Blog Archives
Snapshot
The times are changing.
I compiled these statistics for the leadership of our church. They are just brief snapshots of our culture, as well as statistics on church growth and membership. Our unique American brand of life is evident here, and is noticed in statistics that are current.
While these statistics may cause a bit of culture shock, the statistics on declining church membership should be equally, if not more, shocking. And it is not a far stretch to assume that the first series of statistics are relevant to the second series of statistics.
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Culture
- Social Media
- There are, now, 800 million Facebook accounts.
- More than 50% of active users log into Facebook every day.
- There are more than 2 billion posts liked and commented on every day.
- 250 million photos are uploaded every day.
- 75% of Facebook users are outside the U.S.
- It is available in 70 languages.
- 47% of Facebook users have swear words on their Facebook profiles.
- The average Facebook user spends almost 8 hours on Facebook every month.
- Facebook links about sex are shared 90% more than average.[1]
- 41% of teenagers are very unsure about the future of email, and 15% already consider it dead.[2]
- The words “retweet” and “sexting” are now part of the Oxford English Dictionary.[3]
- And shopping on “Cyber Monday” – the Monday following “Black Friday” – this year added sales in excess of $1.25 billion, up 22% from the totals of 2010, breaking last year’s record high.[4]
- Americans viewed 42 billion online videos in October, 2011.
- That is 21.1 hours per viewer.
- Half of those were watched on YouTube, or other Google sites.[5]
- Millennials
- Half of all 12-year-olds are on Facebook (some 1.78 million), and they are evading Facebook’s age limit requirements.[6]
- 45% of Millennials (those between 18 and 34 years old) use their mobile devices to research product details before buying big ticket items. (As compared to 34% of those between 35 and 54.)
- 28% of these use their devices for location-based apps multiple times a day.[7]
- 33% of the more than 1400 18-29-year-olds surveyed said that Internet access has become a basic need ranking behind air, water, food and shelter.
- 64% said they would prefer an Internet connection to a having a car.
- 40% said that the Internet is more important than dating or going out with friends or even listening to music.[8]
- Video Games
- Seven of the top 10 video games, sold in America in 2011, were “shooter games.”[9]
- Music
- “92% of the “Top Ten” Billboard songs are about sex.”
- Of the top selling 174 songs in 2009, each contained, on average, 10.49 sex-related phrases per song.[10]
- Family Time
- “The average parent spends 38.5 minutes per week in meaningful conversation with their children.”
- “Family dinners are more important than play, story time and other family events in the development of vocabulary of younger children.”
- “Frequent family meals are associated with a lower risk of smoking, drinking and using drugs; with a lower incidence of depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts; and with better grades in 11 to 18 year olds.”
- “Adolescent girls who have frequent family meals, and a positive atmosphere during those meals, are less likely to have eating disorders.”
- “Kids who eat most often with their parents are 40% more likely to say they get mainly A’s and B’s in school than kids who have two or fewer family dinners a week.”[11]
- “Family time has decreased since 1976.”
- “The percentage of respondents who engaged frequently in attending religious services together decreased from 38 percent in 1976 to 29 percent in 1997.
- The percentage who engaged frequently in watching television together decreased from 54 percent to 42 percent.
- The percentage who engaged frequently in sitting and talking together decreased from 53 percent to 42 percent.
- The percentage of respondents who frequently have the main meal together on weekdays decreased from 72 percent to 58 percent — and the percentage who take a vacation together decreased from 53 percent to 38 percent.”[12]
Church Growth, or Lack of, In America:
- “How many people do you know who will, most likely, not walk into a church building? They are not alone. Western cultures are facing a major crisis. With 83.6% of America not attending a conventional church on a given weekend and approximately 95% of the people in other western cultures not attending a conventional church …”
- “Approximately 80% of all churches in North America have reached a plateau or are declining. The vast majority of the church’s growth comes from “switchers” – people who move from one church to another.”
- “There is precious little conversion growth. Researchers suggest somewhere between 1-3%.”
- Church attendance is declining:
1990 — 20.4% of Americans attended church on a given weekend
2000 — 18.7% of Americans attended church on a given weekend
2005 — 17.5% of Americans attended church on a given weekend
2010 — 16.2% estimated church attendance
2020 — 14.4% estimated church attendance
2050 — 10.7% estimated church attendance if Jesus has not come.
