{"id":5247,"date":"2013-10-08T15:27:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T22:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=5247"},"modified":"2013-10-08T15:27:45","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T22:27:45","slug":"chuck-knows-church-but-do-we","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/chuck-knows-church-but-do-we\/","title":{"rendered":"Chuck Knows Church\u2014But Do We?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rev. Steve Horswill-Johnston explaining the popularity of Chuck Knows Church” in a\u00a0“Behind the Scenes” video on Vimeo (link<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Commentary by Rev. Matt Gorman, Pastor at Lakewood United Methodist Church<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the last year or two, a new resource has been popping up in various places within United Methodism and beyond.\u00a0 The \u201cChuck Knows Church\u201d video series (LINK<\/a>),\u00a0distributed by the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship, is a great resource for introducing people who are unfamiliar with \u201cthe way we do things in church\u201d to\u2026well, the way we do things in church!\u00a0 Topics range from the use of colors in liturgical worship to why the initials I-H-S are engraved on many of our crosses and furnishings.<\/p>\n

Let me be clear\u2014I think \u201cChuck Knows Church\u201d is a good resource for helping people understand the confusing and often arcane ways we do worship, church, and talk about God.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s produced by a good friend of mine from high school, Rev. Steve Horswill-Johnston.\u00a0 So, \u201cChuck Knows Church\u201d\u2014good thing!<\/p>\n

There is a problem with CKC, however\u2014one that is inherent in the very fact of its existence.\u00a0 The way we do church is hard to understand\u2014especially for newcomers.\u00a0 People can be really, really confused when they begin to connect with us.\u00a0 There are all sorts of symbols, language, rituals, and arcane practices that perhaps used to make sense in a particular cultural context\u2014but that no longer connect with the cultures in which we currently<\/b> live.\u00a0 Helping people understand these cryptic things is a start but it\u2019s really, when you think about it, an odd workaround.<\/p>\n

What if we changed our symbols and practices so that they made sense to the world around us today, without any need for interpretation?\u00a0 This is what Jesus did.\u00a0 He communicated the old story of the saving, gracious nature of God through completely new means.\u00a0 From his repeated \u201cYou have heard it said\u2026but I say\u201d in the Sermon on the Mount to his \u201cThe Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath\u201d (Mark 2:27), Jesus recasts prevailing beliefs and stories in order to show the essence of who God is to the people he meets.\u00a0 This illustrates what I am coming to believe is one of the absolutely most important aspects of God in Jesus Christ\u2014incarnationality<\/i><\/b>.\u00a0 God comes to us, meets us where we are, and calls us to do the same to others<\/b>.\u00a0 When we instead rely on (albeit well-intentioned and occasionally helpful) tools like CKC, we are not meeting people where they are\u2014we are telling them we\u2019ll help them meet us where we<\/i><\/b> are.<\/p>\n

I am not anti-tradition. A part of helping people connect with God and God\u2019s people will always<\/i><\/b> be teaching them about our traditions and practices\u2014this is a valuable part of the experience of becoming a part of something bigger than oneself, and is good and necessary.\u00a0 I believe, however, that tradition must always be in service to the communication of something much more important\u2014the gospel of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Sometimes our traditions will help us with this, and other times they will get in the way.<\/p>\n

If we know church (like Jesus did), we will know that our job is to do everything we can to help people meet Jesus right where they are (and then go wherever he takes them from there!).\u00a0 I believe we will do this best by finding new ways to help people understand the gospel from their own context, rather than by trying to \u201ceducate\u201d them in the ways that made sense to earlier generations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rev. Steve Horswill-Johnston explaining the popularity of Chuck Knows Church” in a\u00a0“Behind the Scenes” video on Vimeo (link). Commentary by Rev. Matt Gorman, Pastor at Lakewood United Methodist Church In the last year or two, a new resource has been popping up in various places within United Methodism and beyond.\u00a0 The \u201cChuck Knows Church\u201d video […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":5248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,113],"tags":[267,209,268],"class_list":{"0":"post-5247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conversation","8":"category-opinioneditorial","9":"tag-church","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-tradition"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/437748817_640.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-1mD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5249,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions\/5249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}