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Dangerous Worship

Silence

Post a Comment » Written on April 26th, 2013
Filed under: Dangerous Worship, Formation

Today’s post is written by Chris Logan, Pastor of Worship Arts at Community Covenant Church in Lenexa, KS.

The gift of God to the introvert, and from the introvert to his or her community, is the gift of silence.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah goes up on a mountain to hear from God, and in the midst of a powerful wind, an earthquake, and fire, God’s voice was not present. But then, a whisper, still and small, emerged from the silence that followed and asked Elijah, “what are you doing here?”

To me, that sounds wonderful.

I am an introvert, a fact that has taken me a long time to embrace. But as a new dad for the third time, I’m once again learning the value of silence. I’m discovering how much I long for it in its absence – and these days, it’s absent a lot.

Silence is not just the absence of noise, and I’m finding that silence itself can be active, dynamic … dare I say it, alive, teeming with the presence of God. In silence, we are given a chance to simply be. We are able to rest, to recharge. When we sleep, our bodies repair themselves faster; so too our minds and emotions repair when we take sabbath. Silence is, in a way, the act of growing. In silence, we engage our Creator. Silence is communion, where we eat the bread of presence and drink the life-giving cup of rest.

But silence takes work.

Our world is in the throes of a massive shift; places ever-distant are now connected through the digital world. Media bombards our eyes, ears, and an increasing number of senses with consumer-driven messages. Sleep has become harder and so we depend on caffeine and other stimulants more than ever before. For many of us, our phones and other mediums pull us in a thousand directions at once; we are always awake, always thinking, always working, always productive. Combined with urbanization and the influx of western culture on the world, we’ve created a metaculture of movement, of busy …

… of noise.

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Now more than ever, we need silence.

The great irony is that, in a global world, I believe that silence will ultimately prove to connect us more than anything else we’ve done. See, silence is counterintuitive, paradoxical; it is entirely necessary, but it is the antithesis of productivity. In silence, we cannot produce more, and yet we cannot produce without it. It takes silence to have a conversation; in silence, we cannot talk, but we cannot talk without drawing a breath, without silence. Nor can we listen without silencing our own voices. We cannot have the beauty of music without the rest of silence in between the notes.

And isn’t it interesting that the only time we all truly sound the same is in the silence?

Connect

8 comments Written on February 22nd, 2013
Filed under: Culture, Dangerous Worship, Formation, Liturgy

Today’s post is written by Chris Logan, Pastor of Worship Arts at Community Covenant Church in Lenexa, KS.

Have you ever considered how worship gatherings fit into the context of discipleship?

The connection is actually quite strong. To be honest, I had never really thought about it much until I was at a conference a few months ago, and Mindy Caliguire spent a great deal of time talking about discipleship (it turns out that’s what she does at Willow Creek). One of the things she mentioned was that discipleship, while it’s often looked at as a small group or one-on-one sort of responsibility, can be a large group practice. We learn and grow together not only as we read or have conversations, but also as we engage corporately, as the combined voices and minds and hearts of many.

It’s a perspective that should change the way we approach crafting worship gatherings.

For one, the music takes on a new significance; it’s a part of the process of forming all of us into the image of Jesus. These are not a random assortment of songs we enjoy singing; they must be carefully chosen and rehearsed. Furthermore, every part of the music – not just the words – must be carefully thought through; lyrics incorrectly paired with style or flavor changes the way we tell the story. The order of music – and of the whole gathering, from music to liturgy to message, even to the announcements – matters because in the environment that we choose to create people will have a better chance (or not) of connecting with the Creator.

Connections.

What we are doing is helping people make connections, because that’s what a good story does. In the process of crafting a worship gathering as story, we can help our congregations connect what they learned last week to the next week; we can help them connect to creation and to each other; we can help them connect to their Maker and Redeemer.

The thing about connections is that they don’t happen to us; we have to participate in them. Nobody can connect me to God without my permission and conscious engagement – nor to my neighbor. Connections – true, meaningful, lasting, deep connections – happen in the midst of discovery. On some fundamental level, we do not own those connections unless we discover them for ourselves.

Which begs a question: what story are we telling?

Does the story we are telling in and with our gatherings help make those connections, that discovery? To help others to make discoveries, should we be giving answers, or asking more questions? Is it possible that by providing simple answers (how complex could those answers possibly be with only an hour or less to give them?) we’re robbing those in our care of the joy of discovery?

More to the point, what is the nature of the content? If the gospel we preach is so revolutionary and could change the world, it’s a dangerous story to tell. Do we tell dangerous stories or sing dangerous songs? Since God is always advancing towards us – the gospel is always advancing – our gatherings are one of the places that heaven and earth can intersect, overlap, collide.

Connect …

… if we let them.

Restore

3 comments Written on October 27th, 2012
Filed under: Dangerous Worship, Local Church, Prayer

Today’s post is written by Chris Logan, Pastor of Worship Arts at Community Covenant Church in Lenexa, KS.

There has been a lot going on lately. Criticism. Changes in staffing. Mixed signals. Failures in leadership. Untimely equipment failures. Writer’s block. Sickness. Uncertainties. Overwhelming noise. Overwhelming silence. Great needs. Deep needs.