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Artisan Covenant Blends Ancient, Current Worship Forms

ROCHESTER, NY (May 31, 2005) - The members of Artisan Covenant Church are combining ancient and current forms of worship in a creative fashion to better reflect the mystery and presence of God in their lives of faith.

Co-pastors Jason Condon and Brian Haack are committed to using the fourfold pattern of worship: gathering, word, table and sending forth. Communion is celebrated every Sunday.

"There's a desire to be rooted historically," says Condon. "That's one of our core values." When people ask, for example, why the church celebrates communion every Sunday, the pastors ask why others don't since it was celebrated every week for centuries.

"We draw from the historic form of worship, and within that, there is a real fresh expression," says Haack. That fresh expression comes in many forms of artistic expressions. Worship services may include ancient hymns or slam poetry. People have the opportunity to respond to the word and table through "enacted prayers." Enacted prayers involve doing something physical. After a sermon on the story of Adam and Eve, for example, individuals were given an opportunity to nail leaves to a cross. The leaves represented the things with which people cover up.

"We try to appeal to as many senses as possible," Condon says. "We try to be very sensate in our worship. It is sensual in many meanings of the word."

Once a month groups meet together for House Blend, which are small groups reaching upwards of 30 people each. They worship together as well as engage in formational activities. Every four to six weeks, the church gathers for "immersed worship," which includes activities that don't readily fit into the weekly worship service. "Immersed is pushing the envelope for us," Condon says.

Past activities have included stations of the cross designed by church members, in which people engage in different activities at each of the stations. For example, at one of the stations, members wrote sins on a sheet of paper and then tossed them into the fire. Members also walked a labyrinth one month.

Artisan was born when two struggling church plants with similar visions formally joined together in February. Haack was pastor of Quest Church, which had begun as a cooperative plant between the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) and another church. Capax Dei was a church plant from outside the Covenant that also had initially been helped by another church. The financial support for both never materialized except from the ECC. "One of the things that we've been blown away with is the Covenant's dedication to its plants – it's willingness to be flexible and to work in unique circumstances," Haack says.

The churches had attracted different age groups. Capax Dei, started last fall, attracted primarily single people under the age of 30. Quest attracted young families whose parents average above age 30. Each church experienced the problem of having visitors who didn't return because they didn't find someone who looked like them. "It was really a wonderful thing to bring these two bodies together, so when someone comes in, they will see someone like them," Condon says. Both of the churches had been struggling to attract up to 40 people to weekly worship. They now are averaging 70 to 80 people.

Combining the churches also provided an opportunity for Condon and Haack to work together. They attended seminary together at Northeastern Seminary, which they say influenced the church's emphasis on what Robert Webber has referred to as ancient-future worship. The seminary has a strong emphasis on early church history, the pastors say.

Artisan worship services are conducted at 5 p.m. Sunday evenings at Trinity Covenant Church. The evening services are better suited for the church members, the pastors say. Families can attend and have children home at a decent hour, while others gather for fellowship afterward.

(Editor's note: the accompanying photo shows an individual at Artisan Covenant Church throwing into the fire a piece of paper on which had been written various sins that were being confessed. To learn more about the church and its ministries, please visit Artisan Covenant.

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