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EPIC
HOT Culture, HOT Church
"The relations
between objects are more important than
the objects themselves." Cezanne
Stores that sell products
are endangered species. Stores that sell
values and experiences are poised for the
future.
"Edutainment"
retailing - combining education
with entertainment.
What does Planet Hollywood, or Hard Rock
Café, deliver? Great food? An
experience!
If the church continues to
hug the middle-of-the-road, as it did in
the modern world, it will get hit by both
sets of oncoming traffic.
Moderns didn’t want
anything that parts the hair. Postmoderns
do not suffer boredom easily or quietly.
Better for the church to be anything
(quirky, nerdy, anything) than
"boring." Stuffed shirts have a
negative witness in postmodern culture.
Postmoderns are hungry for
real epiphanies; they are ravenous for
real experiences – for sensory
stimulation and socialization and
emotional fulfillment.
People are using the
‘Net as they used to use the picket
fence in the backyard – to talk
across and neighbor. The Internet will be
the key source for relationships in 21-C.
Postmoderns are developing rich, varied,
and complex online lives.
The more hard-core techie
the church becomes, the more soft-core
humie the church must get. HOT
(high-online-technology) culture requires
HOT
(hands-on-truth/high-on-touch)
churches.
It matters less whether
the churches are highly liturgical or
highly informal.
"The question is
whether the people, including the clergy,
are having life-transforming experiences
in worship. Are these churches, and their
clergy, mediating deeply moving
experiences of the divine."
Sociologist Donald E. Miller
It is not my job to teach
people what is "good church
music." It is my job to help people
have an experience of God.
Preaching must cease to be
the "big-jug/littler-mugs"
presentation of points of view or the
representation of arguments that can be
verbalized, and become a rushing mighty
wind that blows through the congregation
and makes it glow with an incandescence
that cannot be ignored.
A continental drift of the
soul has taken place where spirituality
is less creedal, less
propositional, more relational and more
sensory.
Not meaning but
purpose in life is the key to postmodern
self-identity. People are looking for
primal experience. People long for the
mystery and mysticism of an encounter
with God, and expect the church to help
them get in touch with their experiences.
Hence the growth of primal spiritualities
like Pentecostalism, the fastest growing
and most important religious movement of
the 20th century.
Ever attend an Episcopal Church? The first thing
you do when you enter the church is kneel
in the aisles. As soon as you find your
seat, the first thing you do is kneel at
your pew. The entire service finds the
worshiper getting up and down, responding
antiphonally to the liturgist. Every
Episcopal service issues an altar call,
and the majority of the congregation
kneels and prays at the altar.
What goes on at
Pentecostal worship? The same thing. The
irony is that the Episcopalians are the
realist worship artists, the Pentecostals
the abstract artists. Both Episcopalians
and the Pentecostals don’t do
sit-and-soak worship. They don’t
countenance pew potatoes. They engage in
highly experiential, interactive,
participatory worship.
Postmoderns would rather
be close than right. Postmoderns are
desperate for relationships.
According to the Billy Graham
Evangelistic Association, 80% of adults
coming to faith in Jesus Christ do so as
a result of the influence of a friend.
Don’t Amuse, Do
Edutain. The word "amusement"
comes from "a" and
"muse" – "a"
means "not" and
"muse" means "to
ponder." Literally,
"amusement" means "not to
ponder." There’s no evaluation,
no critical faculties; no judgment.
Churches should
work to add to education the component of
"entertain" (edutainment).
Moderns have serious
problems with the word
"entertain." No modern leader
likes to be seen as an entertainer, or
doing entertainment. Yet we talk about entertaining people in our
homes all the time; we judge hosts on how
well they have entertained or hosted us;
we are the hosts of God’s house; we
had better know how to entertain people
in God’s house.
