SALLY MORGENTHALER TALKS ‘MISSIONAL WORSHIP’

Is there such a thing as “missional” Sunday morning worship?  Sally Morgenthaler says “yes.”  Known best for her book, Worship Evangelism, Morgenthaler has been a leading presence in the worship world for over fifteen years.  Her current work focuses on helping congregations move from mere “maintenance” patterns of worship to innovative, outwardly focused dynamics that engage the body of Christ in the great saga of God’s redemption of the world.

We recently asked Morgenthaler to describe “missional” worship in the North American context and ways to incorporate it in our various congregational settings.  The following, found in fuller form in the publication, Exploring the Worship Spectrum:  Six Views, is what Morgenthaler had to say…

The beginning point for any serious re-working of corporate worship in the new millennium is a profound recognition of personal and societal brokenness.   Surprise, we are neither master of our destinies nor master of ourselves.   We are not, as we imagined mere decades ago, one government program or one scientific discovery away from utopia.   Despite our best attempts at dissecting, categorizing, understanding, and controlling life on this planet, we remain limited, biased, and severely flawed.   Our knowledge is imperfect and our best motives, narcissistic.  In postmodern nomenclature, we are imprisoned in our own narrow agendas, obsessed with and controlled by the pursuit of power. In biblical terms, we are depraved.  One forty-something, formerly Catholic, unchurched male sums it up this way:  “Between Columbine (he’s from Littleton, Colorado), September 11, the Catholic priesthood crisis, my World.com stock, and my divorce, I’ve run out of people to trust.  I’m a mess, the world’s a mess, we’re all a mess.  I ‘m either going to get an addiction, a big dose of God, or both.”

What is clear is that Americans no longer believe in their ability to construct a better tomorrow.  Progress has moved into the realm of mythology, with the religion of human progress  - humanism - functionally dead.  For the first time in several hundred years, we realize that neither science, government, nor the best in homo-sapien efforts are going to be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again.  William Langewiesche’s statement in the wake of the 2001 attacks hits the nail on the head:  “The dread that Americans felt during the weeks following the September 11 attacks stemmed less from the fear of death than from a collective loss of control – a sense of being dragged headlong into an apocalyptic future for which society seemed unprepared.”    It is this loss of control, this long and sober stare into our limitations that has now replaced the utopian dream.

When will the church – and, specifically, worship – rise to meet this seismic reorientation? American culture had outgrown even our most progressive worship practices sometime in the early 90s.  (Worship attendance figures peaked in 1991.)  But it wasn’t until after September 11 that many of us sat up and took notice.  Suddenly, our enforced-happy, “you can control your world” services could no longer maintain the illusion of relevance.  Easy-answer, religion-as-personal-project Christianity came up short – way short.  Sure, we scrambled for our theology 101 textbooks on September 12, went online to download somebody else’s sermon on tragedy, dug through dusty hymnbooks (somehow, the feel-good choruses we’d been singing for the past decade and a half just weren’t going to fit very well with images of jetliners slamming into buildings). But we couldn’t change years of theological and cultural inattention in a week.  On September 16, 2001, hundreds of thousands of the confirmed irreligious packed into our sanctuaries. Church attendance swelled to record numbers in the first two months after the crisis.  Not six months later, it had dropped to pre-9/11 levels, and nine months later, it was plummeting below early 2001 numbers.  What were people looking for that they didn’t find?  Certainly, the American public is a fickle lot. Yet, when the Church is handed such an unforeseen opportunity and fails to give people compelling, lasting experiences of God, there is something wrong. 

Truly, we know this.  We know something is wrong.   It’s as if a giant searchlight has been switched into the “on” position, revealing worship substance at millimeter depths; answers, embarrassingly ill begotten and ill applied; and a narcissistic focus rivaling a multi-level marketing convention.  We recoil at what we’re doing, but frankly don’t know what else to do.  Service themes that sounded profound just a few years ago now ring glib and hollow.   Praise songs on the latest CD releases sound like so many distant sequels.  And in our private moments, far from planning meetings and rehearsals - unspeakably bored with what we ourselves are putting out every Sunday – we are asking, “Where is the way forward?

1.    The Gift of Realignment
In the practical, realignment means reinstating Creator-referenced, God-focused expressions and engaging worshipers primarily with the Person and the continuing works of God through Jesus Christ.  We are transformed through God’s activity in and through us, not by what we think we need and certainly, not by ruminating our way into better behavior.  A missional worship experience thus begins not with what people feel their needs to be, but with Who God is, who they are, and who they were created to become.   Within this framework, there is a huge difference between religious consumers (those simply seeking to get their felt needs met) and developing worshipers (those seeking to take an active part in the story and ongoing activity of God).

The understanding of worship as realignment has profound effects on worship planning.  Realignment takes place not through carefully presented arguments, but in placing oneself inside the ongoing redemptive saga of God.  There, we recognize ourselves in the broken, limited God-followers of the biblical narrative.  And in entering the drama of their stories, we engage with the Person of God, not just the Principles of God.  In short, we know and are known.  Having shifted from “knowing-by-notion” to “knowing-by-narrative,” realignment in emerging congregations is experiential more than mental, sensory more than read; a whole-person and whole-community immersion into the lived and living chronicles of God.  And, necessarily, it involves movement first and foremost toward God so that the self can be seen clearly.

