Thursday, September 21, 2006

Now this is a church service:

Go read this, about a presentation that the Ikon community did at Greenbelt (what's Greenbelt?) this summer.

If you scroll down through the comments, there's a brief description of the service from Pete, and also the text of the short 'sermon' by Ian Paisley. You can read that first and then read the main entry, which talks about some of the motivations/goals/thinking behind the design of the service.

Sometimes the work I do - liturgy, the alleged 'work of the people', thinking about my own and hearing about others' - gives me room spins. I once wrote in my journal that people seem to expect God to affirm what they're doing by making them feel solid, grounded and comfortable...but in my experience, it felt more like standing up in the back of a moving pickup truck. Offroad.

Honestly - despite what I say, I have not loved every second of my job.

But right now, I love my job.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read that whole thing about the Ikon service, and must admit that I was unimpressed. It sounded like a whole bunch of meaningless drivel to me. "epistemological incomprehension"? "experiential bedazzlement"? "existential transformation"? What the hell is THAT? Pyschobabble. Bohemian claptrap.
Perhaps the blog is the epilogue on the experience: a final layer of incomprehensibility to bedazzle us further? Piffle.
Note that I'm not judging the church or the event: just the description of it. I don't live anywhere near Greenbelt, so I've never heard of Ikon, and have no preconceived notions about it. Or least HAD none, until now. But I guess I'm not their target audience. Maybe I'm just their target.

betsy said...

I do think "experietial bedazzlement" has a certain 'trying too hard' aspect - it's flashy writing, that's for sure. And emerging church types (including me) sure do like our poetical paradoxical turns of phrase. It's not our best feature. But the writer's explanation -

"...a revelation is epistemologically incomprehensible because it cannot be reduced to understanding but rather places all our understanding into question. Secondly, a revelation is experientially bedazzling because we can’t integrate it into our emotional world..." etc etc,

plus the example that follows that, made sense to me. It's an feeling I've had in real life, and for me, that experiencing that feeling did help illuminate something to me about a life following God.

I don't know that I would have gotten that from attending the service, (I'm guessing not, at least at the time) but I think it's interesting that they designed something to try create that experience.

Now - can we call it a worship service? (Did Ikon call it a worship service? I can't recall -) that's a separate question.