Performance: Its not a dirty word

Recently there were two things going through my mind (yes, only two!). One was the conference I had recently been to where I had to yet again negotiate and explain the way the musicians were behaving on stage, some believing that we have drifted into the realm of performance etc. The other thing that was going through my head was the U2 concert that I was watching on TV.

Let me reflect firstly on U2. The question I wanted to know was “why were these people at the concert?”. It was not to listen to the music, as they could download this on iTunes. It was not to see the “U2 show”, as I was watching that for free in my living room. So why spend the $X hundred dollars for a few hours of entertainment? It would appear that there is something about the concert experience that works. I want to say that that experience is ‘church’.

That is to say that the U2 Concert is church (keep reading, I am not a heretic…yet). The word that we use to translate to church is ekklesia. Simply it means to “call to assembly”, hence the crowd or mob in Acts 19:32 is described as an ekklesia. U2 is a group gathered together, but it is not a Christian church, it is a U2 church. It is gathered by U2 for U2. A Christian church is gathered by Jesus for Jesus. The centre of U2 church is the music with some monologues from Bono. The centre of the Christian church is the Word with some music in teaching, expressing, praising and encouraging as well as some other experiences such as prayer.

My point is that both are churches, but both are different. Performance is at the centre of U2 church. But where does that leave performance in the Christian church?

Allow me to turn to the supreme authority on the English language (what’s the icon for tongue in cheek?) dictionary.com

Performance:
1. a musical, dramatic, or other entertainment presented before an audience.
2. the act of performing a ceremony, play, piece of music, etc.
3. the execution or accomplishment of work, acts, feats, etc.
4. a particular action, deed, or proceeding.
5. an action or proceeding of an unusual or spectacular kind: His temper tantrum was quite a performance.
6. the act of performing.
7. the manner in which or the efficiency with which something reacts or fulfills its intended purpose.
8. Linguistics. the actual use of language in real situations, which may or may not fully reflect a speaker's competence, being subject to such nonlinguistic factors as inattention, distraction, memory lapses, fatigue, or emotional state.

But let me begin with the idea of “Performance is the execution of action.”

Let us apply this to preaching. Is preaching performance? If it is the execution of an action, yes. Though when we think of performance many of us have more than just the execution, there is a premeditation in the way that action is executed as well as that it is executed. Again can we see this as preaching? How many of us have practiced our sermons, even in front of a mirror? How many of us should be practicing, keeping in mind that some 80% of communication is non-verbal?!

In this sense music leading is performance, as any other part of church is. The real question is “Is music leading and playing merely helping the congregation technically or are there other dimensions to the leading, like modeling passion, etc.?”

Again if we apply the same principles to preaching I would say many of us would say there is more than just reciting the words on the page. How we say them means something (would love to debate this below, if anyone is up for it). How we sing is as important as what we sing.

Of course there are places we can go in terms of performance of music that can be just plain wrong.

Firstly, if the ‘performance’ is not honest. Applying this to the passion of musicians, if the muso is not passionate about what he or she is playing or singing about then it should not be put on. This is just a lie.

As a side point I think this is one of the places we are uncomfortable when it comes to the use of the word ‘performance’. When I perform as an actor, it is my character, not me that is performing. I.e. if my character is married on stage, it does not mean that I am married in reality. There is a longer debate to be had about whether I am morally responsible for my characters actions: i.e. if I kill another character night after night on stage, have I as a performer committed murder? All this being said, musicians are not actors and what we see on stage we expect to be the person. When we find out that performers personas and personal lives do not match then we have disappointment (Brittany was not a virgin??). This is even more serious for preachers (do I need mention Jimmy Baker?) and Christian musicians.

Secondly, if what is being done by the musician does not glorify God. I would encourage all musicians to have John 3:30 as their creed (look it up!) or consider this story from Frank Gaebelein (author of The Christian, the arts and truth):

“A distinguished artist had completed a canvas of the Last Supper. All was done with great skill, and the chalice in particular had been portrayed most beautifully. As one after another of the artist’s friends looked at the painting, they said “what a beautiful cup!” Then the artist realized that he had diverted attention from the Lord. Taking his brush, he painted out the gorgeous chalice and substituted for it a more quietly beautiful but far less obtrusive one. So should it be with music in worship.”

At the end of the day we do not want church to be U2 church but Christian church, however, I think that musos can serve us well by being more than merely technical leaders and help us sing from our souls as well as our heads.

Organic Church

I have found a 'friend'!

For some time I have been advocating and teaching that there are a number of dimensions to the idea of church: visible and invisible, universal and local, etc. The dimension that is new is "organic or relational verses organizational".

The idea here is that there are two ways of looking at a church. One is the organisation: who is in charge, who leads, who is accountable to what, etc. The other is relational: who influences who, who is connected to who. I have been suggesting for some time that the organic church needs to determine the organizational aspect of church.

