So this was an interesting conversation on another thread: Me: The basic modus is that the congregation should listen to those they seek to include and expect to change their reality as much as they expect to change those they include. Other: That sounds very good as a principle; but in practice one cannot please, or satisfy, everyone. Me: I am not proposing pleasing and satisfying everyone or trying so to do. That modus operandi is in fact exceptionally far from what I am proposing indeed. I am saying that a congregation must be prepared to no longer be pleased and no longer be satisfied with its worship and liturgy in the base sense of "pleasure and satisfaction" we expect from our consumer society. I am saying that we need to stop attempting new or old models of worship and liturgy for the sake of attracting or keeping people by means of exciting these base pleasure centers. That, in fact, we need to fully engage with the poignant critique of Marx that in many cases all religion truly offers is base excitement of our pleasure and satisfaction centers such that everyone gets properly distracted from the need for personal and societal transformation every Sunday. I propose, instead, an understanding of liturgy that is inherently transformative and growth inducing and that involves all the pain and conflict as well as pleasure and satisfaction that comes about through transformative growth, skill building, and interchange. If we expect people to come into our churches and enter into the intense transformative reality that is a relationship with Jesus Christ and take upon themselves all of the pain and conflict/pleasure and satisfaction that so entails that we the church must be willing to enter into that space with them and be transformed as well. That in fact if we are to believe that this is a child of God and that the inclusion of that child into the body of Christ actually renews the entire body that we should recognize the changing ramifications that means for every member and the community as a whole. In other words we as those sitting in the pews, the churched as it were, need to recognize how the Holy Spirit is striving to continually transform us by leading people to our churches and stop thinking that we are those in the right with God and the spirit and everyone just needs to be like us.
Posted on: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 16:55:57 +0000