- “Other western cultures, like Europe, Australia, and New Zealand record church attendance ranging between 2% – 8%.”
- “As of 2008 over 3,500 people leave the church every day.”
- “The yearly decline in the percentage of people attending a Christian church was faster from 2000—2005 than it was from 1990—2000.”
- “The average church in the United States will spend as much as 64 percent of its budget on staff salaries.
Additionally, it will spend as much as 30 percent of its offerings on maintaining its buildings.
Researchers say that churches spend between 82 – 96 percent of their financial resources on maintaining themselves.
In 2001 “the total cost of Christian outreach worldwide averages $330,000 for each newly baptized person. The cost per baptism in the United States tops $1.5 million.”
- “Fuller Theological Seminary did a research study that found that if a church is 10 or more years old, it takes 85 people to lead 1 person to Christ. If a church is less than 3 years old, it takes only 3 people to lead 1 person to Christ.”
- “Between 1990 and 2050 church attendance will grow from 50 million to 60 million.
Census estimates forecast a population growth from 248 million to 520 million people.
In other words, America would need (as of 2008) 15,000 new churches of any kind every year to keep up with population.”
- “Every year, approximately 4000 new churches open their doors. Every year approximately 7000 churches close their doors for the last time.”
- “Agreeing with other researchers, George Barna, in his book Revolution, has confirmed that many are going to house churches, in a spiritual quest of a more relevant relationship with God.”
- “The new Revolution differs in that its primary impetus is not salvation among the unrepentant but the personal renewal and recommitment of believers. The dominant catalyst is people’s desperation for a genuine relationship with God. The renewal of that relationship spurs believers to participate in spreading the gospel. Rather than relying on a relative handful of inspired preachers to promote a national revival, the emerging Revolution is truly a grassroots explosion of commitment to God that will refine the Church and result in a natural and widespread immersion in outreach.” (From George Barna’s book, Revolution.)[13]
[1] http://www.youthministrymedia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/mashable_infographic_graphics-facebook-numbers.jpg
[2] http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/09/is-e-mail-dying-teens-check-in.html
[3] http://mashable.com/2011/08/18/oxford-english-dictionary-retweet-sexting-woot/
[4] http://mashable.com/2011/11/29/cyber-monday-sales-2011/
[5] http://mashable.com/2011/11/29/online-video-views/
[6] http://www.homeword.com/blog_info.php?articles_id=1247
[7] http://mashable.com/2011/10/13/millenials-mobile-infographic/
[8] http://iblogo.com/2011/10/04/for-youth-internet-is-as-essential-as-food/
[9] http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2011/01/01/top-100-biggest-games-of-2011-happy-new-year-from-vgb.htm
[10] http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/09/92-top-ten-billboard-songs-are-about-sex/43182/
[11] http://dinnertrade.com/568/interesting-statistics-on-family-dinners
[12] http://www.sermoncentral.com/illustrations/statistics-about-Family-Time.asp
[13] simplechurchathome.com/Why.html
Television and Life: My TV, My Movies, and Jesus
Here’s the scenario:
Someone rings the doorbell of your home. It’s about 7:36 in the evening. You’re sitting down. Your phone is somewhere on the couch next to you, ready to check Facebook when you get bored. The television is on, and you are watching something you really, really like. It’s so good you decide the dishes can wait.
But the doorbell rings.
You check yourself fast. You are in some lounge wear, but nothing too uncommon for anyone to wear, in their own house, after a long day. So you walk over to the door, and peek out of the window. It’s a man. Unassuming. Nice. One hand in a pocket. The other holding a pizza. You didn’t order a pizza, so you assume this nice young delivery man has gotten the address wrong. So you open the door. As soon as it opens, you see his smile. It’s a good, healthy smile. Good dental work. He opens the box and says, “Your favorite, right?”
And it is.
“I thought you would like this. Mind if I come in?”
Yes, he really said that. But it’s not creepy. It’s somewhat familiar. Especially after he introduces himself.
“My name is Jeshua. Most people call me Jesus. And I decided to come to your house today. And I brought pizza.”
And he is telling the truth. You realize, at that moment, in some ethereal way, that the Son of God is standing on your porch, with your favorite pizza.
“I just came to watch some TV with you. Do you mind?”
