Mind the Gap

Sorry for the long delay in writing. I went to Minnesota for Thanksgiving, and between the getting ready for vacation, the being on vacation, and the catching up from vacation, well, there hasn't been much time for blogging.

But now I'm back with some half-baked thoughts that have been kicking around my head for the past month or so. It all started the week before vacation, when I went out to lunch with a parishioner who I am mentoring through our synod's Authorized Lay Worship Leader program. When our food came, she volunteered to pray (so nice to go to lunch with someone who doesn't assume that I am the "token pray-er"!), so we bowed our heads and she said the following:

"For Food in a world where many walk in hunger,
For Faith in a world where many walk in fear,
and for Friends in a world where many walk alone,
We give you thanks"

And I looked up and said "That's Keith's prayer from Six Feet Under!"

We were both, frankly, kind of surprised to find a fellow fan in one another, but we quickly moved beyond that and into an engaging conversation about what a well-written and thought-provoking television show that it is, and how many incredible discussions of life and death and faith it could launch, EXCEPT. . .

. . .except there is always too much graphic language and sex for me to be able to use it as a resource at church. I mean, I have some parishioners whose piety is such that they would be offended at the mere thought of their pastor watching a show like Six Feet Under - there's no way they would tolerate showing it or using it as the basis for a small group study at church. And yet I've obviously got other parishioners who are watching it and would love to have a group with which to discuss some of those deep meaning of life and death questions that it raises.

So this is a constant frustration for me - because I could write entire small group studies on the theology of Six Feet Under, or the Dave Matthews Band, or the Star Wars saga, or other such pop culture phenomena where I see God on the loose. And I have this nagging feeling that to do so would be to meet a lot of the unchurched and de-churched of my generation where they are at. But those kinds of studies aren't going to appeal to the vast majority of my current parishioners.

So do I serve the majority of the congregation to which I am called? Or do I reach out to serve and engage the whole people of God (isn't that also part of my calling)? And if I do go for broke one day and offer up a "God running loose in pop culture" kind of study, how in the world do I find and convince the people who would most dig it to take part?

So then when I was on vacation, I went to worship at the Mercy Seat, a new church plant in NE Minneapolis that seems to be very intentionally reaching out to the de-churched/unchurched/disenfranchised by the church/disillusioned by the church, and engaging them through "critical orthodoxy." The service was very solid liturgical worship, essentially the same texts and ordo as the LBW, but in an improvisational jazz medium. The sermon was excellent, a thoughtful well-crafted proclamation, thoroughly grounded in the theology of the cross, that skillfully wove deep theological insights with illustrations from The Simpsons and references to a Jesus who "goes all the way to 11" (and the congregation actually got and laughed at that line!). Their announcements included a plug for their stewardship pledge drive, a hilarious and ingenious campaign to "stop the hostile takeover" - they claimed that a multinational corporation was threatening to buy the congregation and outsource the sacraments unless they could "prove their viability" through 50 pledging households.

My impresion of this congregation is that it is very intentionally rooting itself in the best and most essential core of the Lutheran tradition while also very intentionally engaging not-so-traditionally-churchy people at the intersection of art and faith and culture. In other words, it is a church that could get away with, and would have an audience for, a Six Feet Under small group study.

Which makes it very hard not to be jealous of those pastors and the kind of work they get to do and the kind of sermons they get to preach, EXCEPT. . .

. . .except I refuse to believe that the only solution to my frustrations is to head to Chicago for mission start training and start up a completely new congregation. I mean, it's certainly easier in some respects to be creating a congregational culture as you go, instead of trying to retradition and reform longstanding cultures that you inherit. And it's probably easier to convince the disenfranchised and disillusioned to come and see in a group that's rather new and somewhat different, than a group that looks and sounds and acts an awful lot like the church that disenfranchised or disillusioned them to begin with.

But we are called to be one body in Christ. And it is one of the greatest strengths - and gifts - of the church to hold people of widely divergent backgrounds and opinions and interests together AS the one body of Christ. So I keep thinking, there's got to be a way to bridge the traditionally churched and all those who are de-churched, unchurched, disillusioned and/or disenfranchised by the church. I refuse to settle for an either/or answer - I keep thinking there's got to be a both/and, there's got to be a way to draw them all into community together.

So, I keep looking for ways to mind the gap, tending to both the now and the not yet, caring for the church as it currently is, and caring for the church that the Holy Spirit is even now birthing us to be.

Peace,
Catrina