Once again, Isaac Wardell and the Bifrost Arts team are asking big, deep, theologically important questions about the role worship plays…both in church and in the world…
Welcome! Thanks for checking out my blog about music, worship, and trying to join God in his work to restore the world. I'm excited to share some ideas – in both directions. Let the conversation begin. . .
Once again, Isaac Wardell and the Bifrost Arts team are asking big, deep, theologically important questions about the role worship plays…both in church and in the world…
Sami Awad
This Friday, Carl Medearis is hosting a video conference call with Sami Awad – one of the true Palestinian leaders of peace and reconciliation.
And you are invited to join in.
I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Sami over the last couple years, both in Palestine and here in America, and I can honestly say that there is NO ONE I respect more in terms of actual peacemaking. No one. People refer to him as the “Palestinian MLK” or the “Palestinian Gandhi”…and I think they’re absolutely right.
Here’s what Carl has to say about Sami and this Friday’s conversation:
Dear Friend,
I first met Sami Awad several years ago while taking some friends to Israel and Palestine. We were visiting with the President of Bethlehem Bible College. And it just so happens that the founder and President of BBC is Bishara Awad – Sami’s father.
A short backstory for context. At this point we had already left Lebanon and were living back here in Colorado. We had worked with Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon for years. I saw their misery. Felt their pain. Also experienced their anger – often unbridled and unreasonable anger.
I would say to them “You know how much we love you and are with you, but for every stone you throw and every outburst you show, you set your cause back for living a normal life by ten years. What you need is a Palestinian Gandhi type figure. Someone who will love their enemy through non-violent actions. Where is that man?”
So when I met Sami on that day in 2006 in Bethlehem, I cried. Like a baby. Wept. Broke down. Here was the man I had dreamed of and prayed for. Here was a Palestinian – living in the West Bank – who said things like “More than a two-state solution, what Palestinians need is equality. Freedom. And that comes from within them, not from the outside.”
He said, “If my enemies are Israelis, and Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies’ than I have to ask myself how I’m doing with that.”
But the clincher in this new friendship was when I heard he had traveled to the Nazi death camps for ten days – “To feel the pain of the Israelis.” He understood that if he was going to love his enemies, truly love them – or as he says “Become one with them as you would love your spouse”, then he had to understand them. Including the pain of their history. He spent the night in a gas chamber. He wept where they had wept. And it changed him forever.
Today he will be meeting with President Obama – hopefully personally. Sami knows that the Israelis are hurt. That they react to the Palestinians out of the pain of their history. “Never again” is the cry of the broken Jewish hearts. And “who better to heal their wounds then their neighbors – us” says Sami. Amazing.
This is who we will be talking with on Video this Friday at noon Mountain Time. You will be changed by that conversation if you join in with us.
There is a small fee to make this possible. And the only reason we are charging you for these conversations, is that it’s costing us a lot of money to host them and we’re trying to come close to break-even. This is the first of our monthly calls with people of this caliber, and these live calls are available exclusively to our premium subscribers at Middle East Experience.
So, here’s what you need to do.
1. Sign up for the Premium Subscription at www.MiddleEastExperience.com.
2. You will then receive instructions via e-mail before Friday on how to join the live call. Follow the instructions.
Thanks,
Carl & Chris
On Feb 23rd, I posted some thoughts from the brilliant book “To Change the World”. These profound and challenging ideas have really been messing with me…in a good way…I think. And the author takes it deeper. I’ve needed to read this paragraph multiple times already…
“at every point of challenge and change, we find a rich source of patronage that provided resources for
intellectuals and educators who, in the context of dense networks, imagine, theorize, and propagate an
alternative culture. Often enough, alongside these elites are artists, poets, musicians, and the like who
symbolize, narrate, and popularize this vision. New institutions are created that give form to that culture,
enact it, and, in so doing, give tangible expression to it. Together, these overlapping networks of leaders
and resources form a vibrant cultural economy that gives articulation, in multiple forms, and critical mass
to the ideals and practices and goods of the alternative culture in ways that both defy yet still resonate with
the existing social environment. These networks of leaders and the various resources they bring may or
may not originate in the “center” of cultural production, but they do not gain traction in the larger social
world until they do challenge, penetrate, and redefine the status structure at the center of cultural life.
Invariably, as we have seen, this process results in conflict. As to politics, where present, it contributes
most effectively to the process of cultural change not when it imposes a cultural agenda but when it creates
space for a new way of thinking and living to develop and flourish.” (James Hunter)
Honolulu 2013
This week, I’m thrilled to get to teach two electives at the Honolulu 2013 conference. Certainly, I’m happy to come to Hawaii for the first time, but more than that, I LOVE the conversation about worship, liturgy, formation, and the future. I’m far from an expert on anything, but soooo passionate about the journey.
