joshmorton.com

I can’t really adequately say everything I am thinking right now, and I’m not even going to try. I had a really great weekend, had several very good sessions at the worship conference, and had a lot of fun as well. But the pinnacle of the trip was definitely today, thanks to Mars Hill Church (and the Kalamazoo Air Zoo).

I was just so amazed by this church–a mega-church that isn’t like any other mega-churches. They don’t have a fancy building, a big production or any of the razzle-dazzle we associate with churches like Willow Creek. Their church is the majority of a strip mall that they’ve turned into a church. The sanctuary is big and open, with simply the rafters overhead and plain green walls on the outside. It’s setup in arena format, so the stage is in the center with seats on all sides.

After a long weekend of worship conference, I walked in to Mars Hill expecting a lot of flash and bang, and what I got instead was incredibly stunning. My experience actually started about a quarter mile away, when I met a huge traffic backup all the way from the church, up the offramp to the shoulder of the highway. I guess I didn’t need those directions to the church after all. From the exit, it took me twenty minutes to get to the church (which I could see the whole time.. it was right there on the other side of the interstate). Then I got in and walked right into a packed-out 4000 seat sanctuary. Everyone was standing and worshiping… to hymns being played in a very distinct hoedown/bluegrass style. Lyrics were displayed over the stage in plain black backgrounds with white letters. There were no special lighting tricks or other emotional grabbers; in fact, the only technological masterpiece there was the sound system, which was immaculate and incredibly perfect for what can in no way be an easy space to amplify.

After the great worship, Rob Bell got up on stage. But he didn’t get up and start preaching right away. He started giving announcements. Announcements!? I thought the boomers had completely eliminated these babies! Nope, not only did he give them, but they were almost ten minutes long. He started by telling how there would be a members meeting afterwards to amend the church constitution, then invited the children’s ministry director up to speak. She got up and addressed the need for volunteers in the children’s ministry–then asked for 293 people to step forward and help. 293 MORE volunteers. Rob Bell then proceeded to say how he felt about the subject. He told the congregation that the spots needed to be filled, and they needed to be filled now. It’s part of your calling as a Christian and as the body of Christ.

Next, he showed us a soccer ball from a Rwandan village. It was made of trash, wrapped together with some pieces of string and yarn. I believe the exact statement went like this: “This is a soccer ball from Rwanda. It’s what the children play with every day. And it’s completely unacceptable.” Apparently part of Mars Hill’s outreach is to a city in Rwanda, where the church has basicaly adopted the entire village. They had taken 1200 orphaned or needy children and began supporting them, and still needed to adopt 100 more. Oh, and the soccer balls? Well, the 5-6 grade ministry felt a burden to send some soccer balls to villages of Rwanda. So the kids themselves began contacting sports organizations, shipping companies, and went door-to-door taking collections. And they raised and donated 1500 soccer balls to send to the country. Wow.

We listened to a mostly good sermon by Rob Bell, who is a phenomenally gifted speaker, and then had communion as a church. What? 3500 people had communion? Mega churches don’t do that! This one does. And not in any special way, either. There were centers located throughout the room, and people just got up and took communion when they were ready. The band played a few more songs, and then Pastor Bell got back up to close. He mentioned that there were still 100 children needing adopting, and told the congregation that they would all be taken by the end of the day. He then mentioned that offerings could be given in the joy boxes on the way out the door–and as he mentioned it, a cheer went up from the congregation. People were giving joyfully? No way… it can’t be!

Now, I am sure that this church is not perfect. But it does have some striking things about it that most churches just don’t have. For starters, a pastor who is willing to call his congregation out on things when they need to be. Not by preaching a sermon series on topics, but by just getting up in front and saying ‘this needs to be done, and you, as a follower of Christ, need to do it. Now.’ A warm, friendly congregation. People who gave joyously, and not because they had to, but because they wanted to. A church that is reaching out to not only the community, but the world.

I had finally convinced myself that I wasn’t called to church ministry–at least not in a traditional sense. And maybe I’m not, it’s something I need to pray more and more about. But one thing I can tell you is this church fired me up this morning. Suddenly I believe that there is actually hope for the church as it is today. And I do know that somewhere deep down inside is a dynamic, engaging, truth-bringing speaker. I’ve just never figured how to bring him out when I actually speak, say, in front of Chorale, when I give very straight-forward, cut and dry devotions. But the possibility is there somewhere. Who knows. And who knows where I’ll feel myself being led in the next year or two? Unfortunately, it’s looking more and more likely like that place is seminary (dangit…). But hey, it’s not really my life, is it?

