EPIC/Expereintial Worship

Today started so the wrong way...
I was supposed to go to the Kimball Art Mueseum in Ft. Worth with my good friend Evan Jones and check out the new exhibt of early Christian art. We were going to go, check it out, set-up some docent tours for our respective churches and brainstorm about how to incorporate the arts more in our churches. The exhibit is a landmark one and I was so pumped to go and then the text came. Evan could not make it, sickness was running rampant at his house. So, what to do? I could have gone myself but two brains are certainly better than one. Do I drive to Argyle and work up there, or do I work from home (thus somewhat reducing my ecological footprint today).
Hard to imagine, but I decided to work from home and I am so glad that I did! Not only did I get to get alot of administrative work done in the morning, I was able to spend the afternoon researching and thinking about worship in our context at Argyle, and the church in general.
My job description at the church where I am the minister of music, worship, and the arts, features Len Sweet's thoughts on the postmodern mindset as found in his acronymn: EPIC. It stands for Expereintial, Participatory, Image Rich, and Connected. In other words, the thought is that worship at Argyle needs to be moving towards a more EPIC way of being. I love it! It's a great idea...now...how does it happen, what does it look like...
I am struck that our worship is generally not expereintial, participatory, image rich, and it is only somewhat connective. On the whole, our people come to church, talk through a prelude, sing a hymn, greet one another, listen to a pastoral prayer, say the Lord's prayer, sing another hymn, listen to the children's sermon, listen to an anthem, give of their resources, listen to a thirty minute sermon, sing another hymn and go home.
Clearly, the majority of the service is spent sitting and listening. The participatory acts are in the singing, the greeting of one another, and giving back to God in the offertory....we've got a long way to go.
Worship, it seems to me is glorifying God and being connected to God and transformed. Bob Rognlien says, "worship is when God is glorified and we are changed. We give ourselves to God in such a way that God is glorified and we are changed." (Roughly, this quote is something of a paraphrase). He believes (as do I) that worship is bidirectional encounter where God comes to us and we respond.
In worship at Argyle, we are only using our limited senses in this respect. We are not using our full humanity in our ability to expereince and respond to God.
So this leads me to some questions...Rognlien states that the biblical directive of Jesus is worship is the Shema: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. He associates the heart with volition, the soul with emotion, the mind with the intellect and strength with what we do physically. We are not doing this at the moment, though I believe it is unintentional. We tend to stick with the heart and the mind to the exclusion of the soul and the strength.
My quesitons are becoming these: How do we do this in our context? What does it look like, and sound like, and feel like, and smell like? How do we love the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourself in corporate worship in Argyle? These questions are beginning to dominate my thinking in how we plan worship.
Unfortunatly, I'm running late for an evening appointment but, clearly, I've got some work to do! So, even as the day began in a way that I didn't plan on, it is ending wonderfully! God is so good! What a blessing it is to be able to begin to be asking the right questions! More to come later!

The Perils of Living with Your In-Laws

Let me begin by first saying one thing: I have AWESOME in-laws. I don't use the term in the slang sense of it but they really are amazing people. They have very graciously let us live with them while we wait for our house to sell in Converse (please, please, please sell!!!!). My father-in-law and I played golf this morning and ate Thai for lunch. Really, they are great folks!
But they have a dog, a Daschund, to be exact.
And Sarah and I have two dogs, Jack Russel Terriers, to be exact.
And the dogs don't always get along very well...
While the men-folk were out losing their minds over their inability to put a little ball in a hole several hundred yards away with an acceptable number of attempts, the ladies were at home and Sarah was hosting one of her wonderful open houses for Mary Kay. So, the dogs thought that this would be an opportune time to get into a really big figtht. So much so that the daschund is now in surgery to close up the bites he recieved, though he asked for them, I'm told, and one of ours will probably need the same course of action soon.
Did I mention my in-laws are really great people?
They really are amazing, but wow, it's going to be great when we have our own space again. There is nothing they could do that would make this scene better. One thing that might, however, is finding a better place for our dogs to be (and I don't mean heaven). So far this idea has not gained a lot of traction with Sarah but I shall soldier on. Our Jacks are great: they are filled with life and love and vigor. I just don't know that they are getting what they need to fulfill thir exsistence with us any more and the fact that one of them is going to cause the other two to go into surgery is just a big problem for me. I am the only hard-liner in the group, apparently.

Yeah, it's been a while...

Seriously, I might be the laziest blogger in the history of the blog...
I pretty much am a loser when it comes to frequently posting...
I have no excuses, o.k., I have a few, but they aren't any better than anyone elses...
Long story short: I struggle with discipline in my blog life.

Whew...Confession is good for the soul.

Sarah, Ellie, and I have started a new chapter in our lives. After a two-week hiatus we have moved to Dallas (temporarily, God-willing) and I have started a new job as the Associate Pastor/Minister of Music, Worship, and the Arts at Argyle UMC. I say we've moved to Dallas temporarily because our house in Converse, TX, has yet to sell and so Sarah's parents have graciously let us move the tribe to their place for a while. They have been very kind to us and the dogs but we'll all be ready for the Stobaugh clan to move to their own place. (Please, St. Joseph, if you are listening, aren't you tired of being upside down in my front yard?!?!? Do your thing, baby!!!!)

Here's a brief status report:
Family: Good. Sarah is doing well and Ellie is a riot!
Friends: Good (except for Ryan B., who's dad is recovering from having a golf ball-sized tumor removed from his brain. He is doing well except he has, temporarily, we hope, lost sight in his left eye.)
Church: Good! Lots of energy and excitment, which is very fun!
Gigs outside of the local church: Good! I am looking forward to serving as the 3-5 grade children's choir clinician at Lake Junaluska in 2008 and my work with the Fellowship is fun!

Things are going well! I was feeling extra blessed this morning. I was delighted to discover that the Starbucks Christmas Blend was on tap, so to speak at my local Starbucks this morning! Following my trip to "the third place" I was able to pick up my friend Ryan from the hosptial and take him to DFW so he could head home after being with his dad all week. On the way back I was able to listen to some of Brian McLaren's new book "Everything Must Change" in the car. Good coffee, beautiful weather, good friends and stimulating thought. What more could you ask for from a Saturday morning?