Seriously

It's been a very long time since I have written here and I have grown tremendously.
I read many different things this past summer and done some stuff as well but the most impacting thing was learning about a New Way of Thinking About Christianity (caps for emphasis).

I read books by Brian McLaren that opened my mind to postmodern, postprotestant, post(lots of things), christianity. I have found that, along with a large portion of my generation, I am fed up with the church today. Rather, I already new that but I learned why it's true. I am sick of ungenuine worship, sterile buildings, formulaic services, "seeker friendly" churches, anti- Catholic biases, and many other things (mainly tracing back to modernism).

regarding woship, I have found a desire to embrace "emerging worship". I desire to integrate ancient practices and ancient music, remember the value of prayer, and get back to the core of what worship is. Let's engage the senses and not neglect the nonmusical churchgoers. Maybe there are varied forms of expression? Since when was hand raising manditory?

I'm really interested in integrating my worship ideas into Vespers at Bethel. What about singing chant? How about using art or poetry? Could we do something with responsorial reading of the psalms set to a melody determined by the leader? Let's find Bethel's unique worship voice insteadd of playing the same things that we can buy at the Christian Book Store (including playing just like the CD).


Well, enough for now. I can't think with all the noise (my roomate is playing a compy game)

Later