I pastored and led worship for many years in a congregation that was one of the loudest I knew; we had a group from our home for the mentally handicapped, and a large number of street people who would regularly offer commentary during my messages.

The commentary only made the messages feel more profound, I think. Life interwove with life, ideas with application, with messy, forgiving life together.

My favorite messy moment? Once when I was in Winnipeg at a great church that served prostitutes and native glue addicts, a little, old bent over street woman came up and stood beside me while I spoke.

She was half my height, and held my arm. I put my hand on her back. We smiled at each other, and she stayed with me through part of the message, then wandered off the stage.

There is so much joy in the buzz, in the energy, of life together. Why would we trade that for great graphics?

Rachel Held Evans | Blessed are the un-cool.

NOTE: I am also a musician and artist, so I appreciate the “creationality” of churches that care about aesthetics, presentation, astute design and expressive architecture. It is the mingling of these that almost never occurs, because often those whose tithes could resource the excellence don’t want to be at a messy church.

It has been my privilege to know many who do though, and they have my deepest love and respect for directing their resources toward serving the poor, the outcast and me.

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“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement

1955-2011

www.Apple.com

Catalyst West 2010: Dallas Willard Part 1 from Catalyst on Vimeo.

Dunn & Wilt are on tour this Fall, and may be in your area.

I have the privilege of recording a fresh set of stories today for radio and web listeners, and my heart is heavy with the call to worship in a perilous and tumultuous world.

Romans 12:9-21 follows the great worship passage of Romans 12:1-2, and opens a tool shed of “how-to’s” for daily responsive living.

After a pointed call to love, serve, and elevate others, it ends with these words:

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21 NIV)

Go today, and overcome evil – in all it’s dehumanizing and subtle forms – with good. Love and serve your friends; love and serve your enemies. Let God fight your battle, as you attend to mimicking his life.

Rise today to your worship vocation.

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One Unique, Spiral Galaxy.

One unique spiral galaxy. A commonplace yellow star. Orbited by 8 planets.

On one of those planets, a blue one, a species is increasingly aware of what a remarkably beautiful universe this is. We are asking questions about that universe in this century that no one has asked before in history.

We are living day by day, just as it dawns on us that the earth was made… (by the stars) (by God).

Does God Exist?

Tonight, the Discovery Channel unveiled its fascinating new show, Curiosity. It will be my favorite pop show, along side of Hawking’s Into The Universe.

The discerning mind however, just as was necessary with Isaac Asimov’s popular explorations of science in another generation, must be employed.

Why? Worldview is everywhere. Just because we like something, or it has great graphics and storytelling, doesn’t mean it’s all true.

The topic – “Does God Exist?” opened the show, and physicist Stephen Hawking, along with a cast of theistic, agnostic and atheistic scientists (and one theologian) reflect on this fundamental question.

First, Hawking articulates the conclusion “We don’t need God for this universe to have been created.” He goes on, “…And any idea of heaven, or afterlife, does not exist.” Of course, Hawking is presented over and against those who declare him a heretic.

Then, the roots of our understandings of God, god or gods in primal times were explored. Belief in supernatural meaning being applied to mysterious events, was of course, debunked. With a little knowledge, the Vikings could have been more, more, … like us. The reasoning of the Greeks and Aristarchus’ questioning of the gods causing eclipses, is touted as a moment of “liberation.”

Hawking is right. The “God of the Gaps” is a dysfunctional way to dig into faith. Some things may be explained – but “why” is a question that will always exist.

He then goes on to discuss the “Laws Of Nature,” not saying why they exist, but that they exist and replace God.

Their cause is not explained – just that they do. Welcome to lack of application of the question once again – “Why?”

“Laws govern,” Hawking says, “Not God.”

Second, fellow scientists from different backgrounds speak.

I won’t take the time to articulate their positions. Astrophysicists, Cosmologists, Physicists and Theologians spoke, from a variety of perspectives.

How Fellow Scientists Responded.

How fellow scientists from a variety of viewpoints responded to Hawking’s claims was fascinating.

One was left with the sense that Hawking’s big statements about cause and meaning – to his fellow scientists – were made by a private human being. I.e. They did not affirm that his statements of meaning were speaking, necessarily, for the scientific community.

