“Do
you want your children and grandchildren to know Jesus Christ?” asks
consultant and author Tex Sample. “Do you want them to worship in a
way that’s intrinsic to them?”
Sample
and Charles Fulton, director of Congregational Development for the
Episcopal Church, were presenters for the Bishop’s Fourth Annual
Spring Conference, “The E-Church”, which attracted about
220 participants to St. Mark the Evangelist, Ft. Lauderdale, Mar. 26
and 27. Friday’s session was particularly aimed at clergy, church
staff and lay leaders, and Saturday’s was for everyone.
The electronic culture has changed the way people under 40 experience
the world, both men told the group. If the church wants its message
to have an impact on the people whose sensory experience has been
shaped by electronic media, we need to expand our vocabulary of liturgical
practice, and “bring the world’s story into the church”.
Spectacle, “performance”, images, music, light—these
are the elements of the multi-sensory “immersive” experience
that the electronic generations find meaningful.
Beginning
with vivid and humorous stories from his childhood in a small town
in Mississippi, Sample described the oral culture, in which “stories
don’t illustrate the point—they are the point”.
As
in oral culture, meaning in the electronic culture is experiential.
Episcopal churches, however, are products of the literate culture,
which derives meaning from words, from discourse and theoretical thinking.
But
Episcopalians, Sample said, have a great advantage in creating a multi-sensory
liturgy: “I don’t know
of a more multi-sensory experience than the Eucharist.”
Using
video and PowerPoint presentations, and examples from Elvis Presley
and Tina Turner to two guys named Williams (Hank and Ted) and a French
philosopher or two, Sample talked about—and illustrated--the
power of multi-sensory experience to create bonding and enrich tradition.
“Spectacle
is increasingly one of the indigenous practices of our time,” he said.
Our worship services don’t need to be rock concerts, but they
can learn from them about pacing, flow, energy and audience performance.
Showing
a video of a Tina Turner concert, Sample asked the group to notice
the beat of the music—emphasis on backbeat, not downbeat—the “percussive” lighting
effects and the involvement of the audience in the performance, singing
and dancing with the performer.
In
the church, Sample said, it’s not about people participating in
the liturgy; it’s about the Body of Christ performing the
liturgy.
Spectacle
can be dangerous, he conceded, recalling Hitler’s rallies, “but
don’t think Nuremberg, think Pentecost—now that was
a light show!”
Images, rather than words, convey meaning to people whose thought processes
and sensory experience have been formed more by interaction with
video and computer screens than with print.
Music, too, is essential to the multi-sensory experience, but it must
be the music with which one is “encoded”, the music that “tells
your story”.
The new generation doesn’t simply “not like” old music,
Sample said. “They are formed by a different beat.”
In our worship “are we only playing the music for some of
us?” he asked.
Light,
too, is a powerful source of meaning in the electronic culture. Light “imitates
sound” in its percussive and sweeping effects, and can tell the
audience/ performers what’s happening and help to make transitions.
Talking
about church architecture and the arrangement of worship space, Charles
Fulton also spoke about the need for excellent lighting. “Low
light means low energy,” he said.
He
compared traditional church design with the interior of a 747: people
seated in rows in low light, an arrangement designed for “the
least amount of interaction and engagement”--and conducive to
sleep. This design, he said, focuses on the chancel—“God
is up there”—and makes the people an audience rather than performers
of the liturgy.
A
more natural arrangement for gathering people is a circle or arc, which
allows for interaction and flexibility.
How
we arrange our worship space, Fulton said, depends upon who the people
of a community are, and what we want to happen.
“The building only wins if we let it…For whom are we doing this ministry? ….We
say we want to grow, but we often mean we want to be the same, but more.”
He
cautioned that truly welcoming people of other cultures and generations
will change our congregations. “Transformation is not a one-way
street.”
Both
Sample and Fulton emphasized that they are not talking about throwing
out traditional liturgy or forcing congregations to change what works
for them. Context is important, they said; what works in one place
may not work in another.
“The
idea that those of us who are older have to give up everything that
is important to us in order to attract young people is just plain wrong,” said
Fulton.
Don’t
subtract, but add, he suggested—add a projected image or new
music at the beginning of the service, or add an alternative service
in an alternative space, like the parish hall, which can be more easily
arranged in a more flexible way.
“Don’t
make it more difficult than it is,” said Fulton. “Do what you can do.”
Most
important, both men emphasized, “this kind of worship [multi-media,
multi-sensory] cannot be done alone—it takes the community”.
“Change
happens in congregations where there’s a team of leaders,” Fulton
said.
We
can’t do new forms of liturgy for the people we hope to
attract, but with them.
The
conference also included a youth event, which began with a lock-in
on Friday night and continued with a Saturday workshop with Aquinas,
developer of nextScribe, a program that seeks to integrate the spirituality
of the Desert Fathers with emerging technology to create Christian
communities online.
“When
these guys grow up,” said Aquinas, “they’re going to expect a totally
different way of being in community, of being Church.”
The
new online community, he said, starts with the individual’s prayer
life and “grows exponentially”, moving toward “what
God wants this technology to be”.
About
40 young people and youth advisors participated in this event.
Reflecting
the emphasis on the importance of music in electronic culture, Saturday’s
activities began with music by Drive, the youth band that performed
at the Diocesan Convention in 2002 and at the youth event at last year’s
Spring Conference. Music before the afternoon session was by the Celebration
Singers from St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Pompano Beach.
Denise
Edsall of the host parish, St. Mark the Evangelist, Ft. Lauderdale,
provided sign language interpretation throughout Saturday’s events.
In
the language of political ads, Bishop Leo Frade opened Saturday’s
session with, “My name is Leo Frade, and I approve of this conference!”
He
ended the day with a blessing and a charge to those who attended: “Go—and
make a difference.”
|
