The Worship Palette (EC BIOLA #5)
May 16, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton
Concerning the
conference held last Friday, I wish there had been more time devoted to
the many things that the EC movement has to offer in the area of
worship.
Both sides agree that
efforts to make our worship time into a more interactive and creative
expression, rather than solely cognitive or performance driven are not
only needed, but welcomed.
Both Dan Kimball and Dr Robert Webber agreed that there is a trend in worship which lends itself to be very narcissistic. Often
times presenting God as an object, and addressing him as such which
often times leads to a worship service that makes “me” the center,
rather than our response to the awesomeness of God.
There is an
assumption in the present worship model, Webber suggests, that a person
can, at any appointed time during the worship time, “reach into ‘me’
and pull out ‘my worship’ at an appropriate time”. This
presents a need to travel on a personal spiritual journey into self,
where the person can become tuned into “releasing a spirituality from
inside”.
Kimball suggests that
rather, a creative sacred space might be set, where through art, music,
and a number of interactive worship stations, one might be inspired to
respond in an expression of worship. He calls on us to bring back color and senses back into worship, as in ancient church history.
Dan Kimball introduced The Palette of Worship idea. The palette is a collection of worship
tools such as: Scripture, Prayer, Sacred Space, Musical Worship,
Teaching and Spoken Word, Painting/Sculptures, Video/Film, and
Photography. Ideally, these things would be used to teach and inspire us to respond in worship.
Pictures and examples of these you can see on his
For the most part, I agree and welcome many of these suggestions. However,
I do see that when left unchecked, many of these ‘good’ additions may
tend to be substitutes for scripture, and good theology. So it needs to be much more than just “Crowder and some candles”.
I don’t see the
Palette idea as harmful either, except for the danger to make scripture
and good theology just another thing in the list, weighing equal in
power to Film or Music.
The consensus on the
A-Team is that many of these things can be good. Some ideas are
welcomed additions, needed to point our worship in the right direction. However,
these things are helpful only as long as they add to and improve our
traditions in the church that reflect solid, theologically sound
aspects in worship. To throw out old traditions, such as hymn singing,
scripture readings, and a message, simply to add something “new” and
updated, would be a step backward. This would be more of a
testament to our consumer desire for something new and improved,
more so than a direction toward authentic worship. But we’re all
for making sound improvements which might be lacking in our
contemporary worship services. This
should be obvious, especially if it brings us back to making God the
center and focus of our worship, an authentic response to our knowledge
and understanding of Him and his grace and forgiveness, rather than an
emotion evoked by entertaining contemporary music and dimmed lights.
Related posts:
- Dan Kimball: A Revolution in Church and Teaching (EC BIOLA #1)
- Whom Do You Worship?
- The Need For the Body (EC BIOLA #4)
- God-Centered Worship Part I
- Book Review: The Emerging Church by Dan Kimball
- Is "Control" Our Worst Enemy? (EC BIOLA #3)
Posted in Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Poetry/Scripture/Liturgy/Etc.
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May 16th, 2005 at 7:28 pm
When our focus in worship is the experience, we're teasing people. I've done it, it's not enough. Candles, stations, thematic, artistic, experiential worship is still for the most part self-centered, private, not communal and most of all it ends when the service is over. What of post-emergent worship that includes conversation, counseling, guidance, Truth on the issues that came up at the 'foot of the cross' or at the Highway video station? This is that I'm trying to do. Not sure how yet, but now that we got the work of putting stations together, setting up creative teams, which is mostly experience related, let's now move to the messy work of helping people.
May 17th, 2005 at 11:48 am
I agree that “experience” could be teasing people if that is all there is. I disagree that it self-centered. It is God centered, in that it allows people to go have some focused prayer after a teaching message. Most of us, do need to pray on our own for a few minutes. It isn't consumeristic to feel you need to be alone for 10 or 15 minutes to go pray to God about something or confess sin.
In our setting, we also have a Prayer Cove where there are people to go pray with, if one wants to speak with someone and pray with them. We also have a team called “Journey” which are trained people who meet with those who need to have a talk about something and be supported outside of the worship gathering.
So, I agree with what you are saying if a church only does experiential elements and preaching. But, we are trying our best to allow community and discussion and prayer to occur in our worship gatherings. It is hard to do with several hundred people, but we try.
I can say, that in most churches I have been to which are Reformed or Baptist, there is no talking or times of prayer at all with others. It is preaching, maybe say hello to your neighbor, the sermon and then send you out the door.
I see some parts of the experiential worship allowing people to srot through our messy lives as we take some time to pray to God, and then have people there to pray with and connect with others if they want to, to meet afterwards. Most of our “messy work of helping people” happens outside of the worship gathering in our home community groups and meeting with people outside the meeting.
I am curious, if you are concerned about this – how do you solve it on your worship gathering? what are you doing to be having the dialogue and discussion of helping people outside of the sermon?
Dan Kimball
May 18th, 2005 at 3:01 am
As part of a Reformed church, I can say that while times of prayer with others aren't a part of the liturgy, more often than not they do become a spontaneous part of the fellowship afterwards. So my first point is that this should be happening naturally
May 18th, 2005 at 7:24 am
What is “worship”? What does it mean to “worship”? It seems to me that in the aim of getting people to worship God, the meaning is getting lost.
May 18th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
hi again -
i guess, i would ask you – where in Scripture, so we see that when the church meets on a Sunday, is “preaching” the primary reason we are there? you are saying that the primary purpose of a worship gathering is the preaching. So, my question is where is that derived from?
