Confessions of an Incomplete Liturgical Nerd

True Confession: I’m a liturgy nerd.  

I’m a sucker for good order, for letting Scripture “dwell in me richly”, for the beauty of a chanted kyrie (even if I can’t do it), and a reverent Eucharistic prayer that places Christ’s inauguration of the New Covenant squarely in the context of God’s entire salvation narrative beginning in Genesis, for a full-on cross-led procession in and out of the service.  I like this stuff because I think it points to Jesus.  I like it because it’s different, and it reminds me that, as a Christian, I participate in a reality that is simultaneously “not of this world” and also the most real of all realities.  I like the liturgy, and “high church” because it’s the Sesame Street method of learning the faith – lex orandi, lex credendi, and when we pray and sing and read the actual words of Scripture, over and over and over again, we learn them, we marinate in them, and the Word that goes out and does not return empty transforms us, slowly, deeply, over time.  I love the old hymns.  I love that they were written by people with a deep faith and love for the Lord, and I love that they were written to teach and defend the faith.  “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” is a beautiful, haunting, lovely, deep, rich hymn – more so when you know that it was written in the 4^th century at a time when the debate about the quality of Jesus’ divinity was raging, threatening to tear the Church apart.  In short, I believe in mystagogy.

I’ll be honest – I think that when we scale down or eliminate altogether the depth and richness of our liturgical heritage, of our hymnic tradition, of the Eucharistic celebration in favor of a couple spontaneous prayers, a few songs that were mostly written for performance rather than congregational singing, and a “message” (however orthodox and well-delivered) given from a “stage”, we have lost a lot. 

And I’ll continue to be honest – I think that a great many congregations that make the decision to adopt this sort of “contemporary” worship have done so in order to play to “what people want”, to take the easier route of creating an “on-ramp” to the faith that never actually merges with the rest of traffic rather than doing the (admittedly difficult) work of teaching appreciation of the historic patterns and language of worship.  That’s harsh, I know. 

But.

True Confessions: I also love “contemporary Christian music.”  My alarm clock is set to KLOVE, it was Northwestern College’s radio stations that got me through seminary.  My “fav” playlist on my iPod is chock full of Lincoln Brewster and the Newsboys and Matt Maher and Brandon Heath and Sara Groves and Moriah Peters.  On Sunday morning I want “Lead On, O King Eternal”, but on Saturday night, what’s wrong with “How Many Kings?”

This is where my liturgical friends start to get antsy, I think.  CCM is so vapid, it’s so “emotive”, the theology is crap, it’s impossible to sing congregationally, it’s all 7-11 songs, “worship leaders” perform like they’re at a concert rather than leading others in worship of the Most High God, why do I feel like “Jesus is my boyfriend”, it’s unsacramental, etc.  I get it. 

These are all valid critiques.  Every one of them.  There is a lot of CCM out there that is garbage, especially if you subscribe to a sacramental, non-Arminian version of the Christian faith.  It’s part of why I don’t like CCM in worship – because it’s so hard to find music that is theologically acceptable and congregationally-singable – and even more so in smaller parishes with far less musical resources to support using it in worship.  Personally, I’d be pretty happy if I went my whole career without ever having to deal with that. 

But.  But, as a former pastor used to say, “the organ is God’s favorite instrument never mentioned in the Bible.”  There’s something slightly ironic about claiming to want the most ancient liturgies of the church revived – and played on an organ.  And even more than that, is the fact that culturally, the organ is rapidly falling into disuse.  Organs are expensive to buy (for new mission start congregations) and expensive to maintain once you’ve got them.  Organists are expensive to employ.  Very few congregations can afford a full-time, well-trained organist who can properly prepare for worship each week.  A goodly number of congregations are “getting by” with the (admirable, dedicated often heroic) efforts of near-volunteer musicians who serve the church as something of a moonlighting opportunity.   In no way do I wish to denigrate their service.  Most of them are hard-working wonderful people who love the Lord and love music and love serving their congregations in this way.  But most of them are also on the far side of their midlife crisis, and in 10 or 20 or 30 years at best, they will no longer be able to serve in this capacity.  Fewer and fewer people are enrolling in “sacred music” degree programs – the ones who do will have massive student loans to pay once they graduate, loans which will require a better pay/benefits schedule than many congregations can offer.  It’s chicken and egg, to be sure, but I don’t think that anybody has really come up with a good long-term solution. 

