my contemplations

In our denomination we have a week of services around Pentecost. Every evening we get together, and usually there is a theme running through, so this gives pastors some room to run through something in a short space of time. Also, it’s quite common to get someone from another congregation to preach for the week. We had ours this week, a week late, to accommodate the guy we got to preach for the week.

Every second Thursday we have a youth night. Nothing fancy, nothing grand, just a place where youth between 13 and 16 get together, sometimes play games, sometimes read Bible, sometimes watch a video, socialize and where I can build relationships with them.

When this clashed with our Pentecost service this week I decided to arrange that the youth join the service. Did I think that they would find this the most amazing thing ever to happen at church? No. I actually knew that they wouldn’t really like attending church. But if we do things parallel, then I’m actually saying to them that church is for old people, and not really for you. Something which is the exact opposite of what we would say in our congregation.

So we entered the service. About 15 of 20 kids, into a church with another 80 people or so. First we sang some hymns, and in great discomfort we sat there, kind of mumbling together, I tried singing, tried saying to them: “this is OK, you can sing”. Then a looong sermon started, about how we neglected our pneumatology and should make more of the holy spirit in the Reformed tradition, or something like that. First three girls walked out, then another two guys.

I’ve been using the reviewing methods of Roger Greenaway for a number of years now. In reviewing we would say that a bad experience become a positive learning experience when reviewed well. So I decided to scrap the program for the rest of the evening, and review the church service. What came out was the usual, discomfort in church, church being for old people (although they did say they are very positive about our informal service on a Sunday morning). Looking at something like Four Views on Youth Minstry, which I’ve read a number of years ago, they would actually go for something like a “church-within-a-church” model. Where youth go to a separate ministry, and at some point move over to the “real church”.

But sitting in that service on Thursday, noticing their discomfort, I suddenly realised that these people are our conscience. They are the conscience of the church. If we take them out, we can just continue playing a number of songs on the organ, while no one really experience anything, or like singing when it feels like your singing alone. We can keep on with long sermons that only a few insiders can understand. We can just continue doing church the way we do church, because everyone that is sitting their is trained that “this is how things are supposed to be”. But when our young people start attending in their masses, we need to ask the question: “Why are we doing this?”.

Because they do not know our church conventions that well, they won’t do things just because this is how it’s supposed to be done, they ask stupid questions which the rest of us know we are not supposed to ask. Malan Nelthought me this valuable truth in my first year, saying that: “When we take the kids out of the church, the rest of the church is losing out, not the kids”. I wonder what the preacher thought when the kids started walking out of his sermon? Did they address his conscience, or only madden him? What about the rest of the congregation?

I do think this is the more difficult approach to youth ministry. Because now the whole church need to start thinking youth, the “family” need to start thinking “teenager”, instead of just getting the “baby sitter youth worker” to keep their kids happy. But we need this. If you lose our kids out of the church, the church will lose.

I preached on Genesis 11:28-12:9 on Sunday. I started preparing real early, reading Brueggemann’s Genesis commentary on Monday, and Von Rad’s shortly after, but never quite got around to making the sermon. I knew what I wanted to say though. God call Abram, promise to bless him, but in the same breath call Abram to also be a blessing to those around him (see some thoughts in Afrikaans here). God call Abram, but he doesn’t call him out of this world, but to be wholly part of this world (see some more thoughts in Afrikaans here). In Genesis, it is the creator God who now become further part of the creation-gone-bad by calling Abram, and by becoming involved with human history.

But last week we again had two armed robberies on houses in our congregation. In one the people were wounded, in the other a man was killed, leaving behind a wife and kids. Shot in the head when he wanted to press the alarm button. This happened on Friday evening, on Saturday I finally got around to finalizing the sermon. Furthermore, the reports on Zimbabwe started coming in, I blogged on that here while I was preparing the sermon.