Fascinating.

What We Saw.

Now, I am a Theist (and a Christian), and at the same time hold a high regard for science. My cards are on the table.

I’ve been entranced by two things since I was young – by the stars, and by spirituality.

Both captivated me, spun me around, and became the pivot points for most of my inner conversation (and outer) throughout life.

I felt atoms in my bones, music in my heart, and an encounter in my soul, since before I could articulate what was going on.

But that is not what we’re here to talk about – what happened in the show?

Hawking spoke brilliantly about “What and How.”

Then, he began to conjecture about “Why,” and “Meaning” as if it were a scientific conclusion – a strange direction for a man so committed to the language of objectivity and the scientific method.

As the scientists were interviewed, it was clear: Every scientist represented seemed somewhat uncomfortable with the conclusions Hawking was voicing about God and the afterlife. Some were directly uncomfortable with his definitive conclusions; all were somewhat uncomfortable that he was making them as a scientist. He was explicitly changing the scientific game, and taking it into the realm of fact statements about unknown metaphysics.

When people make fact statements about things they simply don’t know about, we call them ignorant, or worse yet, fundamentalists.

Science itself, for some of those on the panel, was in danger.

In other words…

Stephen Hawking was making a faith statement based on his knowledge. First, let me say that is the best way to make a faith statement. Many theists could use a strong dose of curiosity and exploration to overtake dogmatism. I include myself when suggesting that others take that prescription. We can all learn more.

Back to the discussion. For Hawking, his definition of God required that God create the universe. Doing his math and physics, he felt he didn’t need God to explain this particular universe. For his metaphysical money, he felt that if any alternate (and to him, more simple and elegant) way of describing universal origins could be presented, within the realm of scientific integrity, that would disprove God’s existence.

There is only one problem – an alternate story doesn’t make it true – it just makes it an alternate story. Faith in anything, at the beginning of the show, was presented as primal and outdated (the Vikings and the Wolf swallowing the sun in a solar eclipse). Now, Hawking was presenting his own “faith” story, albeit based on his gathering of knowledge to date.

The scientists were then welcomed to speak – atheists, agnostics and theists.

All of them, to a person, came back to this. Hawking would sacrifice the objectivity of science to conjecture like this. He was not making science statements, but rather faith statements (non-faith statements in this case, about things which he doesn’t actually know like the gravitational pull of planets or the stoppage of time in a black hole).

In fact, the laws that create not just one universe, but the possibilities of multiverses (multiple universes), are still a mystery. String theory welcomes this mystery.

One scientist asked, “Where did those laws come from, and why do they work?”

Words like elegance, majesty, magnificence and beauty flew around the table, but the question of “Why” kept eluding them. Miracles and strange metaphysics were put on the table. More “whys” were considered.

But ultimately, whether various approaches seem more logical, or intuitive, or neither, the following statement is true when it comes to the cause behind this awe-inspiring cosmos:

“Everyone Has Faith In Something.”

Atheism takes faith.

Theism takes faith.

Make no mistake, life is a leap of faith. One’s evidence is math for their leap of faith. Another’s is an encounter, a story, an experience, an epiphany.

No one knows exactly what the afterlife, if it exists, will be like. It takes faith to believe it exists. It takes faith to not believe it exists.

Faith has clues, and ancient stories, behind it, dating back to the beginnings of humankind. For some, the diversity of those stories disproves them. For others, threads are visible in those stories, and they wind back to primal truth – not superstition.

(Note: Having said this, every faith must be weighed on its own merits, and not lumped in with every other spiritual system. There are many ways to govern a nation – but not all of them are alike and we would do well to tease their stories and results apart to discover one that seems to rise above the others. I.e. All faiths are not the same. their creational and redemptive stories are radically different, and must be weighed.)

For Hawking, and some scientists (so important – many of the world’s greatest scientists are theists), just as protons can “pop” into being, so too a universe (or multiverse) can “pop” into being.

Let’s get this straight. A meaningless “popping into existence” or a meaningful “popping into existence” (a naturally occurring phenomenon or a naturally occurring phenomenon catalyzed by the Will of God) both take faith to embrace.