And there is the question. Do we mind?
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Forgive my literary allowances. I mean no disrespect at all. It’s a similar story, really, to when Jesus visited Zacchaeus, the tax collector, to share dinner with him (Luke 19). Jesus interrupted Zacchaeus’ life.
If Jesus really, truly, came to your door, to watch TV with you, what would be your very first instinct? Be honest. Because if you’re just brushing aside that question, then you are failing to realize that Jesus is already present, in your company, as you watch television.
That makes us very uncomfortable. It made me very uncomfortable.
I rationalized every viewing moment in really crazy ways, and here they are. You may find them familiar:
- If the storyline featured good, triumphing over evil, then it obviously had to be a spiritual program of deep searching.
- I would look for glances and nuances of Gospel in shows, and movies, in hopes that if I found just one moment of “Gospel,” then my time, and money, would be worth it.
- I always offered a disclaimer when reviewing a particular program, or movie, for some friends. I would always be sure to mention how spiritual it was. And then be careful to say, “It’s a little violent in some areas.” Or, “If they had only cut out the sex scene, the movie would have been awesome.” Or, “I just wish they wouldn’t cuss so much.”
Those rationalities began to generate a fair amount of friction, though, when I began to radically rethink what I watch, and how I chose to be entertained. This post is the third of such posts, detailing my decision to ultimately cancel my TV, but this one veers into some other territory, including films and movies, and my decision regarding how I approach those as well.
I am not, and will not judge, your viewing preferences, though. Everyone is on their own journey. This is mine.
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The first time I ever truly thought about discretion with movies was when I was in junior high. I was in a class, at a popular student seminar, in the midst of a weekend of worship and learning. The teacher, whom I do not know, and will probably never know, made a comment in his class that made me think about what I decided to watch. I disregarded his advice for a long time, but that comment eventually made me rethink everything.
He commented on movies, and entertainment. And he said this, quoting from a passage in Psalms 11:4-7:
But the Lord is in his holy Temple;
the Lord still rules from heaven.
He watches everyone closely,
examining every person on earth.
The Lord examines both the righteous and the wicked.
He hates those who love violence.
He will rain down blazing coals and burning sulfur on the wicked,
punishing them with scorching winds.
For the righteous Lord loves justice.
The virtuous will see his face.
“The Lord hates those who love violence.” That was the statement.
I was offended.
It was an all-guys class, and the teacher was teaching about what it meant to be a man. And his statement was vastly different from what a room-full of adolescent guys wanted to hear.
Because we are taught life in violent ways. Really. We are taught to watch violence. We are taught to be entertained by violence.
Football is violent. MMA is violent. UFC is violent. Most, if not all films and movies, have violence.
And if you love any of those violent things, then, at best, you are offended. At worst, you’ve already left this site.
If you stayed, though, you probably began to dissect the meaning of this verse. I did. And your first thought in this dissection probably was what is love? Because the pronouncement in this passage is against those who love violence. And your reaction is probably somewhere along this train of thought: I don’t love violence. I have never loved violence. And I really don’t want God to hate me.
And then your reaction probably goes in this direction: so, then, what is violence? Does that mean actually killing people? You probably don’t regularly kill people.
Or … could it mean watching people kill other people, even if it is simulated? Could it really, truly, mean that?
That kind of reaction, and dissection, kept me from making any changes in my viewing preferences. I was fearful to further investigate, and decipher, the love for violence for which the psalmist writes.
And all the while, I spent lots of money to watch movies that were gruesome and violent. Twenty years after that class, I began to make the connection. I don’t “love” violence. But I have certainly supported it. I have bought hundreds (thousands?) of tickets for movies that were violent, and disturbing. I watched television programs where violence was prominent.
Something had to give.
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On vacation in 2009, my wife and I went to the theater while our daughters remained with my wife’s parents that evening. We were going to see an action flick of some sort. Our oldest daughter was eight, and we let her know that we were going to the movies, and that we would be back later. We were leaving, and my six-year-old daughter (at the time) asked my eight-year-old daughter what Mommy and Daddy were going to see. My eight-year-old answered her question with this: ”They’re going to see a bad show.”
The phrase “bad show” in our house has a wide definition, essentially meaning any show on television that we decided was not entirely good or wholesome for our daughters – programs that offer little, or no, moral lesson or educational content.