What does emerging realignment look like, sound like, feel like? It is the hushed tones of a gathering prayer – the drama of John 1: 1-5 recaptured in poetry and set to a video loop of a swirling galaxy.  It is the hymn, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent,” reconstituted in electronica and brought to life with a kaleidoscopic, digital backdrop. It is the mimed story of Jacob wrestling with God, followed by silent reflection and the option of “drawn” prayer…worshipers sketching images of their God-conflicts on large sheets of butcher block paper taped to the walls.  It is reciting the Apostles’ Creed together, each affirmation accompanied by scanned and projected “graffiti” art - childrens’ spray-paint interpretations of Creation, Fall, Redemption, Revelation.  It is any whole-person, experiential avenue of seeing God, seeing oneself, and being caught up in the unfolding miracle of divine grace.   A holy and necessary relocation – the result of worship that is fixed first upon the character and works of the One worshiped.

2.  The Gift of Context  
In a culture of crisis, exponential change, and decimated hopes, missional worship understands that “root-less-ness” is anything but an asset. It just may be our biggest liability.  People are desperate for the strong, connective fibers of shared accounts, worldviews, experiences, and customs.  Missional congregations not only “get” this, but they instinctively understand that the most effective kind of remembering doesn’t attempt to recreate or even imitate the past.  To remember well is to re-context the past in the present; to fuse the best of yesterday with the best of today, and in the process, birth something entirely new.   

This process goes way beyond most notions of ancient/future (adding praise choruses, power points, and occasional video clips to existing ancient liturgies).  Essentially, it is wholesale deconstruction – the dismantling of a multiplicity of worship forms (both pre-Reformation and post-Reformation) followed by the postmodern art of pastiche: creating something unprecedented out of the pieces at hand.  Add to that a strong penchant for paradox (the juxtaposition of seeming opposites) and eclecticism (the combination of seemingly distant and unrelated elements) and you get a palette of colors that is virtually endless.  Sacred and secular, diverse geographies and ethnicities, past and present, celebration and lament, extreme participation and silence – in emerging worship services, these all combine and recombine for the express purpose of exalting God.

Radical re-contexting is the most noticeable difference between missional worship and other forms, including those that are blended and/or convergence-type services.  In radical re-contexting, the order of service may be more concurrent (several things happening at once) than homogeneous (everyone does the same thing at a time).   For instance, instead of the normal three-point sermon on forgiveness, the story of Joseph may be experienced at various stations in the worship center. In one corner, worshipers may view a patchwork, Technicolor coat with crumpled bits of parchment pinned to the fabric – the story of Joseph sold into slavery, read from shoulder to hem.  In another corner, there are short, taped interviews with several of Joseph’s brothers.  With their individual headsets, worshipers listen as each brother justifies his actions against Joseph, the favored youngest son.  Along one wall, worshipers may walk a labyrinth charting Joseph’s journey from his homeland into slavery, on into the highest position of power under Pharaoh.  At each point, the worshiper gets to query, “What was Joseph’s attitude toward God, toward his fellow human beings, and toward his brothers?  What would I think, what would I do if I were Joseph?”  Concurrency allows for a multiplicity of reactions, perspectives, and applications.

Radical re-contexting also may mean borrowing elements of existing service orders, but repackaging them in an almost unrecognizable form. For example, the ancient liturgical act of “sending” might be used, but instead of enacted as priestly blessing, it is an open-ended, sending “meditation” - a visceral connection to the real world that one is about to re-enter.  Thus, an emerging worship service might end its service by overlaying quotes from second-century mystics on silent, rush hour film footage - the only accompaniment, a hushed drum loop.  There are other borrowed liturgical elements that may also serve as fodder for re-contexting.  Scripture reading(s) might be morphed into a multi-sensory experience:  an indigenous paraphrase of the famous “praise” Psalm 150, recited in reader’s theater format from the back of the sanctuary to ambient music; concurrently, worshipers make impressions of their uplifted, praising hands in walls of soft sculpting material.  (Of course, the idea here is to save this as a part of the worship space.)

The ancient practice of corporate confession might also be re-configured.  For instance, the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus may be followed by a distribution of three smooth stones to each worshiper.  Each worshiper then reflects upon his or he own experiences of denying Christ.  As each chooses, he or she can then walk up to a central, darkened pool of water and toss the three stones in …the sounds of Creed’s “My Own Prison” echoing in the distance.  Others might choose to glue their three “denial” stones into a newly constructed communion table which the congregation will use from week to week.  Communion itself may get a dramatic face-lift:  the Words of Institution re-cast as poetry while a dancer enacts the events of the Last Supper.  In another twist, a sculptor may carve the “body of Christ” into bread loaves as a video version of the Crucifixion unfolds. (Later, worshipers will feed each other pieces of this carved “body” as they celebrate the Lord’s Table.)

