Of all the ways to describe the State Church in Germany, 'Flexible' doesn't come to mind that often. Most services follow a pretty old, solid liturgy -including many 'modern' services. The church in Kemnat is a bit more open, but We've Always Done It Like That, or That Is The Way It Is, are still used sometimes for stopping ideas.
On the other hand, there are advantages to working with a big old church. Firstly it is stable. It moves with the sedate grace of a liner, rather than the frenetic twitching of a speedboat, so when it finally does change direction, it tends to stick with it. This helps us because arts -despite questioning a lot of things- actually need stability.
We've also discovered that when we work outside of the box, it is actually pretty flexible, especially in a place like this where the pastor wants to move on. Last week I had a great time with two of our young people preparing the September Ignite Homegroup. This time it will be organised by Philip, who is one of the younger team members- he was a bit unsure about this at first but now he's coming up with masses of ideas. His chosen theme is 'What is heaven like?' and he was last seen reading through Revelation so it should be an interesting evening. He's enlisted help from another team member and they are talking about using video and sound to get the ideas across, and to get people thinking and asking questions, which is entirely in keeping with the approach we have adopted for these evenings. If we tried to bring these ideas into a Sunday morning, we'd probably hit all kinds of opposition, but because this will be happening on a Monday, we are under the radar, out of sight.
Under the radar is a good place to be: We can let people worship in different ways, disciple people and grow leaders. We're starting to hear the odd story of how God is speaking to people during this time, and we are seeing some great creativity come out of the times.
It is also sustainable: people are keen to be involved because it allows them to be creative in an encouraging environment without a huge amount of work and energy every time. I usually find it is enough to have two meetings with the person preparing, each a couple of hours long- and that's mostly because we're talking about other things alongside the stuff we are doing. If we got all professional we'd be done in about 45 minutes, and bored. Of course the people preparing put in more time beyond that, but from the feedback we are getting it isn't a lot, and they are all open to doing it again. Suddenly we have a new way of doing church that isn't a lot of work.
Because this is under the umbrella of the Lutheran church, we have a framework in which we can operate. We have an anchor in that we are accountable to the church leaders, so there's less danger of someone taking on a random theology and pulling everyone with them, but we have freedom to create, to do things differently.
On the other hand, there are advantages to working with a big old church. Firstly it is stable. It moves with the sedate grace of a liner, rather than the frenetic twitching of a speedboat, so when it finally does change direction, it tends to stick with it. This helps us because arts -despite questioning a lot of things- actually need stability.
We've also discovered that when we work outside of the box, it is actually pretty flexible, especially in a place like this where the pastor wants to move on. Last week I had a great time with two of our young people preparing the September Ignite Homegroup. This time it will be organised by Philip, who is one of the younger team members- he was a bit unsure about this at first but now he's coming up with masses of ideas. His chosen theme is 'What is heaven like?' and he was last seen reading through Revelation so it should be an interesting evening. He's enlisted help from another team member and they are talking about using video and sound to get the ideas across, and to get people thinking and asking questions, which is entirely in keeping with the approach we have adopted for these evenings. If we tried to bring these ideas into a Sunday morning, we'd probably hit all kinds of opposition, but because this will be happening on a Monday, we are under the radar, out of sight.
Under the radar is a good place to be: We can let people worship in different ways, disciple people and grow leaders. We're starting to hear the odd story of how God is speaking to people during this time, and we are seeing some great creativity come out of the times.
It is also sustainable: people are keen to be involved because it allows them to be creative in an encouraging environment without a huge amount of work and energy every time. I usually find it is enough to have two meetings with the person preparing, each a couple of hours long- and that's mostly because we're talking about other things alongside the stuff we are doing. If we got all professional we'd be done in about 45 minutes, and bored. Of course the people preparing put in more time beyond that, but from the feedback we are getting it isn't a lot, and they are all open to doing it again. Suddenly we have a new way of doing church that isn't a lot of work.
Because this is under the umbrella of the Lutheran church, we have a framework in which we can operate. We have an anchor in that we are accountable to the church leaders, so there's less danger of someone taking on a random theology and pulling everyone with them, but we have freedom to create, to do things differently.
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