Now I have found a 'friend'! I have been reading through Organic Church by Neil Cole. This is a book that has a lot of theological holes through it, but is also very stimulating in his assertions and questions. On pages 125-26 he uses two illustrations that make my point very well.

The first is the difference between an endoskeleton and exoskeleton. An exoskeleton is on the outside of an organism, it will always hinder the growth of the skeleton as the organism grows into it. An endoskeleton is on the inside of the organism and helps and supports the organism as it grows. The structure is there to support the organic nature of the body. When the structure determines the relationships then the church will be destined to be hindered in its growth.

The second is the difference between pipes and water. When we enjoy the water out of our taps we say 'nice water' not 'nice pipes'. Again the structure is there for what is important.

The trick is working out how to make structures work for the organic nature of church. I think the best way as I have observed other churches is from time to time to blow them up and start again. Usually this will cause pain and anxiety, as it rightly should, but it also cause excitement and creativity and these can be great things for God's kingdom. It will also stop people from being too attached to their structures, something I am sure all of us in ministry are prone to!!

In his book Confessions of a Reformissional Rev. (p141 ff) Mark Driscoll points out that churches usually go through four phases:

1. The Creative Phase: the dream stage
2. The Management Phase: the reality stage
3. The Defensive Justification Phase: the failure stage
4. The Blaming Phase: the death stage

His point is that unless a church is forced to go from phase 2 to phase 1 again it will go on to phases 3 and 4. So he put a 'jackhammer' to his church to stop this from happening. Not a bad idea.

Anyone else had personal experience in this?

Christ and Culture and Complexity

I have been trying to write a Bible study assessing the "missional v attractional church debate" going around and found some big problems.

Firstly, the purpose of the church is not clearly articulated in the New Testament. It is assumed, but there is never any statement that the church should be seeking to evangelise to the world as a church. (Though I think it should, but that is a longer point). The point here is that unless you have a clear doctrine of church you cannot work out what the relationship should be.

Secondly, is that the relationship between the church and the world is fairly complex. This has been illustrated by Carson in Christ and Culture Revisited, where he assesses Neibhur and others who have tried to develop models of considering the relationship. While this is a dense book, and largely assuming a US audience it is worth persevering. Here are some of the models that have me thinking:

There is of course the idea that the church can transform the world and it is here to do so. While this can be taken to its nth degree in the social gospel advocated by Gustavo Gutierrez it can also be taken in smaller degrees. For instance the church can seek to change the world to be a little more like heaven, while acknowledging it will never quite succeed (see Phillip Jensen’s talks on the Resurrection from Matthias Media for an example of this).

Abraham Kupyer has a different approach and that is that it is not the church, but Christians who seek to change the world and makes a distinction between them. Hence while he sought to establish Christian schools and Christian universities they were not church institutions. This keeps the purpose and the identity of the church unique. My question here is do Christians need to address the world as a church from time to time? For example the Australian government will soon review the laws on R rated computer games being available in Australia. While I am planning on getting my Christian friends to lobby against this, should I also ask the Christian leaders of denominations to do so as well as representatives of the church?

At the other end of the scale we see Darryl G. Hart and Frederica Mathewes-Green. They argue that “we have about as much chance of influencing culture as we do of changing the weather”. What we need to do is rather seeking to help people change things, help people weather the inevitable storms. Hence the church and Christians have no place in seeking to transform culture. I believe this is what Driscoll can accuse people of the church merely being a parasite on culture. We are not contributing and we have so much to contribute! On marriage, relationships, work, and especially on the subject of rest in a stressed out world. Further it makes the assumption that just because it cannot be done does not mean it should not be attempted (see my previous post).

My final approach is my own and it works like this: a couple of equations. By contextualisation I mean not just understanding the world, but actually getting our hands dirty and being involved in it. Jesus did! By confrontation I mean the inevitable confrontation that takes place when people talk about Jesus as his lordship confronts people who should be under it.


Contextualisation - Confrontation = Liberalism
The church is merely another part of the world, it has no relevance to the world because it is only a part of it.

Confrontation – Contextualisation = Alienation
The church confronting the world with the Gospel without being a part of the culture it is in means that it will be ignored by the culture and therefore alienated from the society. I am sometimes asked why the church is not persecuted more and wonder if the reason is that we have been alienated instead.

Contextualisation + Confrontation = Persecution
If you are a part of the world and yet confront it with the Gospel then there will be some conflict that takes place. I have put persecution here as the result. But this is only because it makes my equation look cool! There is another possibility as articulated by Carson:

"The complexity will mandate our service, without insisting that things turn out a certain way: we learn to trust and obey and leave the results to God, for we learn both from Scripture and history that sometimes faithfulness leads to awakening and reformation, sometimes to persecution and violence, and sometimes to both." Christ and Culture. Pp227-228

Still have not worked it out yet other than, it is really complex. Or in the words of Diver Dan of Sea Change (one of my heroes) “Hmmm…tricky!”