You can overlay your own meaning, or lack thereof, onto your facts. We can overlay almost any meaning on any fact. The motives behind the meaning we attribute may be more important to study than the fact.

Stephen should have said this, but he didn’t. Some of his fellow scientists alluded to it though. They felt the hole in the logic as it appeared. Science is in danger of losing its role when it ventures into statements of meaning.

In my mind, Stephen’s story is compelling, but not in contradiction to faith.

For my part, Hawking’s discussion actually led me to greater belief in God, not away. Go figure.

Christianity – A Brief Reason For The Embrace.

So, why would one set of human beings hold on to a (Bronze Age) faith with roots deep in the soil of the very ancient story of the Hebrews? With thousands of faith-systems existing on the planet, why choose this one?

First of all, faith is different than religion. Religion is the set of tracks that faith runs on. Many people who lose their religion, have not lost their faith. They are figuring things out. Their faith, on some levels may still be intact, but needing a fresh system to support it.

Christian faith – why choose it?

I won’t dishonor my readers with a long story, and this is a late night post. When I hear cosmic mysteries slammed into belief statements and argumentative slop, I cringe. I apologize to my atheist and agnostic readers for thoughtless declarations from those who have faith in Jesus Christ as God that are narrow, lack study beyond biblical focus, and are even dehumanizing to you as a person. Every Christian should be cross-trained in many disciplines, rather than shouting in fear against a world that is learning more every day (albeit, a world that is also overlaying new definitions of meaning on their fresh discoveries).

However, Christianity may not be as narrow as it seems, specific as it is (in time, place, ethnic roots and story). We may want an angel to drop off the story – but it may be in its very specificity and humanity that it’s merit lives.

Here is all I will say on this at this time.

I have been drawn to many meta-narratives throughout my life. Atheistic evolution has had it’s attractions to me. Zen buddhism intrigued me for a time (I like wide open space). It’s a big cosmos, and it’s all buzzing with complexity and grandeur. The mystery runs strong, and my spiritual experiences have always been riveting, encompassing and moving as I sought to nestle into a faith worth holding (note again, atheism as well as theism takes faith – a conviction related to things we don’t fully know about).

Now, not all stories about God or god or gods or no god are the same. And not every story about God is best understood by the historic acts of those who have also claimed to possess that faith (enter the Crusades, and other horrors doing violence to the central teachings of Christ on love, peace-making, acceptance and forgiveness).

Every story must be weighed for how compelling it is in the face of all that we actually know, and experience, and feel (welcome emotions into the process rather than just reason). In a new world filled with different ethnicities and worldviews now on our doorstep, each story must be carefully weighed.

Christianity offers me a God who deals in blood and bone, in humanity and frailty and dust and cosmic meaning. It offers an ancient narrative of self-giving Love, human dignity, a Personality at the center of the universe, a self-revealing divinity, explanations of war, hate, divorce, beauty and ultimate reasons behind both vast creation and the next few moments of your very, very significant life.

Of course, Stephen, we need an afterlife if we fear the unknown of death. But what if we actually need that story, and are attuned to discover it for a reason? What if those afterlife narratives are all different and should be weighed on their merits?

More than this, in Christianity, Love will not remain hidden, smiling as we make metaphysical guesses in our ignorance. Christianity says that God reveals. Sure, he does it through a human tribe, amidst a history of human tribes. Is that offensive? To me, it makes it so human it feels divine. From the Old Testament to New, it is a strange unveiling, and professed followers of this God have drug many of those ideas through the dehumanizing mud of hatred and violence and political quest.

I’m sorry. But it doesn’t make Christianity less true, just as science is not diminished in its truth by its arrogant, caustic and even dehumanizing fringes.

Galileo Is One Of My Heroes, Too.

For Hawking, Galileo is one of his heroes. He happens to be one of mine as well. Galileo was a Theist, blind as he apparently was in matters of faith due to his time and place (this would follow from Hawking’s argument that we are getting smarter with our incrementally building information). He was a Christian by profession in fact, and Hawking would suggest the need for God has been slowly replaced since his time.

