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a creative force for the Creator God.
- the greenroom
- We at the greenroom are interested in creatively and passionately experiencing a Jesus that is more compelling than anything this world has to offer.
6 comments:
Great job Taylor! I love how this chapter totally related to what you've been experiencing over the last few weeks. It's cool how God puts things together. I think for a lot of people there is a sense of comfort in the "traditional". Many spiritual traditional practices are good and can lead us closer to God, but it's when our traditions are practiced simply for tradition sake that we loose the true meaning of our worship. One of my favorite books is "The Jewish Book of Why". It explains Jewish customs and practices (from hundreds of years before Jesus) and shows the original meaning and purpose of the tradition.
As you mentioned, Jesus was not interested in traditions if it took focus off of the most important commandments: Love God and love others. Or if it was used as some kind of litmus test for how spiritual a person is.
So, of course, (for me)the next obvious question would be; "What (if any) traditional spiritual practices should the greenroom adopt?"
That's a great question. And a great video! Thanks, Tay! I feel like I'm in this weird position of both loving and hating the traditions and rituals of "the Church." Growing up Episcopalian, the rituals Sunday morning very quickly became rote, and without an emotional attachment, I (along with the rest of my family) slowly became bored, disenfranchised, and eventually just stopped going. However, after I reconnected to my faith as a young adult, these same rituals were infused with a whole new relevance and meaning. Now I can rarely get through the "Confession of Sins" prayer in an Episcopal service w/o breaking down into tears. I know that rituals can be very powerful, very galvanizing, and are a powerful force used to focus our attention on the unclean spirit within, giving us some direction on how to make it clean. However, done without the emotion that Taylor was talking about, I feel like they can do the exact opposite. Rituals done out of guilt or fear of hell or an empty sense of obligation can alienate, divide, and separate people from God. So, to answer your question Scott...i don't know. You're welcome. Like so much of our faith, it's based on each of us as individuals and where we are on our own individual spiritual journey. On another note, as I was reading Mark 7, I got hung up on verses 24-30, 'cause I didn't realize the whole Jew/Gentile connection calling people children or dogs. So, I googled, and I found this great article called, "When the Gospel Goes to the Dogs." It really helped shed some light on those verses and helped make it relevant to me and, I think, what we're trying to do @ the greenroom. As the author says @ the end of the article, " The day the gospel went to the dogs was the day it came to us. We are some of the "dogs" who have received the good news of the gospel! When Jesus opened himself up to mission to the whole world, he opened his church to the world. Now we are to open ourselves to the whole world in mission." Check out the whole thing. Here's the web address: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1984
Call me a pragmatist, but I often find myself asking, "Why?" In grade school, I wanted to know why I needed to know the square root of 64. In college, I wanted to know why John Locke's writings were important (after seeing him on LOST, I now understand! Ha!). Traditions of any kind are similar for me. What's the point?
Many years ago I found myself dreading my nephew's Catholic baptism. As much as I hated the thought of missing an important televised football playoff game, I couldn't bear the thought of sitting through a bunch of boring, confusing rituals (I was not raised Catholic). To my great surprise, I was greatly moved by the ceremony because the priest explained the symbolism of the holy water and other elements. It made perfect sense to me. I even thought about converting to Catholicism (well, not quite!). It was a meaningful experience for me despite the fact that it was all new to me.
Some "modern" (or postmodern or whatever label describes "new" and "current") churches work so hard to be cool and trendy that they ignore the past 2000 years of rich church history. They throw the baby out with the bathwater. Tradition for tradition's sake extracts the beauty and impact out of the pageantry. However, if the process is communicated and the endeavor is a "get to" rather than a "have to," we will find many driven to tears, overwhelmed with emotion, and drawn to the One who authored life itself.
As my dad always said, "It's not what you say, but how you say it that matters."
growing up Catholic, i went through all my sacraments…baptism, first communion, reconciliation, confirmation and to be honest...i cherish those years. what an incredible foundation for my faith. but, I remember in college going to a campus church more because some of my friends were going and the cute boys (this was "b.c"...before crownover) and i remember one day going up for communion and afterwards there was always a reflection time. This one girl would always sit down after communion and “ball like a baby.” It my mind, she was weak. her life must have been a mess, or she was just doing it for attention. you see for me, communion was no longer "holy" i treated it as something we "did" instead of the time for me to confess and remember. a few years after college I "accepted Jesus" as my savior. Growing up in the church I knew that Jesus was God's son and He was sent to die on a cross for MY sins, but I never accepted HIM as my Lord and Savior. I never applied it!
I remember when communion became HOLY again. not just something to check off the list. We were on vacation with my family and Scott and my best friend Annette. We ended up visiting this small church and it was packed. we sat in the back row. I remember when it was time for communion, i could barely contain my joy for Him. I WAS THE ONE WEEPING IN THE PEW! Now, to those of you who know me NOW that does not come as a surprise...but it was a turning point in my life. where a once ritual became an encounter with the HOLY SPIRIT. God himself! A moment I will never forget!
i look forward to communion at the greenroom. Still praying how to present communion so it "looks like Jesus." AND how do we invite people who don't yet "know" Him to their "first HOLY Communion"?
Hey Gribs I think your dad's on to something. I'll take it one further. What if Jesus wasn't just asking us to have communion once a week, or once a month, or every time we gathered for a meal? What if, when Jesus said "Do this in remembrance of me", he meant "LIVE like this every moment of your life." What if he meant "Whenever you poor out and sacrifice your life for someone else, you'll be remembering me. And in the process it will cause others to be reminded of the love that God has for the world."
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