Making Room and Playing It Out: Step-by-stepping Closer Towards Widespread Community Inclusion (part 2)

by | May 6, 2011

This post was written by Todd Fadel and is continuation from last week. Read part one here.

The notes you have taken represent an INVESTMENT of time and energy. If you skip the initial stuff, you’re inviting confusion. You have notes in front of you that give you a much better idea of who makes up your community, yes? If each of the assembled people were part of the “worship facilitation team,” how could their passions/uniqueness be spotlighted? With your leadership, find a role each could play. Imagine what connections they could help people make with our creative Creator. Make up simple imaginary titles for them. The list could end up looking like this:

Bobby – 12, who loves doing clay sculptures could be TACTILE ART COORDINATOR

Melissa – 47, who loves games and is hilarious could be HUMOR ENFORCEMENT TEAM LEADER

Agnes – 84, plays harp, tells amazing stories be HISTORICAL HARPIST

and so on. Don’t forget to include the ones who are never included. Did I say that before? Hmm..

The picture should start becoming clear that everyone is a part of worship and can play a part which connects to their GOD-GIVEN PASSION. The personality of your community should start becoming more apparent to you, also. If you don’t fall in love with your people all over again, I’ll be really surprised.

**The next step would be preparations for unveiling a different model to your assembled group.

What you and your co-facilitators/other leadership should do is consider enacting this new service for the assembled group, showing what their roles could be. Have you ever seen a storyboard artist pitch a cartoon? They’re doing all the character’s action in the scene and making the sound effects and going from scene to scene. So what you need to do is imagine a potential service, and write it out like it’s a storyboard for a cartoon. HERE’S THE ESSENCE OF THIS: If the facilitators/leadership do not model vulnerability in this way in this smaller setting, they can NOT expect the people to do it in a larger, scarier setting. Plus, when you catch what the people have the potential to do, you’re more motivated to make services a safe place for them to step out in their passion. Once you bring them together again, tell them what you want to show them, and DO IT.

Get feedback, write it all down. Ask questions like: What scares you about it? What do you think could be different?

This is where you tell them you will make a commitment to keep things safe for them.

How does one keep things safe for them? Here’s a few guidelines:

  1. (You) shoulder any complaints/comments from the community-at-large and relay “positive suggestions” only (after 4 services have been tried, not a peep until after then). Make an announcement prior to each service stating this.
  2. Don’t let your personal aesthetic get in the way of allowing people to express freely.
  3. Do not criticize them under any circumstance.
  4. Provide a de-briefing time after services to help process.
  5. Anyone is allowed to quit (after 4 services are tried).

Then ask them if they will try it with you. Chances are, half of the group will do it. Don’t give off any impression to anyone that you feel like they’re “not helpful,” or “not taking one for the team” for not wanting to try. Tell them this is a trial run and strange stuff’ll happen, but you’ll help shoulder the burden of it.

**NOW, logistics. What do we do? Where do we put everything?

This part is COMPLETELY dependent on who is willing to do this with you, but I have a few suggestions:

  1. You can totally write your own songs
  2. In the room setup, something other than the music should be the focus.
  3. Build a service around the MOMENTUM of a theme or concept. When using liturgy, let it flow with the other things. (ie. don’t let things interrupt other things)
  4. Darkness, or diffused light, tends to help people feel less self-conscious. No need to get candle-happy, if not necessary. Flashlights or dim lamps work.
  5. Visual art that is shown could be all done by the community (ie. film/paintings/photography) and could be shown on overheads or super 8 projectors (which you could get for free, through freecycle.org in your town).
  6. Give plenty of space for those who would want to move around while allowing for those who are less mobile or expressive.
  7. Don’t let the service be governed by a false sense of obligatory seriousness. God invented humor, for pete’s sake.
  8. See #7.

© Todd Fadel

Todd has spent the last 25 years as a musician, improviser, collaborator and instigator in one form or another.  Based in Portland, OR, he and his family helped birth pioneering US alt-worship community, The Bridge, in 1998.

There, he currently co-ordinates jalopy-gospel, arts/music collective AGENTS OF FUTURE, and has co-created over 50 punk-choir anthems, experimental films, collaborative workshops, multimedia improv games and various other hoopla with them for over a decade. His creative endeavors have landed him gigs playing piano for a grade-school choir, singing the national anthem at a local roller derby and leading communion for 15,000 Greenbelt festivalgoers in the UK.