"Entertainment"
literally means "holding the
attention of." You don’t want
to be an "entertainer?" You
don’t want to "entertain"
your people? Let me get this right: You
don’t want to hold the attention of
your people? You don’t want to be a
"crowd pleaser?" Let me get
this right: You want to antagonize,
alienate, displease your congregation?
The Protestant
Reformation notion of the
"priesthood of all believers"
was a doctrine that stubbornly refused to
grow in the modern world. It is now time
to abolish the laity once and for all.
We are living in a world
of Interactive Everything.
The 3 biggest developments
in management theory in the past 15
years, according to Harvard’s Rosabeth
Moss Kanter, have all been a means of
coming to terms with an ethic of
participation:
customer-focus
employee
involvement
partnerships with
other companies.
"To sum up, my
friends, when you meet for worship, each of you
contributes…" Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 14:26)
The basic care givers of
the church must be the laity. In the
words of church consultants Bill Easum
and Thomas Bandy, "The transition
from congregations dependent upon clergy
for pastoral care and leadership, to
congregations that rely on gifted,
called, and equipped laity for pastoral
care and leadership, is the greater
paradigm shift that lies behind the
growth of cell groups."
Be An EPIC:
Experiential
Participatory
Interactive
Communal
One of my favorite West
Virginia stories is of a boy and girl at
the conclusion of their first date.
Standing under the porch light of the
girl’s front door, the boy looked at
her and said, "Can I kiss
you.?" The girl smiled demurely and
said nothing. The boy tried again.
"I mean may I kiss you?" Again
the girl smiled and said nothing.
"Are you deaf?." The boy asked.
"Are you paralyzed?," said the
girl. Are you paralyzed, church? Why
can’t you show this world how much
God loves it? Even though you think this
world is ugly and froggish, why
can’t we kiss it with the love of
Christ?
Emotions often follow
motions -- even when the motions are
merely those of form.
Now What? Net Notes
1.
Download from my Web site the
Out-of-Control Confession of Faith.
Recite it together. How does it feel to
say these words? Now sing the song
"I Surrender All." Is there any
difference between the two?
2. Visit
Bill Easum’s Web site and have
everyone read his article "Preaching
in the 21st Century."
Easum argues here that in the 21st
century it will become "increasingly
hard for the seminary-trained pastor to
communicate unless that pastor is very
unusual. The best training will be from
associating with ‘publicans and
sinners,’ something which most
pastors choose not to do and most
churches expect that their pastors will
not do. It is a dangerous and difficult
time to be a pastor in the trenches of an
established church and many will not make
it."
What do
you think?
3. The
alternative church in York, England,
called "Warehouse" is primarily
a Christian nightclub and meeting place
for local artists and others who have had
bad experiences with church. The
Warehouse advocates the "shop
window" principle. What is it?
Download and distribute its list of 15
characteristics of postmodern worship.
You can
find this and more on their Web site: http://www.abbess.demon.co.uk/paradox/docs/features.txt.
4. You
can surf the Web for images rather than
words, thanks to Interpix Software
Corporation (see http://isurf.interpix.com).
5. Why
do you think USAmerica is the only
developed country where massage is not an
official part of the health-care system?
Have you ever received a massage or
massage therapy? For high-touch ideas,
visit the Touch Research Institute at http://www.miami.edu/touch-research.
6. Take
the sidewalk down an online city. Step on
at http://www.sidewalk.com/ if you live in
New York, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco,
and Minneapolis/St. Paul. By the time
this is published, you can take the trip
in other cities. Or log-on to one of
AOL’s Digital City channels to see
what it’s like to have an urban
experience online.
7. What
do you think of this idea? Create a
sacred space for yourself and whoever
else is going to participate with you. Do
so by using what works for the people you
minister to: prayer, music, sharing. Plan
and then go on a sacred pilgrimage via
the Internet. What geographical sites
will you include? The word Jerusalem
brings up more than 290 sites as of 19
January 1998. What do you think you will
feel at each site? If you think this is a
bad idea, consider creating a forum in
which to discuss why.
