Worship & Mission

by Jason Byassee, February 26, 2014

Jason Byassee

The church exists for worship and mission. One feeds the other and both draw us toward Jesus.

This is a great time of year for both. Our Rwanda team has just returned and our Guatemala team is about to be sent out. We worshiped last Saturday night, February 22, and will worship in a new style on March 1. March 2nd marks the beginning of Lent, 40 days of a lonely road with Jesus on the way to his cross. Worship and mission are the two lungs of the church’s body, and both are full at the moment.

Here is what’s to come: on Saturday night, March 1st, we’ll worship in the chapel at 6:30 with a form of chant called Taize. It is simple, hauntingly beautiful, and unforgettable. Here’s a glimpse of how it sounds. Saturday night is the least utilized portion of our week. Many Christian traditions offer an evening worship service. These experimental gatherings are a way of asking whether Jesus is calling us to worship regularly that evening, perhaps with styles as varied as roots revival, Taize, blue grass, and maybe others (jazz?).

On Ash Wednesday, March 5th, we’ll gather in the Family Life Center for a pancake supper. Strove Tuesday (Mardi Gras in French speaking parts) is a day for feasting before the fast of Lent begins. Sarah Strickland is heading our family life committee now and needs some flapjack flippers–please be in touch with her to volunteer, or view the evite here. We’ll worship in the sanctuary at 7 and receive ashes on our foreheads as a sign of our mortality (“remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” Gen. 3:19).

Often folks give things up for Lent: chocolate, cussing, being a Carolina fan. But a friend’s church gave me an idea. What if we each gave up something important to us that costs money–coffee, meat, alcohol, meals out, movies. Then we pool that money we would have spent on ourselves and put it toward missions. We have so many things we could contribute to–the Justice family hasn’t yet quite gotten fully funded, our Rwanda and Guatemala teams would love to be more generous in those areas, WeCan and Circles here in the High Country needs further funding.

I propose that we, Boone Methodist, each give up something and then offer what we would have spent in a special offering on Easter Sunday. We’ll have done something small to discipline our desires in (tiny!) imitation of Christ who emptied himself to save us. And we’ll offer enough to make a difference in our generosity as a congregation and in God’s world. We will continue to honor our long tradition of the Thirty Pieces of Silver offering, with this as an extra challenge. What do you think? As ever feel free to offer input: seniorminister@booneumc.org.

Final thing for today: several folks have asked me why church is necessary. Sunday is their sanctuary, they love being with their family uninterrupted (their homes must be more pacific than mine!). This is a beautiful question. It suggests genuine Sabbath rest in those households, and that honors God. Hard questions always do.

Let me tell you a quick story in response. Ellary Smith is Tommy and Tracy’s daughter. She not only sees her parents play music Sundays and practice Wednesdays, she sees them lead with their contagious spirit for Jesus, for our church, and for the marginalized. Ellary has taken to writing praise songs herself. She loves to robe up as an acolyte, to wear the cross, to bear the flame into the world. She loves Sunday School. She loves our church. “She’d live here if we let her,” Tracy joked.

The point of church isn’t to be happier, though it has that effect. It’s not to be a more moral person, though it certainly helps. Church only matters if God is who he says he is in scripture, if we desperately need Jesus to save us, if lingering in God’s presence makes us more human. “The glory of God is a human being fully alive,” St. Irenaeus said way back in the 2nd century. And at Boone Methodist one little girl is more alive as she lingers in God’s presence.

And that’s about the best reason I can give why you, your family, your neighbors, your enemies, everyone you and I know, should join us Sundays, Saturdays, Wednesdays, always.

Children’s Blessing

by Jason Byassee, February 4, 2014

Jason Byassee

One of our greatest gifts as a church is our children. I’ll go farther: our greatest gift is our children. Who says? Jesus. Anyone who harms them is in the deepest trouble (Mk 9:42). All of us should usher them into his presence (Mt. 19:4). We grownups need to learn how to become just like them (Mt. 18:3). The Kingdom of God has a very small door. Some of us will have to be crammed through that door. Children can apparently sashay right on in.

One way we have historically shown Jesus’ cherishing of children is with our children’s sermon. As Jesus drew the children to himself to bless them, so we invite our children forward to let them know how important they are to us. This moment is often the first word of teaching any of our churchgoers hear, whether first-timers or long-timers. We have been blessed at Boone Methodist with some of our most creative people’s time, energy, sweat, and prayer as they have prepared these sermons for years.

Yet there are problems with the children’s sermon, even when it is done “right.” Will Willimon writes, “I fear that children’s sermons tend to backfire, saying to parents and children that which we do not intend to say.” Even when done right–and we do them right with remarkable regularity–we focus on teaching content in these slots before excusing children from the bulk of worship.

Our visioning committee, seeing our love for children as one of our congregation’s greatest gifts, has coined the value “Next Generation Now.” At our church, children don’t just follow, they lead. We want to show this in every moment of our worship, starting with the children’s moment.

The Worship Committee and the Children’s Minister, in working with me over these challenges, have suggested that we try an experiment. We will spend the next few months reconfiguring the children’s sermon into what we’ll call a children’s blessing. The emphasis will be less on teaching information and more on incorporating children into the movement of worship. I’d wager the children are not in the most teaching-receptive place as they sit in front of the rest of us. Perhaps the way forward is to see them less as passive recipients and more as active leaders. Because for Jesus and our church, that’s precisely what they are.

We also want to encourage families that want to keep their children in worship. Worship is what we’re made for. We’ll spend eternity at it. We all need to start practicing now. When any of us hears a fidgeting child in worship, let us give thanks that God became a child. And if I or another speaker can’t speak over a badly-tempered child with a microphone, then speakers need to speak up and we all need to focus better.

We have some ideas for our folks who want to continue bringing their gifts to bear in teaching children. We would love their help in teaching children’s Sunday School (the most terrifying assignment in our church!). We would love to draw on their help in children’s church where they can teach at length and the children can have time to absorb and ask questions without being on stage. And we will call on them in other areas that none of us can now anticipate.

Jeff and I will offer children’s blessings for the time being, and will share that task with others later. The goal will be to see the children’s leadership in worship. We want them to lead us in prayer. We want them to lay their hands on bread and wine and water and bless them so God can use them to make us all holy. We want them to lay hands on leaders and missionaries and those undertaking special tasks to send them out with a blessing. A “sermon” suggests content and teaching. A blessing suggests an exchange: something almost physical passes from these children to the rest of us, and we go out made new.

My hope is that our children will know their importance in leading us all toward God. And that all of us will take our cues from them in how to be small in God’s kingdom.