His thoughts on play, visions for inclusive community and collaborative papercraft-ephemera have been showcased by publications like Sojourners and Worship Leader Magazine and resourced by Sparkhouse, Wild Goose Festival, Festival of Faith and Music and Crowder’s Fantastical Church Music Conference.

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April Project: Easter Weekend Art

by | May 2, 2011

Presented here are three truly creative offerings from the Clayfire community, submitted for our April Project: He’s Alive! Each item shared below – a collaborative poem, a prayer labyrinth, and an interactive music/art piece – was used Easter weekend, 2011.

I encourage you to follow the provided links to further check out the work of these unique artists and curators.

This Changes Everything

A ‘poem of poems of poems,’ compiled by Mark Polet from the contributions of the worshippers at the Holy Saturday service, 2011, St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Edmonton, Canada.

This changes everything!
I, broken and flawed
I, broken and healed
have my sin broken and my spirit freed

I am preciously loved by the Saviour of our souls
Nurtured by our raised-again Creator
I surrender to His Grace
I yield only to Him
I fall deeper in love with my Christ
I sit at His feet

I am no longer ashamed
I am no longer scared
I am no longer confused
I hold my head up
I clearly see
I no longer flee

In carrying this cross,
I have been lifted of a great weight

I, healed and whole,
will love others as
I am loved by Him

I choose to do God’s will
I decide to accept the gift
I am made for this time and place
I will run the good race
I will see God’s will be done in heaven and on earth
I, now standing, do
I, having done all, now stand

I have a purpose
in the mystical Body of Christ
I am ready to serve Him

I salute the great I AM
Who sees the who I am
I, who finally knows my self
can be selfless
for I am me
one of a kind
And God loves me

So, let’s make the you and I an us
And take the first step
On our road to Emmaus

About the poetic process: Interface stages an annual Holy Saturday service, The Rending of the Veil. This poem was not written in anticipation of the event, but rather created during the service by our bard Mark, using congregational responses to prayer stations.

For the service, there were numerous stations with themes reflecting elements of Christ’s cross experience… what he encountered, what he drew on, what he expressed and did. Each station had a scriptural reference and a physical metaphor for the element. Also, each station had a poem depicting in the first-person the thoughts of a Passion Story character that related to the station’s theme. The poem was mounted on a poster, with ample space for people to write their responses and reflections to the poem-station, knowing that Mark would be gathering their comments into a poem at the end of the evening. This occurred during a ‘walk-about’ meditative time mid-service. Most people responded in verse or prose.

While the congregation had communion, Mark reviewed the responses, organized, considered, prayed, sequenced and sometimes paraphrased. He then presented the poem, which became the close to our service, for we abandoned the liturgy and let the poem become our benediction. It was an amazing experience to hear each others’ hearts, hopes, desires and commitment spoken through this gathered work.

As curator, my (Jim Robertson) interpretation of what occurred is: Through the medium of this service, God spoke to us, and then gave us voices and space to speak and sing back to Him. He then gathered our voices into the Body’s Voice, and spoke and sang back to us, both personally and corporately, through this Voice. It was a blessed event.

This submission prepared by Kathleen Pate, Mark Polet and Jim Robertson on behalf of Interface Worship.

Living Labyrinth

A member of the church works at a nature center which is plagued by vines so they have an ongoing project to clear them off the trees. When I mentioned that I wanted to make a labyrinth but had no budget, she had this great idea.

This submission by Mandy Smith from University Christian Church, Cincinnatti, Ohio.

Image © Mandy Smith

Interactive Worship with Wii Controllers

Weiv made an appearance Lutheran Church of Hope: CityBranch Easter service, engaging seven congregants with Wii controllers during worship. Each Wii controller flung “paint” onto the screen, creating a colorful collage, perfect for Easter.

Link to video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIuOG5YMZHQ

Weiv is a software platform that uses the expressive power of videogames to enhance live performances. It allows a group of people to become a “visual band” that can create animations to the beat of the music or explore a virtual world. By using motion sensing devices, people can turn the natural urge to move to the music into a collaborative and communal visual performance.

This submission by Paul Gratton.

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Making Room and Playing It Out: Step-by-stepping Closer Towards Widespread Community Inclusion (part 1)

by | April 29, 2011

This post was written by Todd Fadel. It is part one of a two-part post.

If you’re reading this, you probably have some sort of interest in “shaking things up” a bit in the “main corporate worship service/s” for your community. Your desire comes from a part of you honestly wondering, “can this be *all* there is?” While I’m not saying my observations will work in *every* setting, I’ve found a few things to help get things going in the direction you pine for.

There are a few personal biases I need to share with you first. I believe it is IMPERATIVE that, while in a “forward-thinking” transition stage, you fight to include everyone in the community in your corporate worship. Also, I believe if you are *really* about doing something different, you’ll glean things from what books/blogs you read, what artists you listen to but not be legalistic in following anyone’s formula. Only you and your people know what will ultimately be the best way to proceed. Also, you don’t have to overargue or overthink the fact that most people view worship in a corporate setting as “MUSIC.” Just acknowledge it and move on. The definition of “worship” I’ll be working with is more broad. Lastly, in the 30 years I’ve been a churchgoer, I’ve found that the most valuable commodity you possess is your *sense of humor.*

I’m a practical person, but I’m *also* a dreamer—which tends to get me into trouble. The first thing YOU need to do to get things going is to find out what people in your community are PASSIONATE about and what is UNIQUE about them. Not just in a typical church setting, but IN GENERAL. I would suggest working with your leadership to distribute an informal survey during services/gatherings for this purpose. Find out what makes people get excited in life. Now, granted, there may be folks that come back with “real estate” or “fishing” or “NBA” as their answers, so in the survey make sure to ask questions which give you a sense of “who they are” in the community. Not “what their job is” but “what part of the body” they are. Then, out of those returned surveys, assemble a group that has the MOST VARIED PASSIONS and help facilitate a BRAINSTORMING SESSION about what they dream “a service” could look like. Ask them how their passion could translate into a portion of the service. Ask them what their biggest concerns are. The meeting is not to “address those concerns,” but only to capture the dialogue and give people a voice. So, the goal is not to have just the “obvious worship types” be a part of the discussion but to involve everyone. Don’t forget to include the ones who are never included. If you have female members, BE SURE TO INVOLVE THEM. If you have older members, BE SURE TO INVOLVE THEM. If you have younger members, BE SURE TO INVOLVE THEM. If you have poor members, BE SURE TO INVOLVE THEM. If you have argumentative members, BE SURE TO INVOLVE THEM. Collect all the notes, record the meeting, and pray for God’s guidance with your leadership. This is assuming your leadership is down with the idea.

**The next part will require you to really think outside your preconceived notions.

As a curator of this “new thing for your community,” you are going to have to sacrifice some time. I’m sure you’ve already done this to some degree. Take the list of assembled people and start calling them. Write up an outline of a few things you want to know about them. Ask them questions like: What is “too far out” in worship? What makes them laugh out loud? Does worship include dance, painting, prayer, singing? Get their opinions, now. Before was the brainstorming, now it’s opinion time. List every concern, every answer, from every person from the assembled group and share them with your leadership. ***I think the biggest problem with churches doing alt. worship services is when they impose it on their people. I believe the people just want to have a voice. The biggest complaints come from those who weren’t considered in the conversation. Plus, typical facilitators don’t think creatively enough to find a place for everyone to contribute.

Read part two here.

© Todd Fadel
The author’s original punctuation has been preserved.

Todd has spent the last 25 years as a musician, improviser, collaborator and instigator in one form or another.  Based in Portland, OR, he and his family helped birth pioneering US alt-worship community, The Bridge, in 1998.

There, he currently co-ordinates jalopy-gospel, arts/music collective AGENTS OF FUTURE, and has co-created over 50 punk-choir anthems, experimental films, collaborative workshops, multimedia improv games and various other hoopla with them for over a decade. His creative endeavors have landed him gigs playing piano for a grade-school choir, singing the national anthem at a local roller derby and leading communion for 15,000 Greenbelt festivalgoers in the UK.

His thoughts on play, visions for inclusive community and collaborative papercraft-ephemera have been showcased by publications like Sojourners and Worship Leader Magazine and resourced by Sparkhouse, Wild Goose Festival, Festival of Faith and Music and Crowder’s Fantastical Church Music Conference.

