Answering Dave's Good Question

Dave asked: "...are you saying that everyone should be together in one service, meeting, gathering, whatever? I may be reading this wrong but how does having 'the prayer service' and 'the rock and roll service' (Sept 12th entry) fit into this?"

Let me try to answer your question, as it is bugging me too. First aside, kaleo is not a rock and roll service. That was an unfortunate appellation provided by a senior couple who think in terms of rock versus church music.

The idea for kaleo came about because it was obvious that our church was not embracing any kind of emergent or even blended ideas in the main worship service on Sundays (despite our senior pastor being as theologically conversent with emergent as anyone I know, a position he discovered quite by accident). That, to me, is as wrong-headed as chasing every new trend that comes down the river. The college pastor--yes, we have one of those--wanted to do something different on Sunday nights, a time period usually reserved for the very old, very traditional, and the staff who had to be there. I believe the thinking was that since only about 1/25th of the congregation showed up on Sunday night, why not try something different and redeem that time slot.

Enter us. We'd been going there for a while enduring ridiculous amounts of traditional music and traditionally-arranged worship choruses for the sake of community and the best, most theologically sound preaching I've ever heard. Some of the folk knew we had some experience with emergent church and they asked us to get involved. We combined our ideas with other ideas that had been simmering in that church for some time. Young people especially were anxious to get involved, and kaleo offered opportunities for all kinds of people to get involved who had been unable to do so before.

Our hope is that kaleo will be appealing to all ages and to those who like traditional and contemporary worship. It isn't our intent to create two churches in one building. That may happen in the minds of some folk, but we've insisted on our entire leadership team, including the music people, being in the Sunday a.m. worship service as well. The theological vision articulated in the Sunday a.m. service is vital to the life of kaleo. The commitment to community despite our differences is non-negotiable.

Why are there still other offerings on Sunday night? I think the pastoral leadership of the larger church, and I'm only speculating, wasn't sure how well kaleo would go over, and they knew there were folk that wouldn't like it no matter how hard we tried to blend ancient and future. Rather than tell those folks to suck it, they offered them some worthwhile programs (three of the four are not worship services) on Sunday nights, including prayer, discussion forums, small groups, and once a month, a joint kaleo/big church worship service. My preference is that all of us would be together for worship, but that requires that both sides of the aisle understand, respect, and embrace cultural differences. I don't see that most of the time.

Second aside: the Saddleback services have nothing to do with theological convictions (except maybe "saving souls"); they are predicated on entertaining a bunch of crackers who don't seem to understand that worship isn't about entertainment. They are not worship services in the strict sense, but rather serve as parodies of worship services, since what is being worshipped is individual choice as to what form of entertainment I prefer. Dave Rattigan has some good thoughts on the Saddleback issue.

Comments

[Paul]

After a church experience on the weekend I got to thinking about where this type of consumerism could go and wrote a piece a couple of days ago. After seeing your link today to the new madness at Saddleback I decided to blog it (http://www.rayneronline.com/blog) since I now - sadly - realize that it wasn't as extreme as I had thought...

Paul.

[Dave Walker]

Thanks Greg for this. First of all about your church. Yes, I had realised about the 'rock and roll service' not being what it really was, but there are (as you said I think) worse ways to be described. It helps to hear a bit about how your new service came into being and the background to the fact there are the other activities going on at the same time. Anyway, I wish you well with it.

About Saddleback. It's obviously a church that you know a great deal more about than I do. If what you say is correct then I can see why you view it the way you do. I'll have to reserve judgement to a certain extent as there's obviously more going on with the whole 'seeker' thing than I've heard about. Over here Rick Warren is not such a household name, at least not in the circles I move in. I think I might have had the youth ministry version of his book at one point but it was starting in a very different place culturally to where I was and so I just looked at the pictures.

[goz]

Good post Greg.

While I disagree with the divisive, worship=music=entertainment philosophy that Saddleback’s new flavours of service encourage, I also urge your readers to err on the side of caution with their criticism and idealism.

We are all humans with our own tastes and traditions. Music is a wonderful gift but the fact that it is so synonymous with the worship of God throws up more and more issues in this culturally and sonically diverse world. Music has a lot to do with worship in the real world despite how we might want to segregate it theologically in order to sidestep muddying its theory: Music can focus the mind on the spiritual, it can tug at our souls inspiring a very real response to the love of God. Furthermore it can reduce great truth and complexities into palatable and memorable phrases and melodies that ultimately flavour us to be like Jesus.

Of course, where things get awkward is when we marry music, a subjective multi-sided gift from God, with worship, an objective one dimensional command from God. To me the idea of going to a Country music themed service is repulsive: it’s a million miles from the culture in which I live and relate to. However, I know that my call to objectively worship God is far higher than any subjective objections I may have over the style of service.

That said, we all attend churches that cater to our tastes: be it emphasising aspects of Gospel living that we applaud, or downplaying elements that sit less easy with our characters. You yourself said: “[we’ve been] enduring ridiculous amounts of traditional music and traditionally-arranged worship choruses for the sake of community and the best, most theologically sound preaching I've ever heard.”

So for you, the trade for ‘enduring’ one particular style of worship music was that you could get theologically sound preaching. Surely, within the idealism everyone is proposing in their comments on Saddleback, you should have ‘endured’ the musical style because your higher command is to worship God in spirit and in truth, no matter what the vehicle your Church provides to help you there.

As in any area of life, all of us find things that stylistically push us into committing to a certain church community. Of course the idea of consumerist menu style services is disgusting but are we really all so pure in separating our tastes from our kingdom responsibilities? I’m just saying everyone should bear this in mind before casting the first stone at what is essentially a very easy target in Saddleback.

Hmm, does that make any sense?

[[email protected]]

Come on Greg, get back from the edge.

You don't like what they are doing, fine. Calling the Saddleback folks "a bunch of crackers who don't seem to understand that worship isn't about entertainment" is going to far.

Have you been to these services? Talked to these folks? Examined the fruit of their lives, their lived out discipleship in detail and found them lacking? Disagreeing with Saddleback's "video venue" strategy is legitimate. But this kind of blanket condemnation of people has got no place in the kingdom.

Plus it's beneath you--as a Christian and as a theological thinker.

I've got to much time to worry about my own sin, and wearing sackcloth and ashes to point fingers at other people.