Sabbaticals

In tacit deference to the original practice of the Lord God, and secondarily, to the practice of the Jews and some Christians, many institutions of higher learning provide for sabbatical rest.  As with some other Old Testament-derived injunctions, in my view, the principle is more important than the perpetuation of the exact method.  People need rest and refreshing, but not necessarily on the same, weekly schedule.

What if leaders in the assembly were given sabbaticals?  At least two benefits might be seen:

• the assembly could be infused with the freshness that comes from the leadership of others, and
• the leader could gain a perspective from the pew

When a leader experiences what it feels like to be led during this or that activity, it may well have a positive effect on the leader’s capabilities when he is leading again.  For those churches that use the same musical leader most or all of the time, I might suggest a sabbatical of one Sunday every two months, or one month of every six.  The church will benefit, and the leader may benefit even more directly by seeing things from a different vantage point.

How far would I extend this principle?  Well, I see no reason not to include preaching ministers and elders/shepherds!

Relevancy

I’m a frequent observer of congregational advertising and recently noticed this on a local church’s website:

• Relevant, Bible-based teaching and preaching

What is it to be relevant?  Surely if this church wants to attract the unchurched or less churched, advertising relevancy is no detractor.  If I’ve fallen away, I’m not likely to be brought back to a group of God’s people by things that seem irrelevant.

But what is relevancy?  Does this value mean the church teaches authentically biblical doctrines to real people in real situations?

What if relevancy means confining teaching to the things that people want to hear?

If relevancy is teaching nothing at all because the people’s “felt needs” don’t demand teaching, I’m not so sure.  (But then my own perceived needs don’t demand teaching in many church situations, either.)

Maybe relevancy means avoiding Leviticus and Lamentations and Jude and focusing on Matthew and Ephesians and … oh, I don’t know … Psalms?

And who decides what is relevant?  What do you think about relevancy as a congregational value?

Sugar and fluff

On the way home from Rochester today, we splurged at Wegman’s* and bought cookies (me) and a donut (Karly). She likes lemon-filled donuts, which I don’t have a lot of use for. In lightheartedly criticizing her penchant for this sweet treat — I mean, why waste your sugar quota on fake lemon junk?! — I suddenly realized that my own undiscriminating inclination toward cheap sandwich cookies was just as silly.

All this substantive talk led me to nostalgic thoughts of the (nearly 100-year-old!) creation of two confectioners–Marshmallow Fluff. As a kid, I had it on sandwich bread with peanut butter … voila! “the fluffernutter.” Attractive at first blush, but what useless sugar it is. Why waste your time on such a sickeningly sweet bit of nothing?

And this substantive musing led me to wonder about Bible classes, Ladies’ Day topics, and retreat themes, etc. Ever feel as if all you’re getting is fluff–useless sugar? Maybe we shouldn’t buy the spiritual equivalents of cheap sandwich cookies if we want, and need, meat (apologies to my vegetarian friends, but you get the point). ;-)

Care to share examples of spiritual fluff?

* Just about the only thing I find errant about the “Wegmans” grocery store is the lack of apostrophe in its name. The family name is Wegman, and it’s their store chain, so I figure there should be an apostrophe somewhere to show possession. Anyway….

On new songs

May, or must, a church use new songs? Songs written by and for the current generation?

New songs may in truth speak of God’s work today, but I sometimes feel the need to probe what it is, really, that a contemporary songwriter is speaking of. These really aren’t the days of Elijah or Ezekiel, for instance, and though those expressions are taken somewhat as poetic extrapolations, a lot of us sing that song without believing that those particular kinds of work of God are going on presently. Further: personal, adoring worship songs may well be authentic, but they also may be mere cookie-cutter facsimiles of the last song that appealed to the masses, was recorded, and sold thousands of copies.

Imagery and cultural “with-it-ness” are important, and should be considered. The CofC repertoire, for instance, should certainly be expanded beyond the imagery of the 1800s and early-1900s examples that fill 90% of our assemblies’ song lists. For me, expanding means inclusive growth on both chronological ends: “Shepherd of Tender Youth” (Clement of Alexandria, from ca. 3rd century A.D.) has value, and so does Martin Luther, and so does Fanny Crosby, and so does Twila Paris, and so does Matt Redman. (I’m not so sure about Stamps-Baxter and the Gaithers, but that’s just my opinion. If I’m thorough, I would probably have to admit that there is as much worthy content in a few Gaither or Stamps songs than in some other songs whose musical styles don’t offend my aesthetic sensibilities.) Although I write, arrange, and lead new songs, I propose that it is not newness that is as significant as content.