If you were at the Talbot event, you would have heard me say that I preach 30-45 minutes each worship gathering. So, we do that – but I see that as one part of the “worship” not the centerprice or primary purpose.
so, just wondering — how that conclusion is made. From Scripture, or from church tradition.
Dan
May 18th, 2005 at 2:31 pm
Hi Dan,
I actually did catch the tail end of your talk, and appreciated your comments about the attention you pay to preaching. As for the derivation of my claim, I guess I would say that first of all the Bible is clear (I think we would all agree) on the primacy of preaching the word (a quick, simplistic BibleGateway search pulls up several sweet passages). And if preaching the word is so important, then it has to happen on a regular basis; and then I guess I would argue that the best place for this to happen is the weekly worship gathering. This isn't to say that some hypothetical gathering consisting of preaching only would be superior to one, like yours (and mine), that also includes worship, prayer time, etc.; my main point is that if all that happened in that weekly gathering was the preaching of the word, then the primary purpose of that gathering would have been served.
Finally, I think my claim comes out of what I consider (based on the various churches I've attended and/or been a part of) to be a widespread dearth of good, quality preaching of the word
May 18th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
Dan,
I love that you have continued to comment on this site. It has and will contribute greatly in the conversation.
Victor's question then, “what is worship?, what does it mean to worship?” becomes very relevant to the discussion.
I would love to see that our worship begin and ends with God. My experience with those palette tools , as a lead worshipper /facilitator, is that sometimes it becomes about those things. Worship, I believe, is our response to the amazing things that God has done and is doing in and around us. Without knowing the One True God, and being in tune to what He is doing, of course we begin to worship those other things. In our weakness, we focus on the power of those things to invoke our response. Thus, this is why preaching the word becomes so vital to entering into true worship. I think it's awesome that you present the word and then
Don't get me wrong, I'm probably the most 'emergent' of the A-Team and find it easy to enter into my time of worship using these tools. But, I know as well, that some begin to become dependant on those things in order to “have a good worship experience”, rather than letting their knowledge and their understanding of God (or lack of presence) evoke the response.
Someone mentioned at the Conference how odd it is that somehow we are to call from within ourselves our worship at the appropriate time during the service. Shouldn't we prepare for that moment before hand, through scripture, teaching, and reflexion so that our worship flows from that at a communal time, so that together we can worship in spirit and truth?
Hannibal S
May 18th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
Dan, very challenging question. I had to think about this one for a while! I think if you look at the description of a worship gathering in 1 Corinthians 14, you'll see the focus on prophecy (“speaking to men for edification and exhortation and consolation”). This gift of conveying the Word of God to others is considered to be the gift they should most desire, and other aspects of worship that are only between the worshipper and God (e.g., prayer) are placed second to this (in terms of the group setting of a church gathering) in verses 1-5. Later on, Paul also says, “In the church I desire to speak five words with my mind so that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue.” The goal of all of this gathering is so that “all may learn and all may be exhorted.”
We know the way they are to teach from 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5–from the inspired Scripture, they are to teach sound doctrine and reprove, rebuke, and exhort with great patience and instruction.” Also, if you look at the qualifications for leaders in the church in Titus 1:1-9, you'll find that the required non-character qualification is that they “[hold] fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that [they] will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.” This seems to suggest this will be their central role.
Now, granted, the whole context of 1 Corinthians 14 is intelligible, orderly worship versus unintelligible and disorderly, and not preaching versus prayer. But I think one can still say that the primary reason Paul is interested in orderliness is for the ultimate purpose of the word of God being taught and learned. He seems to think that this is the most important aspect of group worship.
I don't feel like my analysis is airtight here, so I'm interested in hearing if you see something I'm missing and what your thoughts are on this.
May 18th, 2005 at 6:35 pm
“Worship, I believe, is our response to the amazing things that God has done and is doing in and around us.”
That certainly is one aspect of worship. But at the core of all what He has done and is doing, it is because of who He is that we worship Him. His identity alone deserves our response. After all, the First Commandment is “You shall have no other gods before me.” And Scripture elsewhere tells us that we are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. Whether or not one acknowledges His works, all must worship Him because He is Lord over all.
But in all this talk of worship, it seems that the effort is being made to provide an outlet for private, individual worship during corporate worship. Is this a biblical approach or a pragmatic approach? I'd like to hear everyones take on this.
May 18th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
YOu are right, we should simply worship Him for who he is. That should be enough. Rightly so, even those who do not believe will also bend the knee and claim that He is Lord. In addition, regardless if we are 'seeing' what he is doing in our lives, He is still heaping a whole bunch of grace on us, those He calls his own. It just makes it alot easier for us pathetic sinners (me included), to respond when I am sensing Him moving in my life. Thus, the helpfulness of those things 'we' tend to add, like music and visuals, etc.
I'm sensing from the Emergent church that move toward private worship as well. Not that private worship is a bad thing. But, there is a place and time for both coporate worship, and private worship. Especially if the 'whole' of our lives are to be in worship of Him. Obviously, I can't always be in the presence of my brothers and sisters. But, I follow you in sensing that the corporate worship time is shifting toward only a time of private worship.
May 19th, 2005 at 3:02 am
“But, I follow you in sensing that the corporate worship time is shifting toward only a time of private worship.”
Well, I wouldn't say “only,” but it is the co-mingling of the two that seems to be promoted. As much as we are individuals, there is, as you pointed out, “a place and time for both corporate worship, and private worship.”
If the move to improve corporate worship is to add private, individual worship within the service, I would have to wonder what is lacking in the corporate worship? Is the preaching of the Word and the breaking of the bread not enough any more? Or perhaps the significance of what those things mean have been lost in the “emotion driven” culture that has made its way into church?