“Science” Hawking says, “Is a simpler alternative.”

Since when, in the complex micro and macro universe we all study, is simplicity the goal? Could it be that the question of God is actually one that is complex, should be complex, like Astrophysics? Could it be that the question of God and specificity of faith should take great time and great attention?

Now it is true that atheistic science describes the complexities of friendship, love, joy, hate, the sexual experience, family connection in raw, anthropological, dry statements of fact. The cortex looks for patterns (unique to humans), and creates stories around the patterns (enter the power of stories to human beings). A mountain is beautiful because your ancient ancestor thought she could find food there. Social constructs exist out of raw need and a desire to dominate for food and water access. Color is just that – color. It’s interesting, and helpful.

But, again, are any of these things that “simple” by any definition? No, they are all quite complex, and deserve a complex answer. (Current atheists do give complex descriptions of these things, but to say that their answers are simpler and more elegant, is untenable to me. That’s for another time.)

A list of encounters across my life and those of others close to me – relationships, dramatic (and not so dramatic) answers to prayer, moments of raw metaphysical encounter, uncanny dreams and senses of things beyond my knowing, defy (to some degree) scientific measurement. You might examine my brain, and find the area where apparently the sense of God’s presence exists biologically. It would be quite red, I think, on the screen.

Give me a more compelling story of meaning, and I’ll be open to hearing it. The problem of evil has been presented as one of the primary reasons faith is unreasonable. I suggest that is only true in some universes, and the way we see our unanswered questions.

So far, a more compelling story hasn’t presented itself to me. (At this point, I hear my atheist friends saying “That’s because you’re deluded and need to believe it is true.) I confess, there are moments I have asked myself this, as deception is a sting and a horror in this world.

But, I don’t think I need to believe it. I think that I want to. I choose to. I am privileged to be believe it.

Science Is A Gift Helping To Shape Faith, Not A Replacement For Faith.

Back to the show. One of the scientists was afraid that Hawking’s statement would further the notion that great scientists are arrogant. I think not. There are enough humble scientists, great in their fields, to keep us away from that assumption. I enjoyed reading one the other day – I was grateful for the humility while he made his case, contrary as it was to my perspective.

(Fundamentalism weighs a belief immediately to see if it fits into his/her current belief system; curiosity and the spirit of discovery temporarily suspend disbelief and welcome an internal and external dialogue. Again, we’re looking for compelling stories.)

However, when a scientist declares that his science has defined ultimate meaning, that logic has led he or she to the place of determining if God exists, he or she steps outside of their sphere of expertise. However, as a human being, Hawking can say whatever he wants. Every scientist can. Good on him to commit himself. But to say that this is a scientific statement, lacks integrity with the scientific method.

To say “I don’t know that God exists, therefore He doesn’t,” and to say “In the face of my limited science, I declare that there is no afterlife,” in the face of the limited knowledge we have (brilliant as we can be), is actually a faith statement as “ignorant” as some scientists accuse others of being.

It’s like the Soviet cosmonauts who declared that God didn’t exist because they went to space and couldn’t find Him. If you’re not looking for God, then all the majesty of the universe will never convince you. But, your heart may. Welcome it into the equation, cerebral and logical as your gift may be.

Imagination, in this case, may lead us to reality, rather than to delusion. We do want to believe things, and can make ourselves believe them – but some things, we feel and are moved by and transcend our logic. When my wife and I kiss, there are biological and psychological triggers that fire. However, our kiss defies the math that seems (on the surface) to make it.

A Discoverer Is Different Than A Creator.

For Hawking, he has always been fascinated by the stars. I was as well, but didn’t have the gift set to become a Cosmologist or scientist. I ended up in the arts, and in the worlds of spirituality and creativity.

I did however, love the stars as deeply. But when I stared at the stars, I felt an overwhelming Presence. My Cause, my Reason. Since I was a child, that Presence was near. Through the crises of life, that Presence lifted me, strengthened me, and has restored the damaged lives of others with elegance and stunning beauty before my very eyes. The story of Jesus expands my understanding of that Presence, enlarges it, lifts it.