How do we preach in this context? What do we say? As I said to the congregation at one stage: In church many would say we are not supposed to talk politics. But in this context, and reading the story of Abraham, I cannot do other but talk politics. But politics isn’t about who is right and who wrong, I never spoke about Mugabe for example. Maybe what we call politics in the church, is actually just ethics. Public Theology.

I believe the message, even for this hurt congregation, and believe me, our congregation, and community, is hurt. The violence have been going on for weeks now, every week the reports come in, for this congregation also, the message is that we should bring hope. There is a message that God bring hope to the world, but the other side of the coin is that God bring hope through us as well.

We need to preach on South Africa. We need to preach on Zimbabwe. Telling the stories of the people there, telling the story of the Bible, realizing that the story of the Bible is forcing us to, in some way I don’t understand yet, take part in the story of suffering ongoing around us. Our congregation is starting to talk about our role, a missional role, in the context of violence around Kameeldrif.  It’s not a new conversation, but we took it upon ourselves in all earnesty. I’ll be getting together with Arthur tomorrow to have some talks on Zimbabwe. What is the role of the church in a time like this? What can we as a church do?

I had a couple of experiences over the last few days which got me thinking about what it mean to live in South Africa. So I think I’ll be blogging about this over the next few days. I live in Kameeldrif, it’s on the North-Eastern side of Pretoria, at the moment consisting mostly of plots ranging between 1 and 200 hectar over an area of about 15km East of the N1 North highway, and 30km North of Zambezi road (the Pretoria Cullinan road).

Kameeldrif made it into the news a few times over the past weeks, but not in the way we would have liked to make it into the news. It would seem like organized burglaries moves around the city in… well, in an organized way. This mean that for a few months a certain area will have a lot of problems, and then, I guess when they have fortifies their security enough, whoever is doing this moves on to another area. I guess I could be wrong in my analysis, but this is how I see it, and I’ve heard others make the same observation. It seem to be Kameeldrif’s turn.

It started a few weeks ago, with armed robberies at some plots, and in the last two weeks it has gotten really bad, with an armed robbery about every two days, a couple of people being shot, some killed, a woman raped in front of her child (and this happening inside a security complex near Roodeplaat dam) and many people traumatized. I had to talk to some of the kids after one of these incidents two weeks ago.

On Friday at about 00:30 myself and Handré was coming back from a 21st. When we got of the N1 at Zambezi, we saw a guy walking beside the street, I remember Handré asking why I think this guy was walking there. We saw a car standing beside the road on the Western direction of Zembezi. Next moment we heard a woman screaming, and then a taser going of again and again. We turned around, and saw people fighting in the road, as Handré drove up to them, I opened the door, not quite knowing what we’ll do, but the someone ran away when we approached, seeing that we intend to stop, and we picked up the woman.

Turns out it was her husband we saw walking, for some reason he was mad at her, and then stopped the car, and left her beside the road, and before he was 150m away someone tried to steal her handbag. Just after we again stopped at her car (we first drove away), someone elkse stopped, he was from the police, but was off duty. He looked for the thief, but he was gone. Then there was a whole mess-up with the drunk husband, and at some point the tow-in guy stopped. When he heard what happened he called the police. Within two minutes the police was on the scene.

This is what I think I want to say today. A lot of negative stories was spread about the police in the past, stopries of how they never arrive at a scene etc. I’ve experiences this myself a few years ago after a house I was watching over the holidays got robbed. But on Friday night, and from what I hear from the people in our community over the past weeks, the police is really fast in responding and helping. So, for all of you in the SAPS, thumb-up, and thanx for the things you are doing for us!

Well, I guess crime is part of the reality of living in South Africa. But my experience of the police is getting really positive. And do we help? Maybe it was stupid to actually turn around and stop at a crime scene on Friday, but how could we not stop when hearing a woman scream, knowing that something must be wrong? And so many others actually also stopped on Friday night. I hope communities are starting to look after each other again, or maybe it’s just the community in Kameeldrif.