The language of lighthouses and reapers and lifelines and such is definitely not my heart language. And the language of the King James era, or even of the early 1900s, is not mine, either. The question of imagery, though, begs the question of the use of scripture, or scriptural language, in songs. Not all scriptural language uses imagery with which our society is familiar. Should we ignore such passages and their concepts in writing our music today? It has been well suggested that Christians’ theology is more evident in the music of the church than in the sermons. Balance and scriptural moorings are of high significance in both!

How important is it for each generation to have its own songs? Well, it strikes me that importance to a generation is different from importance for a generation. It’s probably more important to this generation than to most older ones. Something about this one — and here, I speak not necessarily of a single, identified generation of 20-years-or-so, such as “GenX,” but of a great bunch of us breathing in this eon — seems to demand more attention than others. We’re a self-centered lot.

But back to the question … how important is it for all generations to have their own songs? I’d probably give it a 9 on a 14-point scale. It’s good to validate worthy creations in our time by using them, side-by-side, with more time-tested material. People can survive spiritually without fresh musical voices, but perhaps not all will thrive. Alongside this guess, I would suggest that it is just as important to connect with other generations’ songs, creating a deeper, broader repertory. For one generation to isolate itself, as though only its creations are significant, would seem self-centered.

A related area that deserves thought is the ubiquity of contemporary songwriters. I, for one, can’t examine the large numbers of contemporary songs and songwriters and immediately attribute the numbers to a move of God among us. Computer software and the omnipresence of guitars (along with people who can strum 4 or 5 chords and read “tab”) are two factors that have led to the outpouring of new songs in the last couple of decades. But not all these songs are outpourings of God. Some are just outpourings of the computer processor. Aside: I fear the overuse of the word “anointed” to describe worship leaders and songwriters these days. I think “anointed” is a synonym for “cool” or “has charisma” or “last year, some company recorded a CD with his music on it.”

If we give a song credence solely because of how new it is, or how cool it seems, we would appear shallow. Equally troublesome to me is appealing to familiarity as the primary criterion for whether a song should be sung in church. If we are constantly constrained by fear of the new or less known, we are impoverished. How many times over the years have I wondered whether this or that song would “work” on a Sunday morning, because we haven’t sung it before, or at least not for a year or more … and who is going to get upset if we use this or that new song? This is the concern of those of us who value congregational music and don’t typically have select groups that perform songs for everyone else. (Readers who have choirs and/or worship bands won’t share the concern, to the same degree.) It’s been impressed upon me that new songs should be introduced at times other than Sunday mornings. I’ve swallowed this, but I’m not sure why. Why isn’t Sunday morning the perfect time to sing a new song to the Lord?

I do think using new songs is important. It’s not the only thing, but it’s important.

Good work

I think it’s Garrison Keillor who uses a sign-off (on his Writer’s Almanac NPR spot, not in “Prairie Home Companion”) that includes the admonition to “do good work.” It’s really important, I think, to be fulfilled in one’s work. And so I thank God that my work felt good on Tuesday and Wednesday. It would be almost impossible to describe all the tasks in a reasonable time period, so I’ll just say that it

• has been varied, which is really nice for a malcontent like me
• has involved teaching and music and “God things”
• has involved important conversations with quite a few people–and I haven’t rubbed anyone the wrong way, to my knowledge
• has been noticeably effective and pleasing to me and others, in several respects
• has not dishonored God in any material way, as far as I can tell

So … I bless You, God, for good work to do, and for good work done through me. Despite the pain around me and within me, thank You for being with and in me.

How not to lead

Here are a few miscellaneous “how-not-to” suggestions for musical leadership in the assembly. Not all will apply to your context, but perhaps you can glean something useful.

1. Don’t lead with your head down in the hymnal.
2. If leading an a cappella congregational song, don’t lead without a sense of a pitch standard. Half-octave discrepancies are detrimental.
3. If using congregational songs without a full band that keeps the tempo, don’t attempt to lead from the piano or organ … unless there’s a Jumbotron camera trained on you, and everyone can see your shoulders arching and your head bobbing with the musical pulse. Use a visible leader–preferably someone comfortable with conducting patterns.
4. Don’t lead with your eyes closed for very long.
5. Don’t lead everything at the same tempo.  (44 beats per minute is OK for “Were You There?” but not for “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” or “I’m Pressing On the Upward Way.”  Similarly, 144 is OK for “Christ the Lord Is Ris’n Today” but not for “Christ, We Do All Adore Thee.”)
6. If using a projector, don’t lead without checking the projected music for accuracy, order of stanzas, etc.