In spite of their conversation, my wife and I watched the movie anyway. We even had a brief conversation about what we could watch, and couldn’t watch, and decided that we were the adults, and we had good discernment, and different rules applied to us. Even then, I knew that decision would not last. In my heart, I couldn’t bear the thought that my daughters believed we were watching something we believed they shouldn’t watch. That sort of decision-making, as parents, would teach our kids a “do as I say, not as I do” mentality. And that wasn’t acceptable for us.
Later in the summer, two months later actually, we paid money to see Transformers 2. We believed it to be a harmless movie, but the first few minutes placed the female lead in poses that were completely exploitative. I was embarrassed that I brought my wife to this movie. And I was ashamed that my daughters would one day find out we watched this movie.
So the conversation about what we watch, even before we cancelled our cable, became intense, with incredible amounts of time given to a decision we both knew was inevitable. And here it is: If we thought a movie was inappropriate for even our four-year-old, then it was inappropriate for us.
Our ability to give our children a home, where God is king, was being compromised for a couple of hours to watch something we would never watch in the presence of Jesus.
So we simply stopped watching.
We had already stopped watching movies with an R rating. So we simply dropped the rating level, and stopped watching movies with a PG-13 rating. Which meant, obviously, that our movie-watching experience was about to drastically be reduced. Most movies of any cultural importance have that rating, and so we immediately felt this decision. Most social conversations are about movies. We were immediately left out of many of those. Our exclusion, to us, was glaringly obvious.
But we stuck to our guns, especially considering how long it took us to make that decision. Movies with either a PG or G rating are all that we would watch.
Our decision to stop watching PG-13 movies resulted into two extraordinary things. It eventually lead me to cancel my television. It also led me to rethink my relationship with visual entertainment. I discovered, quite quickly, that I could actually live without movies.
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There were really three, core things that eventually culminated in my decision to just stop:
- The culmination of knowing I watch everything in the presence of God …
- Refusing to lie to my daughters about what I watched …
- Refusing to let them watch some of the things I was watching.
Those were enough to convict me. They should have convicted me much, much earlier.
But there was another consideration.
As a minister who teaches teenagers, and as a minister who leads worship, I found a great amount of friction between my entertainment choices and teaching themes. It was not an easy thing to lead worship on Sunday morning, to a large church, when I spent the previous night watching movies, or programs, that just weren’t holy.
My responsibility, my ordination, and my calling, further convicted me to just stop it all.
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There are countless lists of sins in the New Testament. It seems that Paul, as he wrote to the scattered churches, felt compelled, from time to time, to make things incredibly simple. He was quite adept with grand, theological themes, but even he realized, like every good preacher, that simplicity is often more powerful. Here is one of those lists, with a little bit of a prelude, from Galatians 5:
So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
Powerful, isn’t it? If the spirit of God, the agent of life and holy energy, really commands your life, then the desire to do evil dissipates. Reflect upon that, and think about what you watch. True, you may not be “doing evil” simply by sitting in a chair and watching any particular show or movie. I certainly didn’t believe I was “doing evil.”
But are you being entertained by others doing evil?
So, true to the previous post, I want to offer you some questions with which I struggled. Be warned, though. They will convict you.
- What do those shows, or movies, display for you to watch?
- What about Glee?
- House?
- The Office?
- Or any of a dozen movies?
- Do they exploit sex as “a thing to be had?”
- Do they use violence, and anger, to get your attention?
- Do they push the envelope of acceptability?
- Do they contain sexual immorality?
- Impurity?
- Lustful pleasures?
- Idolatry?
- Sorcery?
- Hostility?
- Quarreling?
- Jealousy?
- Outbursts of anger?
- Selfish ambition?
- Dissension?
- Division?
- Envy?
- Drunkenness?
- Wild parties?
- Why are we really entertained by these? What does that really say about us?
- What does our entertainment choices say about satisfying the craving of our own sinful nature?
- Why do we feed that craving, anyway?
- What does that say about the decisions we make on behalf of our spouses?
- What does that say about the decisions we make on behalf of our kids?
And, perhaps, the biggest, and most convicting question of all is this one, which ultimately led me to make some fairly radical changes.
- Why do we fill our spare time with images, and words, that could never be displayed or spoken as worship to God?
