Bassic
History
- Member for
- 4 years 22 weeks
Biography
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Posted September 7th, 2007 by Bassic
NOTE: Likely you have clicked on Bassic's profile because you were offended by a post. This is not entirely unintentional.
My abrasive nature about the Emerging Spirit program is based on an irrational, obsessive, distant yet intimate, love of it. I am, for lack of a cleaner term, a s##t disturber, trying to push the envelope.
Consider me a locust eating voice crying in the wilderness. I am not the Emerging Spirit program, but I wish to show all the way to it. (And for heaven's sake don't think that following my lead is the rational way!)
I am provocative (and hopefully not too offensive), to try and get feedback flowing. Maybe not the most United Churchy way to be, but a conscious choice.
I will not (I hope!) offend personally. I am not out to start flame wars. Please don't let me scare you off. I am passionate about this program (pathologically?) and hope that you will get a bit of that excitement in you. My strong wish is that you join in this community (and/or Wondercafe {where I am also Bassic}) to share your stories.
There is cause for hope.
________________________________________________________________Located in Winnipeg at St. Mary's Road United, home of the three simultaneous worship path Sunday, a fantastic way to be community {provided you can find a building with 2 sanctuaries and afford enough staff)
I was born and raised in Winnipeg, and have been attending a United church since conception (or there about). I had an atypical youth, in that I never left the church. In fact during my University days I sought out many United churches. I studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo where they have a co-op program. This program requires the student alternate 4 month terms at Waterloo with 4 month work placements anywhere in the world (mostly Canada). I moved every four months for five years (16 times all together) and ranged from Regina to Ottawa.
I usually moved via UPS, and arrived to a new city and apartment/room I'd never seen. Fortunately there are United Churches in every center large enough to support an engineering workplace. And also fortunately men aged 18-23 who can kind of read music and like to sing are rare enough that passing the choir auditions was not too hard. I always tried to get into the choir right away because you immediately had a network, no awkward loitering at coffee time. And since graduating Sunday School I have usually sat on the chancel so sitting in the congregation just feels weird.
I've seen lots of United churches, but not as many as my wife who did the same program and also spent most of a year touring UC's with a musical in the early 90's.
Between the two of us we have a pretty good feel for big city and small industrial center churches. And we were very lonely in those churches for about a decade (ages 18-28).
That decade ended when we were offered an opportunity to build something new. A church in our city was working on contemporary worship, and needed vocalists. They were a 25 minute drive as opposed to the 3 minute walk to our home congregation, but it has been well worth the time. The thing they were doing different was that they weren't doing "Alternative worship" (Find my rant in the leadership best practices, or search this site for the term). They were doing contemporary worship, in the regular worship slot. It started with an overhead projector, and now takes place in its own sanctuary (feel the 4 sub-woofers deliver 1600 W of firmament shaking bass). And the best part is we didn't have to wait until the old people who don't like it died or left, they worship the traditional way, at the same time, in the original sanctuary down the hall. A good number of seniors attend the contemporary service too. And we all have coffee together at the end.
What I learned is you don't have to wrest power from the cold dead hands of the establishment. If it comes to that, there is nothing left worth fighting for anyway. We can all be one church, working on common projects, but worshiping in different styles.
(P.S. Change is hard, don't think it was a walk in the park for our church. We had some tough battles until we had the critical mass, and money from two surplus buildings, to make a comfortable space for everyone.)