As promised, here are my notes, slides, and resource list…
Elective 1: Moving Beyond Singing into something much more Mysterious, Subversive, and Beautiful.
Worship is this huge, beautiful, epic, mysterious, global, active, intimate human/divine interaction, but when someone says “Okay, it’s time to worship”, we all assume “It’s time to sing.” This is not bad, of course. Singing is a fantastic way to worship God. But it’s only one part of the whole. This breakout will explore ways to move beyond our usual framework, and in doing so, help more and more people engage with more and more of The Almighty God.
Moving Beyond Singing Niequist notes
Moving Beyond Singing .ppt slides
Elective 2: Evangelical Worship Leading, The Liturgy, and me.
While leading worship in a mega-church for the last ten years (at Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, MI and Willow Creek in Chicago, IL), I’ve been feeling more and more drawn to The Liturgy – both personally and as a worship pastor. The depth, reverence, and historical grounding have been profoundly moving. But how does this fit into an evangelical mega-church with big screens and moving lights? Is there a way to bring these ancient practices into this modern context, or are they fundamentally incompatible? In this breakout, I’ll share what I’m learning, what I’m wrestling with, and a few big mistakes I’ve made. And then we’ll dream together about the future.
Worship, Liturgy and Me Niequist notes
Worship Liturgy and Me .ppt slides
Resources:
The Story of A New Liturgy (video)
Ian Cron: “Becoming the Liturgy” (video)
Glenn Packiam’s blog
“Church is Bigger Than the Church” (my article for Relevant)
“Common Prayer”, Clainborne, Wilson-Hartgrove
The Book of Common Prayer online
Brian Mclaren’s open letter to Worship Songwriters
Books:
“A Guide to the Sacraments” John Macquarrie
“The Immortal Diamond”, Fr. Richard Rohr
“Everything Belongs”, Fr Richard Rohr
“The Holy Longing”, Fr Ronald Rolheiser
“Start with Why?”, Simon Sinek
“To Change the World”, James Hunter
“Finding Our Way”, Margaret Wheatley
“Honest to God”, John Robinson
“Liturgy For Living”, Weil, Price
“The Wisdom Jesus”, Cynthia Bourgeault
Examples (video):
A New Liturgy No 4: Creation (live at Willow Creek)
A New Liturgy No 2: Blessed to Be a Blessing (live at Axis): (password = liveliturgy)
Love Can Change the World / St Francis / Have Thine Own Way (live at Willow)
The Resistance Experience (live at Willow)
Worship band IN the room (live at Willow)
The Mystery of Faith
Today, my friend Glenn Packiam is releasing a new EP and book called “The Mystery of Faith“. Glenn has been asking profoundly important questions about the nature of worship and formation in the church, and this project was the result. I sincerely think every worship leader should dig into this with him. (Here are a few thoughts about Glenn I posted last week).
In the book’s forward, Ian Cron writes:
As I travel the country, it’s clear that a much-needed shift is taking place. Worship leaders are exhausted. The weekly pressure to plan and deliver innovative, seismically moving, crowd-attracting worship services is unsustainable.
Essential and far-reaching questions are surfacing: is contemporary worship compassing people toward a transfiguring encounter with God or pandering to our culture’s addiction to peak experiences, entertainment, and celebrity? Has the word relevant become code for “keep the consumer satisfied”? Do services designed around themes address the longings of people in search of a narrative that will make sense of their lives? Have we become more focused on “Lights, Camera, Action,” than on “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”?…
To my worship leader friends: Does this capture your experience well? What do you feel when you read it?
To my non-worship-leader friends who attend church: What does reading this assessment make you think or ask or feel?
Here’s how Glenn has responded…
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Aaron
Wow, this is inspiring. She’s not trying to update the old ideas of selling music; Amanda Palmer is rediscovering a whole new path of musicians connecting with music-lovers…
On Wednesday night at Willow, we sang an old song of mine called “Here Are My Hands“. I wrote this song in a rather dark, fragile season of my life…and it’s still something I find myself needing to sing and pray quite often. Maybe these simple words will be helpful to you today…
Last weekend I discovered a brilliant book called To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. Basically, the author James Davison Hunter builds a case that our normal assumptions about changing the world are absolutely wrong. He especially takes exception to the idea that genius individuals are largely responsible for cultural transformation, because history shows it to always be more complicated and multifaceted. Better said…
“In the end, the good that was produced did not come about through literary, textual, musical, and artistic
genius alone. Nor was it the result of brilliant administrative initiative. By the same token, neither was it a
creation of the extraordinary wealth and patronage of the nobility. It was, of course, a result of the coming
together of all three at once.” (To Change the World, 64)
In my idealism, I’ve always believed that a genius idea alone can change the world. But history does not support this. All three are required: genius, administration, and funding. Ideas, organization, and resources. Plus a thousand other overlapping factors of chance, grace, culture, and timing.
