Worship Weblog

Bellflower Book Group – Third Meeting

Posted by cicw

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Book Groups

We invited 34 book groups across the U.S. and Canada to meet and discuss The Church of All Ages and its implications for their worship, and to share their notes here.
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Questions on Chapters 5 and 6:

1. Do you believe that intergenerational worship is the only way to be a biblically authentic community, based on the scriptural evidence presented in this chapter?

• Rick: If we imagine a New Testament synagogue service, it would look a lot different than our services today. It would probably look more like some services in the Philippines were moms were there nursing children, pigs wandered in and out, people were milling around coming and going. There were helpers assigned to assist with the children. The early church met in homes, probably had the same issues.
• Richard: If we have a service for 17-25 year olds, that’s also biblically authentic. If we have a service in a nursing home for retired folks, that’s also biblically authentic. We have to look at who is in the church or service. I like the Scripture use in this chapter, that we’re all in this together as a body, we all matter, and children do have a voice.
• Keith: This isn’t the *only* way to be biblically authentic, otherwise we’re saying the last 20-30 years we were not. I think the author was trying to get us to think theologically about what we were doing. Maybe we wouldn’t use the Passover as a proof text, but rather the covenant or the nature of family. I was challenged and moved by the theology of worship – and the observation that we’ve turned worship/sermon in to an adult teaching class vs. inspiring worship.
• Amy: Our young adults feel a sense of abandonment in the churches, even when the parents are highly involved. I think it related to societal segregation – which is not all bad of course because of peer relations, but teens in the church are off floating, and are not hearing the different voices. Would our youth and young adults be walking away if the body was truly functioning intergenerationally?
• Rachel: My teen daughter was making future plans that included graduating from college, moving out, and finding her own church. She thought that’s the pattern or expectation; she didn’t consider staying with her childhood church as an option!
• Keith: In a mobile society, it seems kids don’t stay around as much.
• Rick: A huge question is: why don’t young people return to their own churches? There are so many different factors, it seems.
• Keith: I wonder if mainline churches as a whole are in steady decline – whether or not kids have stayed in the worship services – because the services are too “heady” for everyone. Maybe we’ve been aiming at adult minds rather than at the heart of all the people.
• Alison: Maybe the way the early church did worship wasn’t the best way. Young people seem to be going where worship feels more alive to them. I personally feel conflicted as a theologian and as a parent of young children.
• Richard: I think the church should be more like “Cheers,” where everyone knows your name. In preaching we need to find a common connection with all age groups. When we can just focus on one generation it’s a lot easier, but our congregations include people of different age *and* maturity levels.
• Keith: We assume too much, that people know the Bible more than they do. This chapter challenged us to start with a clean slate, start over, find the right way that will be intergenerational. To use story as a connector.
• Alison: Maybe teens aren’t coming back because they don’t see the Christian life lived out in front of them. They figure, “What is the benefit of going to church when I see all of this hypocrisy?” They may say they did the church thing but it doesn’t seem to work.
• Keith: We need to teach more through testimony, help kids see this as a way of life. We need to get back to that. We need to do a better job of spiritual formation. We took a “Reveal” survey in our church and on the basis of the results are going to make a radical change to one worship service and one hour of intentional church education for all ages. We’re going to encourage people to talk together about the application of the sermon at the end of the service. We hope to revive the power of story.
• Amy: We’re already seeing a trend in which younger parents are not sending their children to children’s worship but are keeping them with them in the cry room.
• Keith: We hope to change the paradigms of worship – from the quiet and reverent atmosphere to a “holy roar” with children present.
• Rick: It requires a cultural shift.

2. Respond to this statement: “Intergenerational worship is not only about how members of a congregation relate to each other in their worship, but also about the ethos surrounding their worship. Biblically authentic intergenerational worship is more than a program; it is a way of life (pp. 82-83).”

• Fuller’s guidelines for intergenerational youth ministry – one leader to five youth, and a minimum of five adults in the church who know that teen. Leadership Magazine – ministry as way of life, how people relate to one another.
• Richard: Rules without relationships = rebellion. Young adults want to relate to the people in the church.
• Alison: Preacher’s kids are often the ones not in the church. Why is that? At Young Life I witnessed so many kids of the leaders involved in ministry because they became part of a larger community, and had various adults speaking into their life who “earned” the right to be heard.

3. In the church there has been a push to pursue racial diversity. Are there similarities between pursuing racial diversity and generational diversity? Should there be an equal emphasis on generational diversity and harmony? If so, why? If not, why not?

• Rick: I visited the Mosaic Church in Los Angeles, and was blown away by the wall of sound which was aimed at young people. I didn’t see any kids or seniors. This is a model church, and yet they are not intergenerational; they have a targeted audience.
• Alison: The church doesn’t need to look the same everywhere. As long as we’re following Christ and are biblically based, it’s okay if we’re not all intergenerational.
• Rick: In my college years, I didn’t want to go to church with my peers. But some young adults do look for that.
• Amy: The sin comes in when we stereotype any group unfairly (various cultures, ages, etc.). There’s a lot more history of wrongdoing in racism. In all cases we need to hear the stories.
• Rick: It’s all about telling our stories – stories of racism, also of people feeling a loss in the church’s worship style. As we pass on the baton, we need to hear the stories. At age 41, I might be a young person in an old person’s body, in that I love hymns. If we don’t allow people to tell their stories, we lose something.

4. Reflect on your own use of or experience with stories in worship and other settings. Can you give examples of a time/way in which they made a powerful impact?

• Amy: In the Southern Baptist church, we heard many testimonies. I remember stories people told but I don’t remember sermons.
Stories linger, stay with us.
• Rachel: In my childhood church, every Sunday we had a testimony time in the service. I remember those stories. Even thought the services lasted for three hours, as kids we listened intently and loved those stories!
• Alison: When we took family road trips as a child, our father told many stories because we had no TV. The Word comes through our testimonies. Jesus taught using simple stories.
• Keith: If Jesus were to preach, I think he’d use a lot more stories.

Tags: bgbellflower, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational