worship

Halloween, new

7 Reasons why a Christian can celebrate (and remake) Halloween

Can there be a Christian Halloween? Can a Christian celebrate Halloween, which honors ghouls, demons, ghosts, and everything that goes bump in the night dangerous or even evil?

Somewhere, in the halls of history, Halloween or All Hallows Eve, got hijacked. What started as a day to prepare for All Saints’ Day (November 1st), Halloween became a spooky, evil, and candy filled observance. The term “Halloween” from its beginnings, had nothing to do with any pagan or evil beliefs. The Christian festival All Hallows Eve morphed into our current term Hallowe’en.

The key in understanding of the origins of the term Halloween comes from the sense of what is “hallowed” or “holy”. In the Lord’s Prayer, Christians pray, “Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name…” In the fourth century, John Chrysostom tells us that the Eastern church celebrated a festival in honor of all saints who died. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Christians celebrated “All Saints’ Day” formally.

How did Halloween become associated with evil spirits? When we look at history we discover:

More than a thousand years ago Christians confronted pagan rites appeasing the lord of death and evil spirits… the druids, in what is now Britain and France, observed the end of summer with sacrifices to the gods. It was the beginning of the Celtic year, and they believed Samhain, the lord of death, sent evil spirits abroad to attack humans, who could escape only by assuming disguises and looking like evil spirits themselves. The waning of the sun and the approach of dark winter made the evil spirits rejoice and play nasty tricks.

If the Christian observance of Halloween began with a religious focus, how can we reclaim and celebrate Halloween from its current feared status? Here are 7 ways Christians can take back Halloween:

Lewis Fellows

Lewis Fellows: Kansas City or Bust

This past week was crazy. I didn’t have any time to blog or tweet. I traveled to Kansas City, MO with the Lewis Fellows and spent some time with pastors of dynamic churches. When I returned to New York, I went back to the airport to welcome Gary Long, our retreat speaker. Saturday the church held our fall retreat on vision – an excellent time. Sunday was worship. As you can see, it was a pretty full couple of days.

I want to briefly share with you my Lewis Fellows experience. Tuesday, October 19 we visited Saint Andrew Christian Church (www.sacchome.org) and had a conversation with Senior Pastor Rev. Holly McKissick. Saint Andrew Christian Church is a Disciples of Christ church. Check out the church below:

As you can see, it looks more like a market than a church. Such a welcoming property and building. The church is only 20 years old and Holly is the founding pastor. Below, Holly is standing and we are meeting in the sanctuary. I loved this sanctuary. The building is only about 12 years old.

Holly comes out of the Southern Baptist tradition, but was ordained in the Disciples of Christ church. The sanctuary is welcoming and seating is structured in a “U”. Holly’s take on leadership was interesting. She talked about making mistakes, as all pastors do, but learning from them. She was honest and candid about her leadership and ministry.

Below is a pic of the cross that hangs in the sanctuary:

worship

Age Segregation in Church

In the last 30 years, age-segmented worship was an unforeseen effect of the contemporary worship movement within Christianity. What has developed in many (not all) churches are two worship services. A traditional service with older adults and a commentary service with younger adults. This results into a type of age segregation in congregations.

Rev. Tullian Tchividjian the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, TN is one ~~successful~~ example of a leader who end years of age-segmented worship in his churc.h This process was not easy for Tchividjian, but he gives us an important reality of age separation in worship:

The primary reason, though, that stylistic segregation in worship shrinks our souls is because it prevents us from knowing God deeply. The only way to know him deeply is to have many different types of Christian people in your life, since each person will help to reveal a part of God that you can’t see by yourself. This means the great tragedy of segregation isn’t so much that we see less of each other but that in separating from each other we see less of God. All of us need other lights than our own to see more of his myriad facets.

Will we see a reversal of age segregation in worship services in churches in the United States?

Most likely, we will not see a drastic change. However, you will see a large minority of churches in the next 10 years beginning to have blended worship. Robert Webber, considered the father of modern blended worship, proclaimed in several books that the way to enrich our worship is through both the proven practices of our shared historical Christian heritage and modern approaches to worship.

