The Image of Protestant Evangelical Worship, pt 4
May 21, 2005
For those who like their worship experiences LARGE...
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What inspired this series and where are you getting these pictures?
Posted by: Benjy | May 21, 2005 at 10:37 PM
By the way, you have a nicely designed blog.
But, really, I don't quite understand what you’re trying to get at with these picture.
How posting a picture of what you think “the image of protestant evangelical worship” should look like? Or perhaps such a picture is impossible to elucubrate—after all, how does one depict the worship that occurs in Heaven?
Posted by: Oengus Moonbones | May 22, 2005 at 11:39 AM
Okay, here's the deal:
We live a visually oriented society.
It was for this very reason, I thought it would be interesting to post a series of images -- rather than articles -- that attempted to convey various nuances of Protestant Evangelical worship. As a veteran Protestant Evangelical worship leader myself, I felt I have enough of a grasp on the topic to give it a go.
If you've hung around Paradoxology for any amount of time, you've come to recognize my appreciation for the both/and realities surrounding the church as well as our faith and practice. I deeply appreciate the tensions of our holy and ancient faith, and enjoy bringing some sense of balance to the criticisms taking place within both the 'institutional' as well as the 'emerging' church.
In posting these images, I do not seek to take an immediate "position," but rather desire to stimulate some conversation (even if I'm not a part of it). I suppose there are things I like AND dislike about each of these images (as well as the ones yet to be posted), and will try to comment a little more in that regard within their respective discussion threads.
If you think my selection of representative images is off-base, I'd suggest two things:
1) post here concerning 'why', and enter the conversation.
2) post a set of alternate images on your own blog and pass along a link to them.
Alright. Enough said! Let's get back to your impressions and responses to the stadium worship pictured above (FYI -- an Easter service, held at the Staples Center in Anaheim, CA).
Posted by: Chris | May 22, 2005 at 03:49 PM
quote: “If you've hung around Paradoxology for any amount of time, you've come to recognize my appreciation for the both/and realities surrounding the church as well as our faith and practice.”
Actually no disapproval or criticism was intended, but, without context, images are just images, and it was hard for me to understand what the point was. But thank you for the clarification.
While I haven’t hung around Paradoxology for any amount of time—other than long enough to see it is rather well designed—I have been attended a variety of churches for nearly 50 years, and so I’ve managed to see a pretty sizable chunk of the “realities surrounding the church as well as our faith and practice”. And indeed it is pretty wide, and I could bore you with a zillion stories—going all the way back to when the pastor rebuked me, a young child then, from the pew for being too noisy in church. But I will refrain from boring you with all that. But at the moment, I can’t think of anything particularly profound to say other than this: churches need to have more cemetaries located on their property, right next to the parking lot. Later, on my own blog Lunar Skeletons, I plan to explain why.
Posted by: Oengus Moonbones | May 22, 2005 at 06:13 PM
Erratum: “I have been attended…” should read as “I have attended”
I usually don’t like to write lengthy responses in comment boxes mainly because my crazy flipper fingers always manage to sneak in a mistake that my eye misses.
Posted by: Oengus Moonbones | May 22, 2005 at 06:18 PM
I for one enjoyed this "game" but this later picture just made me say OUCH!
All that glitz...for an event...
Posted by: Maryellen | May 23, 2005 at 03:12 PM
Maryellen: “I for one enjoyed this game…”
By itself, the picture could just as easily have been a big Mormon get together in Salt Lake City, Utah, celebrating the lives of prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and the glories of the Temple Sealings and “Celestial Marriages”, and what not. Or it could have been a Grand Extravaganza staged by the new Messiah Rev. Sun Yung Moon.
Yeah, I agree, it's kind of a fun game imagining all the possiblities.
Posted by: Oengus Moonbones | May 23, 2005 at 06:16 PM
…Or it could be a balcony shot of a Sandi Patti concert from back in the early 90s.
Posted by: Oengus Moonbones | May 24, 2005 at 06:07 AM
"how does one depict the worship that occurs in Heaven?"
Step into an Orthodox Church during the Divine Liturgy and you'll get a foretaste! :)
Posted by: Karl Thienes | May 27, 2005 at 11:17 AM
Is that a church service or a Prince concert? He had a similar looking "stage" on his last tour.
Posted by: Patmos | May 31, 2005 at 08:48 AM