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Archbishop Peter Jensen's Christmas Message 2011 on the centrality of Jesus to human history
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Herald Opinion writer, Lisa Pryor, has decided that she is done with celebrating weddings that are sexy, but joyless.
Her opinion piece in the Herald today, What a pity the bridal whirl has turned into 'So You Think You Can Dance', is an interesting look at modern life through the lens of Joy.
It reminded me again what I have long suspected, that Joy is the New Black. Of course, you can make anything the 'New Black' if you can find a few people to nod while you say it.
But I suspect that Joy is back on the map. I recently have driven past two billboards using the word Joy in advertising. One was a luxury car commercial: 'Joy is creating more out of less'. (Travelers on the Anzac Bridge will be able to report on the exact wording).
Joy is the new Black.
Pryor identifies dancing and singing to make her point:
What makes me most jealous, though, is the dancing. Recently I became acquainted with the thrill of Jewish wedding dancing, where the purpose seems to be to whirl each other around so fast that someone is bound to lose an eye or dislocate a shoulder. . These joyous, timeless antics . seem to show up what is wrong with contemporary, Western dance-floor culture. Too much, modern dancing is about trying to come across as sexy or cool. And nothing kills the joy of dancing like feeling judged, especially on the grounds of sexual attractiveness and trendiness.
I'd call that a simple and insightful observation. Dancing is meant to be an activity of joy within community, and yet we all know that its Western form is at its base about an individual looking sexy. And so a genuine expression of community becomes a tired expression of self.
Pryor then turns to singing. She listened to a speaker, 'whose topic dealt with rebuilding our singing society'. She says:
Dennis talked about how, two generations ago, singing was an everyday activity for Australians, whether around the piano or the fire. He lamented how singing gradually became something you only did if you were good at it. His talk made me ponder places where singing lives on as a communal, amateur activity.
Pryor can only summon up Karaoke as an example.
Karaoke?
Is that it?
I can think of another place. Where I will be with this post goes online: Gathered with believers and singing with his saints.
Those of us who trust Jesus have everything valuable in life: faith, hope, love, grace, forgiveness, justification, justice, assurance, confidence, peace and hope. In short, we have God.
I wonder whether a way to appeal to not-yet-believers will be through the lens of joy. We will need orthodoxy (right doctrine). And orthopraxis (right living). But also orthokardia (a right heart). Churches are communities that obey God when he says in Colossians 3:15-16:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
A Professor of Church Music in the United States once said:
A group who sings together becomes one and remembers it’s story . Congregational song is creedal, because the words of familiar songs help shape a congregation's theology and music summons them in a time of need.
Anyone nodding?
(If you are asking if our singing could be an even greater expression of joy, I'd be answering yes to that. And I be doing this because it is commanded in Colossians 3:15-16, which is an ongoing activity of letting the Word of Christ dwell amoung us.)
Of course, I generalise badly. There are a few of us who really love to sing. And who are able, despite the clunky emotional/liturgical gear shifting that gets in the way, to sing authentically. But on the whole, I wonder if church singing is yet another head to the 'sexy or cool' medusa Pryor bemoans. Namely that we are so influenced by the societal pressure to stand out in performance that even in the context of church we are unable to engage with the kind of joy that should so naturally be ours.
You righty assert that we can’t organise for joy. But there is an underlying converse fallacy at work here. For we can certainly organise that joy never shows up. Something we want to avoid, no? Suggestions?
Hoping you'll make reference to this discussion when you speak at TWIST Conference on October 24.
Just last night, I sat one pew ahead of some (I presume not-yet-Christian) visitors, who spent large amounts of the service giggling and asking each other questions about all the weird things going on. The music (and why we would join together so half-heartedly) was a particular point of bemusement to them.
But it seems this kind of fish-bowling is not unique to SydAng churches. At a recent visit to a certain large pentecostal church, we sat in front of a bunch of young visitors (hooligans, really) who it seems came to poke fun by jumping around and screaming and whistling and gesticulating wildly in extreme mockery of what they obviously deemed bizarre behaviour.
Now on the one hand we want the 'altogether different' aspect of what we do when gathered together in worship to be on stark display to the outsider. This is part of witness. And it frequently provokes questions which feed gospel conversations. No problem there. However all too often what we do is transparently disingenuous (or worse, coercive, vis a vis goading a reluctant congregation to sing lyrics that don't really ring true for them) - which is not only a shame for those of us who are living hypocritically at this point. It can be a real stumbling block to, as you put it, appealing to the not-yet-Christian through the lens of joy.
