We live in a teen driven culture. You might add in college students and single folks up to age 25 or so, but the majority of our culture, in terms of entertainment, in terms of marketing, is focused on that 10-12 year span from 13-25. The marketing trends cycle to try to appeal to teens, and the focus is upon flash and upon what is new.
I am newly moved out of that demographic (relatively speaking), and so I see more and more how things are aimed at folks other than me. Marketing is what appeals to the teens of a given time - at my time it was grunge influenced, then later there was the "extreme". . . sorry, the "EXTREME!!!!!" phase. Whatever it is now just makes me feel old - it's all texty and i-phoney and such (gads, if this is what I sound like at 31. . .)
Here is the problem. We know that the Church is to shape the culture, but sadly, our culture is impacting the Church - not so much in the fact that we hit the latest fad - not that we've moved from the "EXTREME" to trying to affect technology - but rather that the folks who try to set the agendas for the Church have adopted the idea that we need to cater to the hot demographic in order to be relevant. That the Church must pander to consumers, all for the sake of Christ.
Which, when you think about it, is the true and universal "teen" culture. Think on the horrid awkwardness that was (or is) high school. You don't know what to do, you don't really know who you are, there is such pressure to fit in, to have people like you, to be seen as popular, the rejection of things associated with your parents to distinguish yourself as a new adult (and more of the time an unwise rejection). It's an utter mess - pray for your high schoolers!
But now consider how the religious growth gurus and leaders approach issues in the Church. It is reserved? Is is based upon serious and deft study of the Word? Or do the ideas flitter and change - just like a teen who doesn't know what to do? Are plans for change and improvement made - or are random plans just cast out with a "well, what do you guys think, will this work!" Do we remain who we are, or are we worried about how our church is different? Are we more worried about being faithful, or about being the growing, faithful church? Do we cherish the things that have made us to grow, or do we toss away what we have received as worthless - because we are a new thing, not our parents' (or grandfathers', if you prefer) church. We are being run by a much of middle aged suits who think like teens.
I think St. Paul would encourage us to give up our "teenish" ways.
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A Round Table of Lutheran pastors speaking from within their office and vocation to matters of the Christian faith and life. As iron sharpens steel, our mutual engagement of questions and concerns pertaining to the Church and Ministry of Christ serves to refine our theological acumen, clarify our confession, and guide our sacred stewardship of the Mysteries of God.
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The Twenty-Four Elders (and a few living creatures)
Rev. Benjamin Ball
St. Paul, Hamel, Illinois
Rev. Larry Beane
Salem, Gretna, Louisiana
Rev. Paul Beisel
Immanuel, Iowa Falls, Iowa
Rev. Peter Bender
Peace, Sussex, Wisconsin
Rev. Eric Brown
Trinity, Herscher, Illinois
Rev. Heath Curtis
Zion, Carpenter, Illinois
Rev. William Cwirla
Holy Trinity, Hacienda Heights, CA
Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt
St. Paul, Kewanee, Illinois
Rev. Erich Fickel
St. Paul, Chesterton, Indiana
Rev. William Foy
Prince of Peace, Valparaiso, Indiana
Rev. John A. Frahm III
Trinity, Boulder Junction, Wisconsin
Rev. Robert Franck
Mount Olive, Duluth, Minnesota
Rev. Dr. Gifford Grobien
CTS, Fort Wayne, Indiana
Rev. Dr. Kent Heimbigner
Charity, Burleson, Texas
Rev. Dr. Steven Hein
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Rev. Rich Heinz
St. Johns, Chicago, Illinois
Rev. David Kind
University Lutheran, Minneapolis
