A few issues of Inside Worship ago, I interviewed Phyllis Tickleon her work related to the Divine Hours. She is an incredibly gracious and warm person, and one of today’s leading voices on religion in America. She is also very creative, and an inspiration to artisan writers everywhere.
I’ve been primarily interested in her thoughts related to worship and creative leaders, but here is an “over” piece of work from her that I think could be interesting and challenging.
She is writing a new book on the changing shape of the institutional church for Baker, and here is the blurb courtesy of the Emergent/C newsletter. It sounds both provocative and interesting.
As regular readers of the blog know, I am a great advocate of Christians reading both material they agree with, and disagree with. We learn so much from those who challenge us, and also clarify our own positions.
At the Institute, we seek to pastor our students as they engage with materials both wholly in line with their present worldview, and as they engage with ideas in the culture and postmodernism that challenge our presuppositions. This book looks like a strong statement Tickle is making, so I’m interested in where she is going to land in the book.
“Phyllis Tickle, founding editor of the religion department at Publishers Weekly, will write a book on emerging Christianity for Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group. The book, whose current working title is The Great Emergence, will be the seventh in Baker’s ēmersion series, a partnership between Baker Books and Emergent Village, intended to provide a practical, positive vision of the church as it steps into the future.
Tickle says the book will discuss the development of the emerging church, what she calls the “Great Emergence,” placing it among the other great phenomena in the history of Christianity, including the Great Schism and the Great Reformation. “Every 500 years,” Tickle said, “the empowered structures of institutionalized Christianity, whatever they may be, become an intolerable carapace that must be shattered so that renewal and growth may occur. Now is such a time.”
Tickle is widely regarded as a leading authority on religion in North America. She has been quoted on the subject by a wide variety of media outlets, including USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, PBS, NPR, and the Hallmark Channel. She is author of numerous books, including The Divine Hours series, God-Talk in America and The Shaping of A Life.
“We are thrilled to partner with Phyllis on this important book. Phyllis will explore one of the most significant developments of American Christianity in recent history,” said Chad Allen, acquisitions editor for Baker Books. “Church leaders, laypeople, and observers alike will be able to locate themselves in this narrative of profound change and come away with ideas about how to live constructively in the days and years to come.”
The link at the bottom of this post, called Exodus From The Land, was written by Barbara Kingsolver Inward/Outward, and was sent to me by Heidi Turner.
Again, the creational view that should enliven our theology and daily practice with care for the world around us, in a consumer age, is hard won in us. We grow up, breathing in waters that tell us to use the earth without thought of replenishment, then have that view reinforced with faith views that tell us it will all burn anyway, and by the time we’re done, we’re brainwashed into believing that it is a small thing to trash the world - since we’re nearing the end of the age.
I must still pursue the case of human life (hunger, poverty, justice, etc.) with my own fuller energies before putting those energies fully into the case of our earth stewardship problems, but as for my daily steps, my wife is helping me to regard the environment we call the land of our sojourn with care and thoughtfulness.
I.e. We choose to make our new deck (replacing the rotted cedar one) out of cedar again, in deference to the land.
I want my children to think like this because its the normal way they do life; not because earthcare is a novelty. It is exceedingly biblical to think this way; and other cultures of the world have far outshon western culture in the way they’ve cared for creation in our generation.
Tuesday May 29th 2007, 11:11 am
Filed under: FullyAlive
I’m fascinated by the twists and turns of culture. This article focuses on the topic of how hot-selling the recent books of aggressive atheist authors have become.
I think a more reasonable view of biblical faith will emerge from this season of history, and the gospel of love and our origins story will begin to poke its head up through the solid debate, or the mudslinging.
Pain, as always, is a good response of the body. It tells us “something must be attended to here, and now.”
Ah, the joy of stomp in the street, sticks in the stairwell, sting in the station. Fellow percussionists, enjoy the ride.
I don’t know much about this fellow human being, but I thought this little subway clip was worth a show.
