Worship as Evangelism (is not working)

Worship as Evangelism (is not working) by Sally Morgenthaler

Here is a recent article by Sally Morgenthaler published on “Next Wave”

You may have seen it already - if not, it is worth reading. It is highly significant because of who is writing it - Sally is the author of “Worship Evangelism” and other related books, and was instrumental (pun intended) in the US and beyond in stimulating the huge wave of “worship music” and the “contemporary Sunday worship experience”, which support the myth 'if we build it, they will come'.

Now, almost 10 years since she wrote 'Worship Evangelism' in 1998, Sally concludes that worship-driven churches, despite their best efforts, are not attracting the unchurched. This is a complete turn-around from when she wrote her book. You will see that her article is filled with wonderful honesty as she acknowledges that the worship culture is often self-absorbed and the unreached are not attending these Christian “parties.”

This article on the problems with Worship Evangelism is an honest reflection which makes some astute and insightful comments, especially considering the author's background & the influence she has had historically.

Interestingly Sally's latest collaborative effort is a chapter in An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, released in April 2007 by Baker Books. Her chapter, “Leadership in a Flattened World: Grassroots Culture and the Demise of the CEO Model,” has been hailed as a prophetic work—a clear alternative to the ego-driven ministry leadership paradigms of the 1980s and 1990s.

A few quotes from the article -

Worship Evangelism had helped to create a "worship-driven subculture." As he explained it, this subculture was a sizeable part of the contemporary church that had just been waiting for an excuse not to do the hard work of real outreach. An excuse not to get their hands dirty.

In 2001 a worship-driven congregation in my area finally did a survey as to who they were really reaching, and they were shocked. They'd thought their congregation was at least 50 percent unchurched. The real number was 3 percent.

By 2002 a few pastors of praise and worship churches began admitting to me that they weren't making much of a dent in the surrounding non-Christian population, even though their services were packed and they were known for the best worship production in town.

What are the essential biblical ingredients of a church?

I’ve been involved in the NZ Baptist “Sharpening the Edge” Conference the last couple of days (Being part of a panel reflecting on the stories being told).
One of the questions I raised (which was nicely sidestepped) related to what the Biblical essentials for a church are. This conference is a group of jesus-followers who are leaders (mostly pastors), who are interested in alternative forms of church for the sake of mission here in NZ. As they explore alternative models such as weeding gardens on a Sunday morning, or a 7-day-a-week childrens program with no formal church service … the question arises “what is church?” As part of figuring that out, I think we should be able to clarify what the biblical essentials are ….. consider 3 levels
1. Biblical essentials (you must have these to have a ‘church’, & they all have sound biblical basis)
2. Very important things (but not essential)
3. Other helpful things
It is interesting & challenging to try to put the various aspects of normal church into these 3 categories (ie ordained ministers, weekly meetings, Sunday meetings, corporate sung worship, sermons, leadership structure, buildings, communion etc etc) Why don’t you try to do it??? Or if you know a ‘minister’ .. ask them. & let me know via a comment here.

My challenge to the Baptists was “we’re all ministers / theologically trained’ & trying to create churches … we should be able to do this quickly … 30 seconds & we should have the items in level #1 – but I bet we can’t, & there would be no common agreement on it (scary)
They side-stepped the question graciously & said something like it was something they needed to be working on over the next year (their ecclesiology)

My experience of asking a group of 8 ministers the same question was that there was no common agreement on the biblical essentials for a church ….. what does that tell us about our ecclesiology (theology of the church)???
Maybe you can set me straight on this ….

Why Gather

For a few weeks, I've been musing over a line in Mark Strom's book "Reframing Paul". It relates to our purpose in gathering as 'the church' being to "gather in community for conversation".

Our Sunday gatherings these days are really a teenage bible study / feast / fun time - where we try to interact with each other, parts of the bible, & god. So this phrase "gathering in community for conversation" seems like a good description for us (even thought the conversation gets noisy as lots of people speak at once) .... & probably a good description for why church communities in general should gather ....

I've been 'invited' to a court hearing on Thursday - an ex-minister vs denomination dispute re 'church' property. It reminds me that if you don't have a structured organisation, there is no one to battle with, and if there is no organisational property, then there is no property to fight over.

Making 'A' Decision & the 'Sinners Prayer'

A friend wrote a good article on his blog about 'viral church' (see link above). I agreed with virtually all of it .... but one line seemed worthy of further discussion.

He said “the goal of a (there was a misisng word here) is to encourage every person on this planet to advance in some way in their search and discovery of Jesus.” (that bit was fine) then “Don’t get me wrong, bringing a person to a point of decision and praying the sinners prayer with them is an important part of the process” ….

So .... I stepped into dangerous ground for an evangelical (or someone with a baptist, evangelical & pentecostal background) ….

In the NT I don’t see Jesus bringing anyone to a ‘point of decision’ & praying/saying anything like a sinners prayer …. Although individuals did clearly respond to him in different ways at different times (eg Nicodemus, Zaccheus, rich young ruler) ….

Interestingly, there is only a record of the ‘born again’ thing being said … & it was only to one person on one occasion (to Nicodemus in John 3) … the same frequency as the ‘sell all your possession’ thing (to the rich young ruler) hmmm ... we build a doctrine around the 'be born again' passage, but ignore or minimise the 'sell your possessions' passage by saying "that was just him" or "he obviously had a problem with his possessions". I'm not convinced this is consistent.

I don’t see the (single) point of decision / sinners prayer thing anywhere in the NT (either JC or Paul) .... I say 'single point of decision' because there are indications of individuals like the disciples making a number of decisions which have practical & spiritual effects in their lives .... but I haven't been able to discover where any of the disciples made the BIG point-of-decision (? when exactly did they become 'christians'?). Also, the example of Paul (Saul)'s conversion isn't exactly the norm these days .... although you do find bright lights & loud voices in some big churches :-)

Historically “personal conversion” is a relatively new construct - it came with the great awakening & evangelical revivals from the 17th century onwards. The earliest notion of a sinners prayer is less than 500 years old. It wasn't formalized as a theology until around the time of Billy Graham – in the 1950s Bill Bright (working with Billy Graham) came up with the Four Spiritual Laws (which ends with the Sinners prayer). Some of this theological shoft was based on misuse of Rev 3:20 (which is written to lukewarm churches, not pre-christians) & the inaccurate Living Bible translation of Jn 1:11-13 (which adds “All they needed to do was to trust him to save them. All those who believe this are reborn!” …. which has no basis in the greek text)

So .. I think we all face a multitude of decision points in our lives … where we have choices relating to choosing for or against God, Jesus, & his kingdom. We do need to be spiritually renewed … probably many times. This spiritual renewal should reveal itself in our lives & actions, as is nicely pointed out in Matt 25:31ff

That’s my quick thoughts …

First blog post

For the last 20 months, I've been writing some articles, & stealing others, & emailing them out to interested people. The response has been great, and many people appreciate the articles.

At times, people respond to the articles with questions, or comments. I teply to them, & hence some email interaction occurs. Much of this is invisible - yet might be of interest to other people.
Hence .... a blog to contain some of those pearls of wisdom, heresy or questions.

Also - the comment has been made that I have a 'captive audience' with the 'ideas from the edge' emails ... so when people critique them, they can't pass those critiques on to this 'captive audience'. hence, a blog might enable some of those critiques (& other intereactions) to be visible.

So ... if it works ... this might be the start of a blog ...