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Experiencing God in Worship – group discussion

Resulting from our discussion on 30 April, we challenged ourselves to describe what elements were necessary to ‘experience’ God in worship services.  We quickly realised that different environmental stimuli would impact positively on some but not others.  After all we are each unique.  We agreed that for a single worship time to invoke a feeling of God’s presence, a range of senses had to be stimulated – not just one or two.  Some of these include music, well sung songs/hymns, soft lighting/candles, silence, opportunity for contemplation, something visually interesting and unique, drama, smell – fresh bread and coffee, dance.

Christianity for the Rest of Us by Dianne Butler Bass, Harper One 2006

We considered one of the summary chapters ‘Transforming Lives’.  There is an initial emphasis on the ‘sanctuary’ and home wanderers have found in these Mainline churches.  They have found a place and an environment where they can put down roots and become part of an accepting, though challenging, community.  We observed the impression that compared to US society, NZ is a much smaller country and population with consequently fewer wanderers.  Nevertheless, they do exist and all churches need to be aware of, and welcoming to, new comers whether they be wanderers or not.  The author suggests 5 modern traits in (US) 21^st century society – individualism, aimlessness, consumption, fragmentation and forgetfulness.  It seemed to us that these are more noticeable and have spread beyond the US since 2006, eg the riots last year and recent election results in Europe.  In response to these, the author suggests wanderers have become pilgrims by ‘selectively adapting to the cultural changes that are pressurising the practice of Christian faith.’

We thought that Church members should be change makers not change followers – after all was this not what Jesus did?  Elements of the present society seek identity in what they consume compared to previous generations where people were known for what we produced.  Christians would do well to consider the example they set and therefore how they perceived – by their works you shall know them.

Christianity for the Rest of Us by Dianne Butler Bass, Harper One 2006: Session 3

We reviewed 3 further signposts of renewal in Mainline US Churches.

Diversity  The author suggests that congregations are all the ‘richer’ for their diversity of thought, background, ethnicity and (in the US particularly) politics.  With diversity of thought and action also comes a need for tolerance and acceptance of alternatives to one’s own preferences and praxis.  She makes the important point that diversity does not mean ‘inclusion’ ie that secularism has invaded the church in the form of ‘anything goes’.  Diversity was very real and evident in the early church and in the letters and teaching of Paul.  Diversity is something Christians do that makes a truer, richer community.

As a congregation with many ethnic backgrounds and traditions, Tawa Union Church can confirm the joys of diversity.

Justice  The author quotes one church as noting that they pursue diversity as a way of justice.  The ideals of fairness, equality and human rights arose from the secular world during the Enlightenment – and are not found in the Bible or in prior Christian tradition! Doing justice means engaging the powers – transforming systems of oppression.  This is why doing justice is so difficult – it requires us to change the basis, the ethics, the way things are done, the world view of ‘powers and principalities’ – not mopping up the consequences.  Its hands on stuff, requiring the marshalling of resources and above all, persistence.  We also recognised that there is likely to a personal ‘cost’.

Worship  This is subtitled ‘Experiencing God’ and for our group pretty well summarised the chapter.  Worship should create a sense of awe, an experience that transforms the heart.  It moves from head to heart.  Worship is the church’s shop window to the world.  The author found that the kind or form of music or art in themselves didn’t necessarily imply vitality, rather it was innovation and experimentation.  A number of examples are quoted.  A must read for those grown tired of same old, same old ways of experiencing worship.

Who on EARTH was JESUS – The modern quest for the Jesus of history.

Written by David Boulton 2008

A century after Albert Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus modern historians with new techniques are back on the trail.  In the most comprehensive survey yet published, David Boulton presents an engrossing account of the debate between contemporary scholars on what we can know about the human Jesus of history, before he became the divine Christ of faith.

Lloyd Geering comments on the book as follows:

A unique treasure.  A fair objective and exhaustive summary of historical Jesus discoveries….. Scholarly, yet lucidly written for non academic readers… a masterly achievement.

This fascinating book has certainly given me new understanding of the documents written in the early Christian era, and of the ones which did not get included in the canon, or have only very recently been discovered and translated.  The breadth of current historical research on this topic which he has summarised is truly amazing.