Rev. Brent Kuhlman
Trinity, Murdock, Nebraska
Rev. Alan Ludwig, Professor
Lutheran Theological Seminary
Novosibirsk, Russia
Rev. Todd Peperkorn
Holy Cross, Rocklin, California
Rev. J. Richard Sawyer
Good Shepherd, Brandon, Mississippi
Rev. Robert Schaibley, emeritus
Shepherd of the Springs,
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Rev. Dr. Richard Stuckwisch
Emmaus, South Bend, Indiana
Rev. Jacob Sutton
Immanuel, Terre Haute, Indiana
Rev. Ralph Tausz
Apostles, Melrose Park, Illinois
Rev. David Jay Webber
Redeemer, Scottsdale, Arizona
Rev. William Weedon
Lutheran Public Radio, Collinsville, IL
Rev. Dr. Georg Williams
Zion, Ainsworth, Nebraska
Rev. Kyle Wright II
St. Matthew, Hamlet, Indiana
St. Paul, Hamel, Illinois
Rev. Larry Beane
Salem, Gretna, Louisiana
Rev. Paul Beisel
Immanuel, Iowa Falls, Iowa
Rev. Peter Bender
Peace, Sussex, Wisconsin
Rev. Eric Brown
Trinity, Herscher, Illinois
Rev. Heath Curtis
Zion, Carpenter, Illinois
Rev. William Cwirla
Holy Trinity, Hacienda Heights, CA
Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt
St. Paul, Kewanee, Illinois
Rev. Erich Fickel
St. Paul, Chesterton, Indiana
Rev. William Foy
Prince of Peace, Valparaiso, Indiana
Rev. John A. Frahm III
Trinity, Boulder Junction, Wisconsin
Rev. Robert Franck
Mount Olive, Duluth, Minnesota
Rev. Dr. Gifford Grobien
CTS, Fort Wayne, Indiana
Rev. Dr. Kent Heimbigner
Charity, Burleson, Texas
Rev. Dr. Steven Hein
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Rev. Rich Heinz
St. Johns, Chicago, Illinois
Rev. David Kind
University Lutheran, Minneapolis
Rev. Brent Kuhlman
Trinity, Murdock, Nebraska
Rev. Alan Ludwig, Professor
Lutheran Theological Seminary
Novosibirsk, Russia
Rev. Todd Peperkorn
Holy Cross, Rocklin, California
Rev. J. Richard Sawyer
Good Shepherd, Brandon, Mississippi
Rev. Robert Schaibley, emeritus
Shepherd of the Springs,
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Rev. Dr. Richard Stuckwisch
Emmaus, South Bend, Indiana
Rev. Jacob Sutton
Immanuel, Terre Haute, Indiana
Rev. Ralph Tausz
Apostles, Melrose Park, Illinois
Rev. David Jay Webber
Redeemer, Scottsdale, Arizona
Rev. William Weedon
Lutheran Public Radio, Collinsville, IL
Rev. Dr. Georg Williams
Zion, Ainsworth, Nebraska
Rev. Kyle Wright II
St. Matthew, Hamlet, Indiana
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The Mutual Conversation of the Brethren
- Vocation and Office (41)
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- Rubrics; Rites and Ceremonies (25)
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- Polity and Politics (23)
- Marriage and Family (21)
- Ecclesiology (19)
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- Human Life and Ethics (16)
- Preaching and Catechesis (15)
- The Holy Scriptures (11)
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- Hymnody (9)
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- Prayer and Devotion (9)
- Rites and Ceremonies (7)
- Calendar and Lectionary (6)
- Christian Education (6)
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- Rubrics (3)
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Friends, Romans, Countrymen, et al.
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- Pastor Alms
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- Shepherd of the Springs (Colorado)
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- Faith (Plano, TX)
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On the Windowsill
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Rubrics and Blogistics for the Blackbirds
Unlike the Ten Commandments, these are not written in stone (though some of them are pretty solid). Those who may be reading over our shoulders might also find these interesting.
1. Be reverent and courteous. Piepkorn's fundamental pair of rubrics for the conduct of the Service are likewise pertinent here. It's simply faith toward God and love toward others. All the other rules and rubrics are an application of those principles to specific questions.
