Theology has typically been in a separate realm from the local church, much to the disdain of theologians like Eugene Peterson, who view the role of pastor as a theologian and teacher (and poet). For the most part, local churches have tried to stay away from theology and academics, mostly because they say that theology is “too hard” or “impractical.” They say it belongs in the seminaries, but not in the church.

Should a local church have a theologian in residence? What role should the theologian fill?

Cellphones, which in the last few years have become full-fledged computers with high-speed Internet connections, let people relieve the tedium of exercising, the grocery store line, stoplights or lulls in the dinner conversation.

The technology makes the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive. But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas.

Just like we need to fast from food, so to do we need to fast from technology in today’s world. The journalist for the NY Times (who was interviewed on Fresh Air), Matt Richtel, won a Pulitzer for his series on driving while distracting, and his research into distraction led him to studies that paint a far bleaker picture of attention spans when it comes to technology. Richtel makes an interesting insight on technology that leads to an interesting connection with fasting:

“You know, halfway through this year, writing about this and following on the distracted driving series last year, I think we’ve come upon an analogy that really informs how we’re covering this and that as I’ve spoken to scientists, they’ve embraced, too. And the analogy is technology as analogous to food…So just as food nourishes us and we need it for life, so too in the 21st century, in the modern age, we need technology. You cannot survive without the communications tools. The productivity tools are essential. And yet, food has pros and cons to it. We know that some food is Twinkies and some is Brussels sprouts. And we know that if we overeat, it causes problems.

“Similarly, after, say, 20 years of glorifying all technology as if all computers were good and all use of it was good, I think science is beginning to embrace the idea that some technology is Twinkies, and some technology is Brussels sprouts.

“And if we consume too much technology, just like if we consume too much food, it can have ill effects. And that is the moment in time we find ourselves in with this series and with the way we are digesting, if you will, technology all over the place, everywhere today” (from Fresh Air).

The food analogy is important to how we begin to think about technology. Since I use a computer so much at work, I started about a year or so ago to purposefully not spend time on a computer on Sundays. It was a meaningful part of the Sabbath for me, since checking email is work for me. So on Sundays, I don’t check email. I try not to go near the computer at all, unless I want to stream a movie or TV show (we don’t have cable). What has been interesting about my fasting from email on Sundays is that I have noticed what the Ritchel is getting at in his interview and article. We just need breaks in our lives from everything, even if it’s good for us or very productive. Taking breaks leads to self control, silence, and reflection. We need to think sometimes, not just interact, and digital fasting helps accomplish that.

What ways do you make a digital fast?

I think the disconnect between fasting and almsgiving today is because of the decentralization of food from the neighborhood and community. The democratization of food purchasing in our country, when you can use food stamps at Aldi’s, Whole Foods, Costco or the farmer’s market stands in stark contrast to the corporate overtaking of our food systems by the industrial oligarchy of corporate food profiteers (watch Food, Inc.).  The democratization of food purchasing and the corporate overtaking of our food system has led to people on food stamps blending in at supermarkets when purchasing and to receiving over-preserved, high fructose corn syrup laced chemical equivalents of foods in donations (there is a growing movement of soup kitchens and food pantries getting local produce; let this continue to blossom!). The bottom line is that those that need food do not stand out in society. That’s a good thing when it means you’ve eliminated the problem, but a not so good thing if you haven’t. People just aren’t aware of the problem anymore. It’s hidden.

What do you think the disconnect between fasting and almsgiving stems from in our culture?

“Dancing with God” – August 11, 2006

“Mother Maria and a ‘New Monasticism‘” – February 4, 2008

The next series on Everyday Liturgy is Denominational Distinctives. People will be invited to share the strengths and weaknesses of their denoomination or convention or group of churches: how they are growing, what worship is like, how God is moving in their local church(es), etc.

If you would like to participate, please contact me or send me a tweet @everydayliturgy.

May the God who was slow to anger with our forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and slow to anger with the children of Israel, be slow to anger with us, the church:
that in our collective weakness, and our collective sin, God would look to the death
and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ unto the forgiveness of our transgressions,
and fill us with new life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1) The local church is becoming increasingly ecumenical. Church attendance is becoming more diverse as Americans become more comfortable with spiritual alternatives. With a more post-modern perspective, people who were raised in one denomination or stream of Christianity are more comfortable leaving that stream for another one. This is seen in such movements as the recent trend of young evangelicals migrating to the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions.