It doesn’t narrow it or make it smaller. It makes that Presence expand in my mind to embrace the fullness of my humanity at the same time that it embraces the fullness of every nuance of which Hawking so refreshingly speaks.

The words of Jesus expand the universe to its logical majesty, and define what it means to be truly human. All the strokes are there. Those scriptures don’t talk about microbiology, string theory, gravity, dark energy or aerodynamics. They don’t intend to – those things are for us to discover, basking in the meaning of what it means to be human that the scriptures afford.

Great scientists should come to conclusions and voice them, like Hawking. I’m grateful that he said what he did. He makes me happy.

But to make faith statements with human humility, not knowing what is beyond our knowing (as if we’ve been behind the blackboard of the elegant math), is as vital for a scientist as for any Christian.

Apparently, as Hawking said, if we have the right ingredients, we can create a new universe.

But wait; we can’t. And if we could, we’d have to use the matter, energy and space (or just energy and space – Einstein) that already exists. But we don’t. And an alternative way of speaking about the big bang, or creation, or origins doesn’t mean it’s true – it just means that it’s an alternate story (compelling as it may be to some, and yet less compelling to me as the story of creation).

After this show, it’s clear again – at least to me. The story of God as cause of laws, and energy and space – mingled with the joy of His nearness I feel as I write my scattered thoughts tonight, is stronger than ever.

Sure, I need to believe it; just a like a scientist inebriated on the vapors of a wild discovery needs to believe we can know everything because we have learned so much by honoring curiosity.

Some have given their lives to that faith. I have given my life over to my own faith, ever since I was a small boy looking at the stars. It didn’t begin in a church for me, as it didn’t for Hawking.

It began in a star field.

Even a child knows that a new discovery doesn’t make you the author of anything.

It only makes you a discoverer.

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One of my favorite Cosmologists is George Ellis. His writing and activities as a cosmologist (who worked with Hawking and stood for justice in his native South Africa) are worth studying.

“The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do.” Galileo Galilei (Natural Philosopher, Mathematician and Astronomer – 1564-1642)

The Next Worship Leaders
Dan Wilt

At the age of 10, I had the privilege of serving as an acolyte in my family’s small United Methodist Church. The acolyte is the cherubic little boy or girl that lights the candles on the altar with a long, arched, golden pole, symbolically declaring at the appointed time that “Gathered worship has now begun.”

The Vocation Of Worship Leadership
As a worship leader of over 20 years, that sense of vocation has never left me. People gather in homes, churches and pubs saying “Where, when can I go and meet with God?” The “worship leader” of every age says “What about here, what about now?” and lights the candles of music, visual art, design, architecture, sacramental actions and other languages of worship for the gathered community of faith.

Through these acts of worship leadership in local faith groups, a number of vital, formational dynamics can occur in the Christian’s life:

• the biblical story is remembered and reclaimed,
• personal and corporate devotion are renewed,
• relational accountabilities are established,
• shared resources are gathered,
• fresh visions of faith are taught,
• missional communities are galvanized in worldview and action, and
• transcendant encounters with God are given a weekly arena in which to occur.

I have had a unique and diverse vantage point on the worship trajectories of the past 20 years. I have been involved as a pastor and worship leader (the local church), worked creating training resources for various record labels (the worship industry), taught in a Christian college (the faith-based university world), spoken about worship on radio (the Christian radio industry), written songs and made CDs (as a worship artist), and engaged in gathered worship experiences in many denominations (as a worshiper). As far as contemporary worship expressions go, you might say I’ve “seen it all,” at least to some degree.

From these vantage points, I’ve watched the gifts and fads of gathered worship come and go, and worship leaders bob up and down on the waves of a fickle consumer market. My years of work in all of the above roles has exposed me to both the glory and gory stories of the Christian worship subculture over the past decades. Through it all, I am more committed than ever to celebrating, and reinforcing, the vocation of the worship leader in the ever-emerging world.

Worship Leaders Are Being Compelled To Grow
I see, like many, that a page is now turning, and the gifts given to the 20th century church, particularly in music and the gathered worship experience, are compelling us to mature with them like teenagers bumbling into young adulthood. The worship leader of yesterday could get away with some “fast and loose” approaches to theological and missional thinking. The worship leader of today simply must think through, and live out, their views on worship in a way that is under more scrutiny (a good word, in this case). The expectations for passionate leadership, creative innovation, theological reflection and missional engagement are simply much higher today than they were even ten years ago.

