master at the art of befriending strangers...rather, he has his Doctorate degree in spending hours in the aisle at the store talking to a person he just met....if there's a degree for that.

The Church today - the people of Christ - need to be intentional about building connections; if we do this, community necessarily follows. Sometimes we try to build communities through programs and schemes like small groups or Sunday school classes or church outings or "coffee hours" and some of this works but if we're looking for real relationships - something deep and lasting - the kind Jesus built with his followers, we need to focus on simply connecting with individuals, individually. By setting out to build a community instead of setting out to get to know the smelly kid at the end of the pew (no pun intended), we're essentially trying to become an Olympic level athlete in a week after being a couch potato for 20+ years or (to use the old saying) we're trying to eat a whole elephant at once. Attacking the big picture in one shot is self-defeating because we forget that communities are intrinsically built on a base of individualism - no one wants to just be a face in a crowed, so why do we approach Christian community this way?

Instead of communities, we should try to build connections.

So, while I might love to be alone and while we might keep an eye on the "big picture" in terms of building Christian communities, we must also realize that not only do we need people, but we need individual connective relationships. These have longevity and show the glory of the Kingdom of God just a little more clearly than otherwise.

Things to think about:
How do you build community?
How do you build connections?
Are you one who likes to hide from people or go out?
Could you or your church be better at connecting people?

Peace,
C.M.

Music in Church: a repost

So, a while back I wrote this blog post and it seemed to be well-read, so I thought I'd re-post it in my new address so it would be more accessible...I might do that from time to time as I look through old stuff...

Today I have a topic to think about and you all get front seats to this thought storm; here goes:

As one who was brought up in church, I got involved with worship music somewhere around 8th grade. Since then I have been a part of music teams as they transitioned from "traditional" (whatever that means) music to more "contemporary" (again, that's pretty non-descriptive) music. I've also had the incredible experience of playing a role in re-building a worship music program from the studs. Along with all of that, I've studied for a worship music minor (that I decided to drop my senior year of my undergrad college experience) and have studied theology, philosophy and church history intensely for going on 4 years now.

I preface this post with some of my credentials in order to say that I have probably spent more time thinking about how we as western, American, Evangelical, Protestant, mostly modern Christians worship today than your average Christian.

Qualifying statement: This does NOT in any way make me a better Christian, person, etc. but it does make me more likely to have made some observations that others may not have come across.

While there are several different aspects to our worship which I could comment on, I  don't intend this blog to be an all inclusive thought project, so let me establish some parameters:

1. I want to begin by delineating between what I'll call a "private worship life" and a "corporate worship life". There are many nuances here, but I'm going to use these broad categories in order to remain focused.
2. I have no intention on attacking any practice currently in place. Over against any hard teaching, I only want to flesh out some of my recent observations and reflections, so please try and take this for what its worth and if you don't like it, ignore it.
3. While there are many many ways that Christians have worshiped throughout the life of the Church and stretching back into our Jewish heritage, I will only be speaking of things that are relevant to my western context because that is where I have personal experience. Also, this lets me off the hook for having to do research just to write this blog.

ok, I think that's most of it, pressing on...

Today, I want to assess how we choose which songs to play at church. Now, while I think that there are many issues with how we do church (everything from over-emphasizing Sunday worship to marginalizing congregation participation and beyond, but that's a bit outside the established parameters), I think that if we accept the generally established music utilization in our Sunday gatherings, we ought to give due diligence with what kind of music is played.

Before getting too far in to what songs we choose, I think that it would be good to put some preliminaries out there about our Sunday worship:

1. I think that it is most correct to approach Sunday for what it is; specifically, it is a corporate worship gathering. This means that, against our current culture of hyper-individualism (no citation, sorry), we should spend this time coming close to each other. We often fail on this point and it is evidenced in many ways, some of which are how we tend to sit only with our family and often not right next to anyone else if we can avoid it. By way of example, I remember getting a bizarre look when I sat next to a guy who was not a family member and I didn't leave a space in between us... man-law violated, I know. But we should not shy away from this nearness; we are part of the body of Christ and no hand would try and shy away from its fingers.
2. Closely related to the above, this is specifically NOT individual worship time. My interior life is maintained daily so, I should not feel the need to hijack this time to selfishly serve my lacking spiritual life. We are gathered for each other as much as we are gathered for ourselves...perhaps more. There are many implications of this that I encourage all to think about, but there you have it.
3. As much as our culture has made this a "show" in which only a few men (rarely women) are highlighted an given the stage, we are all to engage which is not the same as saying "we are all to sing along". No, instead, we should feel that the service would not quite be the same if we were gone; that kind of impact. Maybe this happens behind the scenes like in giving the preacher/teacher or band leader feed back, but however it occurs, we ought to feel some ownership of this time.

