The link above is to a post over on Alan Hirsch's website, The Forgotten Ways. An excellent, concise post, I think, and really great comments so far.
Check it out, and let's talk about it some more here as well.
But beware-- this kind of stuff makes some folks a tad "tetchy"...
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Corporate Prayer?
Note: this is a post copied from my personal blog: The Truth As Best I Know It. I'm posting it here because I'd like some input from you fine folks.
As we approached the first anniversary of The Gathering we decided to ask people to fill out a survey telling us what they found meaningful and what wasn't working. The results didn't really surprise us. In most areas we were doing fairly well. People felt like they really got to participate in the worship and that they weren't just spectators of some show.
The one area where we weren't doing so well, however, was in the prayer time during the service. We had sensed this for a while, and the surveys confirmed it. A year ago it seemed like we had a good strategy. I or another leader would open the prayer time and guide us through an expanding circle prayer: first we would pray for this congregation, then others who were suffering, our local community, the world, the church universal, and in communion with all the saints. As we expanded the circle we invited others to verbally lift up prayer requests, ending with, "Lord in your mercy", and the rest of us would respond, "hear our prayer."
What we discovered over time, however, was that this method didn't really work for a group of 50 people. I've personally experienced this as being very powerful in a small group of no more than 10 or so, but in a larger group it ended up being basically the same thing as what we do in the 10:45 traditional service at Crievewood.
At the later service the pastor or another leader highlights some of the concerns on the prayer list in the bulletin, calls for a few moments of silence (at most 30 seconds), and then prays out loud on behalf of the congregation. Theoretically the congregation is all praying together, but I've started to wonder if that's really true. Just because someone is standing at the front of a room making a speech directed to God with their eyes closed, does that mean that 200 people are all really praying together?
This was the same problem with our prayer time at The Gathering. In theory we were all praying together and others were invited to lift up prayers verbally, but in reality there were only a half dozen or so who felt comfortable speaking up. So instead of one person making a speech with their eyes closed and calling it communal prayer, we had 6 or 7 people making mini-speeches with their eyes closed and calling it communal prayer.
It begs the question of how we should handle prayer in corporate worship. It is really possible to get a group of people larger than a dozen to be praying about the same thing? Does the fact that we do this corporate prayer enable people's feelings of absolution from the responsibility to have their own prayer times outside the weekly meeting? Does the fact that we have specific prayer times in worship narrow our definition of what prayer is? Conversations about meaningful issues in our lives can be prayer. Times of studying and struggling with the scriptures can be prayer. The act of taking communion together should certainly be seen as a type of prayer. All these things are acts we participate in to heighten our awareness of God's continual presence with us, so why should we not call it all prayer?
Right now in The Gathering we're trying an individual prayer time. Prayer concerns in the expanding circle are put up on the screen, and each table has a stack of post-it notes to write prayers on and stick up on our "wailing wall". We're going to give this about six weeks or so and see if it's working or not.
What do you think? Are we doing ourselves a greater disservice by trying to have corporate prayer in worship? Can the only legitimate prayer be as individuals or small groups? Discuss...
As we approached the first anniversary of The Gathering we decided to ask people to fill out a survey telling us what they found meaningful and what wasn't working. The results didn't really surprise us. In most areas we were doing fairly well. People felt like they really got to participate in the worship and that they weren't just spectators of some show.
The one area where we weren't doing so well, however, was in the prayer time during the service. We had sensed this for a while, and the surveys confirmed it. A year ago it seemed like we had a good strategy. I or another leader would open the prayer time and guide us through an expanding circle prayer: first we would pray for this congregation, then others who were suffering, our local community, the world, the church universal, and in communion with all the saints. As we expanded the circle we invited others to verbally lift up prayer requests, ending with, "Lord in your mercy", and the rest of us would respond, "hear our prayer."
What we discovered over time, however, was that this method didn't really work for a group of 50 people. I've personally experienced this as being very powerful in a small group of no more than 10 or so, but in a larger group it ended up being basically the same thing as what we do in the 10:45 traditional service at Crievewood.
At the later service the pastor or another leader highlights some of the concerns on the prayer list in the bulletin, calls for a few moments of silence (at most 30 seconds), and then prays out loud on behalf of the congregation. Theoretically the congregation is all praying together, but I've started to wonder if that's really true. Just because someone is standing at the front of a room making a speech directed to God with their eyes closed, does that mean that 200 people are all really praying together?
This was the same problem with our prayer time at The Gathering. In theory we were all praying together and others were invited to lift up prayers verbally, but in reality there were only a half dozen or so who felt comfortable speaking up. So instead of one person making a speech with their eyes closed and calling it communal prayer, we had 6 or 7 people making mini-speeches with their eyes closed and calling it communal prayer.