Whatever we do must bring God glory. Every decision must magnify Him in our lives. Every word we say, every image we view, every relationship we entertain, must bring God glory. Everything must speak to God’s presence in our lives. Our preferences, addictions, and options tempt us to bring glory to our wants and desires and motives, though.
The apostle Peter writes this about our decisions:
Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in this world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Abstinence is a strong word, which in our culture, has a fairly specific usage. But Peter broadens the word. Stay away from anything that wants to wage war against your soul.
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The next few verses in Galatians 5 are probably more famous. Here they are:
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.
A life lived by the spirit of God is led by the spirit of God.
If your life is receiving energy and power from this pneuma, this wind, this breath of God, then every part of your life should feel its influence.
Which means that the part of your life you give to watching television, or movies, should be led by the spirit of God.
It should be.
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I have one more post for you, in the coming days. The biggest question you have, probably, is how in the world do we fill our time now? I’d love to share that with you, so be watching for it
Thanks for reading.
Goldfish
I am reading Sally Hogshead’s book, Fascinate. A book stylized for advertising and marketing, it has remarkable information for those of us that communicate regularly.
On her blog, she writes this about one of the more controversial statements she makes, concerning our shrinking attention span:
A hundred years ago, our attention span averaged twenty minutes: one minute for each year of age, up until age twenty. Things were slower on the farm, with fewer distractions beyond crop rotation and bird migration. But today? Ah, well, a little different.
“The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds — the same as a goldfish.” ~ BBC News
Hold on — Nine seconds? That’s all we get before people’s brains make a decision whether to stay focused, or relocate to a new topic? No wonder we’re experiencing the symptoms of attention deficit disorder: short attention span, distractibility, and tendency to be bored. In an ADD world, people leapfrog to the next conversation, the next idea, the next website. (Hello, multi-tasking!)
In our chaotic world, our minds and our lives have become so cluttered that we rarely focus on just one thing at any given time. We’ve thrown open the doors to the short-attention-span theater, and now the show parades around us at a rate of five thousand marketing messages per day, faster than FedEx, louder than Kanye West, bigger than Disney World. Our attention spans are shrinking at a rate inverse to the growing number of distractions.
Now, “getting attention” is no longer enough. Children get attention when they scream in the candy aisle. Don’t Walk signs get our attention when they flash on and off. Marketers get attention when we offer a discount coupon, or buy a TV ad on the Super Bowl, or advertise a two-for-one sale. Yet while bells and whistles and gimmicks might work (maybe), they rarely lead to lasting emotional connection, or long-term behavior change. Interest is not enough. Neither is awareness, intent to purchase, or having share-of-mind, or being top-of-mind, or any of the other jargon thrown into PowerPoint slides. It’s not even enough to make a better product, or have a more important message, if nobody cares.
Wow.
“It’s not even enough to make a better product, or have a more important message, if nobody cares.”
When I read this, I thought of a quote from the book Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. His thoughts are of his times visiting churches, and his immediate perceptions of those belief systems. His words sound a bit like what Hogshead wrote above. Here they are:
Here are the things I didn’t like about the churches I went to. First: I felt like people were trying to sell me Jesus. I was a salesman for a while, and we were taught that you are supposed to point out all the benefits of a product when you are selling it. That is how I felt about some of the preachers I heard speak. They were always pointing out the benefits of Christian faith. That rubbed me wrong. It’s not that there aren’t benefits, there are, but did they have to talk about spirituality like it’s a vacuum cleaner. I never felt like Jesus was a product. I wanted Him to be a person. Not only that, but they were always pointing out how great the specific church was. The bulletin read like a brochure for Amway. They were always saying how life-changing some conference was going to be. Life-changing? What does that mean? It sounded very suspicious. I wish they would just tell it to me straight rather than trying to sell me on everything. I felt like I got bombarded with commercials all week and then went to church and got even more.
I wonder if his words are true for those who live in my particular county in Arkansas, where 55% of those here do not attend any church.
We live in a highly sensitive, highly suspicious environment. Here are my questions for you:
- If we are true to the Great Commission, and true to the call of making disciples, then how do we combine a world suspicious of our beliefs, and our styles, with a message that may take a bit longer than 9 seconds to communicate? Because if our world is compacting, and we make judgment calls within ten seconds, how do we communicate grace and mercy in a cultural environment that increasingly has no time for long stories?