2. Our blog is a public forum, and we are all public servants of the Word. Therefore, what we write and the manner in which we write ought to reflect an appropriate decorum. Though you may sometimes wonder, there are people reading what you have to say. The majority of them will mostly be quiet about it, and many will probably never respond with any comments, but they will benefit, and they will appreciate it.
3. Although this is a public forum, don't be self-conscious about your writing, and don't attempt to play to the crowd. Simply address yourself pastorally to the topics you take up for consideration, as you would respond to members of your own parish who are asking about or need to be told such things as pertain to their Christian faith and life.
4. Don't be intentionally provocative or controversial, but don't shy away from engaging topics in a way that challenges the status quo (from and within the parameters of the Word of God and our common confession of the same). By the same token, let us hold each other accountable to the apostolic doctrine. Do not fear correction, nor fear to question; that is the way in which we learn from one other and sharpen one another for the common good.
5. A helpful rule of thumb is akin to Luther's advice on confession: Don't make blogging into a torture, nor seek to invent things worth saying, as though to impress anyone. Instead, if there are matters weighing on your heart or mind, address them with the Word of God from within your office and station in life, and thereby allow your fathers and brothers in Christ to respond with the Word of the Lord from within their own vocations. (Blogging should not be a kind of virtual confessional; this rubric speaks only to the way in which one ought to approach this sort of writing and discussion.)
6. Our blog lands somewhere between an e-mail discussion list and a published theological journal. Less from-the-hip than e-mail groups, but less formal than a publication. Bear in mind that your posts can be edited (or removed) after the fact; so don't agonize over every jot and tittle up front, as though your posts had to be perfect from the outset. That's not to advocate recklessness, but do not be so scrupulous that you hesitate to say anything.
7. Our blog is something like an online Logia, and your posts may be compared to the "Theological Observer" in the CTQ, or the "Public Square" in First Things. Only this forum is much faster and allows for considerably more give and take, not only amongst ourselves but with others, too.
8. Make an effort to post at least once every other month. The more, the better, but don't try to force it. When things come up in the course of your pastoral vocation, consider the possibility of reflecting upon those matters on the blog (with appropriate discretion).
9. When you post something, "label" it with one or more of the twenty-four topics, whichever of those you are addressing. The blog will tally and catologue those things for us, which will be helpful. The precise list of topics may develop over time, but let's follow those parameters along the way; that will help to keep things on track.
10. Once someone has posted on a particular topic, there would be potentially two ways for the rest of us to respond (and we should be inclined to respond, as we are so minded and able): Either by way of comments under the post, which should be the normal approach; or, if you intend to offer a significant critique or a substantial addition, then you could write a follow-up post of your own. The goal, obviously, is not to compete with one another, but to dialogue with each other, to discuss and even to debate, as the case may be.
11. Don't blog in a spirit of melancholy, despair or bitterness. You don't serve yourself or your neighbor when you succumb to such things. At such times, seek out a father in Christ to lift you up and sustain you with the Gospel. Once you have been brought from trial and tribulation into renewed faith, then you might consider sharing aspects of that burden on the blog, retrospectively, in a way that helps to lead your readers into repentant faith along with you. It is one of the ways in which the cross bears fruit, not only in you and for your benefit, but also for the benefit of your neighbor. The hymns of Paul Gerhardt are such an example. Consider how comforting and helpful they are, because they always confess such faith in the Gospel: precisely in, with and under the Cross. By contrast, imagine the difference if Gerhardt had wallowed in self-pity and despair, instead of confessing the Gospel.
12. Our cooperative blog is not the place for posting sermons or extended quotations or lists of things or personal family adventures (though in some cases such things may provide the context for theological commentary). If you want to quote something, fine, but do so for the sake of providing your own assessment and constructive critique (whether pro or con).
1. Be reverent and courteous. Piepkorn's fundamental pair of rubrics for the conduct of the Service are likewise pertinent here. It's simply faith toward God and love toward others. All the other rules and rubrics are an application of those principles to specific questions.
