Last week, I attended the Big Tent Event in Knoxville,
TN. This biennial gathering was first
offered after the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church moved from annual
meetings to meeting every other year.
The Big Tent Event thus sprung up on the "off" years from G.A.
In my column last week in Presbytery Matters, I noted some
of the things I would be attending. What
I want to share with you in this column is some of the insights of the Rev. Dr.
Rodger Nishioka in the workshop he offered on "Ministries Equipping Leaders
for Discipleship and Evangelism."
Rodger is Associate Professor for Christian Education at Columbia
Theological Seminary in the Atlanta area.
Rodger's current interest and passion is studying the relationship of
youth and young adults with the Presbyterian Church. The things he shared were both insightful and
challenging.
Dr. Nishioka said that we have been a "culture of the
page." Particularly for
Presbyterians, we are a people of books:
the Bible, the Book of Order, the Book of Confessions, our hymnals, the
Book of Common Worship, etc. We do
"book" well, Rodger said. What
we need to be aware of, however, is that today we live in the midst of a
"culture of the screen."
Particularly for the youth and young adults in our society, if something
isn't accessible on the screen (laptop, smart phone, tablet, etc.) then they
are not engaged. In terms of worship,
this means more than just putting words up on a screen via a PowerPoint or
KeyNote presentation. It means how we
communicate, how we invite people to engage and interact during worship and
other events. In other words, it is nothing
short of a cultural shift.
Rodger then spent time talking particularly about worship
and what younger folks are seeking in worship.
He gave us an acronym (we all love our acronyms, don't we?) that
outlined what he learned from countless hours in conversations with millennial folks
and other youth. From those
conversations, he learned that younger folks are looking for these things when
they come together for worship:
·
Experiential - Young folks don't just want to hear
"about" God; they want the chance to actually "experience"
the presence of the Holy One in our midst.
That means, among other things, that worship services must be...
·
Participatory - Worship is not about sitting around
being entertained. How can we engage
people as active participants in worship?
What about opportunities for dialogue during worship? What would it look like to offer anyone and
everyone the chance to pray, to reflect on Scripture, to share stories of faith
and wonder and love and doubt and hurt and hope? How can we engage people's senses...which
leads to the fact that worship must be...
·
Imagistic - Let's not just engage our brains in worship
services. Let's engage our sense of
sight...of sounds...of taste...of smell.
For example, why not put a breadmaker in the sanctuary and have the
aroma of bread baking when people prepare to celebrate Communion? And how can we use images in ways that will
be...
·
Communal - The common thing Rodger hears from
youth and young adults is that they feel isolated and alone, despite all the ways
in which they are connected via social media.
The Church is the one place where we have not just the opportunity but
the mandate to offer a sense of community to people in need, to people who feel
isolated, to people who want to feel united with others in common worship and
service to other.
Worship can, and should, be EPIC: experiential, participatory, imagistic, and
communal. How can we do these kinds of
things, and then how can we get the word out so that youth and young adults
know that they will be truly and fully welcomed when they walk through the
doors of our churches? This is a huge
challenge, don't you agree? But the
needs are great, and the opportunity to meet those needs is right in front of
us. So how will we respond?
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