How many of you are employing images and issues from the banking/mortgage/stock market mess this past week in worship Sunday? What illustrations will you use? What visuals are you employing? Have you changed your sermon topic or text to speak to this tumultuous period in our national experience?

Lord, protect me from me. What I mean Lord is that this week has been so filled with fear and cynicism, that I don’t believe anyone. I don’t believe the candidates. I don’t believe the elected leaders. I don’t believe the press and the commentators. A creeping skepticism is washing over me that makes me crusty and impenetrable. 

Lord, I can’t lead in worship, sing, pray, preach, teach and witness if I don’t believe your people. I can’t lead the body if I distrust the leaders. And I know the answer is not a self-manufactured, doe-eyed innocence. Bring me back into your holy presence where all I see is you, and all I hear is your word and your voice. Give me the courage to be gentle and the patience to listen. Implant in me your words for your people in your church. Amen

Ruth Haley Barton just posted something for pastors and leaders. We recommend her article, titled The Discipline of Solitude: Getting away from the podium and into God’s presence.

Hey all.

I’m taking a trip to Germany October 3-18. While I’m away, our friends Jelani Greenidge and Don Johnson will be blogging here.

Jelani and Don are certifiable savants. And I trust this blog will become popular in my absence. In fact, I’m counting on it.

Until then and even then: Grace and Peace,
Katie

At Crossroads (my home church), worship and politics just don’t mix, unless they are Kingdom politics. Period. Red and blue politics won’t find a place in worship. We don’t host voter registration, make announcements about voting issues, remind people to vote, print announcements, facilitate petitions, etc…

Every political season, someone is disappointed then they request one of the aforementioned things, and our pastors say, “No.”

I’m wondering about other Covenant congregations? How do you handle politics in or around weekend worship?

There is an excellent article by Scot McKnight that just posted on Out of Ur. Naturally Scot reframes our political hopes in terms of Christian Hope. Here’s an excerpt:

Where is our hope? To be sure, I hope our country solves its international conflicts and I hope we resolve poverty and dissolve our educational problems and racism. But where does my hope turn when I think of war or poverty or education or racism? Does it focus on November 4? Does it gain its energy from thinking that if we get the right candidate elected our problems will be dissolved? If so, I submit that our eschatology has become empire-shaped, Constantinian, and political. And it doesn’t matter to me if it is a right-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Republican wins, or a left-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Democrat wins. Each has a misguided eschatology.

How does your church handle election politics?

We’ve added a category on this blog called “Dangerous Worship.” Obviously, I ripped it from the title of Mark Labberton’s book, The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call to Justice.

We’ll try to keep you posted on the dangers of worship in the Cov community– news stories and faith stories coming out of congregations who are doing Christ’s work in the world. Likewise, please post your own stories of dangerous worship as comments to any post in the DW category. If you’d like us to post your story as a new thread on this blog (pictures, links, details), just send it to us at: worship.connection@covchurch.org, and we’ll get it up right away.

Here are two stories that just appeared on the Covenant newswire. 

Kansas Congregation Takes ‘Church’ to the People
Church Doesn’t Have to be Big to Do Big Things

Please post your response and encouragement to these congregations. Anyone from Mosaic or Herndon listening in? We’d love to hear more.

This morning, Scot McKnight suggests we respond to the liturgical turn among low church evangelicals, and he offers some particulars in his third post on this topic. 

Scot thinks, as do I, that this trend is not an invitation to return to the prayers and hymnody of the 20th Century. It’s more complicated than that. He mentions some teaching and preaching approaches that could move us toward a reasoned response to the trend. These take work, thought and creative synthesis. There is no “book” that contains tidy scripts for us to follow. He writes:

Read the rest of this entry »

A newly posted article from the Alban Institute gets to the heart of a matter. If you believe weekend worship is linked to church growth and mission, has the power to attract or repel people and you dislike anything that smacks of customer service in worship, consider this thesis, given by Deborah Kapp:

Worship is one of the first experiences of a congregation that newcomers might have, and it therefore becomes an opportunity for the church to introduce itself to outsiders. When potential members or other visitors encounter a congregation in worship, they get a feel for who the congregation is, how adherents relate to one another, what some of the church programs are, and thus what it stands for. In repeated worship experiences, the contours of the congregation and its vocation become clearer and clearer.

Read the rest of Worship and Congregational Vocation. How do you feel about Deborah Kapp’s framework for this topic? How is it more or less helpful than others you’ve noticed? How do feel about discussions that wed worship with outcomes like church growth?

Are churches becoming more liturgical? Check out these reports.

I knew it! The unchurched do not prefer secular looking church buildings to sacred looking church buildings. In fact, according to a survey (and who can argue with a survey?) non church goers would prefer to attend church in a sacred looking building. Read this short article, and tell me what you think.

Dave and I were with some friends who are secular humanists. (That’s what they call themselves.) We were driving to dinner with them, and we passed a church building. Our friend asked, “Why do churches now build these buildings that look like schools, malls or prisons?

Why do we?