All The World's A Stage

The young woman in the video was excited. She was leading a quick tour of the church building that a very active and mission minded young congregation will be moving into soon. The younger church is swapping space with an older congregation that no longer fits. A kind of hand-me-up deal.

When she got to the worship space itself, she called the front part of the church, the focal point for all the seats, "the stage". Not the altar platform but the stage. In the full-page newspaper spread for a nearby megachurch, I notice that the focal point of worship looks more like the set or stage for American Idol than the focal point of the floorplan for a Romanesque, Gothic or even a modern church built in the 20th century.

There is no altar. There is no cross. There are video screens, lights and big speakers. There's a clear plexiglass enclosure for the drummer so that he can pound away vigorously without overpowering. What may have in the past functioned as a screen for the actual "sanctuary", the holy of holies in an Orthodox church, the place where the elements of Holy Communion were consecrated in sacred reverence, now functions as a sound deflector. It's transparent so we can see that drummer working his set. We expect to see that, don't we?

One could wonder, what god is being worshiped here--if this is about God at all? Is it the god of culture, the god of performance? The god of entertainment? The god of cool light shows and videos? Is what happens here about worship as the activity and participation of the people (the true definition of liturgy), or performance where one can either sing along and emote or just watch and be entertained by it all?

There are so many things that seem to be happening right: discipleship groups, not just outreach to but actual involvement by new ethnic and language groups.

And yet, I wonder. The only symbol in the entire full page ad, other than the logo of the church itself, is for Seattle's Best Coffee. Not the cross of Christ. What is being said between the lines? Has the cross become such a ubiquitous piece of costume jewelry that churches have had to distance themselves from it in order to not be understood? Or not be misunderstood?

Is it Seattle's Best Coffee that "does church" here? Is that what "doing church different" means? Jesus asked us to follow him. Is that different from doing church? How?

How much of what we think worship is about speaks to our culture? How much speaks to Christ? Does the term "corporate worship" mean something very different from what it did even 20 years ago? Do we understand that difference? And where do we go from here?

Is all the world a stage now? Has the church become one, too?

I hope that when we're not doing church we're still being church. With or without the coffee.

My hero, Joseph Sittler, wasn't much for the coffee. But when he'd lead worship, he'd go buy a bottle of good wine, very good wine, to go along with very good bread. He was insistent that like creation itself, holy communion was not an insipid thing to be dutifully trudged through but a marvelous giift to be enjoyed. So the wine and the bread should actually taste like something. Something good. Something very good.

For that, worship really needs an altar, not a stage.

Happy ponderings,

Roger

Church on the Side

It kinda turns your concept or definition of "church" on the side.

That's what we do at this little building owned by the folks who own the one with the big steeple. First Presbyterian is one of downtown Portland's gems. The stone work and windows are great. But the gracious curving lines of the woodwork inside simply cannot be described in words. The grand organ is built right into the woodwork behind the altar.

But the organ wasn't new when the First Presbyterian folks bought it. They bought it used in San Francisco and had it shipped up here. Hmmmm...? Why was such a grand instrument on the market in the late 1800's anyway?

Be that as it may, Julia West House becomes church every Sunday evening at Operation Nightwatch worship. For over three years now, it's been church to a little corner of Portland's downtown folks. Folks like Fred (not his real name).

Fred used to live in Section 8 housing right across the street. He often brought his cheery personality and beaming face to our Sunday worship. Although this section of downtown Portland has half-size city blocks, Fred would not go to either corner to use the crosswalks. Instead, he'd step out the door of his building, listen for traffic, then point himself straight ahead and march right across two lanes of parking and two lanes of traffic to reach us at JWH.

I always worried that the driver of some quiet running Toyota Prius would not see Fred's white cane and be the death of him.

Fred suffered grievously from psoriasis. He suffered even more grievously from the bites of the bedbugs that he could not see. Repeated efforts to exterminate them never rid his building of them completely. Fred didn't rejoice in (or because of) his sufferings as Apostle Paul did. But he always found a way to rejoice and be thankful at worship.