3. The Gift of Particularity
The contemporary, late twentieth century church developed prototype ministry into an art form.  (Prototype ministry:  ministry designed for a specific cultural profile or stereotype vs. ministry designed for actual people.) We know prototype ministry best as church targeting…ministry oriented to the dominant people group in an area (most usually, the people group most like the core leadership of a congregation).  Based on the concept of affinity (grouping people according to lifestyle, economic status, age, and ethnicity), prototype ministry has proven helpful in jumpstarting communities where people need the initial safety of sameness.   Unfortunately, prototype ministry has severe limitations in establishing long-term, self-perpetuating communities. (In sociological terms, those that are connective across a multiplicity of affinities.) Historically, human beings are drawn beyond homogeneity to diversity, which is why long-standing, one-dimensional cultures are rare.   Eventually, narrowly defined communities implode upon themselves.   (Think   George Orwell’s, Animal Farm, and you get the picture.)

The incapability of the contemporary church to move from homogeneity to diversity is, frankly, its biggest hindrance as it wakes up to an exponentially diversifying culture.   Nowhere is this self-imposed handicap more visible than in worship.  There is a numbing uniformity to late twentieth century styled services, a predictability and cultural incongruity rivaling any lockstep, mainline liturgy of the mid-twentieth century.  With only a few alterations in sequence, the contemporary liturgy (again, contemporary is not to be confused with relevant) follows the same routine nationwide: walk-in music, an enforced-happy welcome, vaudevillian-styled announcements, a twenty minute praise set, special music, message, prayer, offering/song, and a see-you-next-week dismissal.  (If it’s a service focused more on seekers, add a drama and cut the praise singing and prayer to bare minimum.)  Mirroring the non-descript landscape of late twentieth century suburbia, the contemporary worship space is intentionally generic:  off-white, bare walls; worship team outfits; visually predominant technology (wires, screen, sound systems, monitors, speakers, etc.); standardized power point backgrounds; and an absence of all symbols save one:  the ubiquitous church logo. 

Contrast this weekly mantra of standardization with the 2002 Winter Olympics and one begins to glimpse how far our cutting edge churches actually are from edge.  The Salt Lake City experience was tribalism – a celebration of the oh-so-particular – on a grand scale.   Ute Indian songs segued effortlessly into the strains of Sting, techno, and the ethereal intonations of a Russian choir.  Meantime, the crowd became the locus of the action, wielding everything from multi-colored sheets to flashlights and glow sticks.   In the arena, skaters carved out visual prayer on ice, their lanterns and flowing costumes weaving a tapestry of transcendence and hope.  This was anything but generic, as far from homogenous as a public event could possibly get.  Yet, these world celebrations were intensely communal and unifying, a veritable symphony of diversity played out night after night.  Here were the stories of nations and of nations within nations being told – musically, dramatically, visually - in all their glorious particularity.   And, to tell the truth,  we relished the departure from the typical Hollywood, American fare.

If there is a call to the American contemporary Church, it is a call back to particularity:  the lost, tribal paradigm that Harrisonburg, Virginia and Bend, Oregon have been carved out by distinct histories, narratives, songs, and shared rituals.  Not only that, but that each citizen of Harrisonburg and Bend has his or her own story, narrative, song, and life ritual.  And finally, each congregation within Harrisonburg and Bend has a singular, unique voice, tuned and shaped by God.  This is, at bottom, an incarnational perspective:  God eternal came into our world at a specific juncture in time, as a member of a singular species, race, lineage, town, and gender.  Jesus was not born as a prototype and did not minister to prototypes.  Jesus came in human form and ministered to people in all their specificity: prostitutes, Pharisees, lepers, centurions, tax collectors, old and young, male and female, slave and free, rich and poor.  How can we do any less?  Ministry according to prototype is ministry stripped of personal journey, devoid of the very placed-ness and humble descent into the now that continues to characterize God’s ministry to us.  (See Philippians 4:5-11.)

The question must be asked, what would worship look like without the generic wrapper? What would happen if we truly let worship experiences emerge from the people themselves?  If we stopped trying to hit targets, stopped trying to conform ourselves to a theoretical demography, and simply let lived and living stories speak?  This would be a brave move, indeed.  A move out of worship planned in cubicles to worship planned in community; an escape from worship as music (most often, whatever the worship music industry is dictating this month) to worship as a whole-person, indigenous encounter with God:  visual, aural, tactile, kinetic, emotional, and cerebral.  If we welcomed a wild, untamable miscellany instead of a controllable facelessness, we would allow God to surprise us more often:  an anonymous painting of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet, wrapped in newspaper and set outside our office door; black and white candid photos of mothers and children at a homeless center; poetry of lament written in the wee hours at an emergency room; a fresh, twenty-something version of the Apostles’ Creed, penciled on a coffee house napkin; a Redemption mosaic created out of glass shards from a local dump; an interactive video pairing “What Wondrous Love” with U2’s, “Walk On” – its creators, a joint team of retirees and high-school tech junkies. Honestly, it might prove difficult to go back to five canned praise songs, church commercials, and a talking head.