Two examples:

Boulton draws from all the studies to get some degree of consensus on the two questions “What did Jesus really say?”  and “What did Jesus really do?” to determine the unique sayings and actions of Jesus.

He also analyses the issue of the Apocalypse, and the contradictory sayings of  kingdom-among-you and kingdom-come, as well as relating these to the beliefs of other cultures and religions of that time and also those which had been an earlier influence on the Jewish community.

In summary, I am very glad to have read this book and I feel that it has broadened by understanding on a whole range of topics.

John M

Christianity for the Rest of Us by Dianne Butler Bass, Harper One 2006: Session 2

We reviewed 2 further signposts of renewal in Mainline US Churches.

Discernment  This is defined as being open to God’s will, searching for answers to ‘what does God want me to do?’  The author suggests developing the practice of asking ‘God’ questions in place of ‘I’ questions.  This requires openness and time and then interaction with others to ‘test’ the authenticity.  If one is to develop an ‘inituition’ about a subject, one needs to immerse oneself in the subject area – we felt this also applied to discernment through immersing oneself in God and thereby being open to the leading of the spirit.

Contemplation  The author’s main requirement here was quietness, silence, being still.  This chapter complemented Discernment as quietness is a key tool.  She advocates silence during communion and as ‘white spaces between words’.  Silence allows for assimilation – for our minds to sort out and order ideas.

Ian Harris

Christianity for the Rest of Us by Dianne Butler Bass, Harper One 2006: Session 1

In this book the author sets out to discover ‘Mainline churches’ in the US that are growing and thriving and to identify what they doing to achieve this.  She mourns the loss of the church society in which she grew up – it has just disappeared.  After some introductory chapters, she identifies 10 ‘signposts of renewal’ exploring these in separate chapters with examples from the churches she visited.

Tonight we looked at Hospitality.  We know it’s hard to enter into unfamiliar buildings, groups and rituals, so we should be very aware of new comers and make a particular effort to be welcoming and putting ourselves in their shoes.  Efforts to make children welcome and ease them quickly into peer groups are especially appreciated (by parents and children) and effective in creating a sense of belonging.  Allow freedom to be themselves ie don’t pressure to conform, be non-judgemental, eating is a key activity where the division between guest and host can become lost.

Other signposts will be reviewed in subsequent weeks.

The Four Horseman – DVD 2006

This is a DVD of a discussion between 4 atheists – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris.  The discussion is wide ranging, informative (whether agree or not) and measured.  This is not a rant against religions but reasonably measured arguments.  Their principal issue is that religion removes individual’s ability to think for themselves – the church or the leader tells what to believe and the members accept what is offered at face value.  This they suggest is very dangerous and can lead to extremes of thought and action by manipulative leaders.  Totalitarianism is innate in all religions!

They do acknowledge however that the church has and can be an instrument for good, there is a certain mystery to life, that faith has resulted in majestic cathedrals, religious art and music eg carols at Christmas – which they sing!

This makes challenging and stimulating viewing!  A little ‘academic’ but worth the effort to hear what atheists think.

Ian Harris

Uneasy Rider? The Challenge to a Ministry of Word and Sacrament in a Post-Christendom Missional Climate by Mark Johnston 7/2/12

This was given as the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership Inaugural Lecture 2012

This is a demanding read which yields much to those willing to search, discuss and ponder.  Mark notes that previous ‘fixes’ to arrest numeric decline of (Presbyterian) churches have not worked long term.  His view is that we are blinkered by our imaginations (essentially how we see the world) and this has disabled church leaders and members by:

-          The way the church is organised – often with the presbyter as the ‘CEO’

-          Denominational structures which limited (controlled) imagination and practices in a rapidly changing environment and resulted in new churches outside the established denominations

-          Disembodied spirituality – the rise of the individual which didn’t need the church as an anchor.  A separation of faith based values from ‘real life’ issues.

Mark then goes onto to suggest some pathways which might be explored by leaders to make the church fit and able to meet the requirements of the present.

Oh My God

To round off the year we watched this video which talked to people from many faiths about their understanding or experience of their God.  Sincere people with views that reflected the whole gambit of religious belief or no belief.

