conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

And let us not forget that the sanctuary is not the whole worship space, just a portion thereof.

Yeah yeah yeah...;-)

Nave
Sanctuary
And the all important sacristy. You have to admit that is part of the worship space. ;-)

Hmmm. I read the column and recognized some of the references -- can't recall where I've read that snippet from Annie Dillard before, but I know that I have somewhere.

Thing about "spiritual stagnation" is, in my opinion, that its opposite -- spiritual growth? -- can't be guaranteed by a church. In the end, all the heavy lifting of spiritual growth has to be done by the individual (and God, if you believe that way).

A church can make helpful stepping stones available to the individual. But the church can't fundamentally cause the person to use the stepping stones -- he or she has to decide to do that, and do the work him/herself.

Most of that work doesn't show. It is literally impossible to tell, for sure, whether anyone in a congregation is having a real "worship experience" vs. going through the motions. Or whether anyone sitting alone with a Bible is really praying. Spiritual experience doesn't show proof marks on the outside, and as any actor knows, its usual outward expressions can readily be manufactured.

Good points, Megan.

Scripture speaks of the fruit of the Spirit, of course. But that's as close as we come to measurable results. We can look at some behavior, but as you say...they can be easily manufactured.

But I think that is also the lesson in this. Many of the techniques (evangelism, marketing, promotion) that these organizations use are all about measurable results. Numbers crunching and such reigns supreme. And, if Beth is right, these tools cannot rightly help us discern "good worship." Worship is encounter with the divine. And, it would seem, involves crash helmets.

Tripp, OT because I cannot figure out where your email address is, I saw this and thought you might not've seen it...
http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=1861
Feel free not to post this, of course.

You're very right, Megan, that the church cannot do the work for the individual. You can lead the horse to water... But, I would argue that the individual cannot do it alone, either. The community is an essential part of the puzzle. We know and understand who God is as a community (Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer) and if we are indeed created in God's image, then the lone horse is not a true reflection of that image.

I get so frustrated in staff meetings when we talk about numbers and results, etc. etc. I know we have to pay attention to these things to some degree. It's such a dangerous tool to play with because it can so quickly draw our attention away from the real goal. Perhaps this impulse to count and measure is not of God, but rather 'satan' distracting us. And what's more, this is really only one of many distractions that so easily changes our focus from God to ourselves.

How does one truly measure love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?

I found the article uninteresting. Perhaps because,if you change the target of her Criticism, seeker sensitive and Mega churches, I have heard this sort of vague theology of worship my entire life.

I find it interesting that her article created a line of comments around outward expression and inward reality/experience. Since the article except in mentioning a particular type of church did not touch on an particular form of worship. Perhaps, there is the suspicion that the author must have some idea of what form this sort of appropriate attitude of worship would take. Though actually I don't think the author has this in mind but is taking issue with the attitude of the Mega Church and seeker sensitive churches.

I on the other hand do have a sense that form matters (even if it can't guarantee that every individual will get it or take it on authentically)and it is why the article seemed flat to me. Marks comment actually touches at a possible root: many protestants began calling the entire worship space the Sanctuary, it had theological reasons partially the denial that Jesus bodily and actually shows up in bread and wine (or so it seems to me) since nothing special happens at the altar table why should that space have a special name or a special symbolic. In a sense Worship Center is just the Protestant tendency of a dislike for creating a visible symbolic that separates and makes visible the sacred and the divine. God is supposed to be in all of us everywhere so why identify some act some space, some moment as special.

This then does bring us back to her article for this is what the author is getting at, the loss of the sense of the sacred, of separateness of the Holy that should cause us to tremble, just a little, in awe. One reading of Protestantism is the diffusing of that experience in an attempt to experience it either as common or at all times and in every space.

Megan, I'm with you on this one; well said.

Megan, Larry, and (gasp!) Mom...

I think you all are right...I think the church needs to give stepping stones. And I think that is what Beth's beef is about. The constant watering down of liturgy is actually eroding the stepping stones. There are never guarantees. But the very least a church can do is offer the stepping stones. The mega-church folk thought that's what they were doing. But now they are even questioning their own assumption.

Go here: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2007/10/willow_creek_re.html

They are saying what we all are saying. How do we offer stepping stones? How do we equip? That's one of the important questions that churches have to answer. Beth seems concerned about liturgical language in this conversation. And it is likely only one part of a larger conversation.

