Authentic worship appeals to outsiders

By Rachel L. Toalson
Managing Editor
He was reeled in by Riverside Community, a United Methodist congregation in North San Antonio.
Josh Dean, 34, says he never really doubted his faith in Christ in the decade he spent away from the church. He just had a hard time seeing God’s involvement in the world.
He was a cop. He saw partners die in the line of duty, watched men beat their wives, found the bodies of beaten-to-death children buried under their parents’ houses.
Then his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I thought, ‘There’s her reward for all her faith,’” Dean said. “I was done with it. But I watched my mom’s faith never change and never weaken. She never questioned why. They found Riverside, and my dad started going to church, too.
“They said I needed to come check this church out. They told me the church didn’t even have a building yet, but they had a Hope Center and The Loft Coffeeshop.”
Riverside’s Hope Center helps families and children in need of clothes, furniture, food or other needs and assists women with their search for a job or other agencies that might help.
“Riverside is truly involved in their community,” Dean said. “You listen to the parables and read about Christ, and he’s not going to the biggest, fanciest place he can find. He’s helping those in need. That’s what I see at Riverside.”
It’s what drew him back to church, Dean said.

Community involvement
The pull of community involvement is not unusual among people Dean’s age, said the Rev. Don Nations, senior pastor of Edgewater UMC in Florida. Nations is working with Southwest Texas congregations undergoing transformation.
Research shows, he said, that society has shifted from one where people send their money to a good cause to one where people want to get involved in doing something to help someone directly.
Linda Marceau, who leads the prayer team at Riverside Community, said community involvement is vital in keeping the church today alive.
“God is calling us out of the old system into the new system,” Marceau said. “We’re not 100 percent sure what that looks like. The Hope Center is the heart of our community. The Loft (Coffeeshop) is a fascinating way to do evangelism. It’s all about the presence of the church where you are.”
Karen Horan, pastor of Gruene UMC, said outreach in the last decades has changed—and churches must realize it.
“Missionaries, when they go out, they’re not taking God to the world,” Horan said. “They’re finding God in those places and meeting with him. We have to do that in our neighborhoods, look for where God is in people’s lives and their world.
“If we’re talking to a single mom, then how do we meet that single mom where she is and then offer Christ to her? That might be helping her financially or finding quality child care, or simply walking with her, sitting with her, things we see in Scripture. Christ feeds the hungry and makes whole those who are un-whole.”
“It goes back to the compassion of Jesus,” Marceau said. “We want to be like Jesus, be the church in the world. So we’re turning the church inside out. We’ve holed ourselves up in these buildings, and they’re out in the world with broken places. God is calling us back into authenticity and calling us out of programmatic religion.”

Authentic vs. Programmatic
The Rev. Tina Carter, pastor of The Rock UMC, Cedar Park, said if churches just “prayed and let the Holy Spirit lead,” they would be much more effective in facilitating authenticity and integrity into the worship.
During her church’s Good Friday service, Carter said attendees gathered on the front porch of the church to read the Gospel of Matthew, the passage about Simon carrying the cross. They prayed, and some of those present carried a hand-made cedar cross out in the open field. Many of them stayed at the bottom of the cross to pray. The service ended in silence.
On Easter Sunday, before the sun came up, Carter and members gathered around a campfire, where Carter told them the story of Jesus and the fishermen. Someone had brought fish to the gathering, and they cleaned it and cooked it on the campfire. That was their worship on Easter Sunday, she said.
“It was delightful and meaningful,” Carter said. “This is what church is supposed to look like.”
If she asks a rhetorical question during worship in her church, Carter said, someone will answer it.
“It’s an okay thing because that’s who the congregation is,” she said. “We’re not trying to be somebody other than who we are. It’s not just about excellence. It’s not just about form, although it is about those things. But it really is about prayer and knowing that worship is about saying, ‘Yes, God.’
“For too long we’ve thought of worship as a symphony with a conductor, the pastor. But it’s a jazz session. We’re all participants. It’s the spirit of God that guides the music.”