Art is bustling all around us, all within us, all bright leaps of glory jumping from our souls like solar flares, touching and setting on fire those who come close enough to be fired by the lick of our unique flame. Ah, Creator, thank you for rhythm.
Good friend Jason Clark, leader of Emergent UK, and Paul Mayers have begun a blog that I think will speak along a via affirmativa (the affirmative way) in the conversations today on ideas vital to reimagining our life together in the world as followers of Jesus.
Worship will get its treatment along the way, I am sure, and I think many would find this a renewing site to frequent. Drop them a comment or two to get their new concept started.
Thursday May 24th 2007, 9:18 pm
Filed under: FullyAlive
Here at Louie Giglio’s blog on the Passion site, is a beautiful story about a girl named Ashley, who came beautifully to faith through Passion’s work, and then died in a car accident.
The first letter is from Ashley to Passion, and the second is from her mother. Beautiful news we live and share through living voices.
Skim down through the posts to the one marked “Ashley’s Home.”
Here are the reflections of Brian McLaren on the recent Amahoro interdenominational gathering in Uganda. It’s very interesting, and worth the read.
Here’s a segment for context, then a link to the fuller article:
“…This is the context for the experience that about 40 guests shared with about 160 East Africans in early May 2007 – people from Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. There were Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, even an Eastern Orthodox sister at one of our gatherings.
We were black, white, colored … from the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Korea, Australia, Liberia, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and South Africa. We met in Mokona, Uganda, just north of Kampala, and then divided into teams to visit churches and leaders in rural Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya before returning to debrief and share our experiences.
We represented “the church that is emerging” – emerging from the colonial mindset, the modern mindset, the nationalist mentality, the denominational and sectarian assumptions, the old polarities of left and right, liberal and conservative. We came together for dialogue around the gospel of Jesus Christ….”
To read the Bible well, we must engage not only with current thought, but with the ancients and their approaches to it. Ideas such as Lectio Divina and other ways of approaching the scripture aid us on our quest, as do academic rigor and devotion to the biblical story.
Here’s a lovely little way to start your day. A group of molecular biologists at UCLA have turned human protein sequences (assigning chord and note values to amino acids) into music. Rhythm is dictated by the protein sequence. Here the news item at Science Daily:
Sunday May 20th 2007, 7:16 pm
Filed under: Brainwaves
I appreciate the “Church in tension” cartoons Dan Kimball has posted on his site, questioning who is actually cutting themselves off from reality - those who contend they have everything figured out, or those who contend that too much of church doctrine is up for grabs.
The Worship Artisan UK: A 4 day certificate short course in Worship Leader Formation, Sept. 24-28, 2007, at the beautiful Westwood Retreat Centre in Huddersfield.
Worship artisans from all streams of the Church are invited. In a roundtable learning environment, and with our 3 Voice Learningmodel, we’ll engage present and ancient voices as we explore studies in spiritual formation for artisans, creational and Trinitarian theology, philosophy of creativity, Ignatian prayer, great thoughts in community, worship worldview, renewing our creative leadership, emerging worship reflection and much more. A brief pre-course reading list will be sent to all applicants.
Here’s the 2 minute video invitation from yours truly:
To all my UK worship artisan friends, I’d love to see you there. Westwood is a lovely old Anglican church that an architect artfully transformed into a stunning retreat centre. The view alone is worth coming for! We’ll do the roundtable course with 15 people maximum, and I’m encouraging leaders to come with a “learning partner” - i.e. a friend from their community. Cost is £500, covering full SSU course tuition, accomodations and meals for 4 days.
QUEST FOR EDEN: THE RESTORATIVE NATURE OF CREATIVITY By Dan Wilt
Engage your imagination with me, if you will. Join me in an ancient garden, lush and vibrant with teeming plant and animal life, pulsating and surreal in sound and color. It is twilight, and the stars are just beginning to peer through the deep blue curtain of the horizon before us. You and I blink in amazement at the pristine beauty of this innocent scene; it is somehow ours, and yet somehow we belong to its beauty. Then, a Voice rises imperceptibly all around us, gradually seeming to ripple through water, land and sky. In what must be the mother-tongue of God, now undulating through the garden, we hear these words growing in our hearts: “Let us make human beings in our own image, make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth” (Genesis 1:26-27 from The Message by Eugene Peterson).