As you might suspect, I see things the other way. Churches should provide helmets for the people leaving the church. Worship arms us and offers spiritual protection to us from the temptations to forget God when we leave the church. To conceive of God as this untamable power within the church walls is to minimize His reasons for wanting us to be together in community. If God brings us surprises in worship, they are the surprises of resilience and grace, not those of might and power. One could argue that they are not mutually exclusive, but I suspect that they are more separate to our earthly perceptions than we are willing to admit.

As far as the growth issue and measurements - it is easier to see a path to these objective elements of the earthly success of a church co-existing with real faith than those I mentioned above. We simply have to remember that we are operating on multiple dimensions. When it becomes more important to grow in numbers than it is to grow in faith, we are out of balance. Butr when churches provide a means for members to reconcile with God, their immediate community and the world beyond that community and the vision of growth springs from that mindset, great things can happen. We are quick to infer that the mega churches had or have wrong motivations for their growth, but I suspect that they would not have thrived as they have simply because of marketing. I really think of these places as "Church 101". It is only natural that some people think they need to move on to a more personalized experience.

And yet, Rich, "growth in faith" can be neither seen nor measured. So how would you think you would know when it's happening to another person or group of people?

Megan,

Well, I think the reality of it is that we cannot measure the growth of anyone's faith but our own. One has to have faith that you and your church are providing the environment for personal spiritual growth, but my vision of faith doesn't comtemplate spiritual benchmarks that can be checked off a list. Faith is a journey with an unknown destination, not a destination in and of itself. We need to be satisfied with assesing our own spiritual maturation and be open to hear the requests of others when they articulate that which they need to make progress on their own path. We can measure how effective we are at responding to those needs.

One of the major flaws in nearly every denomination is the audacity to believe that they fully and exclusively understand what God wants from us. It is that closely held belief of inclusion and exclusion that drives this need to evaluate other's spiritual progress. I think that there is a difference between communities that come to a consensus of shared beliefs about interpretations and those that take it further to denigrate the interpretations of others as wrong. I think that the Southern Baptists have it all wrong, but I don't rule out the possiblility that they might be right. They just aren't right for me. And I worry that if they are right, I don't have a chance for any kind of redemption. On the other hand, a heaven full of those self-righteous folks would feel more like hell anyhow.

Finally, to some of the other points, I agree in principle that dumbed down liturgy hurts the long-range prospects for the church, but the calcification of the liturgy and the celebration of ignorance in the guise of mystery does the same. I still think that Vatican II had the right idea when it opened the door to new forms of worship in the Catholic church. Unfortunately, they banned the old forms and then acted like their job was done. Liturgy should be a mix of old and new. It should be the primary entrance into a life of faith for most people, but I believe that it doesn't need to be that for everyone.

Rich, we basically agree, though you see it from an inside-the-faith-experience perspective and I see it from an agnostically driven point of view.

But, I don't know that a person or collection of people can as you say above, "measure how effective we are at responding to those needs" as articulated in the requests of other people.

Of course, if the request is "we need child care available so we can spend an uninterrupted hour with a spiritual director," that's pretty easy to measure. You either provide the child care or you don't.

But if the request is "we need more effective spiritual direction" or "we need more inspiring liturgy" or another such less-quantifiable element, how would you define effectiveness at responding to those needs? Would it be a matter of getting the need rephrased into a form that has a measurable handle?

I would measure what I can and not obsess about what I cannot. If we need more spiritual direction and the same person makes the same complaint 6 months later, chances are good that we did not provide an effective response. In a business, the first thing we might check is the ability of the complainer to understand our response, but at a church, there is a tendency toward generousity. We would likely assume we need to do more of something, most likely related to improving communication about the issue.

The inspiring liturgy example is more difficult, as Tripp will agree. One man's ceiling is another man's floor. Generally speaking, the things that trip Tripp's trigger are not inspiring to me liturgically and vice versa. At this level, we simply have to try to create an environment where we can compromise and find what common ground we have. But, one can tell when the liturgy is out of sync with the majority of the congregation, and then, without a formal measuring system, change needs to occur.

But i think churches should focus on measuring the things like your child care example. Facilitating the ability of members to find God or their spiritual center is what we can do. God and the individual have to do the rest.