Philippians 4:1-10

Perhaps some of you know the story about the ladder that has been on a ledge of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem for over 150 years. The church that claims to be on the site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection has an equally well known reputation for being one of the most fraught and conflicted buildings in the Christian world. The events of Jesus’ death and resurrection that the Holy Sepulchre church was built to honour are central to the Christian story of reconciliation between humankind and God. It is a sad irony that the various Christian communities that have been stakeholders in the church have had such suspicious, fraught relationships with one another. Their tensions, that have been known to flare into violence, have run for centuries.

Church of the Holly Sepulchre, Jerusalem

We may shake our heads at the vocal and powerful fundamentalist sector of the world Moslem community, but in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the Moslem community has provided the important neutral space that has allowed this fractured worship space to function as a church. Since 1192 the keys of the church have been held by the same Moslem family and another Moslem family have been the doorkeepers. This was the peacekeeping arrangement by a Moslem Sultan, put in place because the Christian factions did not have enough trust between them to allow one of them to hold the keys for all.

An agreement under Ottoman law in the middle of the 1700s acknowledged the legitimate interests of six different Christian communities in the site – Roman Catholic, Greek, Armenian and Syrian Orthodox, Coptic and Ethiopian. The current demarcation of which area belongs and is the responsibility of which community and which are common to all, was drawn up in another Moslem peacekeeping effort in the middle of the 19th century. Times and places of worship in the common areas are strictly regulated. The current agreement is a fragile truce that even in the last 10 years has been broken by violent incidents.

In 2002 a Coptic monk who was guarding an entrance to a small rooftop monastery that Coptics maintain is their territory moved his chair out of the blistering sun into some shade a few feet away. This was read as an hostile action by Ethiopian monks who already disputed the Coptics claim to the little monastery. Fighting broke out and 11 monks had to be taken to hospital.

Ironically this disputed little monastery on the roof with its two chapels and 26 tiny rooms is in such a dire state of repair because the groups can’t agree about maintenance and responsibility that engineers worry that it may fall down through the roof and into the church.

So the two communities in this dispute are, in their fight to hold to and protect what they see as theirs, placing not only what they are tenaciously holding on to on jeopardy but the whole building itself. This in a building intended to honour the one who talked about forgetting ourselves and surrendering rather than jealously guarding our lives in order to save them.

The Ladder

And the ladder? Sometime in the middle of the 1800s a monk from one community put up a wooden ladder above the main entrance to do some maintenance and a priest from one of the other communities accused the man of trespassing. The ladder is still there…. I can’t help thinking they could do with an earthquake.

A couple of things from today’s reading.

There are two groups Paul is addressing his comments to- one whom he calls the weak in faith – from what he says they are stricter about their religious observance- , Paul mentions vegetarianism (presumably because they were worried about how meat might have been butchered- whether it came from a pagan temple or not) and he also mentions the special honouring of a particular day of the week.

The other group, the strong in faith aren’t overly worried about where their meat comes from and they say that all days are the Lord’s day.

Paul wants these groups to respect each other’s expression of their Christian faith even if it is different to their own. He warns the strong not to treat those who haven’t their freedom in faith like rubbish. Don’t mock them. And he says to the weak don’t judge those who do differently to you- don’t think that they are lax and their faith is hopelessly compromised.

To both he says, ‘Sort out what you think is right for you and do that to honour the Lord, not to justify yourself as intellectually, morally or theologically superior to those whose conscience leads them to do otherwise.

I want to close by saying something about the word, welcome. It is there in verse one when Paul tells the strong in faith to genuinely welcome those who are weak and it is also in verse three. ‘The person who eats meat mustn’t rubbish the person who doesn’t, and the vegetarian mustn’t judge the non vegetarian, because God has welcomed that person.’

It is our experience of God’s welcome and hospitality that unites us, however that works its way out in our lives. We are people whom God is pleased to see. You and I and our brothers and sisters in the Tawa Union family, and the folk from across the road at the Gospel Hall, and down the road at St Christopher’s, and the Sallies, and the Baptists and the New Lifers, and whatever else blooms in this Holy City of Tawa. God has said ‘Welcome’ to all of us…. ALL of us.

It is a lifetime’s education learning the enormity of the welcome, and a lifetime’s transformation learning how to offer that same welcome and hospitality to one another and those around us. Amen.