Longing For Our Home
God breathes into common dust, and Adam awakens to greet the first day. Eve is drawn from his bone and blood, and the ImageBearers take their first walk through the garden, beginning their Edenic reign. The father and mother to all who live, regardless of culture, faith system or worldview – begin their journey to populate the world with other ImageBearers that will spill forth from their love, just as they spilled forth from the Trinitarian love within God. Following in suit after their Creator, the ImageBearers are welcomed to sub-create – the media of earth and heaven are at their command.
We know the story from here. A choice is made, adoration turned within, which tears the very fabric of the cosmic tapestry – and shatters the image within humankind into a million shards. No sooner does the birth of creativity occur, than repair and redemption must enter the picture.
As the broken Image Bearers of Eden, are still looking for our home at every turn, remembering toward heaven, hungry for an elusive restoration, delirious in our vision as to where we have come from and to where we are going. We are sure of this: that we don’t know how to tend, to recapture, to regain the land we have lost. With creativity pulsing deep within, passion becomes our chisel and imagination our brush as we create architecture, music, and sensual delights to remind us of God-shared glories once unblemished. Left to ourselves, our art begins and ends in humankind. Yet, not designed to create for our own glory, something within the artist is never satisfied. Our arts are designed to prophesy to us, to call us back to Eden, to lure us back to intimate conversation with God in a garden we share. Creativity is by nature prophetic, and leads us toward new vistas where both the beauties and frailties of our walk with God are exposed.
The Elements In Motion
I would like to consider four elements that are necessary for the healing gifts of creativity to flow through followers of Jesus in the world. These four elements, suggesting the elemental tradition of early Celtic Christian spirituality, we will denote by the names Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. Earth will speak of Grounded Creativity, Wind of Inspired Creativity, Fire of Empowered Creativity and Water of Communal Creativity.
Earth: Grounded Creativity
Earth speaks of grounded creativity, of Eden’s integration. Here we speak of the integration between God and ourselves, between you and I, and between I and myself. The creative spirit, in order to thrive, quests for the beauty of the garden where God looks us full in the face once more, and we, without shame and with exuberant joy, look Him full in the face in return. The creative spirit, with tentacular grasp, stretches for the ideal state of personal identity, friendship and human intimacy this side of heaven, yet is often diverted in its pursuit by the broken relational histories with which we are so familiar. We don’t know who God is, and who we are – which makes it very hard to healthily relate to others. The angry and unintegrated artist withholds worship and its creative enfleshing; the prayerful artist breathes worship in and out as one’s very air.
Be grounded in who God is, and who He made you to be. Allow the identity of God, yourself and the people around you to be renewed in you by daily meditation in the scriptures. From the center of a grounded identity, you will deeply affect others as you give not only what others need and want, but as you offer what you have to give.
Wind: Inspired Creativity
Wind speaks of inspired creativity, of Eden’s innovation. Innovation, in its rawest state, is the offering of that which is fresh and new, not because it is new to God or to someone else, but rather because it is flowing for the first time from us. Stretched between a world that regards the most recent and startling as the holy grail, and a Church that regards ancient traditions as the only valid form of sacred expression, the creative spirit must win the day by being true to God, true to itself, true to the community and true to the culture, by welcoming fresh ideas, unfinished themes and uncharted expressions into its creative products. Instead of promulgating simplistic answers in the world, truly innovative creativity recognizes that the most beautiful answer may be found in the inspired asking of an even more beautiful question.
Find the people, places and events that inspire you and press you to innovate. Drink them in on a regular basis, and allow them to stir the unique gifts within you in a unique and powerful way. Be willing both to fail and to discover as you courageously take this journey.