And please, please don’t ever lead without thoughtfully approaching the corporate worship of God’s people.  It’s only the phlegmatics among us that will likely leave lifeless, careless, routine assemblies without feeling discharged.  The rest of us (cholerics, melancholies, sanguines) need more, or we will struggle spiritually.

Shorter, please

I’m essentially six feet tall and haven’t yet begun to shrink. But this is not about physical height.

I merely wanted to make a brief comment on responsive/congregational readings: They are more effective when they are short. A more expressive, meaningful purpose is attained to when a single reader (or, perhaps, a small group of gifted and/or rehearsed readers) does the longer passages, and the congregation responds with brief punctuates. Here’s an example of one reasonable way to fashion a responsive reading from scripture. The bold, italicized lines below would be congregational.



Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness;

Come before Him with joyful singing.

Know that the Lord Himself is God;

It is He who has made us,

Not we ourselves;

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving

Enter His courts with praise.

Give thanks to Him, bless His name.

For the Lord is good;

His lovingkindness is everlasting

And His faithfulness to all generations.

New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Ps 100

Admittedly, the short lines of Ps. 100 could be arranged in several different ways for an effective congregational reading. But the longer the passage the larger group is asked to read, the more it becomes a vain recitation instead of a meaningful, devotional use of scripture. Everyone must wait for the next person, and no one can give any effective emphasis to any word such as “faithfulness” or “joyful” or “His pasture” because the emphasis is washed over in a sea of expressionless, collective voice.

Sundays at our church, we rarely if ever do this kind of thing, but there was a time and place that this was more the case. In isolated instances in which congregational reading does occur in my present experience, it usually diminuendos without much effect–blandness on autopilot. In an effort to get more congregational involvement (a good thing, IMO), leaders may think, subconsciously, “Let me just make all this section congregational … and this long section here … etc.” But it’s not necessarily the length of the passage that draws people in.

God vs. humans

Again I would — this time, primarily through the apt words of another — call attention to the tendency of the human to put himself in the place of God:

John Brooks of the Church of God (Holiness) argued that human law in the church was “not only unnecessary, but presumptuous.” The Divine Church (Columbia, MO.: Herald, 1891; rpt., New York: Garland, 1984), 27. The flyleaf of Brooks’s book describes its contents: “a treatise on the origin, constitution, order, and ordinances of the Church; being a vindication of the New Testament Ecclesia, and an exposure of the anti-scriptural character of the modern church of sect.” Church of sect is Brooks’s term for the denominational system. – Susie C. Stanley, “‘Bumping’ into Modernity,” in The Primitive Church in the Modern World, ed. Richard T. Hughes, 136.

Why would we want to codify church discipline, creedalize beliefs, and legislate liturgies? Part of me wishes I could get into the “Church Year” stuff, because it might indeed help to balance topics for the sake of the masses. But I just haven’t been able to lend my support yet. Systematizing such practices seems to correspond to what the Pharisees had done with the Torah.

On a more personal note, I confess that I have to fight the tendency to turn my brain and heart off at the mere suggestion of liturgy. Even in low-church settings, where I find myself most often, the simplest and most harmless of habitual behaviors can irk me, requiring me to expend energy just to hurdle the thing so I can get something out of it. I’m not asking for compensating methodologies to be offered … merely expressing feelings that are not likely to change in the near future.

Leroy on the “Lunenburg letter”

The following was written by an elder quasi-mentor of mine, Leroy Garrett. Leroy has for nigh unto 50 years been working for theological understanding, unity in diversity, and growth among all three branches of the Stone-Campbell (American Restoration) Movement. By reports, in his earlier years, he was not as influential; somewhere midstream, he changed his bearings somewhat. He is now in his 90s and lives, with his wife, in Denton, Texas. We have been in their home. The two of them support each other with persistent love.

The significance of the Lunenburg Letter (1837) is not so much the letter itself, but Alexander Campbell’s reply to it. The letter was written by “a conscientious sister,” as Campbell described her, in Lunenburg, Virginia, who was concerned about some things Campbell had been saying. She was especially disturbed about his saying such things as “We find in all Protestant parties Christians as exemplary as ourselves” (Millennial Harbinger, 1837, 272).