2. Our blog is a public forum, and we are all public servants of the Word. Therefore, what we write and the manner in which we write ought to reflect an appropriate decorum. Though you may sometimes wonder, there are people reading what you have to say. The majority of them will mostly be quiet about it, and many will probably never respond with any comments, but they will benefit, and they will appreciate it.
3. Although this is a public forum, don't be self-conscious about your writing, and don't attempt to play to the crowd. Simply address yourself pastorally to the topics you take up for consideration, as you would respond to members of your own parish who are asking about or need to be told such things as pertain to their Christian faith and life.
4. Don't be intentionally provocative or controversial, but don't shy away from engaging topics in a way that challenges the status quo (from and within the parameters of the Word of God and our common confession of the same). By the same token, let us hold each other accountable to the apostolic doctrine. Do not fear correction, nor fear to question; that is the way in which we learn from one other and sharpen one another for the common good.
5. A helpful rule of thumb is akin to Luther's advice on confession: Don't make blogging into a torture, nor seek to invent things worth saying, as though to impress anyone. Instead, if there are matters weighing on your heart or mind, address them with the Word of God from within your office and station in life, and thereby allow your fathers and brothers in Christ to respond with the Word of the Lord from within their own vocations. (Blogging should not be a kind of virtual confessional; this rubric speaks only to the way in which one ought to approach this sort of writing and discussion.)
6. Our blog lands somewhere between an e-mail discussion list and a published theological journal. Less from-the-hip than e-mail groups, but less formal than a publication. Bear in mind that your posts can be edited (or removed) after the fact; so don't agonize over every jot and tittle up front, as though your posts had to be perfect from the outset. That's not to advocate recklessness, but do not be so scrupulous that you hesitate to say anything.
7. Our blog is something like an online Logia, and your posts may be compared to the "Theological Observer" in the CTQ, or the "Public Square" in First Things. Only this forum is much faster and allows for considerably more give and take, not only amongst ourselves but with others, too.
8. Make an effort to post at least once every other month. The more, the better, but don't try to force it. When things come up in the course of your pastoral vocation, consider the possibility of reflecting upon those matters on the blog (with appropriate discretion).
9. When you post something, "label" it with one or more of the twenty-four topics, whichever of those you are addressing. The blog will tally and catologue those things for us, which will be helpful. The precise list of topics may develop over time, but let's follow those parameters along the way; that will help to keep things on track.
10. Once someone has posted on a particular topic, there would be potentially two ways for the rest of us to respond (and we should be inclined to respond, as we are so minded and able): Either by way of comments under the post, which should be the normal approach; or, if you intend to offer a significant critique or a substantial addition, then you could write a follow-up post of your own. The goal, obviously, is not to compete with one another, but to dialogue with each other, to discuss and even to debate, as the case may be.
11. Don't blog in a spirit of melancholy, despair or bitterness. You don't serve yourself or your neighbor when you succumb to such things. At such times, seek out a father in Christ to lift you up and sustain you with the Gospel. Once you have been brought from trial and tribulation into renewed faith, then you might consider sharing aspects of that burden on the blog, retrospectively, in a way that helps to lead your readers into repentant faith along with you. It is one of the ways in which the cross bears fruit, not only in you and for your benefit, but also for the benefit of your neighbor. The hymns of Paul Gerhardt are such an example. Consider how comforting and helpful they are, because they always confess such faith in the Gospel: precisely in, with and under the Cross. By contrast, imagine the difference if Gerhardt had wallowed in self-pity and despair, instead of confessing the Gospel.
12. Our cooperative blog is not the place for posting sermons or extended quotations or lists of things or personal family adventures (though in some cases such things may provide the context for theological commentary). If you want to quote something, fine, but do so for the sake of providing your own assessment and constructive critique (whether pro or con).