So what are we to do?  To oversimplify, there’s nobody left to play the organ, and all the non-organ music is crap. 

But, of course, not all non-organ music is crap.  There’s some that’s good.  Virtually all of Matt Maher ‘s work is fantastic.  Stuart Townsend rocks.  Some of Chris Tomlin is good.  Tenth Avenue North is usually pretty solid.   But it’s hard to get around the fact that if you’re from a sacramental (read: Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox) tradition there’s very little CCM that is acceptable.  Why is this? 

I have a theory: my theory is that we (traditional, liturgical, organ-loving worship nerds) have so wedded ourselves to Bach-ϋber-alles, that we have effectively suppressed the potential gifts of our own congregants, our own theologians, our own musicians.  “Styles” of music come and go – Gregorian chant sounds different than medieval choral anthems which sound different than antebellum fiddle songs which sound different than early 20^th-century-jazz which sounds different than Elvis which sounds different than hippie folk music which sounds different than…well, you get the point.  So it stands to reason that modern-day writers and composers aren’t going to be coming up with the next Beethoven symphony.  They’d probably write something that sounds more like Matt Redman than Charles Wesley.  If we let them. 

But do we shout down “contemporary” so loudly that our high school youth who love music but not so much Isaac Watts think that if they wrote something that was Biblically and theologically sound we’d reject it out of hand? 

In recent years, I’ve really taken to Matt Maher.  If you don’t know who he is, think of songs like “Your Grace Is Enough”, “Christ is Risen,” and “Turn Around.”  He’s a sensation on the Christian music charts, he plays “modern-sounding” music that resonates with those less enamored of Martin Luther or Ralph Vaughn Williams.  And he is thoroughly Roman Catholic.  Maher’s songs are drenched in Scripture and liturgy, in the words of the daily offices and the wisdom of the saints.  They are theologically rich, and avoid trite “Jesus is my boyfriend” style clichés.  They open a new world of contemporary music to congregations who would like to use a particular style without compromising orthodoxy, they provide words for individual praise and prayer among the faithful.  And in a CCM culture that tends toward deep suspicion of “pre-written prayers” and sacramental traditions, especially Roman Catholicism, he has steadily been making inroads and building friendships and showing that the RC church isn’t scary, and it gets a lot more right than it gets wrong.  So, yay, Matt Maher. 

But it makes me ask – how many other “Matt Mahers” are out there?  How many grew-up-Lutheran (or RC or Anglican) composers and lyricists have we pushed to non-denom Baptist/Reformed circles because we explicitly and implicitly communicate that any music less than 200 years old (theirs) is inherently inferior?

Once upon a time, the pipe organ was new.  Once upon a time, Bach was but a gleam in his father’s eye.  Surely, because there is nothing new under the sun, once upon a time somebody thought that “kids these days” needed to stop trying to reinvent the wheel, when God hath so clearly ordained the psalms for the purpose of corporate worship why do you need anything different isn’t what we have good enough for you? 

I’m not giving up on my homeboys, Watts and Wesley.  But I love me some Matt Maher.  Someday my congregation isn’t going to have an organist (we only barely do now).  So how do we, who love and respect and honor the Tradition of the Church and the sacred words and music it has given us, also find ways to lift up and honor the gifts of today’s saints, as well?  If God has given them the gifts, then it must be because the Church has need of them.  What do we do with that?

♪ He rules the world... ♪

...with truth and grace... ♪

The Hallmark Channel has been running some sort of Christmas in July thing, calling it a Christmas Classics weekend.  Don't go thinking it's all It's a Wonderful Life  and Miracle on 34th Street.  Not those kind of Christmas classics.  More like The Christmas Card  and Moonlight and Mistletoe. 

Now, this is actually perfect for me, because I love Christmas, and I love cheesy, predictable romantic movies, and these are all of that rolled into one.  Also, it's crazy hot out, and I'm really not all that into summer, and I'm ready for it to be winter and Christmas. 

So, yay, good weekend for me! 

Last night, though, one of the movies had "Joy to the World" in it, and it got me thinking.  He rules the world with truth and grace.  Truth, and grace.  Truth. And. Grace.  If that's how Christ rules, isn't that how we're supposed to rule, or live, as well?  With truth and grace?