@Braden, good point. When I went to the U2 concert a million years ago, everyone around me was singing, I think. At least they looked like they were singing. I couldn't hear them because the music was so loud. But everyone was enjoying it.
Perhaps that's why some of the Pentecostal churches have the music so loud? It's communical karaoke with the microphone turned off.
On the other hand, the 'best' singing I've ever had has been with a single guitar and a room full of voices belting out praises. Our voices were lost, but they were lost in voices, not in the accompaniment.
But in the meantime, I love this moment when the Pharisees try to 'organise to that joy never shows up', and Jesus says: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.â€
I notice that, whenever music and singing is mentioned, someone (thanks Jodie!) invariably brings up the greatness of a large gathering with one instrument (unless its an unplugged few) - and wistfully extols the virtue of it and how involved everyone was, how it felt to be there etc etc typically just before we go over and crank up the amp.
Just curious as to the thinking behind "what we actually do" v. what seems to "float our boat"
The million dollar question is, to steal from Lisa Pryor: how do we "spend less energy trying to be chic and more energy trying to encourage un-self-conscious joy"? Because, as much as this is land-mine infested territory where no limb-loving theologian dares to tread (no slight at Michael here - he probably has many wise things to say at this point), the reality is that a decided lack of genuine joy where it is expected (namely Christian fellowship) is as repulsive to the outsider as the opposite is appealing. Mostly because it reeks of fakery (whether real or imagined). And because it points to a brokenness (in Pryor's assessment an unhealthy dose of self-consciousness) which resists the kind of change that one might expect the Spirit of God to engender.
Now, leaving aside all the reasons why joy might not be reasonably expected in our gatherings (and there are some), who's going to stick their neck out on this one and offer some helpful suggestions as to how it might be helpfully encouraged?
Takers?
What I'm trying to coax out here is what it takes to focus in on God when we sing (and, more broadly, when we gather). Rather than concentrating on the emotional journey itself (ala the experientialist mistake), or the mechanics of liturgy (ala the traditionalist mistake) or even the intellectual curiosities (the rationalist mistake). For it seems to me especially when I sing that I am prone to fly first to one of these than to humble adoration of Jesus. Which harms my soul. And damages my witness.
I forget too quickly the greatness of salvation and so get filled with frustration instead of trading up to an inexpressible and glorious joy. Thanks for the reminder.
Maybe we don't have that intimacy in culture as we may have once done (church or not). Singing the club song with a football team after winning a match, at a concert (like Jodie I would be at U2), screaming your favourite song with four mates in the car on the way to the beach. They all seem to indicate some intimacy with each other under a particular banner.
I think risk is mitigated by intimacy and allows joy to be expressed. Just an idea... could be wrong.
Take MKC as an example. I don't know the other two-and-a-half thousand or so men in the room. I certainly don't share intimate friendships with them. Yet there is freely expressed joy. Made perhaps more odd by the (arguable) consideration that many of these are the same hands-in-pockets types every other weekend of the year.
One of the things about the Jewish dancing (in Pryor's article) is that it simply isn't organised. And that it isn't organised is the reason it lives. That's not to say that nothing is done beforehand -- someone starts the band, the first person starts to sing, someone comes to the dance floor.
But, still it springs naturally. If that observation is true in churches too -- that trying to organise for joy kills it, then we are left only with prayer: To ask God to awaken within us the joy that is already ours.
We can get the right people playing the right instruments. We can choose good songs, and play them well. We can make sure that people are comfortable etc. We can choose the 4/5 songs in a row. We can work on less 'clucky', to use the parlance of our times.
But we need to pray that we will be the communities and people that Jesus has redeemed us to be.
To me, that answers Lisa Pryor's quest: We sing and dance with joy, and not trying to make even our music sexy or cool. We sing because we have joy.
Then I might consider that it is a big event, like a concert/camp/event (yes as per Jodie's #8). There is a different expectation of risk/anonymity? I dunno. My church-mates seem to still be held-back at these kinds of events though.
Just been thinking about this a bit in light of this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l70Ku4MNb2I&eurl=http://.