On this day in 1517, the priest and scholar  approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.
If you want a brief rundown of the ensuing years, hit .
And so began the Protestant movement, even though it wasn’t called that until a number of years later.
I am a product of that, especially now that I am a pastor of a non-denominational church near Va. Tech. Â My question is, “do we as Protestants, or better yet, do I as a Protestant, protest too much?” Â This question comes up as we as a church are in the midst of a series on the Lord’s Prayer. Â A prayer that many recite weekly in church’s all over the world.
We as a church don’t.
And my question is, is that good? Â Is it good to include in the general flow of a Sunday gathering time something that can easily become rote and mundane? Â Or the counter, is it wise to not regularly participate in one of the traditions the church has widely participated in over the centuries?
My concern with the former is that we can easily mishandle very sacred things. Â A bit like eating on the good china everyday somehow reduces the specialness of it. Â But my concern with not engaging in its reading and reciting is that I am pushing away something very valuable just to show that we are different.
To be fair, to me and the elder team I lead with, we have thought about this a great deal. Â We aren’t just pushing away tradition for the sake of pushing away tradition. Â But, on the anniversary of this moment in time that truly created a fork in the road, I do wonder if there are areas I simply protest for reasons less well thought out. Â How much of my decision making is influenced by the fact I am a Protestant, who is in ministry primarily among generations that are much more comfortable determining what they are against than what they are for.
So… thoughts?
Peace, Jim
Cory B said...
1Does singing worship songs each week lessen the value of that practice? Does doing communion? How about even standing up and greeting each other when asked?
For me, doing some of these activities each week gives me a great sense of God and lifts my spirit. I do feel at times however that if things are produced inorganically, they give less productive results.
If the church is doing something for a purpose and not just because that’s the way it’s done, and presented in such a manner, it will come across well.
But if we want to be robots just because robots are cool-I know a guy who can build a couple for you!
10/31/11 7:01 PM | Comment Link
Cyd H said...
2We don’t pray it every Sunday at LOV… but as we’re preaching through the petitions of the Lord’s prayer, I’m starting to think we should.
Personally, I’ve been learning to pray according to the structure of the Lord’s prayer, even if I don’t use the exact language… and it’s transforming the way I pray.
And I wonder if, without the Lord’s prayer, we would ever regularly pray all these things that Christ taught us to pray… God’s fatherhood, his reign, his kingdom, provision, forgiveness, guidance, and protection… and isn’t it important, as a community, to be shaped by praying together for all of these things that shape us as a kingdom people?
So… I’m asking the same question. Should we pray the Lord’s prayer every Sunday? And I wonder if it might feel less ‘rote’ if we changed the language a bit. Maybe let people in our communities rewrite it in their own words… maybe that would make it feel more authentic and genuine… but there’s also something really powerful about people all over the world praying the same words… reminds us of the global church.
11/6/11 5:31 PM | Comment Link
said...
3Cyd – Hope you are well, and hope to see you in DC in March. I think your reflections are similar to mine. I remember reciting the Lord’s Prayer in church growing up and it shaping me, but in a potentially wrong way. It was just another boring part of a service that I was completely disconnected from. Now, that is certainly not the fault of the Lord’s Prayer! 🙂 And so my internal battle with liturgy began. But then I am forced to ask myself the question, has my lack of regular use of the L’sP in worship created better disciples? I doubt it. I love the idea of changing language around, personalizing it more to the faith story of our faith community. Almost morphing it into a bit of a creed. Since the focus was at least as direct on the “this is how” rather than, “this is what” you should pray, it would seem that there is room to truly honor the heart of Christ, maintain a regular use that can essentially be what some of the desert fathers called “meditation over time” and yet also connect on an emotional level as well… thoughts?
11/7/11 6:41 AM | Comment Link
said...
4Cory, it is great for me to hear this from you. Based on my past experience in church I can tend to sometimes push away from doing things in a routine way. Perhaps my fear of it becoming mindless is too strong. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me reminding me that not everyone has had that experience… Also, yes, I want a Brett-bot…
11/7/11 6:43 AM | Comment Link
said...
5Hi Jim –
I’ll definitely be there in March – looking forward to it.
It’s that emotional connection piece that feels so essential and yet so tricky… to give ourselves ‘permission’ to connect with the Father, through Christ, on an emotional level – but also not feel manipulated… or like something’s wrong with us if we don’t connect.
And there’s the challenge in praying the Lord’s prayer… are we being shaped into actually learning to connect with our Father? Or are we being trained to speak words and become content to be disconnected to those words and distant in our relationship as children…
I’m just beginning to think pastorally about this question… wanting others to experience the joy of connecting as a child of the Father that I’ve experienced as I’ve learned to pray the Lord’s prayer personally. I would love to hear more about your team’s continued discernment process as you wrestle with the question.
11/13/11 2:48 PM | Comment Link