It's such a hard balance.  Sometimes when we're busy proclaiming truth, we forget to do it with grace.  It's easy to stand on a mountaintop and get so worked up about what is right that we don't take care to find out what the people listening to us are actually hearing.  And sometimes, we're so eager to dispense grace that we take no care for the truth.  Sometimes, depending on what place people are at in life, truth can sting.  And when we try to offer grace with a guarantee that there's not sting involved, truth can get sacrificed.  I don't think anybody does either intentionally, but it happens. 

That's one of the reasons I really like Grace for the Good Girl - it gives me the truth I need to hear, but it does so with grace. There are parts that sting, but it's good for me, and it's followed immediately by grace.

Truth and grace is hard, but it's important.  I need to try to do a better job of it myself. 

He rules the world with truth and grace.  May we always remember that. 

New Year's Resolution, February Edition

So last month, I wrote that I had made a few New Year's Resolutions, one of which was to, basically, start doing the things that people who have a life do.  To stop putting my life on hold, just because it's not the life I thought I would have. 

Alison recently wrote a post wherein she stated that "life doesn't come with odometers."  It wasn't really about this topic, but it was a great turn of phrase, and in my mind, brought with it a very interesting perspective.  An odometer does several things - it tells us how far we've traveled how much longer until we get where we're going, and it tracks certain expected maintenance tasks - refueling, changing the oil, replacing the timing belt and tires, etc...

I was thinking about how this applies to life: I think that we (ok, well, me anyway) tend to view birthdays as miles on an odometer, with all the attendant expectations.  College.  At 18.  Graduate school at 22. Good job at 25.  Married at 26.  Kid at 28.  Second kid at 30.  And while some of that is perhaps changing a bit, as average age of first marriage goes up, I think that general narrative still exists in many of our minds.  I think I sometimes view life as, "Hey, I forgot to fuel up at 25.  I'm getting on toward 30, and not seeing anywhere to get a new timing belt.  Etc..." But it occured to me today, as Alison said, that "life has no odometer." 

Life is just life.  And even though everybody tells you that you need to change the oil every 3000 miles, the reality is that if you use Mobil One, you can wait 7500 miles.  And I always use Mobil One.  :-)

So cheers to that! And on to the February edition of my New Year's Resolution...

In Which I Become Completely Sold On "Traditional" Worship, Part 3

Where was I?  Oh yes, my supervisor wanted me to evaluate Young Adult Worship.  I got there, and immediately engaged my event-planner side, left over from my days in politics.  I was thinking:

Well, let's start by evaluating how many people are here.  The actual number of people here isn't terrible, but the room is "built" way too big.  It is a gigantic room, with too much space between tables and chairs.  The room is obviously used for different purposes during the rest of the week, the remnants (tables, chairs, etc...) are just laying up against the walls.  The stage is...well, I don't know.  The lighting is strange.  No one is singing...I think because they are sitting at tables.  The PowerPoint is...hey wait a second, where is the cross?  Oh look, there it is!  Stuffed over in a corner with some extra sound equipment.  It feels like a comedy club, not a church.

Ok, so, what do we need to do?  Get rid of about 40 or 50 chairs, and set up some pipe and drape to close off the room a little.  Fix the lighting.  Spotlight the preacher, come up with some sort of lighting plan for when the band is playing.  Get the cross up on the stage, over to the side at an angle is fine so you can still run the PowerPoint against the wall.  Get some music going before the service actually starts.  Etc...

And then it occurred to me:

My goodness, this is supposed to be church, not a political event.  I'm trying to figure out what story the media would write if they had pictures of this, when I should be worshipping the Lord God Almighty.

So here's what I'm thinking: Traditional, liturgical worship, particularly when paired with the Lord's Supper/Eucharist/Communion is necessarily focused on Christ (at least for people who confess the Real Presence).  There is a lot, lot, lot of prep work that can and does and should go into awesome "high church" worship.  But my sense is that most of it is related to the dignity of the service itself.  The preparation is about expecting that the Lord is present in this place, engaging the tradition honorably and worthily, and allowing congregants to participate in that to the fullest extent.

Contrast that with my sense about the prep work of contemporary, low-church worship: I feel like we're trying to create an environment that we can convince people to come to.  We want the lights low and the people crammed together, to amp up the energy.  We need well-designed rooms because it's more professional.  We encourage people to bring in coffee and snacks because it's friendly and supposedly proves that "God can fit into your lifestyle" or something.  Bottom line: we have to create the conditions to make this service succeed.

