Chase the Setting Sun...

I have been thinking a lot lately about Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). Of course I think about it a lot since I lead two adult worship teams as well as a student worship team. Lately, my thought process has shifted from just leading the teams to really focussing on the content of the music and lyrics itself. I have to say, the more I focus on the content of the lyrics in many of these songs, the more I become bored.

The short list of you that read my blog know that I 'dabble' in student ministry, contemporary worship, and young adult ministry. Inevitably within these three areas of ministry I will get requests to try new things and branch out into new directions. Sometimes I'm the one pushing to do new things.

I am constantly asking myself what makes something worth trying or continuing. I recently read through the book of Galatians. In Galatians Paul questions the relation between faith rooted in Christ and faith rooted in culture or tradition. Specifically he talks about circumcision. The Jewish Christians were expected to be circumcised as a cultural sign that they were indeed a practicing Jew and Christian. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles (non Jews), did not believe that circumcision was necessary and that it had little value if the person's heart was not rooted in Christ.

Often in a church setting we are faced with decisions on whether to start a new ministry, continue existing ministries, or adapt the culture of our local church in order to continue to be relevant to the times and our community.

So what should be our criteria for determining what ministries should continue, be started, or be adapted. Often we want to look at things like money, numbers, new attendees vs old members and on and on.

After I finished reading Galatians I decided to listen through a sermon series from Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle Washington, on the book of Galatians. In the third sermon of the series Driscoll covers chapter two of Galatians and gets into the argument of culture, tradition, and what makes a ministry worth having. He suggests two things that I think fit what Paul is saying in Galatians.

1. Does it help the Gospel?
How does it advance the Gospel by getting the message to new people and deepening the Gospel in the hearts of those that already believe?

2. Are People Worshiping Jesus?
Does this ministry succeed in helping people to worship Jesus in a real way?

The more I think about it, and pray about it, the more I feel that if these two things are being done, God will take care of the rest. Of course, churches still have to pay staff, mortgages, utility bills etc. So money and numbers are unavoidable things to consider. Unfortunately, church is also a business that has to have a certain amount of money to keep the doors open.

Maybe if we focus on Christ and the advancement of the Gospel even more than we already are, God will take care of the rest. Maybe I'm too idealistic and don't have enough church ministry experience to decide what is worth continuing/starting/adapting.

What do you think? What criteria do you and your church use to decide what ministries, worship services or styles, are worth starting/continuing etc?

Right now my Young Adult Discussion Group is reading through "Messy Spirituality" by Mike Yaconelli. This week we are on chapter 5, "Odd Discipleship."

Mike is talking in a part of this chapter about the church he pastors and how it is an odd group of people and how their service is "growing".

"I pastor the slowest growing church in America. We started twelve years ago with ninety members and have ungrown to thirty. We are about as far as you can get from a user-friendly church--not because our congregation is unfriendly but because our services are unpredictable, unpolished, and inconsistent. We are an "odd friendly" church, attracting unique and different followers of Christ who make every service a surprise."

We often try to justify what makes a good service by the quality of the "product" we produce, the quality of the music/sermon, the number of people in attendance, the amount (or lack) of awkward moments, blunders and other oddities.

Maybe what makes a good worship service are those oddities, blunders, awkward moments. Maybe it's as few as ten or fifteen weirdos coming together as the Body of Christ and worshiping together and enjoying fellowship with each other.

As we continue Renovate, our Saturday evening contemporary service, my thought on what makes a good worship service is changed and molded weekly. It is so easy for me to worry about the quality of the band, the sermon, the numbers in attendance...when really all that matters is that a few people that might not attend a church anywhere else are coming together and interacting with Jesus in some way, even if just for a few minutes.

I am now one month into my new job at Castleton UMC. It's been a fun and crazy month. Here's what's been going on for those of you that care.

This week was my first week working full time in the office at Castleton UMC. It has been pretty busy. The first day was chuck full of meetings to get myself and Steph, the Director of Student Ministries, oriented to our new jobs.

So far we have done some planning and set some dates for events and programming for this coming fall for the youth and are pretty excited about it. I have had a chance to do a little organizing of some of my contemporary worship things and get that in order, which was long over due.

It's been a pretty good week. I'm looking forward to next week hoping things will really start to settle in and get into a routine.