The worship leader of today is being shaped by God to be part artist, part pastor, part theologian, part cultural visionary, part historian, part storyteller and part technical wizard.

It is clear that a new kind of worship leader must rise to the challenge of navigating the gathered worship needs of the 21st century worshiper – and the 21st century human being. In fact, it is clear to me that a new kind of worship leader is already showing up across the world, prepared by God to be present to this multi-faceted call. I call this next worship leader a “worship artisan” – but that is for another article.

Ten Defining Marks Of The Next Worship Leaders
The following is a list of ten ways the next worship leaders will be set apart from those of the last 50 years.

The next worship leaders will:

1. Artfully Narrate Human Origins
Through the media of music, visual art, literature, movement and oratory the next worship leaders will understand that human beings have greatness in them, and that greatness has a part to play in healing and beautifying the world. They will enlist the energies of artful storytelling to help those gathered to worship understand the human’s role in the cosmic narrative of restoration.

2. Create Spaces For Transcendent Encounters
The most effective worship leaders understand that a song is a place to which we go; it is a transcendent space in which a living encounter can occur. Popular worship music will continue to have it’s place as the shapes of church worship shift, but it will now run alongside of instrumental music, liturgies ancient and fresh, highly artistic music with more nuanced lyrics and many other (even esoteric) creative ways for a soul-in-process to engage with God.

3. Reinforce Biblical Worldview
To be truly human, the whole counsel of the scriptures lays out a worldview in which the Personality standing at the center of the cosmos interacts with the people created in His image. In response, these people are being transformed by the Spirit’s art of personal healing (a theme we have majored on in corporate worship), and yet are also reflecting the revitalizing themes of justice, the hope of new life, and the inexhaustible resources of the New Creation into today’s world. It is worship as we know it, but now using its whole brain.

4. Welcome The Holy Spirit As God
The next worship leaders understand that neither dry orthodoxy nor rampant emotionalism serve a well-thinking, spiritually formed, missional body of committed followers of Jesus Christ. They understand that without an ongoing encounter with the Person of the Holy Spirit (who is God, and not a force or plasma as some are wont to describe Him) the Church will not be empowered to bring cultural restoration in a lasting way. They know that both a strong pneumatology and a fully functional vision of the Trinity, are essentials ingredients in a church built for speed.

5. Affirm Both Creational And Redemptive Stories
This next idea will take more time to express, but for the next worship leaders, it is pivotal in shaping the way they think about the meaning of worship in today’s church.

There are two stories at work in the world today, and they come together as one in Jesus’ re-telling of the world. The creational story is a story shared by many human beings (both Christians and others) – love should win, we should not rape the planet, creativity is a beautiful gift flowing uniquely from every person, the vulnerable should be protected, wholeness is possible, relationships are precious, peace is closer to the way it “ought” to be than war, people have intrinsic dignity and the sex slave trade is horribly, horribly wrong.

Many Christians, taking a fresh hold of this creational story and seeing it as biblical, have realized just how similar a Christian is to other valiant human beings embracing these same ideals. However, some have assumed the creational story is the same as the redemptive story.

Creational themes are a vital part of the Christian story, but lack context or direction without the redemptive story of our faith. Without a compelling rendering of the redemptive story that is the good news, often articulated by worship, liturgy and more, Christian faith becomes simply another way to be humane and socially conscious. We lift our glass with everyone doing good, and think we’re close to finishing our work.

However, our redemptive story gives a “Why” to the human, creational story – God created all things, we lost relationship by our will, Jesus incarnated God’s outreach to us, taught us the ways of the Father, died a reconciling death on a cross, physically rose alive from the tomb of death, and empowers His church to incarnate his teaching as active narrators of the age to come in word and action.

While the creational story is being recovered in our fresh embrace of justice, social renewal and call to create beauty, there is also a current backlash to the relatively weak ways the redemptive story has been told by Christians to society in the 20th century.