Building community
When her church began, Horan said, she asked those who met with her what they needed in a church.
“They said they needed a church to make a difference in their lives,” Horan said. “Community is a huge part of what we try to do. And they really wanted Scriptural messages.”
Jim Sickles, 57, said community is what brought him to Gruene UMC.
He hadn’t gone to church in years, he said. When he and his wife were ready to go back, they tried several churches in the New Braunfels area. They finally walked into the elementary school where Gruene UMC met.
“The church has so much to offer,” Sickles said. “It’s a fellowship. It’s full of real people.”
Laurel Heights UMC, San Antonio, began March 29 a new worship service, Connections, that meets Saturdays at 5 p.m. Members envisioned the service as one that would build fellowship with people out in the community.
Judy Davis, community outreach coordinator for the church, said the service is a contemporary, informal one geared toward families. Those who attend socialize over finger foods at the close of the service.
“We wanted an atmosphere that would be warm and welcoming to anyone,” Davis said. “Something non-threatening that would be the church in the community. We’re giving people a way to connect.”

Old vs. new
Music styles and preaching methods have changed in the last few decades, too, leaders say.
The Rev. Dave Collett, minister of music and arts at Coker UMC, San Antonio, said music styles of churches have swung like a pendulum. Churches are living in a transitional time, he said, where nontraditional works for some and traditional works for others.
But he said he doesn’t know if trying to discover how to make people happy is the right question.
“The better question is what style of worship meets the hurts and hopes of your congregation,” Collett said. “Music has only been part of worship since the psalms. It has always been a vehicle to express our praise to God in whatever style or format.”
He said churches create tension when they replace the old with the new or are not open to looking at the new.
The Rev. Jason Teague, pastor of First UMC, Goliad, said his church has changed the word phrasing in its bulletin. They no longer use “hymn” but say “song of praise.” They don’t have “Scripture readings” but “Bible readings.” It’s not a “sermon.” It’s a “message.”
“We’ve made it more accessible,” Teague said. “We still use the traditional elements, but I also try to explain why I do them. The general perception of the church is that it’s boring and confusing and not relevant.
“People may not understand the need for confession or what a prayer of confession is all about. But if you say none of us is perfect, and we’re going to acknowledge it right now, it makes more sense. People can plug into that more.”
Horan said her church combines “ancient creeds and liturgy with modern hymns, in modern technological ways.”
“We try to take the old, old story and hymns and creeds and tell them in modern ways,” she said. “It’s the same, basic truth but with electric guitars. We don’t want to abandon the ancient because that’s our history and theology and connection with the saints. We just have to take out the thous and thusses.”
The Rev. David Skinner, pastor of First UMC, Dripping Springs, said he doesn’t preach the same way his preacher did when he was a kid. He doesn’t use a lectionary. He does sermon series.
“I take a lot of responsibility in trying to hear what God wants to do for his people,” Skinner said. “That’s where I shoot from in the way I approach things.”

Prayer’s part
Skinner said nothing happens without prayer.
“You’ve just got to be willing to pray and engage people in prayer,” he said. “There are ‘ancient things’ going on that seem brand new. How long has the church been praying for healing? A couple thousand years. We need to recoup those things.”
“Every time we make a decision, we pray,” Marceau said. “Without prayer, we are unable to determine where God is leading us. That’s the way we come into like-mindedness. Otherwise, we’re relying on ourselves. Until we rely solely on him, we can’t discern where to go from a to b.”
The Rev. Scott Bradford, pastor of First UMC, Uvalde, said it’s important for any church to evaluate any areas that need change.
“Whether you call it transformation or you call it being vital for our day and age, it’s necessary,” he said. “Just as someone founded this church 150 years ago because they felt the need here in Uvalde, we have to have that passion today to save souls, to reach the lost, but to realize that our world is radically different.
“If that means some transformation or just doing it better, if that means being open to new ideas, whatever that means, it’s necessary. It’s vital that we are alive. If we have to transform to be alive, then so be it.”