I helped lead worship at Resurrection on June 22 and wrote a prayer for the experience. I have shared all of the prayers that I have written for worship in 2007 and 2008 at the following Google Doc. Please feel free to use and adapt to your own context.
Enjoy!
I received the following email from a Resurrection attender last month. I have included my response below and some additional thoughts. They have each been edited for anonymity.
Email Received:
Has Pastor Adam ever broached the subject with the congregation on appropriate attire when attending church? I imagine that this is a rather sticky subject, to say the least. When I was leaving church yesterday, I noticed two teenage girls walking out in front of me. Even though it was cold outside one of these girls had on extremely – and I mean extremely - short shorts that bordered on vulgar. WHERE ARE THE PARENTS???!!! I hope you don’t think I’m a prude because I try to be open-minded and accepting of other people……as I think about it, though, maybe that’s why teenagers wear clothing that’s inappropriate for the occasion because we’ve all tried to be so accepting. Go figure.
My response:
Thanks for your email. To my knowledge, Adam has not talked publicly about public attire while I have been here at Resurrection. I understand your concern. I agree that some clothing may be less appropriate for public. In this and other issues, I think that there is a balance between accepting people where they are and holding them accountable. My hope is that as a congregation we are holding each other most accountable to their journey of knowing, loving and serving God toward becoming a deeply committed Christian. How this journey applies to clothing style, as you witnessed, is interpreted differently by different persons.
Further Thoughts:
I have found that the question of attire is not limited to teenagers or those for whom parents may still feel responsible. I feel that the question of the interaction between parent and student is another issue.
As I have thought more about what is appropriate to wear to church, I am not too excited about having a dress code for what is allowed and what is not allowed from someone that is a part of the worshipping congregation. I think that one’s standards for dress while worshipping should not be less than standards for dress in any other public space. Whether they should be higher or different in some way is an open question for me.
What do you think?
I always hope to continue learning for my own faith journey, leadership, and to be a part of renewing the mainline church. One of the ways that this can be accomplished is through networking and learning at conferences. I personally recommend and will be presenting at Leadership Institute, but I am also considering the following possibilities for events to attend in 2008 and 2009.
Do you have any experience with any of these conferences? Which of these do you recommend? What other learning / leadership / conference opportunities would you suggest that are not listed here?
I had a great trip to California. Dan, Jason and I ended up visiting:
Here is a slideshow from a presentation prepared for the senior staff retreat today:
For more pictures check out my photostream.
By the time that you read this, I will be on a plane with Jason Gant and Dan Entwistle headed to California to check out venue worship services at the following:
I hope to get some photos on the trip and possibly post on the road.
You can read more about the trip at Jason’s post.
At Resurrection, we are encouraged to write our prayers for worship before the service. The hope is that this will be able to provide a prayer that is mindful of non and nominally religious persons and also is an intentional part of worship.
Beginning today, I am going to include all of the prayers that I write for worship in an online document. Please feel free to use any portion of a prayer or a prayer in its entirety if you feel that it would become a meaningful part of a worship service.
You can find this this and also the resources from my recent blogging presentation in under Resources. Enjoy!
Last but not least is conversation with a member of the congregation. I was greeting people on the way out after one of the services when an individual stopped and had a brief conversation with me. Final words from this individual to me:
“Don’t eat too many deviled eggs today.”
Good advice.
Nicole and I had the privilege to serve as ushers at the 3:00 PM service which was a new thing for me. Volunteers were low for that service and Nicole and I were assigned to section N (center in the mezzanine, for you Resurrection folks). It gave me a new appreciation for the role that the ushers play and recognized the great value in all the volunteers that make worship on any given weekend possible.
Thanks to all of you who make worship possible on any given weekend!
I lead worship at the 5:00 PM Saturday and 9:00 AM Sunday services. Resurrection had services at the following times.
Each of the services that I helped to lead were near capacity (3200 seats) in the sanctuary. It is really cool to lead worship in a space that is full - no matter what size.
Thanks to Travis for reminding me about the Resurrection West services and Janelle for the Internet stream. I apologize for initially leaving out these services.
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