Christians must never confuse doing good with God’s redemptive story that is bringing all things to a specific conclusion. Redemptive stories (Jesus came to us as the Son of God) give meaning to the creational ones (we must get children out of the sex trade). We have the world’s most compelling redemptive story to tell that gives meaning to every human story. Gathered worship, at its best, narrates this full creational, and redemptive, story. Two stories become one in Christ. We sing and re-enact truths from both sides of God’s story in gathered worship.

6. Educate In Eschatology And The New Creation
Music, especially music with lyrics, educates. Like a stained glass window served the illiterate worshipper of another age, a learning averse populace (unless you put it in a movie) needs music once again to open us to the basic theological concepts of a New Creation eschatology (last things). A song can educate about the Trinity, and about God’s plans to right the world with us at His side.

The next worship leaders understand that we have a creative part to play in this (often times remedial) education about “last things.”

7. Reclaim Mission And The Force Of Resurrection
I was asked once by a twenty-something friend why we were not out in the streets doing the more important work of caring for the poor instead of standing together in a room for an hour, breaking the bread of eucharist and reading the scriptures aloud in worship. It was an honest question from a zealous, generous heart.

My answer was immediate. “Our co-mission with Christ must be remembered, reclaimed and renewed in our hearts and minds – with regularity and consistency. We forget who God is and who we are yearly, monthly, even weekly, daily and moment by moment. Over generations, our calling to care for the poor and bring wholeness to people in co-mission with Christ can be forgotten, or gradually degraded in our minds.

Gathered worship assures that will not happen. We may care for the poor today, but if we want to have a reason to do it when we are 70, or we want our great-grandchildren to understand why they should care for the poor, then we had better embrace what happens when we gather to worship. To worship is to remember, and to be empowered for mission in the process.”

The people moved by the force of the resurrection life in us have a singular hope – that life everlasting will manifest in the present as we serve, and will culminate in the future restoration of all things. Worship reminds us of our hope, and gives us a reason to get out of bed on Monday morning and “live it” again.

8. Emphasize Christological Themes
Father Raneiro Cantalamessa, the personal teacher of Pope John Paul II, walked into the small chapel where I and a few dozen other Christian leaders sat. He explained to us that in his inter-faith gatherings with Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and others, all was well as long as the conversations were phrased in the generic language of “God.”

But, he said, mention Jesus and you get the entire room buzzing. “The battle,” he said, “is around the King.” In my estimation, “Christology-light” and a generic Theism have been slowly creeping into the church as we recover our connection with other human beings. This reconnection has been so necessary, and has broken down walls of elitism separating some vocal Christians from the “lesser lights” of their human family. But there is an inherent danger to that “loving feeling” – we can quickly lose a distinctive that, from a biblical perspective, is essential.

In other words, yes, we must redefine the “us-them’s” so characteristic of Christian speech. The only us-them in the scripture is a covenant us-them; defining who has responded to God’s covenant love and who has not. There is no discussion on a human level – we are all family.

However, recovering our human connection, and then at the same time welcoming a softened vision of the particularity of Christ (Christology) in our faith, does violence to the full Christian story. There is no secular world, yes. But that does not mean that everything we believe is the same as everyone else. The redemptive story still stands apart from the stories most of culture is telling right now.

The next worship leaders have something to say about Jesus as Savior, Lord, Master and God. Either Jesus is more than us, or he’s not. The next worship leaders will reinforce a loving and gracious Christology in the church, and affirm the way of Jesus being the only pathway by which we can ultimately become fully human. They are saying this graciously, in a way that is enigmatic and at the same time, true.

9. Clarify Language Related To Heaven, Hell And The Afterlife
In keeping with the idea that worship leaders are narrators of the Jesus story in art and music, the next worship leaders will see it as important to emphasize where human beings are going after they die. They will wrestle, with honesty and discernment, with divergent ideas about heaven, hell and the afterlife. They will seek to pastor their people in a way that shows them how to live in the present in light of the afterlife to come.

Current “hot” discussions will be necessary to them, and seen as important dialogues not to be avoided. The next worship leaders will move as confident models of the Christian’s ability to affirm belief, without dogmatically criminalizing that of others. They will believe passionately, communicate hopefully, and yet welcome diversity to the degree that it does not impede the formation of a recognizable, viable Christian faith in a worshipper.