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SPACE: A Journey from Darkness to Light (part 2)

by | April 15, 2011

This post was written by Stephen Proctor and is a continuation from last week.

SPACE is designed to be a soul environment – a sacred time for prayer and calibration. Our hope is that you experience the love story of Jesus through this environment and feel the freedom to journal, pray, reflect, or simply rest at the feet of the Father.

SPACE is separated into two different areas. The main area is completely open-ended. Find a place to sit and spend the time as you wish. In this area you will also find an interactive story wall, a prayer wall, and a station for communion.

There is also a guided station area which focuses on Light. As we’ve been journeying through the Book of John as a church, we have seen the theme of Light come up over and over again. The stations presented will take you on a journey from darkness to Light.

If you wish to interact with these stations, please enter the partitioned off area near the left corner of the stage.

We are glad you are here. Be still. Listen. Reflect.

Wonderfully written by one of our emerging worship curators, Katie Strandlund, these are the words that welcome you when you step into “SPACE” at Journey. No matter if you are a long-time partner or someone new, we want you to feel invited (not forced) to actively engage in the story of Jesus in an experiential way.

Our curation process began with two questions: “What is true about God?” and “What do we want to say?” So we curated one environment that had two main areas and included a time of sung worship at the end of the night. Each area was uniquely designed yet connected to one story, the answer to our initial questions.

The non-linear, open-ended space was where you could sit, kneel, lay down, take communion, give an offering, and interact with a few art installations, such as a prayer wall and a story wall.

The linear, or “guided,” space was designed with stations that together told the story of darkness to Light. After interacting with the stations, people were invited to return to the open-ended area for further reflection, prayer and journaling.

At the bottom of this post is a link to a PDF that contains all our curation notes, including a detailed list and descriptions of the stations and art installations.

But I have to take a moment and describe my favorite station of the night, which we called “Light Appeared.” Here you are invited to peer into a dark box with a hole cut out of the side. Written on paper in the back of the box (which you can’t initially see) are big bold letters that spell “In the beginning.” There’s a button to push, and when pushed a flash of bright light fills the box. You are temporarily blinded, but when you close your eyes, you can see an imprint of “In the beginning” floating in your eyes! Sounds crazy, huh? I know. But I knew it worked well when an elderly woman experienced it, raved about it, and ran to grab her young granddaughter to show her the station. What a memorable way to experience a glimpse of Paul’s blindness on the Damascus Road as described in Acts!

After a few hours of SPACE being open, we began a time of singing and hearing stories from John. The stations were still available for people to interact with. In fact, we treated our worship designers and pastor as if they were just another station, an additional layer. Songs were led by David Leonard & Leslie Jordan, our on-staff worship designers (also known as “Sons & Daughters”… great music, FYI!); we also invited our friend Daniel Bashta to come and lead alongside them. The fusion of their sounds was unreal. Then Jamie (our pastor) sat in a “story chair” off to the side and told various stories from John. Songs, stories and instrumental moments of “selah” weaved back and forth, in and out of each other. There were no stops or breaks… it just flowed seamlessly.

I recently found out that what we’ve been curating is what Mark Pierson refers to as “composite” worship, a hybrid of “community” and “transitional.” We’ve even begun to incorporate layers of SPACE in our Sunday gatherings once a month, including the guided stations experience. I guess you could say the “composite” scale is tipped a little differently each time we gather. This is very exciting for someone who’s simply exploring and experimenting with the idea of curating worship!

We’re even starting to experience a shift in our approach to creativity altogether. Normally, we have a few people being creative on behalf of the church body, like painting a picture (so to speak) and hanging it on the wall for all to enjoy. The shift taking place is that now we are handing the congregation a blank canvas, brushes, some paint, and inviting them to partake in the creating as expression of worship. See the difference?

At the end of the day, the best description of SPACE was given by one of the children in our congregation. He told his dad, “It’s like tactile faith!” I just love that. So now “tactile” is a word we’re adopting in our Cartography language!

My hope with this story is to inspire, equip, and resource those of us in the creative worship tribe. And as we dream and explore these forgotten areas of our faith, let’s strive to keep the Creator, not our creativity, the center of our worship. Thanks for letting me share!

Listed below are some tools and resources if you wish to explore further.