I want to be clear.  Jesus shows up at contemporary worship.  "Where two or three are gathered," and all that.  "Contemporvant worship" has the capacity to reach people for the Lord, it allows people to encounter God, it creates and encourages faith, it comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.  I would never say that it doesn't.

But when you have the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, when you have the liturgy, brimming with the language of the Bible, language that has stood the test of time, that has steeped millions of people across time and space in the faith, then, just...wow.  It's going to "work" - He always has.  The rest is easy.  Making sure chairs or pews are arranged well becomes about allowing people to best participate in the encounter, not about convincing them to stay or come back.

So, am I anti-contemporary Christian music now?  Am I advocating for an end to all midweek Young Adult Worship that isn't the high-church Divine Service/practically a Roman Catholic Mass celebrated by the pope?  No.  I'm always in favor of everything that God uses to reach people.  Let's keep the music, and let's use it where it's appropriate.  Let's have concerts and clubs and Young Adult Ministry.  But let's stop pretending that the 8:00 "traditional" service and the 10:00 "Contemporvant" service are the same thing, just catering to different preferences.  They aren't. 

**I'm perfectly willing to engage anybody on this topic.  If you think I'm totally off-base, tell me so!

In Which I Become Completely Sold On "Traditional" Worship, Part 2

So, after the embarrasing confession in Part 1, below, that I started hanging out around contemporary Christian music because I wanted to hang out with a cute boy, I started to actually like the stuff, egads! 

This is, mostly, I think, because I actually started listening to it.  When I left home to move to seminary, I was ridiculously homesick.  I missed Gigantor Church and my friends like crazy.  It was a struggle not to drive home every weekend.  But as I was getting settled into the new city and scanning the tuner on my car radio to find new presets, I stumbled on the "Christian music" station, which seemed to constantly be playing the songs that I heard so frequently back home.  And so even though I didn't love it, I clung to it, because it reminded me of home.

Eventually, the homesickness faded a bit, but I kept the station.  See, it turns out that contemporary music isn't all terrible.  Some of it's pretty good, actually.  Yeah, some of it has some pretty suspect theology, and some of it is too sappy and sentimental, but some of it's good.  I never really got to the point where it was my preference for Sunday morning, but I gained a much better attitude about it.  For example, if I have a friend who doesn't go to church very often (or at all), but will go with me to the contemporary (but not traditional) service, I can handle it.  And I started to enjoy the midweek or even Sunday night services in my new city.  Again, not so much Sunday morning (it's just not "church" for me), but when MercyMe and Tenth Ave. North came and did a concert at Gigantor Church, you can bet I was there!

Around this time I started struggling with the fact that my own personal preferences still leaned strongly toward the "traditional" liturgy, etc...for Sunday morning, but seeing the power of contemporary, non-traditional services as well.  God reaches and heals and brings unto himself thousands of people through Gigantor Church.  How can I deny that it "works", regardless of what I happen to like most?  And then this video came out and went viral:



It's absolutely hysterical, because it's so true, and honestly, I think that's a little bit sad, too.  So still, I pondered.  Worship prep does not necessarily equal manipulation or lack of sincerity or authenticity.  Really, really good "traditional" worship needs lots of prep too - picking good hymns, having readers and choirs practice, getting everything arranged on the altar and in the sanctuary so that it all goes according to plan, etc...And that's "all the same" too.  Different "same" than "contemporvant" worship services are, but same nonetheless.  Right?

But last night at Contemporvant Young Adult Service at Big Church in Big City, it hit me.  My supervisor had asked me to go and tell him how many people were there, how it went, etc...So I was paying lots of attention, engaging my "event planner" side, which I don't always necessarily enjoy, but I can do it when I have to, and honestly, I think I'm pretty good at it. 

But now, for the cliffhanger:  Come back later for Part 3, in which I come down firmly on the side of the liturgy. 

In Which I Become Completely Sold On "Traditional" Worship, Part 1

Tonight I was up at Big Church in Big City, and it was a good thing.  When my supervisor told me that I could have my pick of what ministries I wanted to be a part of, right away I picked Young Adult Worship on Thursday nights.  For one thing, I don't get to do hardly any worship planning at my churches, because I have a rockstar Worship and Music Committee.  And I love them.  But I would also love to be a little more um...involved.  Picking hymns, touching up the liturgy, that sort of thing.  But I can live with the situation as-is.  The other reason I wanted to be part of Young Adult Worship is because I feel like I never get a chance to worship.  I go to work on Sunday mornings, not church anymore.  And I really miss it.  Wednesday night adult worship at my churches is getting to be a good substitute for me, but it's still kind of a substitute.