8. Visit
the Habitat for Humanity Web site. What
is this organization doing that would fit
with your ministry?
9. If
you don’t play computer games, you
can’t do ministry in today’s
world. Try these: http://www.pseud.com/allgames/
http://www.mtech.edu/chem/chem.htm
http://www.teleport.com/~stank/
10. Are
you optimistic or pessimistic about the
future? Discuss James Buchan’s
principle that "Debt is the optimism
of Americans." To check out the US
debt today, go to http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opd.htm. Under General
Information click on "The Public
Debt of the U.S. to the penny." To
find how fast that figure has risen, go
back to the home page and drop down to
Historical Information, clicking on
"The Daily History of the Public
Debt." It will give you the debt on
any day from 4 January 1993 to the
present.
11.
Conduct a search on the World Wide Web
for the word storytelling. How
many matches do you pull up? For more
information about masters degrees in
storytelling, contact the East Tennessee
State University Web site: http://www.etsu.edu/stories.
12. For
the use of video clips in worship, use
the following resources: (1) http://us.imdb.com. This is a free
database that comes closest to being a
"motion picture concordance."
Try keying the word forgiveness in
the search box, and see what happens; (2)
Scott Dyer, comp., The Source:
A Resource Guide for Using Creative Arts
in Church Services (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1996). This is a Willow Creek
resource guide for creative arts in the
church; (3) Harbinger Communications
offers a library of original video and
multi-projector slide presentations for
church use. Call 800-320-7206 for more
information, or fax 847-622-0830.
13. Want
to be in a book? Read Esther Dyson’s
Release 2.0: A Design for Living in
the Digital Age (New York: Broadway,
1998). Then interact with the author on
the book’s Web site http://www./Release2-0.com. Your
interaction will be incorporated in an
upcoming edition of her book.
14.
Check out the Travelers Resource Center .
Don’t leave without visiting
TRC’s World Travel Watch, or
learning how to say "Where’s
church?" in 50 languages.
15.
Invite readers to submit the names of
EPIC ministries on the Web site, describe
why they nominated them, and then in 1999
give $100 each month to both the
nominator and nominee as the EPIC
Ministry of the Month.
16. Want
to explore how different things are for a
CD-ROM generation? Check out.…
17.
Nonlinear ambient music in the 1980s was
only a prophecy of Brian Eno, and
everyone thought he was crazy. What is
music without a linear path or
traditional song structure—with no
choruses, no verses, no intricate
melodies, no start-up and stop
directions? Ambient music ambles along,
creating an atmosphere and mood as it
goes, not a melody. It is composed, not
to explore melody, but to take listeners
into another realm of experience. Check
out these Web sites to experience the
circularity of ambient music.
http://www.innerpeacemusic.com/page4.htm
http://www.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Music/Genres/Electronica/
Styles/Ambient
http://www.sozra.com/ambient.html
18. For
an experience of the new tactile feedback
technology that is soon coming to
computers, use an old mouse to view the
new interactive one at http://www.forcefeedback.com.
19.
Check out http://www.sixdegrees.com or read Craig
Foss’s Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
(New York: Plume, 1996). These
demonstrate that you can get connected to
virtually anyone in the world by
exercising your contacts, who in turn
exercise their connections, and by
the sixth round you will have found
someone personally acquainted with
whomever you are searching. It’s a
powerful animation of something called
Networking.
20.
Visit BNN on the Web: http://www.broadcastnews.com.
21. For
what Postmodern Reformation church
architecture might look like, visit my
Web site http://www.leonardsweet.com and download the
issue of Sweet’s SoulCafe
entitled "The Ten Commandments of
Postmodern Church Architecture." The
purpose of architecture is to
"move" people. Is
"moving" you with stone or wood
or glass any more authentic and true than
moving you with holograms and other forms
of electronics?
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