Resources
PDF of Journey’s curation notes for SPACE
Playlist of Ambient Music
Sons & Daughters’ music
Daniel Bashta’s music
Visual media (not what we used for SPACE but a good place for you to start curating.)

If you are in the Middle TN area, we invite you to join us on Good Friday for our next SPACE experience!

Words © Stephen Proctor
Photos © Sarah Jensen

Stephen Proctor is a VJ, media producer, and curator of visual worship who has participated in events and worship experiences around the world. He’s based in Nashville and serves on the creative team at his local church, Journey. Stephen shares resources, stories and his passion for visually creative worship on his blog, worshipVJ.com, as well as in his new eBook, A Guidebook for Visual Worship.

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Grandmother of Methodism, Original Worship Curator

by | April 1, 2011

This post was written by Aaron Klinefelter.

With Opening Day upon us my thoughts turn to baseball cards. I wish there were trading cards of the saints. Early Church Fathers, like Antony the Great, with helpful stats about their contribution to the monastic movement. Memorable quotes from mystics like Julian of Norwich, “And all shall be well…” The problem, of course, would be choosing. There are so many that the printing cost alone would be astronomical. And really, aren’t we all saints in the making? We all got drafted.

Regardless, if one were to attempt such a prodigious project, a saint that simply must be included is Susanna Wesley. Her tagline would be something like “Grandmother of Methodism. Original Worship Curator.” If you’re from a Wesleyan tradition you already know about her. Susanna Wesley was the mother of John and Charles Wesley. John, of course, would go on to found Methodism and Charles would compose hundreds of hymns. Whereas the reformed tradition has held sway over the academy, Methodism and its offspring have found their sea legs amongst the hoi polloi of the world. It is no exaggeration to say that it has been the most extensive movement in Western Christianity, eventually birthing Pentecostalism, the fastest growing movement in Christian history.

At the heart of Methodism is a sort of spiritual populism uniquely suited to the zeitgeist of twenty-first century culture. That Wesleyan impetus, nascent in Susanna and made more explicit in John and Charles, is equal parts social-activism and personal holiness. But both find their ground of being in an experience of the divine. Certainly, in its founding Methodism was bound in the cultural context of the Enlightenment project codified in the burgeoning new republic in America. But the arch of the story leads inextricably to an Experience Economy manifest both in the Charismatic and Pentecostal tradition and in the emerging faith experiments of the early twenty-first century.

It is this commonly uncommon experience of the divine that is open to all, the spiritual populism that made Methodism grow from a ragtag group of college students to the largest ecclesial body in America. That upstart, anybody-can-play, open-source ethos was exemplified by Susanna Wesley.

When Susanna’s husband was away on church business, the interim pastor was a flop. She started a Sunday afternoon fellowship and teaching time for her family that eventually drew 200 some neighbors and friends. She was pastoring without a license, of course, much to the chagrin of her husband and church officials alike. But she did it anyway and it had a deep impression on young John Wesley. No surprise that the Methodists and their offspring were among the first to affirm women in ministry. Likewise, this spurred the move of early Methodists to equip lay preachers and circuit riders. All of this, in my mind at least, is foundational to the act and art of worship curation.

Just yesterday a college student involved in our ministry asked what experiential worship was. She’s an Anthropology and Art major so I knew she would understand the aesthetic and multi-sensory aspects of experiential worship. What I came to realize, as I described this different way to worship to her, was that the egalitarianism and open-source nature, what I call spiritual populism, was a primary feature. Curating worship is, by definition, not about the curator. This is not mere semantics. The wide swath of the Christian tradition, though by no means all of it, has oriented it’s worship to a priesthood, a clergy class, or the academy. The boundary breaking moves of Susanna Wesley, her sons, and the ecclesial stream that flows on from them is perfectly at home in the move to worship curation.

Everybody gets to play. When we curate worship we do so to foster community, not mere consumers. We invite participation, not only observation or intellectual assent. Our work in experiential worship is the latest sounding of a democratized ecclesia and a spiritual populism that is right at home in the Wesleyan tradition – from Susanna to today.

© Aaron Klinefelter
image © iStockphoto, Photoshop edit by Eric Herron

Aaron Klinefelter is a campus minister, gardener, and barista. He’s also the father of three very loud, very creative, very wonderful kids and husband to Sarah. Check out his campus ministry work here, read his blog, and follow him on Twitter.

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