This past Sunday was a meeting day. It was our new pastor’s first Sunday at our church. For that matter, it was also our first Sunday with our new pastor. It kind of goes both ways, you know.
Our previous pastor was an evangelically-minded United Methodist with a high christology. He liked liturgy, and he seemed to enjoy the more formal aspects of worship in the Wesleyan tradition. Plus, he had a beautiful speaking (and singing) voice.
Well, we learned a few things about our new pastor Sunday. He doesn’t like to wear a robe. He’s fun-loving and full of self-deprecating humor. He doesn’t have our former pastor’s voice, but it’s still a fine voice nevertheless; but he could enunciate better and not drop the volume so much as he nears the end of the sentence. Then again, he’s 61, and it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
He’s clearly evangelical…VERY evangelical! He says he’s not one for a lot of theology in his sermons; that he’s still changing, still learning, still evolving theologically.
He’s very informal (except he was wearing a suit.) He’s the first one to change anything in the set order of worship. He’ll throw something out at a moment’s notice if he doesn’t feel like doing it that way. He doesn’t care too much for liturgy. When we did communion this past Sunday he threw out the usual liturgy and did it all off-the-cuff.
For the scripture reading he decided to not use the scripture as shown on the projection screen, saying he doesn’t use that version anyway, and read from his own Bible instead. (It sounded suspiciously like the NLT to me.)
It looks like this is going to be an interesting time for our church. Some are already thinking they may not like this guy. So far I like him quite a lot.
But as I said in my title, it’s too early to make such judgments. We’re only in the first inning. There’s only been one pitch! We can’t possibly know how the game will end yet, can we?
Yay! NLT! Someone who believes in a common language for the common man, just like Jesus did! Yay! Off the cuff! Genuine worship above liturgy! Coming to a worship service instead of a church service. Worshipping God rather than coming to get a check mark for warming your pew. Sounds good, Gary!
I agree, Mike. I think it all sounds real good! I can handle the NLT, though there are a number of places I don’t care for their renderings, it’s a big step over some of the Bibles that are still commonly used. But that’s a minor point. The guy is all about the Gospel! He’s all about God loving us and doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves.
He also made the point that he usually writes down his sermons, and then when the time comes for the sermon it ends up very different that how he wrote it down.
It’s going to be an interesting time for our congregation. I’m sure we will both have an effect on each other.
I am saddened when I hear something like this. 30 years ago, I had several Sem profs and pastors tell me, “Don’t change anything in the worship life during your first year of service.” That was good advice then, and still is today. Now that I teach pastors, and continue to serve as pastor as well, I pass that advice on to younger pastoral students.
There are at least two reasons for that: 1) The year is a time to get to know the people, and let them begin to know and trust the pastor. That can’t happen if he is busy changing what has been the spiritual life and rituals of the congregation. 2) The worship service does not belong to the pastor. Yes, he leads and teaches them through it, but it is not his personal playhouse in which he can do anything he wants. This is God’s people, gathered around God’s gifts (Word/Sacrament).
My prayer is that this pastor would step back and think even more about this. I don’t care if he is 61; he has not earned the respect and trust to do this. I am 63 and began this last call at the age of 62. I am just coming up to the end of the first year this week.
Interesting comment, Rich. My thoughts were nothing like yours. Our new pastor is so very different in personality than our old pastor, I just saw what he was doing as just trying to help us to get to know him. And I had absolutely no problem with it, although I’m sure some in the congregation were a bit uncomfortable. It seems whenever a new pastor comes, some will love him, and others will dislike him enough to leave the church.
But I think you do make some excellent points. I will consider them and may comment on them again later.
(By the way, it turns out the Bible he was using was the new version called “The Voice”.)
”The Voice” — well, another strike against him…
Heh-heh, yeah, I explicitly remember when it first came out, and they gave us a gospel to read to see what we bloggers thought of it, and I quickly came to the conclusion that I didn’t care for it. Our new pastor read from John 1, the prologue, in order to make clear to us what he believed about the Lord Jesus Christ. I found not only did I agree with him completely, I read along with him and was actually impressed with the accuracy of the Voice in that section. It got the ideas across very clearly, in different words that I was not used to hearing, but exactly the ideas that are there. But we can’t judge a translation by a short section like that. I have been trying to check it out, and I really don’t care for their format. So much of it is written like the script of a play, with the name of the speaker before the lines he is to say. It would be hard to read a passage out loud if you have to deal with that.
But his intention is to make the Word of God clear and understandable for the “common” people in the pews, and I think that’s laudable.