Rick Devos asked a simple question during his presentation at TEDxDetroit: When you plan an event are you thinking about activity or experience? This is a profound question. One that I think those of who are in the church need to think deeply about. We must ask ourselves what we are calling one another too.
I think that often times we are asking and calling people to activities.
"Come and do..."
"Bring your friend to..."
What if this became...
"Hey I am a part of..."
"Do you want to join me in..."
One set of phrases represents activities, the other an experience. Jesus is not something we do. Church is not something we do. Recently I have found myself saying, "We do church..." or "How do you do church..." These kinds of statements are meaningless. We can't "do" church any more than I can "do" human being.
It's interesting this kind of language is typically reserved for those who are impersonators, like this:
Man, Hartman "does" a good Sinatra! But, he' not the real thing. He's an impersonator. He's faking it. He's doing his best but it's not real.
I think that when we try to "do" church we are the same, simple impersonators who are doing best but not the real thing.
We need to think about the experience. How can we invite people into an experience where they come face to face with the body of Christ and its head, Jesus? This question is imperative for us to answer. Is it through fog machines and video? Is it done through a high church liturgy? Maybe on both. Maybe not on both.
It seems to me that it might be in the people. When we gather for worship are we looking at ourselves and our needs or are we looking to interact and engage with the God of the universe? Are we inviting people into his presence or to our building?
I would love to know what you think it means to think about experience versus activity in this context. Comment like crazy and let's discuss...
"If God is not the defining center of our faith, life, and identity, then who or what is? (58)" Now there is a question. The Hirsch's continue to challenge our thinking in relation to the center of our faith in chapter 2 of "Untamed". There is nothing more central to who we are than what we worship.
Missional Discipleship, at its core, is about worship.
Worship at its core is about the person or object worshiped.
So, I have been writing a bit about the big picture of what missional is and exploring some things here and asking questions. Most of these questions I don't have answers for, it's a bit frustrating for a guy who usually has answers for EVERYTHING!
It's hard to be in a place where you feel like everything is up for grabs. Where you are evaluating so much of what you believe and what you think. It's good though because I am realizing how little I know and how little really matters. But, the things that do matter are critical.
In light of all this, I want to take a bit of a detour. I have been thinking a bit about two issues that seem to me as very important for our time.
Communion.
Baptism.
It seems that both of these issues are ones that either have been forgotten about (communion) or are taken for granted (baptism). Over the next couple of weeks or so I am planning on wrestling through why I think these two things are critical for recovery in this generation as we seek to engage with our God in his mission.
I just finished reading The Lord's Supper by Robert Letham, so I will take up Comunion first and then Baptism.