Yes, you are actually seeing it. More than two months after joshmorton.com mysteriously stopped updating, it’s back. I don’t have much to say on the topic… I wasn’t trying to make any point by not writing, nor was I trying to make people tell me how much they like reading my site (three of you did, though). I just lost interest in writing for a while. If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t read any blogs in two months either, so at least you can rest in the fact I completely gave it up, and you all got to share in the joy of it just like I did I changed the look just to make the distinction that things have changed. It may not be a permanent look, but at least it’s different.

Some of you may know that I’ve been attending a worship symposium at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. Currently I’m sitting in the back of my truck, on top of my blankets, drinking a bottle of water and chillin in the parking lot of the AmeriSuites Inn. I’m here for my Worship Capstone class, but the school has been gracious enough to make us pay all our expenses on our own, so the truck and I are getting cozy this week. The two girls in my class have a hotel room here at the AmeriSuites, so after the symposium each night I’ve just gone up there and chillaxed in their hotel room. They have an empty sofa bed, but far be it from us to even entertain something so non-IWUpriate (that means IWU appropriate). Actually, it’s been failry cozy in the back of the Rodeo, and tonight is the warmest night yet, so I’m doing pretty well. Honestly, it’s almost warm enough to sleep outside. Almost.

The Calvin Symposium on worship started out pretty slow, but got quite a lot better today, and it has been a lot of fun hanging in GR with Mary and Sarah, and away from the IWU bubble. It has also sparked a lot of thought, especially in the afternoon today, and I want to share one of those thoughts with you. Hopefully my return to blogging will not be short-lived, and I will actually share some of the other thoughts I’ve had over the week.. But for now let’s be happy with just one.

This conference has about 1600 people attending, many of them from the midwest, but also a very large portion from around the country and across the world. By virtue of the fact they were recognized during the opening chapel, I would guesstimate there to be 60-80 Japenese attenders, and Calvin has claimed to have over 50 countries represented. There have been some well-known people here, including Brian McLaren and Eugene Peterson. What really struck me today though was the diversity we had in our evening worship. Now, to be honest I haven’t been all that impressed with the worship services, especially to say that this is a worship symposium. The audio is abysmal, the music is boring, and the speaking has left much to be desired. But tonight an interesting thing happened. Tonight’s liturgist (she explained she had never been called that before, which was quite humorous) was a black lady who plays a prominent role in a church here in Grand Rapids. Worship was led by a Calvin’s gospel choir, which was of course 85% white (but did at least have a black director), and the message was delivered by a black man who grew up in both Antigua and Great Britain, which means, of course, that he has an incredible accent that is just great to listen to.

But through the course of the service I saw a culturally diverse group of people worship together. It lacked the contemporary style of music I like (read: David Crowder and Chris Tomlin), but managed to incorporate many different American cultures into its feel, without the painful feel of trying too hard. It wasn’t an attempt at blending church cultures together. It was just a multi-cultural service. Now, you must understand I am speaking of just the cultures within our own country, but there are so many that we as a country must be understood as very culturally diverse.

I have never been much on racism. In fact, I’ve believed for a long time that the best way to defeat racism is to stop telling everyone that they have problems with it, and then we’d actually forget that we are supposed to be racist, an then maybe we could all just get along. I know it’s wishful thinking, but it worked quite well in the utopia of my mind. Anyways, I realized just how much we’re missing by being so racially divided in church. I still think that churches are missing the point if we’re trying to be ethnically diverse just for the politics of it; but churches that are striving to be diverse because of the beauty and unity of God’s people worshiping together are on the right track. It was such an indredible thing to see the diversity of worship tonight, and I wish desperately the church would understand that.

Actually, I’ve noticed my views on diversity have matured a lot in the past few months. There was a time not so many years ago where had I been asked to put a committee together (you can choose what reason I’m putting it together for), I would have found 6 people just like me and grouped us all together. But I realize how much more creative, insightful and productive a diverse group is, there’s no way I would ever pick 7 of mes again. I’d split the group fairly equally in gender, ethnicity, socio-economic standing, and even doctrinal differences. The wealth of diversity is just so rich–there’s no way I would ever want to pass it up for the dullness of similarity.

I just hit a wall, so this discussion is over for now. But along the way I did start pondering about Jesus and who he picked as disciples, so you may see a return to that idea someday. For now, welcome back to joshmorton.com, and long live the blog.