Leonard Sweet, professor and author, continues to speak about the four keys to worship that is passionate and connects the people. No matter what the worship tradition, churches that are reaching people are doing four things “EPIC”:

Experiential – worshipers encounter the Divine
Participatory – worshipers do more than sit
Image Based – symbols and images are used
Connective – the worship connects people to people and people to God

At my church, we continue to slowly employ various forms of authentic Christian worship and music. We sing contemporary songs, hymns, responses, pray printed prayers, pray in silence, pray informally, gather, hear the word, use multimedia, use different ways to receive communion, use organ, piano, guitar, bass, choir, song leaders, and use a diverse mix of worship styles. It is a tension of beloved methods of worship and new.

The future of American churches depends on how church leaders can adapt and worship in authentic ways and not use gimmicks. Remember, Christ commanded us to make disciples, not converts. The glam of emotionally charged, arm twisting, and entertainment based worship tends to produce converts. We need richer worship practices.

People want to experience God. People want to have spiritual encounters with God and that can be done by including everyone: young, old, youth, children, black, white, gen-X, gen-y, and Baby Boomers. Let us end the segregation in worship by having a rich, diverse, and authentic worship that praises God and feeds the worshiper.

Bible

How to Throw Away a Bible

How do you throw away a Bible? After some saints of my church decided to clear out our Sunday School storage area (who wants to do that job?), an unusual question was posed. “What do we do with damaged Bibles?” I was not quite sure how to answer the question. I figured we could donate the Bibles to the Salvation Army or another religious non-profit.

After the damaged Bibles sat in a box outside of my office for a week, another church member asked about the Bibles. I told her that we were going to donate the Holy books. She picked up one of the Bibles and pages started fall out. “We are going to donate these? How do we through away a Bible?” The look on her face told me that these Bibles were not worthy to give to anyone and she was right. How can you tell others about Christ when the end of the book of Luke is missing?

How do you throw away a Bible? That question just seems wrong. I believe the proper question is, “How do you properly dispose of damaged Bibles?” You cannot just burn them. I think. That just evokes images of Nazi Germany and book burning. A nutty pastor recently created a controversial event, “Burn a Koran Day.” Not the route we want to go here folks.

After some research, I discovered the answer to the question, “How do you properly dispose of damaged Bibles? The answer is:

sacrament

Guest Blogger: Tripp Hudgins the AngloBaptist

Part III: Sacrament vs. Ordinance: Guest Blogger, Tripp Hudgins (AngloBaptist). Check out Part I & Part II.

Alan generously asked me to participate in this blog series on Baptist sacramentality and immediately I said yes. I wanted to chime in. But it took me a while to figure out how I could share my thoughts. As a baptist, I think the testimony might be the best mode of communication in this instance. I hope you will all bear with me.

I was in seminary listening to a lecture on the Eucharistic Prayer, that traditional prayer that many denominations use when celebrating the Lord’s Supper. We were walking through some of the history, form, and theological function of the prayer and when we got to the epiclesis I had an epiphany. Really, one hopes for an epiphany at the epiclesis, but how often does that happen? And yet, there it was. Whammo!

The epiclesis is the part of the longer Eucharistic Prayer (aka anaphora) where the presider (priest or pastor, typically) prays for the Holy Spirit to be present in the elements at the table. I was listening with Baptist ears on as my Episcopal professor explained the historical use of this prayer. I was on the lookout for magical thinking, or mechanistic ballyhoo. None. Zilch. Nada. Then…Then it hit me.

Hold on! What are all the elements present at the table for communion? Bread, wine (or juice), a presider of some sort, and, well…the people. The gathered faithful, The Body of Christ, are present at the table of the Lord! Don’t baptists believe that the Holy Spirit transforms us? Don’t we believe that we are somehow renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit? Don’t we pray that God would be present in our hearts? Isn’t this the same thing? Is this baptist sacramentality?

sacrament

Sacrament or Ordinance? (Part 1)

Recently, Karen Bullock, professor Christian heritage and director of the Ph.D. program at the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute, commented on Baptists celebrating their 400 year anniversary by saying, “…several theologians across the past half century have advocated that Baptists reconsider both the terms and meaning of sacramental acts…Some of this thinking re-engages the sacramental notions of churchly acts and ordinances…”

Over the past few years, I have been actively involved in reading confessions and writings of early Baptists who saw a theological strengthening in the acts of baptism and communion. Normally, to contemporary Baptists, the word “ordinance” is used over “sacrament.” This was done to avoid the Catholic understanding of “sacrament” and to avoid any hint of works related faith. However, over the next few weeks and months, I will present scholarly and lay research on the case for strengthening sacramental language among Baptists.

