ON THE MISGUIDED NOTION OF THAT CHURCH GROWTH AND SUCCESS NECESSARILY MEANS ABANDONING TRADITION BY GREGG DesELMS | Wednesday 16 October 2013 Well, of course, this is a fine (linked-to, below) article... as is the one to which it links, that spawned it. I choke a little, though, on its fourth item, about tradition. Dont get me wrong, I agree, indeed, with its overarching point; however, as a person from a church tradition with a deep and rich liturgical history, Im always troubled by the ease with which even those in said church are willing to scap certain worship, for example, traditions in favor of contemporary new ones... usually because the church doing it wrongly, in my opinion, believes that unless it modernizes itself and its musiic, it wont attract young people. The fourth items closing words, [t]he challenge for the leader is to cast a vision that is clear enough and compelling enough to pull people from the familiar past into a brighter future, are incontrovertibly true; however, I believe there are ways to do it without discarding so much of the past that important parts of what makies church church are lost. And in the word vision, and all that surrounds it in that fourth item, can be the key. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) -- the largest (and probably most socio-politically and theologically liberal... though, as a fairly far-left-leaning liberal, I hesitate to also call it progressive, but hey... thats just me) Lutheran group in the US -- did a study some years back to try to figure out what might be the secret that successful ELCA churches seem to know, which other less successful ELCA churches dont. In her magnificent little book, Reclaiming the L Word: Renewing the Church from Its Lutheran Core... SEE | amzn.to/a0nXs8 ...author Kelly Fryer deftly explains that what the study found, among other things, was that a churchs success has little or nothing to do with modernizing/contemporizing worship; that all the praise music, and that drums and guitars (usually accompanied by intolerably-bad musicianship because the musicians are usually amateurs) and turning of palms to the skies and swaying back and forth in seemingly transcendent ecstasy in the world cant replace the simple step which so many churchs routinely miss: having a well-defined and purposeful mission which is crystal clear in the minds of every single parishioner; and, more importantly, living-out -- making flesh -- said mission in virtually every single thing the church does... EVERY single thing. Nothing, really, the study found, is more important. And, astonishingly to those who think that the liturgical worship tradition is old hat, even churches steeped in it are successful if theyve got the mission part dead right. This fits like a glove with what Ive been saying for years and years about how liturgical churches should be embracing, and not replacing, their rich worship tradition and heritage; teaching young people, almost like a music appreciation course, to understand and appreciate it, not to just write it off as something from antiquity. Classical music of the sort that is embodied in Bach cantatas is timeless, though its true that high schools and colleges must often educate young people to the notion of it. If its done right, though (and theres the rub), young people will have an ah ha moment when they can finally see the connection of classical music of the past with that to which they listen, today. I admit it was probably easier in the 60 and 70s, though, when even the Beatles employed full and complex symphonic orchestration in several of its biggest hits (think Strawberry Fields Forever, for example; there were many others). SEE | bit.ly/16bqnZZ The more conservative (than the ELCA) Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LC-MS; often called the German Lutherans) seems to understand all this, and has expended no small amount of time, energy and money on its Concordia Seminarys Good Shepherd Institute of pastoral theology and sacred music, and its impressive annual conference. SEE | bit.ly/16brQPU There is much, indeed, with which to disagree with LC-MS Lutherans; but when they get something right, they REALLY get it right... and they get right that there is a way to retain a rich liturgical heritage without forsaking modernity and vision. Sadly, LC-MS Lutherans take even THAT only so far, and so are inherently stunted in their socio-politics and accompanying theology compared with ELCA Lutherans (whom they see as so liberal as to be heretical); but one must be careful not to let that stand in the way of how deftly LC-MS teaches about the tradition of liturgy and worship... ...something from which ELCA Lutherans could take a lesson. But thats not really my point, here. My point, simply, is that there are ways, -- largely through simple education, at least when it comes to liturgy and worship -- to help the young understand that certain parts of a churchs tradition are timeless and should not be forsaken along the way toward living-out and making flesh the necessary vision of any church which expects to survive in the age of what the a 2012 Pew Research Center study called nones: persons who do not identify with any religion and check the none box when asked on forms what is their religion, if any... bit.ly/16bsCMO ...or, perhaps worse, in some ways, those who now call themselves the ridiculous (in my opinion), but increasingly popular spiritual, but not religious (SBNR)... SEE | bit.ly/H4PsK4 SEE | huff.to/H4Pxh1 SEE | ti.me/H4PRwc ...with apologies to my friend JIM BURKLO, who both has another view... SEE | bit.ly/H4Qkyy SEE | bit.ly/H4Qjun ...and is much smarter than am I on such matters, in any case. I write all this because I am deeply troubled by the notion, just generally, that church tradition must be all-but-abandoned in order to see, embrace and live the promise of the future. Thats just not true; but how to manage it is such a profound challenge. Mission, though, can truly guide... that is, if, as the ELCA study found, a church can develop a good one, really and truly understand it, and then make it flesh in everything it does. __________________________________ Gregg L. DesElms Napa, California USA gregg at greggdeselms dot com
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 21:46:18 +0000
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