They will lead worship in the midst of this tension, and find the grace to create anchor points and mystery points in songs and expressions of worship.

10. Affront Cultural Chaos With Stunning Creativity
For the ancient Jews, the “waters” of the irrepressible sea represented chaos, disorder and impeding doom. In the beginning, the scripture tells us, God speaks his creative word to the “waters” of chaos, and order comes into the creation as the parted waters find their place.

The next worship leaders understand that while there is much beauty in the world, it remains a broken, chaotic and confusing place for the soul. With artisanal wisdom, they will draw on many traditions of historic worship leadership, mingle them with the intimate and energized encounter marking our current worship experience, and part the chaotic waters of culture with creativity. These worship arts and crafts will clarify, set at ease, and bring much needed perspective to the world they touch.

They will open the gates on their creativity, while remaining personally pure, relationally accountable and spiritually valiant. At the same time, they will recognize that many of the restraints placed on Christian artists (and leaders) are shadows lingering from weak theological and moralistic visions of the Christian life. They will reclaim creative worship leadership, both serving the church’s need for accessible worship environments and operating out of a vision of creativity that is wild, adventurous and courageous by any standard.

The Next Worship Leaders: Acolytes and Artisans
The next worship leaders are ready to act, taking their creative calling seriously and understanding the vital role worship leaders play in the holistic spiritual formation of the next Christians. They will dip into the past for artisanal wisdom as they create spaces for encounter with God, and the reclaiming of Hope. They will press through their own mental and traditional barriers to unleash their creativity in the service of God’s expansive story.

The next worship leaders are ready to play their part in calling the church to living worship, and in calling humanity to its original design. They are ready to be the Acolytes who say “Let’s worship here; let’s worship now” to every human being who will listen. They will be equally comfortable stepping on to cultural stages as they are stepping on to church stages – and they will create spaces for transcendent encounters in every forum given to them. dlw

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Bio:

Dan Wilt, M.Min. has been working with worship leaders in local communities for over 20 years. His innovations in online, live and university-level training models have been nominated for awards and proven effective in the lives of thousands of creative leaders globally. He is currently a freelance writer, artist and conference speaker, as well as the founder of www.WorshipTraining.com – an online worship learning resource serving worship leaders worldwide.

Dan edits Inside Worship Magazine, and has written for industry voices such as Worship Leader Magazine, Vertical Music and Vineyard Music. His radio moments of “spiritual storytelling” are heard by over half a million listeners on Keep The Faith Radio. Dan’s instrumental collaborative (keyboards, electronics and hammered dulcimer), Dunn & Wilt, creates liturgical worship spaces and musical environments for healing. He  keeps a blog at www.DanWilt.com, lives with his beautiful wife and three children in Franklin, TN USA.

Contact For Events, Music and Teaching: wildpearcreative@gmail.com

1. Draw Diagrams With Druids

Patrick met people and their worldviews where they were, and led them to consider a new possibility. The story is told of how Patrick, on a sandy beach, dialogued with 3 Druid priests about their worldview.

With a stick, Patrick drew a circle in the sand, and put a cross through it’s middle. From here, he suggested that there might be an entirely fresh narrative lens through which reality could be seen – the Gospel.

He walked to the sure, from right where they were.

2. Scribe Symbols With The Sun

Patrick used the symbol of the sun and embedded the cross within it, to create some level of familiarity for his sun-worshipping listeners. He built bridges with familiar symbols.

Patrick was not afraid of culture, nor did he see it only as an enemy to be faced. He saw culture pointing (sometimes dimly) to God’s great Story, studied culture like a textbook, and leveraged it to proclaim human freedom in Christ.

He pointed his shoe toward what they knew.

3. Pen Prayers With Poetry

Patrick’s most famous prayer is the Lorica, otherwise known as “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.”

His “Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me” rhythms and repetitions have captured the imaginations and faith of millions across the centuries.

He embodied faith in art, and in doing so, still disciples Christians today with truthful words and inspires them with Trinitarian confidence.

He led with his art to access the heart.