Sitting in pews; standing up, sitting down; the same format each week. It just wasn't working for us. As artists, writers, creative people, the single, fixed configuration of soft-rock worship and three-point linear preaching was a body we not only felt uncomfortable in, but that was dying around us. We were frustrated.
We sat each week surrounded by some of the brightest talents in film, TV, theater, art, social work and politics...but made to watch in virtual silence because we didn't play guitar and didn't "preach." These were the only two gifts that were acceptable as worship. It just seemed such a waste.
We just thought it was outrageous that we had all these gifts that were being used in the corporate world, in the market economy, and were being snubbed for poorly done soft-rock and 2-bit oratory in church. We saw that if worship was about gift, then what we brought to worship had to be integral to us, something meaningful from who we were.
Kester Brewin, Vaux, London
Emerging churches value participating by everyone in the worship of the church. They strive to ensure that everyone is a producer and not just a consumer. Everyone brings what gifts and talents they have to the table. Worship isn't band+preacher. It's particular to each congregation because each congregation is made up of different people.
This is one of my favorite aspects of emerging worship. I love the idea that worship is highly participative. I come from a church that celebrates the gifts that each person has to bring to the body. My home church believes that God speaks to and through everyone, and so we have made room for that to happen. I see this as a step further down that road.
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