Then, we no longer saw him. Weeks went by. Finally, we learned that he had moved (or been moved) to an apartment up in the hills, miles from downtown. I don't know where he is, so I can't go see him. I wonder if Fred has found a community there or if one has opened their eyes enough to find him. Can he step out his door, take a short walk and be greeted by name? Is he surrounded by people who will set down their backpacks to help him with a plate of food and a chair?

We can be surrounded by walls, covered with a roof and for sure not be houseless. But without a community, we can have secure shelter and still be homeless.

If the better definition of church is a community like the one Fred had at Operation Nightwatch, I sure hope he has found an equal or better one. And I pray that he has forever left those insufferable bedbugs behind.

Not that would be cause for rejoicing!

Prayers for Fred,

Roger

Experiencing Community: Luke 4

You could almost get the idea that it was a church, the Irvington Farmers Market (note the absence of the apostrophe, sigh....). "Services" are on Sundays from 11:00-3:00. Church hours, sorta. Long-time Portland residents may even see something familiar in the Irvington artwork. It evokes the style of the marquee of the once-popular Irvington Theater on NE Broadway. Movie houses were once community gathering places where we cheered on the troops and leaders as the black-and-white newsreels brought news of Allied successes against fascists in Europe and Imperial Japan in the Pacific.

Theaters once had ushers. They wore uniforms like bellhops and carried glowing flashlights while directing movie-goers to seats. Kinda like in church. We knew who these high school kids were. And their parents. A bag of popcorn might have been 5 or 10 cents, the movie a quarter. Hard not to have a community around that affordability even considering the low wages of the day.

Lots of churches don't call themselves churches these days. "Community" has been the title of choice on a wide scale. "Church" has carried negative baggage that has sent mission-minded pastors and leaders scrambling for other images, looking to respond to what people lack, to real or perceived needs: community. Many of these communities now have branding slogans ("heart of the King", for example) and logos. Gotta have a logo so people recognize you.

Increasingly, our "community" these days seems to glow at us from little flat screens we carry in the palms of our hands. We can stay "in touch" 24/7--without actually touching.

Some years back, local folks won one of those Guinness Brewing contests. They actually won a pub in Ireland and moved there. They noticed something different about the Irish: community. Groups of Irish could get together and begin to sing songs. And everybody in the room would know the lyrics to all 25 verses. They had never experienced that kind of cultural common property in America. The Irish hadn't downloaded these lyrics from a music ap and turned them into ring tones. They had learned them by singing them multi-generationally with other people.

I wonder what we Americans share today with one another as cultural common property? Maybe it has mostly to do with who is wowing us with 90-second song condensations on American Idol.

How many people know the Star Spangled Banner by heart? The Apostles' Creed? The Lord's Prayer? Their state song? Who their Governor is?

Luke chapter 4 is jam-packed. After a 40-day ordeal in the wilderness following his baptism, Jesus goes to church at the synagogue in hometown Nazareth. An articulate local boy, he is honored by being asked to read from Isaiah 61. Hearers burst with pride at his articulate and proper reading of the text. "Yep, we done good raisin' him," some say. Others wonder, "Hey, he's day-laborer Joe's kid. How'd he suddenly get such an authority act? Maybe gettin' a little too big for his britches here."

Jesus could have simply let it lie and come away with a mostly positive review in the local papers. Instead, he throws out a Molotov cocktail by predicting that he will be judged, misjudged and rejected by people who will not actually see or hear what he brings because it will trouble and unsettle their prejudgments. Community "unity" nearly results in a lynching from which Jesus is able to call their bluff and not be tossed over the bluff.

And God's new things are left lying there in the dirt at the feet of the hometown crowd. You can't always go home and expect to find community. It may be out there somewhere else where God leads. May we recognize and build it wherever we are.

Shalom,

Roger