Cautiously Bold

Last week, I started a conversation on Twitter about changing worship forms and then continued it here on Pastor40. My basic point was that church leadership should be boldly blazing a new trail of creative worship expression and not be bound by "the way we've always done things." There was general agreement about the overall need for change, but my friends/colleagues also offered a healthy dose of caution. Here is a summary of their caveats:

1) The labels of "traditional" and "contemporary" are problematic in and of themselves. What is considered traditional in one place might be quite radical in another. Also, "contemporary" is a constantly moving target. Any new form of worship expression, if accepted, quickly becomes tradition and "the way we do things here."

2) Worship is not a marketable product that we should adapt to fit the demands of our target demographic. Instead, it is the embodiment of Christ as expressed by the congregation of believers. In other words, worship is the corporate expression of the church's faith carried out for God's benefit. It is not a tool for attracting new members.

3) Worship style is not the change that is needed. Too many churches fall into the trap of thinking that a contemporary service is the answer to their membership decline. But any form of worship can be rote, boring, and uninspiring. And any form can be an authentic, compelling, and attractive to newcomers. What truly makes for great worship is that it comes from the heart of a faith community that truly loves and serves God. Often, the changes that need to be made go a lot deeper than the worship service.

4) Change should happen gradually. By nature, churches are organizations that value stability and continuity - especially in this era of rapid social, political, and technological change. For many churchgoers, worship is the only aspect of their lives that is still familiar and makes sense. Small, almost imperceptible changes carried out methodically over time are much more likely to be accepted and embraced.

5) Change must come from the people, not from the pastor. In churches that have successfully re-formed their worship, the impetus has been from the ground up. Clergy have a role in facilitating and resourcing new visions, but it is impossible to force something new on a congregation that does not want it. This requires that lay people take ownership, that pastors maintain a delicate balance of leading and following, and that everyone trusts that the Holy Spirit is the one in charge.

6) Change requires long-term pastoral leadership. In many churches, the members have seen a number of pastors come and go in their time. As a result, they have difficulty investing in change with a leader they expect to be leaving after five or six years. Research is beginning to show that for lasting congregational change, pastorates of much longer duration - at least 15 to 20 years - are required. This requires a heavy dose of patience on the part of clergy (admittedly not my strong suit), and time for the membership to develop a deep and abiding sense of trust.

Every one of these caveats from my friends/colleagues is valid. Pastors who feel called to transform worship and any other aspect of a congregation will run into brick wall after brick wall if they do not heed their wisdom. Nonetheless, these same caveats can also become stumbling blocks. It's a double-edged sword, because they can also become excuses not to seek changes at all.

In the churches I've served, I've noticed that people will rarely oppose new ideas in an outright fashion. They will, however, throw speed bump after speed bump into the process, often in the form of one of these caveats, until the idea becomes unworkable. Often, there seems to be one or two lay leaders who are informally appointed to this role of reigning in the pastor's vision. It's a systems issue, and church systems are norioiusly resistant to change. Change-minded leaders can unwittingly become part of the system's resistance to change if they overuse these caveats.

Which is why, despite my agreement with all of the above cautions, the comment I liked most from this conversation was just the opposite. It was from Greg Smith, who has own blog So What Faith.

"I, for one, am of the mind that we must do more not less to encourage the conversation at the parish level and to be bold in our experimentation with new possibilities, including those for worship."

As long as we keep that attitude, these caveats will serve us well, not be a stumbling block.

The Dreams For Tomorrow vs. The Reality Of Today

(This post is Part 2 of a series on the struggle to maintain idealism. Part 1 can be found here.)



Earlier today, I became involved in a discouraging conversation on Twitter. It focused on the matter of worship in the mainline church and whether new styles are practical and/or necessary. I was trying to make the point that for many people, traditional worship is rote and uninspiring. They attend more out of duty than for a genuine and exciting experience of God’s presence. Because that sense of obligation is fading as the church gradually recedes from the cultural mainstream, changes will be necessary if the church is to remain vital and strong in coming decades.

Much to my surprise, I received a good bit of resistance from the group of mostly progressive church leaders. Where I thought I would find abundant resonance to the idea of boldly blazing a new trail of creative faith expression, I instead received a litany of reasons why change efforts are risky/impractical/unnecessary/irresponsible/arrogant. On the whole, my desire for a new vision was not affirmed, and even the concept of moving forward was brought into question.

I ended the conversation with a frank expression of my frustration, accusing the participants of splitting hairs and lacking vision. Upon further reflection, I admit that my reaction was a bit rash, but it is born out of a deep and genuine angst over the prevalent “we fear change” mentality in the mainline church. It’s an angst that I imagine everyone in that Twitter conversation shares on some level, and it can lead even those who are favorable to change to respond negatively when others call for it. I’ve caught myself doing it sometimes.

The reason this happens is related to my previous blog on idealism and its tendency to fade over time. I observed that a lot of people (especially ministers) harbor high ideals for changing the world when they are young and in school, but gradually let go of these dreams as they become established in the real world.

One reason for this was revealed by today’s Twitter conversation. In an environment such as seminary, students are encouraged to think about the future. Discussions of what the church should look like in 10, 50, or even 100 years are common.

Once we hit the ground, however, and must deal with the day-to-day realities of a congregation, the focus changes dramatically. There might be precious little time to consider what worship should look like in 20 years, because we are consumed with what we’re going to do this coming Sunday. And in every church I’ve been in, staff and committees have rarely talked about what will happen more than six months into the future.

In such “present-centered” work environments, idealism naturally takes a back seat to practicality and realism. It’s no surprise, therefore, that concerns about how current church members will respond to change take precedence over what will happen in a generation if we don’t change.

Which is where most of the folks I got so frustrated with on Twitter seem to be. In theory, they might agree with the need for an evolving long-term vision of worship. In a seminary class, we probably would have had the kind of affirming, uplifting conversation about this that I was hoping for. We would have been free to focus on the larger sweep of church history and where we are heading beyond the horizon of the current church season.

But on a random Wednesday morning, when we’re all neck-deep in our preparations for another Sunday and another busy fall, it turned out differently. Instead of the forest of idealism, it was all about the trees of reality, about “what we are doing right now.” And right now, as much as it might be needed, it is quite difficult to be an agent of change in an institution that is so steeped in tradition.

Anyone leading a traditional mainline church faces this tension between long-term vision and short-term practicality. For the next five to ten years, I know that my church will continue to thrive with the same service it’s been doing. But if we want to remain vital beyond that, we have to start today in forming a new concept of worship (and a lot of other practices, too).

So the question I pose is this: How do we honor both? How do we be sensitive to the concerns of the present day without sacrificing our long-term future? Or do we have to choose?