Well, I’ll continue with some more thoughts and stories tomorrow

Every new pastor, and mostly anyone who has ever moved to a new community, know the experience of getting to know a new community. I guess when you’re doing a job in the public eye it just becomes a much more complex process, cause it has to happen so fast. So I’ve been discovering our community the last few months, which could be difficult. Firstly, we have about 1000 people attending on a Sunday morning, secondly, the area is about 10km by 30km big, since much of it is still situated on plots, and even farms, although it is a city congregation.

But today I think discovering your community got a new meaning. One of our elders, which is responsible for youth ministry, and whom I’ve got to know over the past few months, got connected with an student in ecology a while ago, and arranged a visit. So we went into the blazing sun, and looked and listened to her explaining how she is mapping the plants in our area, a three year process which she just started. I know nothing about plants, and it was quite an interesting experience.

And suddenly I realized that this was part of getting to know my community. The ecological situation within my community is part of what I need to know. Although my interest in ecology is much more on a global scale, especially concerning global warming, I believe we need to be aware of our local ecology as well, and act in ways that would benifit our local ecology, as well as the global ecology.

Everyone do not live in places with lots of natural beauty, kilometers of fields with plants and animals, but even if you need to drive a distance, maybe take the time to ask someone to also introduce you to the ecology of your community, and not just the humans.

funny, I can’t seem to get onto the WordPress site, luckily the WordPress Mobile site is still working.

I had a lecturer in my first year at university who said something that really stuck. I guess that’s the dream of any teacher, to say something that would actually be remembered. Well, Prof Malan Nel (a contributor to Four views of Youth Ministry with his inclusive congregational approach) actually had some success with me, it would seem. He made the remark once that: “When we take children out of the church service, it is the adults that will loose out, not the children”. I’ve been thinking about this a lot these past few days.

First I thought about it on Sunday, when I started the sermon by asking some questions concerning the image that this congregation present to outsiders. There was a dead silence, the worst fear of a pastor asking questions in church, and the one reason why I will maybe stop asking questions in church. And then a little boy from a children’s home nearby put up his hand, and started by saying that when people come into our church, they see the TV (the projector screen:-)). The conversation was largely children, and much of it one could say didn’t really touch upon the depth of the issue, but it did open things up so that adults and teenagers can participate as well. And this I have seen happening time and again. If we take the children out of our service, into a separate children’s service, then our adults will loose out (and I will have a much more difficult task preaching).

Then on Friday I went to see the University of Pretoria’s Children’s Theatre production. It was presented by the second year class of last year, now starting their third year. I mailed the person administrating it, asking for two tickets, one for me, one for Maryke. When I got there, they had an adult and a child ticket, instead of two student tickets. When I said that I actually want two student tickets, the girl helping us replied with “wow!”, and I guess with good reason.

Friday was really a bad day for me. Thursday evenings youth get-together was a total mess-up, and then I got a phone call on Friday morning saying that the piano was broken, plus, I forgot to lock three doors! So I was just down in the dumps, ready to give up youth ministry, believing that I won’t ever work as a youth pastor, bla bla bla… And with this in mind I went into the theatre. The whole theatre was full of moms with pre-school children, and the show started…

Nothing fancy really. Colorful costumes, a little decor, actors with a lot of energy, and little children absolutely LOVING the show. I don’t think I would have been able to watch the hour and a half show if I saw it on TV, I mean really, it’s really a pre-school show. But when sitting between these little kids, the show started living. Much like what happens in the absolutely brilliant movie Finding Neverland. Although I wasn’t out of my depressing mood until basically this morning, thanks to the most amazing colleagues, everything just felt so much lighter after the show. These children also help us with.

If we take our children out of our church services, our adults will lose out. If we start children’s services, the biggest problem may not be the fact that untrained people present it, but the fact that the church loses out on the presence of children in worship.

