It kept running through my head throughout the day as I got comments and reactions after today's worship: some folks GOT what was going on ~ they were in-synch with the music and message about being playful and grace-filled in community when it comes to the mystery of baptism ~ while other folks were perplexed and even annoyed. Who knows what they wanted or needed ~ it was just clear that today's non-linear conversation left some folk with more questions than answers ~ and they were uncomfortable.
And second, most complaints (about worship or the pastor or church finances) are really a "veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul" according to M. Craig Barnes of Pittsburg Theological Seminary. In his book about the pastoral ministry, he writes in the opening chapter of The Pastor as Minor Poet:
Since people are unaccustomed to exploring the mystery of their own souls, they will often work out their spiritual anxieties by attempting to rearrange something external. like a church's music program. But it doesn't matter how many changes they make to the environment around them. They will never succeed in finding peace for the angst of the soul until they attend directly to it. And this is why people have pastors. To be of service to the Holy Spirit, who is at work in human lives, the pastor can never reduce ministry to servicing parishioners' complaints about the church... (No we have to) invite people to look beneath their complaints to their personal loss.
And THAT is the POINT ~ the perspective ~ the reality I embrace at the close of this day. It was a rich day for us all: we reclaimed sharing joys and concerns in worship and shared some deep prayers of joy and sorrow; we sang with gusto and listened for what the Spirit was saying to the church, too. And then some of us gathered for a feast in the late afternoon and shared loved and music and stories and lots of laughter.
Barnes writes: Poets have been blessed with a vision that allows them to explore, and express, the truth behind (our) reality. Poets see the despair and heartache as well as the beauty and miracle that lie just beneath the thin veneer of the ordinary, and they describe this in ways that are recognized in the mind, but mor eprofoundly in the soul. (Most of the time) what a congregation needs is not a strategist to help them form another plan for achieving a desired image of life, but a poet who looks beneath even the desperation to recover the mystery of what it means to be made in God's image.
I give thanks to God for the chance to explore faith poetically this day... and pray that I will have another shot at doing likewise tomorrow. More than that is out of my control, yes?
2 comments:
Wonderful.Love this.
I have not seen The Point here in the UK- is this Harry Nilsson who did Nilsson Schmilsson music ?
I like the way you are being relaxed about the inevitable differences in peoples responses and not "freaking out"- I agree to some extent with Barnes but I can see some imbalance in my own church when the needs and desires for external change are not listened or attended to and the impetus for change is ignored and masked by exhortations to be the suffering servant which can often end up as false piety.
However, Barnes redeems it all for me by emphasising the poetic vision which is much more to the liking of this Celtic soul !! :-)
Blessings
Yes, Philomena, the same Harry Nilsson: it is a wonderful little allegory. Check out some of the clips on YouTube.
I totally get what you are saying about how Barnes' critique is not exactly right with your own larger church ~ especially the false and sometimes unhealthy false piety that has emerged around suffering. I know you are right on this front and would ammend Barnes.
And I am glad your Celtic soul found some balance with his poetic vision. Me, too. I am so grateful for your words and your blog.
May blessings abound.
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