"Hi Jan The View From Her , yep it’s me again. Version 2.0 oh goodie, I just love this kind of dirty talk! I wish I hadn’t gotten sick over the weekend for a couple of reasons but one was to respond to your first post about creativity, boredom and worship.

You make some good points about creativity and connecting with God. You state that boredom is the problem. I think boredom stems from the way we think about Christianity and just what church and worship are supposed to do.

I participated in and worked for Young Life. Young Life leaders worked very hard to make sure kids didn’t get bored. The leaders came up with lots of new and spectacular ways to keep Young Life meetings creative and to keep kids attention. I remember the Young Life leader, when I was in high school, said he would eat a live gold fish if we could double our Young Life club attendance in a week. We did and one innocent gold fish found out what the intestines of one Young Life leader looked like (shudder). Another, leader in a different club got up and said he would shave his head if the club kids would, whatever the challenge was for that year; he went around bald for a while. It was all very creative; the talks at the end were very creative and funny. The kids loved it all and flocked to club meetings. The Gospel was spoken. The focus was Jesus. It was truly a work of genius for getting kids into the faith.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of us who grew up expecting Church to be just as entertaining as Young Life. We wanted church to make us emotionally high, hold our interest and help us emotionally to connect with God. We grew up thinking the only way to connect with God was through feeling connected. The emotional connection was the only way we knew to have meaning in church and not be bored. The camps were designed to give us an emotional connection and a high but, that had to be constantly renewed. If we didn’t feel emotionally connected then somehow we were backslidden. We had fallen away from Christ, which would lead us to another conversion experience. I don’t remember how many times I rededicated my life to Jesus or converted again and again and again. All of it was a lot of work. Whew!!!

Young Life was generally the last time we heard about the work of Christ for us. After that church was all about how we needed to be more like Jesus. The Church had 10 steps, 7 principles, 16 habits and 40 days of purpose to be more like Jesus; the husband, the wife, the business man and whatever…(Sorry but I worked for Focus on the Family for many years and I got a snout full of that stuff). *Much of this doctrine in evangelicalism originated from Erasmus a Catholic Priest/Theologian and a contemporary of Martin Luther’s in around 1524. Erasmus wrote; The Freedom Of The Will. He argued that individuals were saved by a combination of God’s mercy and man's efforts. Erasmus said, the bible was God’s guide to a better life style. Erasmus’s focus was on the need for human effort.

Many of us got lost because we failed. We failed to meet the steps, the principles, the habits and the purpose. We were folks from Focus, from Young Life and many others of us from along the way.

I think here is the crux of the problem. I will define the problem as the objective church vs. the subjective church. Some have put it in terms of the Reformed ( a 500 year format) vs. the Evangelical (the 50 yr format). Some haven’t defined it as impartially. Both sides are guilty of labeling each other more harshly with lots of grenade lobbing at each other. I want to put this discussion in somewhat more neutral terms but it is obvious I want to argue for one over the other. I think the way I’ve labeled the differences are “more neutral”.

The subjective church is about the ministers and/or me doing stuff so we can connect to God better or feel more connected. It’s about us going up to God, notice hands in the air reaching for God, heads and faces tilted up toward God. Even the words and notes in the music are designed to bring out emotion in the worshiper. It’s all done to create mood and “connection” to God. It is a move going up toward God. The preacher’s sermons in the subjective church are basically, “what can I do for God?” “How do I please God?” “How do I become more Christ like?”. “How can I get God to say, at the end of my life, ‘thou art my good and faithful servant’?” (See Erasmus). So, it’s about me making steps toward God. Further, creativity in worship in the subjective church leads to all matter of things besides James Taylor songs for worship. It can go to the ridiculous, such as Old Testament liturgical dance for worship. Bye the way, that was David dancing naked before God. I wouldn’t be opposed to that kind of worship necessarily depending on who was doing the dancing etc. given that I am a healthy heterosexual male, but I don’t think it would exactly help me worship God. Hey, guy here and a sinner to boot. Now lest any of you try to point a pious finger at me you’d better be ready with that first stone, not have a giant log in your eye or be dead, because I am really really good at nailing pious folks to the wall with law. Trust me! (In the most ominous tone I can muster)