- Can we simply “form church” to relate to people with little time to invest?
- Should we bring people into “our way,” all the while rebuking a world that forms decisions so fast?
- And how do you make someone care, when they are being shaped, by our culture, to make a decision so fast?
I would love your thoughts.
Feast
(Note to you, dear reader. I’ve included a quick poll at the bottom of this post. Your answers are completely anonymous, so feel free to vote!)
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In early October, I, with a friend, had the opportunity to attend a worship conference in Nashville.
After an afternoon of travel, we entered into the lobby, full of people with coffee cups in hand, standing and networking and talking and laughing and wondering. There were book tables and, in the lobby, a baptistery, with a large glass window which viewed the large courtyard to the back of the campus.
As the sanctuary doors opened, we walked inside and found the auditorium which, with pews, could seat well over two thousand peoples, but instead of pews or chairs, it was filled with tables and chairs, and the thousand or so which came to the conference found their places and waited.
The worship leaders took the stage, an a capella group, with around a dozen singers, and the first note of the first song was angelic. The room erupted into praise from ministers and worship leaders eager to be filled during a worship assembly, a stark departure from spending Mondays virtually emptied from leading hundreds in worship on Sundays. I was one of those people, and found myself in a room of raw emotions and needful people, and could not sing, for my voice weakened, and my emotions softened, and the worship experience, though very subtle without musicians or bands or instruments, was simply remarkable, and easily the most transforming moment of worship I have ever attended.
The night of worship was such a feast for the soul. Great worship songs led into an emotive and energetic and intelligent speaker, which then gave way to another time of worship. That led to a video montage of several movie clips, which had most of us laughing, which then gave way to another moment of speaking. We then engaged into a community activity with those sitting around our table, and then were led again in a moment of worship. The two hour event moved fast, and was a true sensory feast. At the conclusion of the event, I was simply overwhelmed.
And it wasn’t because the quality of the worship leaders or the speakers was any greater than what I see, and in which I participate, every Sunday. It was just the careful and simple planning to ensure that you can connect with God in every single sensory way, from singing to listening to writing to watching to talking.
Traditional churches find this thought very revolutionary, with static schedules of worship. But a teacher in a classroom of second graders understands that if you want students to learn, and you want your learning environment to be a true learning experience, you need to ensure that your students can learn in a variety of ways, by surrounding them with varying angles of the same message.
Yesterday, in the church where I worship and work and lead, was a day very similar to the conference described above. The worship schedule included a brief moment of worship, then a presentation, followed by a longer period of singing. Our church then shared communion, and, before the offering, watched another presentation. We prayed for those who have been saved, and then heard a message on giving. After, we witnessed a baptism of one of our students, but the comments made by her father were just overwhelming and moving. I saw one of our church members at lunch, and he told me that the morning was just great — and that we only made him cry three times.
He is not alone. Great moments of humility typically follow genuine encounters with God. Isaiah, the prophet, could not speak when he saw the cherubim of God, and heard His voice. The face of Moses glowed after speaking with God on a mountain, but that was well after God approached him in a bush glowing with fire, but never quite burned. Elijah heard God in a whisper. Peter and Andrew and James and John, and others, saw God as a human, and watched him heal the withered legs of a crippled man. And they were soon given the same power to heal.
Moreover, all of those stories attest to the fact that God has no one favored way of approaching humanity, but, in fact, approaches us in a variety of ways, because we have varied ways of sensing and feeling and understanding. I believe we have every right, and every capability, to find and worship God with every emotive response we possess, for we are created that way.
We again tested this idea last night, when we hosted a more contemporary worship event, targeted for teenagers, with a sensory worship environment, that included, of all things, a painter, painting a scene from the crucifixion. With the lights dimmed, the schedule was again broken into parts, which alternated between moments of speaking and singing, and watching. It wasn’t variety, for the sake of variety, but rather, a genuine, honest attempt to reach a new generation of seekers, whose lives are filled with multiple tasks at once. They expect their experiences to be total and complete and surrounding. Others don’t, but find God in new ways when they engage in worship like this.
It was a worship of surrounding, with people finding God in layers of emotions and responses and experiences. It was truly a feast.
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Share your thoughts! Your submissions are completely anonymous, even to me, so please, vote!