So, with those preliminaries out there, we turn our attention to the music itself. I think that there are many things to be conscious of, not only as music leaders but also as elders, leaders, worshipers and members of the body who are being asked to sing the words on the screen week in and week out. The qualifiers that I'll list below for songs are not meant to be all-inclusive and they certainly are my opinions, but I think that they transcend music style preferences and volume of music etc. So, to be more pointed, my opinions here have little to do with what kind of music is being played or how its played, but they are focused on the content of the songs. Lets begin:

1. Our music should be theologically sound. While you may be tempted to say "duh", we often don't put songs through the ringer. I think far too often we gauge the value of a song based on the feeling we personally get or the response of the crowd without very much thought given to the truth or context of our words. Without pointing to specific songs (because I do care about offending people and their song preferences), some problems that come to mind are like using the word "lord" without acknowledging that this isn't simply an interchangeable name for "God" or "Jesus", but is instead a title that reflects a relationship that may or may not be real for everyone in the congregation. Another issue may be in using metaphors with no explanation. This is one that happens with hymns often (i.e. what's an Ebenezer? Does everyone in your congregation know that? Is it a good metaphor for our current context?). We ought to be theologically thoughtful.
2. Our music should be corporate in voice. Again, we're discussing corporate worship settings, so I believe we should more or less stay away from songs that are heavy with "I", "me", "my life", etc. to the exclusion of more corporate language like "your church", "the bride", "the kingdom", etc. When we fail to avoid those songs, what happens is that we perpetuate the selfish, hyper-individualization that our culture pushes that prizes our individual comfort over community. This is starkly anti-Christian. Now, I should say that those songs often elicit worship because we connect to them more easily and, as a song writer, I have myself written songs like that, so I think there is value in them. I only want to say that their proper place is in our private lives, not in a larger communal setting. Sadly, this may mean re-vamping most churches musical libraries; but I think it's worth it.
3. Our music should teach. I feel like it is more or less irrefutable that music teaches. This is why everyone was mad at Eminem when I was kid. Ironically, he said in a song "music can alter moods and talk to you..." and here, I have to agree. Music is so much easier to remember than oral, written or rote-memorized teachings. With that in mind, I think that we ought to be careful what kind of things our songs teach. Not just theology, but in building a picture of God, we ought to take care. I believe that our mental picture of God's character is probably the single most important part of our worldview and as such, we ought to be careful what kind of mental picture we are painting. Are we perpetuating the butler God? Are we perpetuating the tamed and cuddly Jesus? Are perpetuating the angry, warrior God? The cosmic vending machine? a deist or heretical picture? I know this can seem like a slippery slope, but we ought to seriously ask these questions of the music that we're asking people to sing.

Those are just three things that I think about when thinking about songs we sing in church. I hope that discussion opens up in the comments section or through different social media venues. Most of all, I hope that this lands in front of church leaders. When I began to first think of myself as a Christian leader, I was terrified for several reasons (among which was not feeling qualified). Since then, I have more confidently come to terms with that role, but the one thing that has not left me was the urgency of the office; that is, the seriousness and eternal implications of what I may teach people. After all, who wants to go swimming with cement shoes...or a mill-stone around the neck...At any rate, I fear that the consequences could be dire if we mislead people with the music we put in their mouths. God will move regardless of our foolishness, but we should still honor the call we've answered.

I'm sorry if I offended. Truly, my goal with this entire blog is simply to better the church and provide space for me to work out my own beliefs and in that context, I thank you for following along. I would only ask, if you were offended, that you ask yourself why. Furthermore, feel free to open it to discussion; often we learn best together.

Peace,
C.M.