This raises two big feelings in me: First, respect. For every William Wilberforce or Martin Luther King Jr. who are rightly praised and placed in the history books, there are thousands of men and women who played
smaller but indispensable roles. As much as history loves to romanticize the Lone Ranger heroes, the reality is
that they are only the tip of an iceberg. We will never know most of the people who worked and sacrificed and
died to change this world. But they are worthy of our respect.
Second, humility. No matter what I think I can do, I am utterly and hopelessly dependent on the men and
women who can do what I could never dream. And that is beautiful. It’s not all dependent on your gift or mine…
but on OUR gifts. Together.
What is one thing you can bring to this world? What is one thing you are hopelessly dependent on someone else to bring? Are you ready to link arms, jump in, and help change the world?
I’m only a part of the Story
But wholly a part of the Story
So I’ll take my part in this Story
Get out of myself, get over myself
Get lost in the story (with) somebody else
(Lyrics from Bless, Liturgy No 2)
In a couple weeks, Shauna is releasing her new book “Bread and Wine“. I know that I’m not objective – ha – but this book is so freaking good! Here is a first peek…
I posted this video to the A New Liturgy worship blog today, but it’s so good that I had to share it here also. You probably won’t agree with every point they make, but I hope you find it compelling and challenging…
The Idolatry of Youth Culture in Worship from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo
Apartheid Museum
Last week I had the privilege of spending the afternoon in the Apartheid Museum in Soweto, South Africa.
The story of injustice is heartbreaking and overwhelming - especially when you consider that apartheid
didn’t fall until 1994! But one comment hit me hard and hasn’t let go…
“The church was the one place that the black community could honestly express their hurt, sorrow,
and anger at this injustice. During Monday through Saturday, they would be arrested (or worse)
for speaking out against the oppression, but their Church became a sanctuary to protest the evil
that was breaking their backs and breaking God’s heart.”
This was a beautiful ray of light in a very dark story. And it got me thinking…
Is the American church still a safe place to speak out against injustice and evil?
Is it even possible for our churches to be a center for holy protest? Or are we so afraid of being political
that we choose to ignore much of what is going on in the world?
Right now, there seem to be two primary ways that churches engage with the issues of our time:
(1) Overly-align with one political party (like the Christian Right) or (2) Avoid the issues and focus
on individual’s hearts (like many evangelical churches). Our churches tend to be overly-partisan or
completely absent from the conversation.
And therefore, Christians tend to be offensive or innocuous. Loud-clanging gongs or irrelevant smiles.
Shrewd serpents or innocent doves. But rarely both. (Matthew 10:16)
Is there a third way? Can we actually be both? How can the church be a place of justice, truth, love, and
holy protest against the things that break God’s heart without turning into a Political Action Committee?
Can the church regain its prophetic voice without losing our spiritual grounding? Is that even possible
in today’s world? If so, what do you think it would look like?
These questions and ideas won’t stop swirling around in my mind, and I can’t yet make sense of it all.
(Maybe it’s the jet lag!) I’d love to hear what you think.
Do you believe that Christians should play a role in the major issues of our day? Or should
we only focus on the spiritual? Why?
Or maybe you believe in a both/and approach. Why? What do you think it could or
should look like?
Can’t wait to hear your thoughts…
In my opinion, one of the most compelling and intelligent conversations about the future of worship and liturgy is being guided by Isaac Wardell. I’ve been a fan of his BiFrost Arts albums for a long time (HERE is a video of one of his arrangements at Willow), but last year I was absolutely blown away by his Liturgy, Music, and Space Conference in St Louis. Blown away. (HERE are my reflections and notes from it.). I’ve never seen a more thoughtful, holistic, gutsy, theological framework for worship in the church. Check out the summary video…
Thankfully, they are hosting another conference this year: April 22-24 in Philadelphia. I highly highly recommend that you come. Hope to see you there…
“If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.”
- Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark
Travis Reed at “The Work of the People” gives us another brilliant clip from his conversation with theologian Walter Brueggemann – author of “The Prophetic Imagination“, one of my all-time favorite books.