A lot can be said concerning Christians gathering on Sunday mornings (and sometimes evenings) for some form of a primary worship event. In spite of critique concerning what happens, about the so called hypocrisy of those who attend, or the comercialization of the service, fact is that still thousands attend. What is happening in this hour is for most people still their primary understanding of “church”. So on a positive note: think potensial. What is the potensial if this hour could really be done in a way that give people an idea of the kingdom of God.

This was my theme for Sunday’s service. Actually a difficult theme, concidering that I didn’t really consider Sunday mornings to be a missional activity, not in the sense of a “seeker” type of setting. Rather, I considered what happened the rest of the week, wherever members of our community went, to be the missional part of a congregation. Reading Patrick Keifert’s Welcoming the Stranger helped form my thinking on this, attempting to point the way towards something that is both worship and missional.

Sermon came from Luke 24, Jesus’ journey from with two disciples from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Starting out on the journey, Jesus is called a “stranger” because he pretends not to know about the crisifixion that took place in Jerusalem 3 days before. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the disciples must be the strangers, since Jesus was the one who actually knew what happened, and they didn’t understand. So Jesus start explaining everything to them. I’ve many a time wondered why Jesus didn’t just pop up and say “hallo! this is me!”, rather, a softer approach is followed, and little by little they are introduced to the ideas that would change the world for ever. And then, with the breaking of the bread, they suddenly realize who is it that was journeying with them…

I think our worship gatherings is a lot like this. It is also a journey, and everyone who join on a given occasion take part in this journey. I don’t think the preacher is neccesarily the Jesus figure, rather that on this journey we become Jesus figures for each other, and in the relationship between us, Jesus appear to journey with us. The challenge of our times of worship is to be able to do what Jesus did. To journey with people, slowly introducing them to what we are doing, in such a way that they can understand this. The dream is that we can see people connect to God, to their community, and to an alternative community in our worship times.

And the end of the story of Emmaus is people connecting with an alternative community, a community which radically changed the world, by radically doing what Jesus would have. Just a thoughtin spite of all the criticism against the institutional church, recently I’ve started thinking: “What would happen if 1000 preachers in 1000 Dutch Reformed congregations of South Africa start to preach the Kingdom of God on Sundays?”. Think potensial!

I’ve been reading Patrick Keifert’s Welcoming the Stranger over the past few days. I have to preach on Worship as Public Ministry on Sunday, and the themes come from a process largely influenced by Keifert, so I thought I might get some ideas. This was largely because because I found the guidelines for the theme difficult, after all this time being influenced by the emerging conversation. The broad theme is becoming a sent congregation, a missional congregation sent to the world, and in this I struggled to see that our church services is part of this, it felt a bit like the seeker movement (not a bad movement, but not quite how I would think about things).

Keifert’s book is about the myth of intimate societies, the idea that church should be intimate. This can happen either through our complex liturgies of which the outsider has no knowledge, and cannot follow, or through a family-like church service which depends on everybody taking part spontaniously. Rather he propose a service which is welcoming, but not “in-the-face” of the stranger, for example that strangers should put up their hands when they attend for the first time.

The book pose a challenge to the emerging conversation (although some might think that Keifert’s work form part of the emerging conversation) by challenging small non-growing intimate congregation, exactly what I understood form Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt’s descriptions of Solomon’s Porch. It reminds me of the seeker sensitive movement, although I believe Keifert won’t like being identified with this, although I might be wrong in my believe, I don’t know the guy at all.

But then again, within the context I currently find myself, his approach might still be a good idea. We still have many people who find their first contact with the church in church services, who come to a service to check out the church, and if we have to take them into account, I like the approach set out by Keifert.

One question I have, however, it Keifert’s use of the term “public theology” in his subtitle, since this term rarely occurs in the book, and I never found a definition of this. I guess the reason why I noticed this is because I have to write a chapter of my upcoming dissertation on what we understand when using this term, Keifert didn’t help with this.