Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Day Off

I had my usual day off yesterday. I feel more tired today than I did yesterday. I didn't really sleep in. Then again, I didn't really do anything yesterday. I watched a great documentary about Catherine the Great based on her memoirs and correspondence. I knew my wife would NEVER want to watch something history based, so I thought it best if I watched it on my own. I took a 1-hour nap. I had every intention of reading, but that didn't happen. I got through the table of contents of the book.
This book is the first book by Dan Kimball: The Emerging Church. I think I had mentioned that I have read Emerging Worship by D. Kimball. I'll be interested to see if this is just as good. This book was written earlier. I should have checked the date, but I'm not sure. It may be 10 years old by now. I'm not sure how that will change how I read the book, but I'm sure it will.
Actually, I do know how it will change my reading. I was on Dan Kimball's website on Monday, reading a blog post. He mentioned that he doesn't think that emerging worship is in the same place it was. He doesn't think that emerging worship is performed in the same way. That almost makes me think this book might not be credible. It may be old fashioned. We've already moved past what this book was written for and moved on to something even more different.
I'm still going to read the book. Hopefully, it will give me insight on how to "jump off the cliff." I've said since I started at WH that they think they are very progressive and forward thinking, but in reality, we are stuck in 1991. We are looking at the edge of the cliff, but haven't quite gotten to the edge. I think with our 10:45 service we got to the edge, but people have complained so much about it we are back just staring at the edge. I think emerging worship is just running as fast as you can and jumping off the edge without a parachute. Of course, the sincere hope is that you land on your feet. And maybe we will, maybe we won't.
We had worship planning team on Monday. For June 7 the scripture is Isaiah 6:1-8. Hot coals are placed on the lips to purify. I don't really "get" that, but hey, I don't live in Bible times so I don't necessarily need to. I mentioned, half jokingly, that we should have hot sauce packets from Taco Bell for everyone to take and at the prescribed time in the sermon, everyone put that on their lips. This would inevitably lead to some burning lips, therefore knowing a little of the pain that one might have felt with hot coals.

This idea was shot down.

We got to June 21 - Father's Day - and we are going to be talking about Jesus calming the storm. Another person brought up that we should show the beginning song of "Gilligan's Island." Now, to me, this sounds like a stupid idea...but was it shot down? No!! Needless to say I was frustrated. After a little discussion though, everyone else saw the stupidity, but I brought up the storm scene in "The Truman Show." I think we are going to use that one.
So, did I get what I wanted in the end...sort of. I'm still sticking to the hot sauce packets though. It involves "doing, tasting, and touching" which if we are going to engage people are three necessary items.
Also at worhsip planning we talked about emerging worship. This was also frustrating. We had a "professional" come in to talk to us, but I didn't hear anything that I didn't already know. I had taken some copious notes while reading "Emerging Worship" and studied those notes before the meeting. I felt like I could have given the same information, but since I'm not a "professional" I was not asked.

I think perhaps this week started off badly. Sunday wasn't great, then Monday was also a disappointment. I feel a little underappreciated as well as underused. I plan to start the "research" part of starting an emerging worship service. I need to call all the high schools and colleges in my area and then all the churches within 10-miles to get numbers. Then I need to compare those numbers to see how many high school and college students are actually going to church. Then all that gets compared to how many 18-35 year olds there are in the county. Maybe with raw data I will be listened to.

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