Now, way back in the days of my biggest jerkiness as a church-goer and all-around human being, I was staunchly in favor of so-called "traditional" worship.  The liturgy (LBW Setting 2, please), hymns (on a pipe organ), all four readings (OT, Psalm, Epistle, Gospel), candles, crucifer, torch-bearers, the whole deal.  That was how church was supposed to be, gosh-darn-it, and anybody who didn't like it like that just wasn't spiritually mature enough to appreciate it.  Contemporary worship services aren't really worship services, they're just concerts.  Ugh.

Looking back, I think part of my problem was a) I was a jerk, and b) I didn't know most of the contemporary music.  I have absolutely zero musical ability, and when the whole congregation is singing hymns that I have been hearing since I was a baby, accompanied by a booming pipe organ, I can sing along and my crappy voice fades into the background.  (Or so I like to think.  Don't wreck my delusions, ok?)  So, I didn't listen to contemporary Christian music, the Top 40 of which is pretty much what gets played in contemporary services on any given Sunday, a lot of it was too high for me to sing comfortably, and the whole 7-11 thing (7 words repeated 11 times) really gets on my nerves.  Basically, I hated contemporary worship but the reasons I hated it were entirely about me, and not about any practically or theologically substantive argument. 

Then I went through a period where I came to at least...tolerate...it.  In part, because at Gigantor Church at home, 98% of what they do is contemporary music.  If you're willing to show up for church at 8:00 on Sunday morning you can hit the traditional service which has fabulous organ talent, but that's about it.  And the thing of it was, there was a cute boy that I knew at the time who kept asking me to go with him to the Thursday Night Young Adult Service.  Now, I really didn't like this service, at the time.  It was too loud, the room was "built" oddly, I didn't know the music, and the preaching was hit-or-miss.  But darned if lust didn't win out over my taste in music, and I ended up there on more than one occasion.  (For what it's worth, the cute boy is now marrying one of those Perfect Girls, so for all you young kids out there, here's a lesson worth learning: sacrificing musical and theological principles for the sake of sitting next to the "cute boy" or "hot girl" in church is never a good idea, ok?)

Next up: How I came to love contemporary music

My New Favorite Song

I ♥ this.




Apparently it was released like a year ago, but I just heard it for the first time last night.  It's cute, and it's proof that popular music need not be skanky.

Life In A Northern Town

♪ Ah-heya ma ma ma, into the night-ahh
Hey ma ma ma, hey-ay-ay-ay, ah ♫

Ahem.  Anyway...

Today was the local town festival celebrating our Scandinavian heritage, complete with lefse, scalloped potatoes, lefse, brats, lefse, tacos (??), lefse, rommegrot, and oh yes, lefse.  Apparently I am a natural at lefse-rolling, so I was recruited to help with this task as a part of the live lefse-making demonstration.  The advantage of this, of course, is that when the demonstration is done for the day, who are still there helping get to eat what's leftover.  And it's amazing. 

(If you don't know what lefse is, think about dough roughly the consistency of sugar cookie dough, only made with potatoes.  Roll it into a ball...mmm...slightly bigger than a golf ball, but nowhere near the size of a tennis ball or baseball.  Now, with a rolling pin, on a very heavily floured surface, roll it out into a circle 14" in diameter.  Then fry it up on a griddle - careful, that thin it goes really fast! - then spread butter on it, sprinkle with sugar, and fold it in half, then half again, then one more time so it ends up being kind of cone-shaped.  Enjoy.)

Now for the rommegrot: you know how there are signs at amusement park rides saying things like, "Pregnant women or people with heart conditions should stay off this ride."?  Yeah, there should be a sign like that at the rommegrot booth: "People being treated for high cholesterol or who have any desire to not die from a heart attack in the next hour should not eat this."  It's basically heavy cream, whole milk, butter, sugar, and enough flour to hold the whole thing together in kind of a warm, soupy, pudding-like consistency.  Spoon it out into a bowl, pour melted butter over it (no, for real), and then cover it in cinnamon sugar.  Lord, have mercy.  It's good, but the experience is sort of ruined by the fact that you have no option but to contemplate your own mortality whilst eating.  I suppose if you live in Scandinavia near the Arctic Circle and need a ridiculously high caloric intake just to stay alive during the winter, then perhaps it serves a purpose.