2) The local church is becoming missional. The attractional model functioned in American Christendom because it fulfilled the needs of both church and attendee: the church continued to exist by bringing in numbers and the attendee received spirituality while remaining a healthy arms-length away from engaging in the heartbeat of discipleship and faith. Now that the culture at large is okay with not being part of a spiritual community, the local church must become missional since this is how the Church has learned to live in cultures that are secular. The missional church needs theological diversity because it is no longer attracting people to a particular mode of worship or set of doctrines but instead to a framework of spirituality and discipleship that needs to remain open to a person’s (a)theological background and ethnic and/or cultural heritage.

3) The local church is becoming discipleship oriented. Disciples are followers of a certain way. The way of Christ has many streams in it, as can be seen by the huge amount of denominations, conferences, collectives, and sects within Christianity. These streams are all one manifold witness for Christ, to borrow from John Franke. With so many streams of discipleship, it is paramount that the local church not have a one-size-fits-all approach to discipleship but instead allows the believer to grow into an authentic relationship with Christ, whether that takes on the form of belting out contemporary worship music or chanting Psalms.

4) The local church is becoming the ambassador of Christianity in a broader culture. With more and more people being raised completely outside of a religious or spiritual context the Church is becoming counter-cultural (not because we’re cool, but because Christendom is dead). As ambassadors for Christ in the local community we can no longer afford to treat our fellow Christians who are different in doctrine, worship, or spiritual practice as the ugly stepsister. We need to stick together in our diversity because that is the greatest testimony to a post-Christian world: “we are not divisive like the world is, we are one kingdom under Christ.”

5) The local church is becoming a safe haven for spiritual exploration. With so many young people now growing up without any spiritual heritage it is crucial that the local church be a model of theological diversity. Not only is this a testimony of our unity to the broader culture, it is also a sign to those that are spiritually seeking that the local church is a safe place to think about mortality, God, the afterlife, sin, evil, justice, and equality. Those that are spiritually seeking are looking for a spiritual center without the rigidity of a faith community that claims to know all the answers. In essence, people are now seeking faith communities built upon faith as the center and not an airtight system of proven beliefs.  The theological diverse local church is a safe place for people with spiritual questions to come and ask them without fear of rejection.

What strikes the reader most about Marcus Goodyear’s poetry is the immediate action of the poetry. The action is simultaneous with the writng, as if Goodyear was dictating the present in lines like a sportscaster gives a play-by-play on a baseball game. The effect of Goodyear’s poetry is not immediately deep or penetrating but matter-of-fact, a pronouncement of ordinary life in poetic lines….

The full review is available here.

Thomas: So, after reading your book it really got me thinking about hipster Christianity and worship, because for me as a creative person who coordinates some of the liturgy for the church I attend I have notions about how to frame worship, mostly from an ancient-future perspective. It made me wonder about the whole advent of CCM that came about because of the Jesus Movement, and how our worship is a cultural response, not just a spiritual response.

Brett: Yeah, totally.

Thomas: So, I guess my first question is, how do you see cool/hip influence worship in the church today?

Brett: Well, I think a lot of it has to do with what you just said about the “cultural response vs. spiritual response” shift that happened when “Christian music” became an industry that tried to compete with, or at least copy, the styles of the broader world. The emphasis on worship music in the church thus began a shift in the “seeker-sensitive” direction—away from hymns and songs full of complicated theology or difficult-to-sing harmonies, etc.—toward a more simple chords, simply lyrics, path-of-least resistance approach. It became this thing that could be used to attract people to the church, to get them in the door. Worship music in the church became something that was asked to “do” rather than just “be,” if that makes any sense.

In terms of cool/hip specifically, I think they influence the music greatly.  When you get in this mindset of “what does the audience want to hear?” then you begin to select music that is “on trend” and reflective of what is cool at the moment. Basically, it makes the music much more disposable and quickly replaceable. It’s all about “what’s next.” Songs sung a few years ago like “God of Wonders” are hardly ever sung these days, because it’s passe to be singing something that was trendy 8 years ago.

Thomas: Yeah, worship seems to have this trickle down effect where worship music is on a delay. David Crowder listens to Sufjan Stevens, then covers a song, then it gets picked up by worship leaders, then people worship to it.

Brett: Right.

Thomas: Meanwhile Sufjan’s put out another album by then, and no one who worships to “O God Where Are You Now?” even knows who he is.

Brett: [Laughing] yeah. This is one of the problems with a “what is cool”-based methodology of worship music. It’s always behind trend. As long as you are actively trying to be with the trends, you’ll always be reactive and not proactive. So, a better route I think is to be trying to innovate and create new things, rather than reacting to or chasing after that which is deemed trendy or cool at the moment.

Thomas: So, culture making, in other words?

Brett: Definitely.

Thomas: What do you think people involved in the worship practice of a church need to learn or unlearn when it comes to how we let culture affect our worship?

