Thursday Evening Worship at Giant Stadium

Last Thursday, I was lucky enough to go to hear U2 play its 360 tour at Giant Stadium.

It was a long afternoon/evening getting into the stadium and waiting for them to take the stage --Muse, the opening group, started late and then there was a long break between bands-- but the night was clear, the temperature was in the 70s and, up where our seats were, there was a nice breeze so the waiting wasn't bad.

The stage was set with a large "claw" that seems to have been designed to play the role of a spaceship at several points in the show. (Why was a bit beyond me.)

And once U2 came on, the evening was amazing. Not only did the group do a series of songs from their newest album, No Line on the Horizon, but they also did many of their older and best loved pieces like Sunday Bloody Sunday and Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. The Edge did some amazing riffs that blew me away. But the best part was how, in typical U2 style, Bono led the crowd (more than 82,000 people--larger than any concert at Giant Stadium had ever been and even larger than Pope John Paul 2's appearance there in 1995) in a blend of music, social justice, and worship.

When he sang Magnificent's lyrics

"I was born to sing for you.

I didn't have a choice but to lift you up

And sing whatever song you wanted me to

I give you back my voice from the womb...

Only love, only love..."

it was so easy to believe that the words were true.

People around the stadium stood as U2 began "Walk On"; Bono dedicated the song to Aung San Suu Kyi (the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been under house arrest in Burma for more than 20 years) and dozens of Amnesty International workers walked onto the stage holding up her picture. A bit later, Bono began a quiet, solo version of Amazing Grace and then moved into "Where the Streets Have No Name", the song that captures the image at the end of the book of Revelation better than any I know. Then there was a short video showing Desmond Tutu laughing and telling everyone how "we are the people who, because our voices were heard, millions of people are alive thanks to the miracle of AIDS drugs and malaria drugs" and highlighting the ONE movement, a video that moved into U2 playing its song "One". Using cell phones, the audience lit up the stadium in solidarity.

To me, much of the evening truly felt holy. The message and the music reached across all generations and background, causing people all around me to raise their hands in worship as Amazing Grace was sung, to listen to Tutu's mini-sermon, and to stand in respect for those embodying justice and peace. I was amazed at how well Bono and U2 did what most Christian sanctuaries no longer can-- moving people with the message of God's love, causing none of the lines outside to divide, and asking people to once again commit to building a world where the streets have no name. At the end of the evening, when Bono turned to the audience and said "God bless you and good night", ending with such a benediction felt exactly right.

Convocation on Worship, Part 1

Last evening I attended the first of a two-part Convocation on Worship South Church had that was led by Janet Walton, the creative liturgist/theologian/worship planner from Union Theological Seminary. I’d gotten to know Janet a little back in the 70’s and 80’s. I was down at UTS/Columbia doing the first year of my doctorate when Janet was finishing up the last year of hers. Once she finished she began as staff at Union, transforming worship in wondrous ways by adding more creative use of space, more female voices, more interconnection of body and spirit. More recently, she’s invited performance artists, musicians, and visual artists in to bring their unique voices and contributions into worship exploration and dialogue.

Because of this, I was so psyched for last night’s meeting, thinking that Janet would begin to dialogue with us about new ways to imagine the interweaving of worship, justice, art, and everyday life, ways that might engage the 20 and 30 year olds that seem to be to be so absent from our congregation these days. Instead what we got was South Church patting itself on the back for how well it was doing when, at Joe’s invitation (perhaps at Janet's previous suggestion to him?), those attending spent almost all of the hour and 30 minutes we were to be with Janet telling her what they loved about South Church.

We only heard from Janet in the last 6 minutes of the time, giving her just enough time to ask us a few provocative questions. For example, she asked: South Church is well-known for its social justice ministries, one of the reasons Janet said she was willing to come spend time with us. So, we both care about embodied justice and the journey and exploration is everything (as Joe had said earlier in the Session) then why wasn’t she hearing more about how worship reflected upon and prepared people for this kind of work during the week? And if we say (as Joe again said in another comment earlier) that we want to be anti-imperialist, then why was all the worship leadership done by only a few people and always up in the chancel area? They’re both good questions, questions that have bothered me for a long while that I think we’ll have to answer if we’re ever going to make a successful transition to a congregation alive in the 21st century. I walked away from the gathering disappointed that we hadn’t put our time with Janet to better use by diving into such questions and exploring their ramifications for the ways in which we worship. I'm hoping maybe Part 2 in December will be better, since it'd be impossible to use Janet's time with us in a less productive way than we did last night.

Attending a Second Life Worship Service

Last night I attended a church service at a Second Life progressive church (as opposed to lifechurch.tv, the conservative church that opened on Easter and has spent tons of money creating a second life campus that can stream its regular service in world) called the United Church of Christ in SL. The building, built by a second year seminary student at Emory and her partner, was beautiful—individually designed cushions in the center of the floor to sit on, mats lining the walls for extra seating, large, clear glass windows making up the roof and other details made being in the space quite pleasing, although I could have lived without the large cross hanging suspended over the one entryway. (Crosses are, by their very nature, meant to be grounded in the earth, aren’t they, both because of their original use as instruments of torture and because without an earthy connection, what would Easter mean?)

Having said that, the service itself was very weak. It made me aware of the need to really think through worship from scratch if it’s going to work in world. I’m sure a little of the problem was that the service was designed and led by a seminarian without a lot of worship experience (though with a big heart and a worldview that seemed warm and hospitable). Aside from sitting on the cushion, much of the worship was structured in typical modern style, with the worship leader standing behind a pulpit talking at the congregation during the sermon or leading the congregation in prayer. While this style clearly has limitations in our ‘first’ life churches, it has even more problems in Second Life. The preacher stood behind the pulpit and typed the lines to the sermon one by one. We sat there and watched her type. There were none of the body signals or facial expressions or tones of voice that so often carry a first life sermon, just the hands moving and arms going up and down for the typing. The long pauses in between lines of text appearing made it very hard to follow, much less engage with. And the responsive prayer, which we were given ahead of time along with the lectionary passage, also didn’t work very well. Each time we were to do the ‘all’ part, we each typed in the response line, which showed up again and again on the screen. The only part of ‘traditional’ worship that seemed to work well was the sharing of joys and concerns, where individuals shared a hope or worry and then the worship leader responded to each concern with a brief prayer.

The service left me wondering about the best way to do worship in world. It’s clear that worship has to offer something other than the kinds of things that lifechurch or this UCC church have tried. Maybe there are other houses of worship in 2nd life offering more engaging worship. I’ll try to search around and check it out because if there aren’t, someone needs to puzzle through what kinds of worship would work in Second Life that would actively engage those participating in a congregation.

Second Life Church

I'm spending more and more time thinking about creating a Second Life church, since the ones that already exist on world seem to be either non-Christian (the church of Elvis, a church for vampires, etc.) or extremely conservative. My view is of a progressive, welcoming intentional community that would find a way to teach and embody the best of Jesus' radical hospitality, both on world and in everyday life.

The downsides? I've never planted a church before, I don't know how to build things or program in Second Life, and I don't have a team to work with me. I keep checking around to see if there's someone else out on the internet who might have similar interests but so far I haven't been able to find anyone. Still, I keep feeling the pull of the Spirit in this direction!