Indeed, the word sacrament was used among Baptists in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, “ordinance” stuck in favor of Zwingli’s view of baptism and communion. Even modern British Baptists use the word “sacrament” when they speak of baptism and communion.

I found this little bit of encouraging research that opted to spiritually understand what happens at communion. The 1689 London Confession of Baptist Faith, states:

Evangelism

Post Christian Europe: Not Dead

This past Sunday, we had the wonderful opportunity to have Pieter and Nora Kalkman visit us and share about their ministry in Europe. They spoke about their work in eastern Europe and their challenges in “post Christian” Europe. Nora and Pieter are based in Prague, Czech Republic where they serve through International Ministries as liaison and volunteer coordinators with the European Baptist Federation (EBF). They match the skills and interests of short term mission volunteers from the United States and Puerto Rico with the needs of more than 50 Baptist unions that are part of the EBF.

Some interesting information they shared:

There are only 2.4% Bible believing Christians in Europe, making this is a priority mission field.
Georgian Baptist pastors wear similar liturgical vestments that Orthodox priests wear because of the historical Eastern Orthodox presence in that region.
In some countries, only 3% of the population go to any type of “church.”
There are a variety of needs to do mission work. Week trips, short term, and long term ministry opportunities can be found here.

So if there only 2.4% “Bible believing Christians” living in Europe, we have to ask the question: Is Christianity dead in Europe?

worship

Taizé: What you are missing

For the past 10 years, I have been interested in Taizé. If you have never heard of Taizé you are missing out. What is Taizé? Well, that is a long story. The short story is that Taizé is a small village in France where Brother Roger founded an ecumenical Christian community of prayer, song, study, service, reflection, worship, and solitude for young people over 70 years ago. The community was founded as a protestant community and not a Catholic organization. Taizé music and worship is simplistic but deeply spiritual. You most likely have heard a song or sung a Taizé song in church and never realized it.

For the past few weeks, I have enjoyed reading A Community Called Taizé by Jason Brian Santos. Santos covers his experience with Taizé and pens about the greater spiritual community of Taizé, France. The book begins with the grim death of the community’s founder, Brother Roger, but quickly moves into describing the whole experience of visiting Taizé. As the reader walks with Santos, you immediately get the feeling that you would have similar reactions coming the Taizé community. Having visited France in 1998, I can tell you that the feeling of culture shock is real and alarming: new food, new places, new language, new surroundings, new culture, new customs, and new… well, just about everything. Santos continues into the who, what, where, why, and how of the community.

As I am learning more about the community of Taizé, I am also listening to the music. The music and worship of Taizé is powerful. Why? Here are the 5 most powerful aspects of Taizé that you are missing out on:

Continue Reading…

spirituality

So you want to be spiritual? Try this:

With so many Americans calling themselves “spiritual” rather than religious, many in the Christian community have asked, “How can we make Christianity more spiritual?” That is a laughable question because Christianity is inherently spiritual. Prayer, baptism, worship, singing, communion, fellowship, reading scripture, and the list can go on. Sure, Christianity does not have rocks, stones, and other “new age” objects or artifacts, but there is a steady diet of spiritual things in Christianity.

For hundreds of years mystic, monastic, and ascetic Christians have sought to have a deeper connection with God. St. John of the Cross, Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, and Thomas Merton are a few names that Christians may have heard before. Sometimes their stories are bizarre, but often many mystics simply wanted a prayerful spiritual life.

Some Christians may run the other way when they hear the word “mystical”, but believe it or not every time we pray we are being mystical. When we pray, we are praying to a transcendent God to ask or praise him for supernatural works. When we Christians use the word “mystical” we are talking about the spiritual life and we do not have to speak in tongues to be spiritual either.

One the most transformational components of the spiritual life is reading scripture. However, many find the Bible boring and need a guide when reading. One the most spiritual things we can do when we read scripture is to participate in lectio divina. What the heck is that?

worship

Is it wrong to clap in worship?

Do you have associate or assistant ministers in your church? Are you an associate pastor? Get a copy of my book, The Work of the Associate Pastor. This valuable resource will set associates and churches up for success.

The 1970’s rapper, Big Bank Hank from the Sugar Hill Gang, encouraged everyone to join with him in the song 8th Wonder:

“Clap your hands everybody. And everybody just clap your hands.”

Sometimes, in church. Christians do not want to join in with clapping.

Here at First Baptist Church, we are blessed with many talented musicians, singers, liturgists, and worship leaders. Often, when one of these types of people, most often singers or musicians, gives worshipful God given talent (a solo for instance) many people want to applaud. Sometimes, when I speak to congregants about a particular musical performance, a few are weary of the practice of clapping for people. Those who are fearful of clapping in worship say, “I don’t like to praise a singer with clapping. We praise God in worship.”

While I can understand the objection, I would encourage those to think more deeply about what is happening in worship. When someone gives a solo, it is a worshipful act that is lifted up to God in praise. When people are moved by a soloist’s song, there is something that is stirring inside of them that has moved them. Their spirit is spoken to because they know that God was worshiped in a beautiful way. They want to say, “Amen!” or they may want to clap, to express their appreciation to God for such a worshipful moment of praise (to God).

Some might say, “Clapping during worship is not biblical!” Hold on there, yes it is. Check out these scriptures where clapping and worship went “hand and hand” (pun intended):

Ash Wednesday

A Baptist Who Celebrates Ash Wednesday?

Huh? A Baptist who celebrates Ash Wednesday? That’s like an American celebrating Boxing Day. The two just don’t go together.

Despite the misnomer, Baptists do celebrate Ash Wednesday and Lent, especially this Baptist. Two of the classic Baptist distinctives is local autonomy and soul liberty. Each Baptist church has the freedom to worship however the church sees fit. Since we Baptists do not have a book of worship or order, like other denominations, Baptists are free to worship as they feel led. This, of course, does not happen in a vacuum. I have always believed that Baptists must be led by scripture, reason, tradition, and experience (the Wesleyan Quadrilateral) with scripture being the final authority.

Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent. The goal of Ash Wednesday is to reflect upon our humanness, our need for forgiveness, and our connection to Christ’s last days. These themes are symbolized by the imposition of ashes on the forehead, with the words, “You are dust and to dust you shall return…” during the worship service. In the Old Testament, ashes were a sign of penitence and mourning. Job was known for placing ashes upon his head to mourn the loss of his family.

Sure, Catholics do it, but that does not mean that we become Catholic if we receive ashes. We are merely participating in the greater historical liturgical practices of Christians. There is nothing magical about the ashes. You are not any more holy for participating in Ash Wednesday, but it is just another way to experience the presence of God in our lives in a symbolic way.

But, where did this act of worship and repentance on Ash Wednesday come from? Christianity Today provides some insight:

Transfiguration

Facebook or Facetime?

I started using Facebook.com shortly after I entered graduate school in 2003. Facebook is a social networking internet webpage that connects people, organizations, families, and business. Some of my college friends began to use Facebook and I saw it as a way to stay in touch with people. Facebook was confusing. Why I could see everyone’s business: who they talked to, what they posted, what they said, etc… Now, Facebook is ubiquitous. My parents, who are retired, even have a Facebook page!

Facebook is a great way to connect, but have we replaced Facebook with true “facetime?” Have we replaced what we would do with our friends and family with what we should do in person? Have we lost a sense of personal touch with the use of Facebook? A social networking website cannot replace what we experience in real life.

In our scriptures for Sunday, so much is made about “facetime” with God. In the Old Testament lesson, Moses is face to face with God. After the experience, Moses’ face changes. Moses puts a veil over his face to hide it from the Israelites. In our Gospel text, Jesus’ face and complexion change during the Transfiguration.

Why all this attention to the Transfiguration? The Transfiguration is important and Darrell Jodock in the Christian Century explains why:

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