Brett: I think we need to attempt to shift our focus away from a utilitarian view of music in worship that looks at music in this cause-effect model (some call it the “hammer approach”). The cause-effect model wants music to be this “performance” that somehow attracts outsiders. Rather, I think we should look at worship more as a “window into heaven” or just a reflection of what the saints are called to do: worship God. It should be less about what’s cool and more about “is this praising God?” I think we need to stop worrying so much about whether the congregation is liking it or enjoying it (though to some extent we must think of this) and more about whether it is turning us toward God and the cross.

Thomas: I think that’s a good way to put it. An example from my own church: there is an Armenian family at our church and one of their sons played the doumbek, and Armenian instrument in church one day. It was a bit out of place, a rock band and some Armenian percussion, but I look back on that and wonder why are we stuck in rock band mold? Should we begin to let the church community shape worship in unexpected ways?

Brett: Oh, definitely. I am always wondering to myself when I go to evangelical churches across the country: “Why am I only seeing this homogeneous, 5-piece U2-esque electric guitar sound?” Why are we only singing these soaring, emotional, me-centered Hillsong anthems? Can’t we do better than this, experiment with our own home-grown talents, explore the rich hymns of yesteryear in new and interesting ways?”

It’s strange to me that we’ve sort of landed on this very specific “rock band mold” as you put it. Why did we land here, and why is our conception of contemporary worship music so narrow?

Thomas: I think part of it is that copying is the destroyer of creativity. We go to conferences to copy successful churches, we listen to certain musicians to copy successful music, and we read certain books to copy successful theology. We don’t care about the local or genuine, we just care about the success. What ways do you see to bring creativity back into the church?

Brett: Well, one of the things I talk about in the book is the need for pastors and church leaders to come to a more honest understanding of what they like and why they like it. I think we need to evaluate and train our tastes, so that we can have a more mature, developed sense of appreciating art and culture rather than just “trying to like” what the populace says should be liked. So, instead of saying “the kids love such-and-such worship style; I want our band to try to play songs in that style,” I think a pastor or worship leader should say: “Hey band members, what music moves and inspires us as creative people? What do we like to create and perform?” I think we need to put more of an emphasis ourselves as artists rather than as hired hands meant to give the audience what it wants. Not that I think we should be narcissistic or anything, just that perhaps we should be more personal and honest about the whole process by emphasizing vision, innovation and creativity.

Some of the best church worship music I saw on my church research trips were the ones that really seemed to be organic and true to their own congregation’s tastes and talents. At Resurrection Presbyterian in Brookyln (the church pastored by The Welcome Wagon guy, Vito Aiuto), the music was of the same low-fi folk, hymns-on-banjo style of the whole Sufjan Brooklyn community. Another good example I would say is Mars Hill in Seattle. They have different bands play at their different campuses, and they are all just organic, self-made bands that have widely variant styles (math-rock, hard-rock, acoustic, etc..). They were sort of given free reign to create experimental worship music, often covering hymns in their own distinct styles.

Thomas: Music is so important to set the tone for a creative church, because a church can then embody the music instead of being spectators before a band. Pushing it further, how then do you see the worship music intersecting with the other elements of worship like preaching, prayer, and communion?

Brett: I think all of those elements are “worship,” and should (ideally) be integrated in some sort of cohesive way. The music we sing should interact with the preaching topic, the prayers being offered, etc. I’m a big fan of churches that are mindful of the church calendar, playing music and reading prayers that are specific to the church season (Lent, Advent, Easter, Pentecost, etc.). I think in general it’s just better to be more thoughtful in picking out music that reflects the other worship elements in a service, both in musical tone and lyrical content.

Thomas: Last question: in your book you implore Christians to be counter-cultural, but not necessarily “cool.” How can worship become counter-cultural?

Brett: Great question. I think being counter-cultural in worship just means being fiercely devoted to who God is and the fact that he is God and I am not. It means being passionately deferential and active in the constant, probing process of meditating on—and responding to through our own creative means—the attributes of God. It means caring little for whether or not we are “on trend” but caring instead that we are facilitating a culture that is honestly, creatively seeking God through its worship praxis. But also, and I think this is important to remember, it means that we rightly understand the broader universal church and seek unity and diversity through it whenever we can. This means that we find a balance between the local (our own individual culture of worship) and the global (the “common songs” and universal liturgies that bind us together as Christians). It means we have to fight against our western obsession with individualism and “what I want” and sometimes put the community above ourselves. We are Christians in community, and our worship should reflect collaboration and unity.

You can read my review of Brett’s new book Hipster Christianity here.

If you don’t know whether you’re a Christian hipster or not, you can take a quiz on the Hipster Christianity website.