On the other hand, the objective church member’s worship has corporate confession, liturgy, hymns, Law Gospel Sermons and the body and blood of Jesus put in their mouth and ears, week after week after week. I know, it sounds pretty boring. But if we are in a historical church of the reformation then we realize or we are supposed to realize, we can not connect to God but He has already connected to us and does so each week. It’s not about what we do or what we do to be entertained. It’s about Christ who has already connected to us. It’s done through the same boring stuff; the liturgy, confession and absolution, the hymns, sermons and communion and they are all done for us. It all works through the Law and the Gospel. The Law and the Gospel are each distinct. They both have different tasks toward the same goal. They are separate but both must be there and in a certain order.

We are confronted with the law in the worship service and in daily devotions. It happens in the liturgy, in the hymns and in the beginning of the sermon. It happens through out the service except at the end of the sermon. That is reserved for the Gospel only. We are supposed to see our failure in spades by the law’s condemning nature. Corporate confessions, the daily readings of the law, the preacher putting the law portion of the Word into our ears each and every service is a mirror to show us our sin and our need for Jesus. The pastor tells us the law and how we have broken each of the Ten Commandments. He reminds us of our duty as Christians and how we should live as Christians. If we are honest with ourselves this condemns us because we realize we can’t even live the good Christian life. We just don’t have the power and we are failures at the principles, the habits, driven purposes, etc. and we know that; “…we are sinful and unclean” and we deserve God’s eternal damnation. This is all in the law portion of the sermon. It’s now that we are ready to have the Holy Spirit drag our sorry kiesters to the Cross-, and for God to connect to us. Then comes the really good news in the Sermon, we are told of Christ’s rescue, Tolkein calls it the U-catastrophe. At the last minute Christ has come in, fought the fight and won the battle for us. As for the emotional subjective stuff I can tend to weep, when the law has really done it’s work and I see my self for the really bad egg I am then I hear the Gospel. But the point is Jesus has already done all the creative connecting stuff for me and to me. Just like He has done everything else for me. Just like the Holy Spirit does all the Sanctification stuff for me. It’s all done for me ‘cause I can’t do it myself. Scripture says I am dead in my sin. I picture a cadaver on a slab. I ain’t moving come hell or high water unless Jesus does it for me.

Jesus fought the fight and brought the whole kit and caboodle to us. He’s connected to us. The connection is all Him, it’s not something the pastor, the music minister, or whoever has created for me.

Let me just say another reasons the liturgy is there is that it protects me from a bad sermon. The liturgy is scripture chanted, sung and or spoken. If the preacher goes awry… Which sometimes happens. If he doesn’t do what he is called to do then there is at least the liturgy. It is scripture both the Law and the Gospel. The mirror is held up and forgiveness is proclaimed.

Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

My church does have its 6:23 (Romans 6:23) service on Sunday nights. It’s a bit more for the creative types. There is “worship music” and hymns but the band is in the back of the sanctuary. It’s a little too much for me but the folks that talked pastor into having it are more comfortable there. They all come from the Calvary chapels and such later converting to Lutheranism. It’s still liturgical, sort of…and the pastor preaches a great law gospel sermon. Anyone is welcome.

Bye the bye, there are a few folks who are far clearer about this stuff than me and below are some links that might be helpful.

www.markgalli.com/galliblog/?p=60
www.internetmonk.com
www.surfoutsider.net
www.oldsolar.com/currentblog.php
www.rantingreverend.blogspot.com/2006/06/soli-deo-gloria.html

*Modern Reformation, A Time for Truth, 15th anniversary Issue, January/February 2007. “Was Martin Luther A Born-Again Christian?” Rick Ritchie (Rick Richie is the publisher of his own online magazine and has a blog linked to his magazine.