She saw this as a contradiction to what he had taught about baptism by immersion as prerequisite to being a Christian. “Will you be so good as to let me know how anyone becomes a Christian?” she asked, and went on to inquire, “Does the name of Christ or Christian belong to any but those who believe the gospel, repent, and are buried by baptism into the death of Christ?”

Campbell’s reply was direct: “But who is a Christian? I answer, Every one that believes in his heart that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God, repents of his sins, and obeys him in all things according to his measure of knowledge of his will” (Mill. Harb., 1837, 411).

He went on to say that one may be imperfect in some respects and still be a Christian. “A perfect man in Christ or a perfect Christian is one thing, and a ‘babe in Christ,’ a stripling in the faith, or an imperfect Christian, is another. The New Testament [the documents and the Testament itself, I would clarify -bc] recognizes both the perfect man and the imperfect man in Christ.”

He stated unequivocally: “I cannot therefore make any one duty the standard of Christian state or character, not even immersion.” He said he was unwilling to regard those who had been sprinkled in infancy without their own knowledge and consent as aliens from Christ and without hope of heaven.

He pressed the point further: “Should I find a Pedobaptist more intelligent in the Christian Scriptures, more spiritually-minded and more devoted to the Lord than a Baptist, or one immersed on a profession of the ancient faith, I could not hesitate a moment in giving the preference of my heart to him that loveth much. Did I act otherwise I would be a pure sectarian, a Pharisee among Christians.”

For the uninitiated: a pedobaptist is one who baptizes (presumably by some method other than baptism, which is immersion!) babies who cannot profess belief or repent, etc.). In context, I take the capitalized “Baptist” here as referring to all those who immerse believers, and not just those in the Baptist denomination.

In my better moments, I can support the Campbell reply in principle, if not in all its letters and ramifications. My hesitation is this:  I fear that, in today’s evangelical climate, one who presses New Covenant immersion as important or even essential might be thought of, glibly, as a Pharisee. I think it’s quite possible to be a New Covenant Christian, seeing believer’s immersion in water as crucial, without requiring it of those who don’t yet see the connection between it and a sin-covering relationship with God.

In other words, it serves my relationships and the Kingdom better if I am able to “give preference of my heart to another who loves the Lord much,” rather than to draw a sharp, exclusive line of fellowship if that person has not yet been immersed.

Your reactions and musings? Please, no jerking knees. :-)

Leroy followed this by quoting more Campbell: “As for those who may be mistaken about baptism, he allowed: ‘Ignorance is always a crime when it is voluntary, and innocent when involuntary.’”

Anniversaries

This year is the 100th anniversary of the composition of Holst’s First Suite in Eb for Military Band.

This year is the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death.

This year is the 200th anniversary of the composition of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, a seminal American Restoration Movement document.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of my grandfathers.

Although my vocational life moves in circles that know, respect, and deal with the first two, I don’t think I’ll write about them here.

I think Thomas Campbell (Alexander’s papa) probably deserves renewed reflection, and I know some of my grandfather’s work does. Not everything they did was perfect, but they were important Christian leaders. More later!

By the way, I opt out of expending much effort on physical birthday anniversaries. Some time ago, I was affirmed in my interest in spiritual birthdays over the physical ones, and I retain that interest.

Anniversaries are sometimes amusing: young couples mark their three-week anniversaries of “going steady” or “dating.” First-time parents have well in mind the five-month anniversary of the birth of their son. :-)

School homecoming celebrations have rarely floated my boat. The “important years” on the 5s often pass me by without so much as a fleeting thought. And yet once I planned a 10-year mini-reunion of a group of band friends from high school. In that case, I think it was my relative introversion that energized me toward a more intimate group of old friends, whereas a huge party of the entire class wouldn’t have interested me in the slightest.

Easter is important to me, as is Passover, but Hannukah and Lent and Advent aren’t so much. Christmas–I like some of it, but if it passed me by one year, I don’t think I’d be depressed.

What anniversaries are important to you? What events are important to mark with some kind of celebration or ceremony?

P.S. I care a bit less about Christians observing Halloween than some. I don’t doubt anyone’s sincerity, but it seems OK to me to dress up for a fun time. I think I’ll probably always keep my little boy from direct involvement with witch and ghost costumes. Freddy Krueger is right out. And probably haunted houses, too, although I like playing peek-a-boo.  :-)