The maze is a bit odd. I have to admit that out of all the creative, interactive, Emerging worship ideas, this one takes the cake. It doesn’t make it any better when they call it a labyrinth. You walk along the path to different stations, candles and incense everywhere, and trippy monk music fills the background. If I just experienced this for the first time, I might think I was in some New Age meeting and later we would hear how to tap “our inner self” to “actualize our god self”. Many Emerging churches don’t stop with worship, but keep going with their new teaching styles. Imagine sitting in couches, surrounding the speaker in a circle, where you all “discover the truth of Scriptures together”. I keep thinking about my Bible school where there was always that “guy” who dragged class out for hours just to hear himself talk.
We must again look BEHIND all the new worship and teaching models to understand something crucial for our generation of church history. The bottom line is that people feel that church has largely become a spectator sport, where the “professional” church leaders do all the speaking, and Joe layperson sits there like he is watching a performance. We have all these educational studies now about the need for interaction and individual thought to create true learning, yet we don’t see these applied in most services today. Not all Emerging churches agree on HOW interactive this service should be. The simple, organic church meeting is almost entirely interactive, with no pastor or worship leader at all. Others use interaction in worship and teaching, but still have worship leaders and pastors who direct and prepare the core of the service.
It is hard to argue that there are ample Scriptures which point to the body being involved when the church gathers. Both 1 Corinthians 14:26 and Ephesians 5:18-19 seem to point that direction. “When you come together, each of you has a hymn,or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.” “Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord” The point that Paul is making is that when the church meets, it needs the whole body to encourage each other and share their gifts. In fact, he spends most of 1 Corinthians 12 building the body analogy to drive this point home.
This doesn’t mean that there weren’t parts of the service that were not interactive. Paul also says that the service needs to have both teaching from the elders and order (which often comes from planning and leadership). 1 Corinthians 14:33, “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace —as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.” 1 Timothy 5:17, “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.” The New Testament service wasn’t a free for all, where everything was spontaneous and interactive. Paul believed in the importance of sound doctrine being taught, and this requires study, preparation, and gifting.
I grew up in a charismatic church (others might use the word Pentecostal), where for many years we had under 100 people total in our congregation. Our worship was led by teams of church members, but every week had interaction from different members. People would share a prophetic word, vision, or revelation that God had given them. There was order as an elder or the pastor directed this along with the worship leader. The worship team itself was mostly made up of “laypeople” so that too was interactive. Even though we didn’t use mazes, poetry readings, or art, we still knew that worship had to be interactive and participatory if we wanted to hear all that God wanted to share with us. Who knew each week who God would speak through?
I will have to admit that I have never been in an interactive sermon. I don’t think the old “turn to your neighbor and say….” really counts as interactive. I am a Bible teacher by call and experience, not a preacher, so it is always odd to me not to have interaction when I preach. I am so used to posing questions and having discussion, that I often leave preaching feeling unsatisfied. What I mean is that the interaction shows me as a teacher that people are learning (or not!), following with me, and guiding the teaching occasionally to a great area of need that they have. I train new teachers 0n all the interactive teaching methods I know, but then toss them out the window for preaching. I realize in churches with hundreds of members, interactive teaching seems not possible, but I believe we have to look at this issue as a church.
So, I don’t think you should run out and fire your church leadership, abandon your normal liturgies, and have a 100% interactive service. I do think though that the Emerging conversation has a valid point here, that we aren’t going to a show. Coffee bars in our churches are one thing, but if we start serving popcorn and slushies, then we may have a problem. Our churches reach full potential when the whole body is involved. That doesn’t mean everyone gets to teach or lead worship, but it does mean that we need to pull apart how we do church and seek to create space for involvement and interaction. Otherwise, there will be no reason to go to church in person when you can sit in your chair at home and watch the live stream on the internet. No, I am not recommending that!
The Bible Nerd 