It begs the question of how we should handle prayer in corporate worship. It is really possible to get a group of people larger than a dozen to be praying about the same thing? Does the fact that we do this corporate prayer enable people's feelings of absolution from the responsibility to have their own prayer times outside the weekly meeting? Does the fact that we have specific prayer times in worship narrow our definition of what prayer is? Conversations about meaningful issues in our lives can be prayer. Times of studying and struggling with the scriptures can be prayer. The act of taking communion together should certainly be seen as a type of prayer. All these things are acts we participate in to heighten our awareness of God's continual presence with us, so why should we not call it all prayer?
Right now in The Gathering we're trying an individual prayer time. Prayer concerns in the expanding circle are put up on the screen, and each table has a stack of post-it notes to write prayers on and stick up on our "wailing wall". We're going to give this about six weeks or so and see if it's working or not.
What do you think? Are we doing ourselves a greater disservice by trying to have corporate prayer in worship? Can the only legitimate prayer be as individuals or small groups? Discuss...
Monday, March 19, 2007
Slow Food, Slow Worship, Slow Church...
More thoughts to ponder from food to worship to living into being church together... all of which takes time, something that lots of forces and voices in our culture make us think we can't afford to give...
Click on the title, read the article, and let's talk...
Peace in Christ,
Click on the title, read the article, and let's talk...
Peace in Christ,
Phyllis Tickle on the Future of the Emerging Church
An interesting piece over at "Out of Ur."
As we're perhaps looking at the "beginnings" of emerging missional work in the UMC, it might be good for us to begin with the end in mind... to start thinking now about how what we organize, or don't, will be able to have impact beyond our locality, our own ministries where we now are (lay or clergy), and beyond our lives.
I have some observations about her piece which I'm trying to get posted over there on Out of Ur-- but they don't always post my stuff. If they don't, I'll add it here.
Click the title above (it links to the Out of Ur piece), read, then let's talk.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
As we're perhaps looking at the "beginnings" of emerging missional work in the UMC, it might be good for us to begin with the end in mind... to start thinking now about how what we organize, or don't, will be able to have impact beyond our locality, our own ministries where we now are (lay or clergy), and beyond our lives.
I have some observations about her piece which I'm trying to get posted over there on Out of Ur-- but they don't always post my stuff. If they don't, I'll add it here.
Click the title above (it links to the Out of Ur piece), read, then let's talk.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Emerging and global warming...
For any who may be interested...
One of the things I've generally seen in emerging/Emergent is a commitment to environmental stewardship that generally is more hands on and feels a bit more urgent than I've usually found either in "pure mainline" or "general evangelical" circles.
If that's true for you, and you're interested in a simple action you might take regarding global warming (though granted, the hands here would be on your computer keyboard), you might consider cruising over to http://www.algore.com/cards.html, take a look at what he's proposing to do (bring a LOT of signatures with him about the need for congress to take concrete action on global warming when he testifies on March 21), and see if that's something you'd want to do.
If it is, then get your hands back on your keyboard and tell a few others. If not-- at least you've taken a look and made a decision.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
One of the things I've generally seen in emerging/Emergent is a commitment to environmental stewardship that generally is more hands on and feels a bit more urgent than I've usually found either in "pure mainline" or "general evangelical" circles.
If that's true for you, and you're interested in a simple action you might take regarding global warming (though granted, the hands here would be on your computer keyboard), you might consider cruising over to http://www.algore.com/cards.html, take a look at what he's proposing to do (bring a LOT of signatures with him about the need for congress to take concrete action on global warming when he testifies on March 21), and see if that's something you'd want to do.
If it is, then get your hands back on your keyboard and tell a few others. If not-- at least you've taken a look and made a decision.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Friday, March 16, 2007
emergingumc: a gathering Registration Workaround
A number of you have indicated that the online registration for emergingumc:a gathering is not working for you because the system will not accept credit cards.
Here's a workaround. Call our assistant, Jeannie Musterman, at 615 340-7070 1-877-899-2780 and we'll enter you into the system manually. Payment can be by check in this case.
Sorry for the inconvenience...
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Director of Worship Resources
GBOD
Here's a workaround. Call our assistant, Jeannie Musterman, at 615 340-7070 1-877-899-2780 and we'll enter you into the system manually. Payment can be by check in this case.
Sorry for the inconvenience...
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Director of Worship Resources
GBOD
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Th3 Waters website is live...
Th3 Waters website is finally live... please check it out and invite others to do the same. Thank you and God bless!
Friday, March 02, 2007
Tipping Points
I just finished reading Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and was wondering if anyone else had read it and had any stories to share about applying some of its ideas in your local church context. I am still sifting through the ideas that Gladwell proposes, but must admit I like the premise that small things can make a big difference in terms of starting/stopping trends/epidemics. It is refreshing to think that by taking a fresh look at the context and tweeking something here or there a church could have a radical (positive) impact on its community (internal and external!) - rather than try to completely redesign ministries or structures (which isn't necessarily a bad thing - just energy and time consuming!)
Grace and peace,
Chris Bennett
Grace and peace,
Chris Bennett
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