Posts
6 comments:
"You don't know what to do, you don't really know who you are, there is such pressure to fit in, to have people like you, to be seen as popular, the rejection of things associated with your parents to distinguish yourself..."
Sounds like an average day of parish ministry in the LCMS. You might be on to something here.
Pastor Brown,
I agree that you are on to something. In the congregation I serve, I have not had one high schooler suggest that we change the way of worship so it will include this or that new thing. It seems to be the middle-agers who suggest these things under the guise of if we do this new uplifting thing then the youth will come. This is the magic bullet idea. If we just do this new thing that ALL the other churches are doing, then all our youth problems will be solved. It is my humble opinion that our youth are entertained enough in the world and we as the Church should be different from the world we live in because we have something different to give them, Christ our Lord as His gifts.
Thanks for the good post!
Rev. Wright II,
"In the congregation I serve, I have not had one high schooler suggest that we change the way of worship so it will include this or that new thing. It seems to be the middle-agers who suggest these things under the guise of if we do this new uplifting thing then the youth will come."
How true!
Now this is nothing but anecdotal and subjective evidence in nature, but, when I was a teen in the church (I'm the same age as Pr. Brown)I always expected church to be, well, church. Something traditional, something boring (at least those were my thoughts at the time), yet, I never expected it to be "MTV-meets pop-psychology-meets the Gospel" (but only if there's time to fit in that Gospel thingy; forget about the law altogether). I expected it to be something different from pop-culture. So, when these trendy cultural intrusions were ever tried, it seemed so tedious and condescending. Like they were dumbing something down to make the content more relevant to me, when I was more than capable of understanding it the way it was to be best presented in the first place. I remember usually feeling embarrassed for them, and wondering how they couldn't see their own transparent folly like my friends and I could. Sadly, we would usually scoff our youth group leader behind their backs.
It's true that this is more of a phenomenon that lies with a segment of the boomer generation. When the Jesus People movement met the traditional church and began to influence it during the 70's, that is when you began to see this happy-clappy nonsense enter in. The relevance of the Gospel was traded for the relevance of pop-culture, so as to have the youth hopefully attracted to the church.
What's sad about that last sentence is that I can think of nothing more relevant to all people at all times than the Gospel. It's as serious, no, it's more serious than being diagnosed with a benign cancer on the verge of becoming malignant. At any moment of the day or night God could demand our lives from us, therefore, the message of Christ and Him crucified is relevant at each and every moment. There is no time for these "anything-to-get-them-in-the-door" tactics that change according to the current cultural zeitgeist.
Drew
Interesting post,
As someone who ministers to college students - I can see your frustration with much of the pandering to a demographic that I too have recently moved out of. I think we saw many of the foibles of this pandering pointed out to us in the recent rise and fall of what called itself the "Emerging" movement. (Which was very much older people saying "this is what teens/younger people want" than it was the demographic speaking for itself.
However, I think it may not serve us well to completely ignore "all things texty and iphoney". I mean, you are writing on a blog after all. Should we stop our use of technological innovations in the mid to late 90's because that's when we ceased being young?
Unfortunately, that is so often the other side of the coin in these "we should retain what we've been given" arguments - it is far less often truly being worried about what has been handed down to us and is far too often being unsettled by our circumstances.
Perhaps the question is less *if* we should retain what we have been given, but *how* (which makes for a much more proactive conversation in general).
in Christ,
jWinters.com
There is obvious a bit of irony in what wrote being on a blog =o) And I am not anti-technology (although, right now I just like my cell phone to be a phone - but I live in the middle of Oklahoma, I don't want to shell out an extra $50 a month for internet on my phone when 50% of the time I don't get simple reception at home) -- but rather technology shouldn't be the "selling point" - it should simply be a tool.
And to that end, my kids at college can (and do) pull my sermons off of my website on to their eye-pods. =o) But we shouldn't think the tools end up drawing people to the Church - rather that which the tools communicate does the work.
"sangham saranam gacchami"...for you!
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