Fire: Empowered Creativity
Fire speaks of empowered creativity, of Eden’s passion. It has been said that insanity is to the artist what garlic is to Italian food. I would say it differently. Passion is to the artist what water is to the fish – it is the only environment in which it can survive. Even in a broken world, we still encounter the rugged beauty of the African terrain, hear the visceral turn of a word or phrase, revel in a forest sound, feel the thunder of an approaching storm, or bask in the scintillating warmth of the winter sun and are enflamed with a transcendent joy. If that is the power of a fallen world to evoke passion within, what will Eden’s colors and sounds be like when our eyes and ears and minds are clear, and it’s original beauty is amplified and restored? I can only imagine. You and I can only create out of that fired and fueled imagination, driven by the unique passions within us.
Tell me what your passion is, and I will tell you how you can help us all connect to Eden’s glory once again. What makes you strangely suffer within, with an inconsolable longing? It will stir the same longing in us if you create from the source of that passion.
Water: Communal Creativity
Water speaks of communal creativity, or Eden’s interaction. Community is that inexorable need built into the Image Bearers – the need for one another. It is a hunger for friendship, interaction and interplay together that finds its beginnings in what is called the perichoresis, the mutual indwelling of the Trinity, the circular dance of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One God, holding community within His breast, places creatures on the earth who cannot escape our need for someone to jointly experience our unique take on the world.
Scythian farmer/warrior/horsemen in Russia, found recently in burial tombs over 2700 years old, are clad along with their families and horses in golden vestments and breath-taking jewelry, articulating their communal penchants, perspectives, and shared views of the world. We must co-exist, not because we have to, but because something in our nature tells us we must. We must care for one another, we must tell our stories, and do so to edify and strengthen the whole. We must not only create individually, but also in community. To create from a community is to bring a more compassionate and true voice to the world than any one could ever bring alone.
“To each one is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good,” says the scripture. Our gifts are given to us to strengthen the “we”; use yours to aid the vulnerable and support the weak. We will use our creative gifts to do the same for you. Serve your community humbly with your creativity, and watch it light the torch of others to do the same.
We The Image Bearers
We are all Image Bearers, all creative from the very start. Our mediums are different. The soul languages we speak are unique to us, be they the idiom of music, images, words, flavors or friendships. The next time you see, hear, touch or smell something beautiful, remember that what you love about the art before you, be it a painting, a perfume or a person, is that it reminds you of Eden, it recalls you to Zion, and it reminds us of what we can be once again if we turn toward God.
The next time you put your hand to a medium, be it pen and paper, strings and amplifiers, seeds and soil, or a human life, remember that you are helping the rest of us to taste Eden’s glory once again – through the vehicle of your unique creativity.
Cheers to the reconciliation of humankind to God, and to the creative tools He has put in our hands. Let’s join Him as He stirs a yearning world through the grounded, inspired, innovative and communal creativity of His people – as He stirs in the hearts of all a longing for the friendship we were made to share with Him, and each other, in Eden.
Bio:
Dan Wilt is an internationally respected worship leader, songwriter, artist and conference speaker. Based out of St. Stephen’s University (www.ssu.ca) in New Brunswick, Canada, Dan is the Director of the Institute Of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies (www.theworshipleader.com). He is passionate about investing today’s worship practice with the riches of the ancients, and the interface between the Church and culture (www.danwilt.com). Dan is also the editor of Inside Worship magazine, and serves as the Worship Development Coordinator for Vineyard Churches Canada. He makes his home in St. Stephen with his wife Anita, and three children, Anna, Abigail and Benjamin.
I was put onto this singer/songwriter, Amos Lee, by good friend Michael Ackerman, along with amazing bands like Death Cab For Cutie and City And Color.
He’s a mix of acoustic music with a touch of R & B. While I initially thought he wasn’t alternative enough for me, I’m really enjoying his lyrical sensibility and artful songwriting. I’m getting inspired to do some songcrafting this summer, in the non-corporate genre, and some of these guys and their music are giving me nudges toward internally familiar territories.
