curation — Clayfire Curator

Epiphanipulation

by Eric Herron | December 27, 2011

We all want to see people ‘get it.’ As creators, we long for our art to be understood—especially with little or no extra explanation. As curators, we struggle to gather disparate elements and create new meaning with the express desire that the meaning we portray is not lost on those who come. We not only want worshipers to rudimentarily grasp our meaning, but to deeply internalize it. It is a pleasing bonus if the worshiper is surprised, maybe even startled with epiphanic understanding.

These desires are so strong for worship creatives that we will often go to great lengths to ensure an emotional impact is felt, an elusive intellectual concept is comprehended. We long for hundreds of little invisible light-bulbs, hovering over each and every gathered one’s head.

In this longing, we can cross over from simply creating powerful messages to crafting seductive manipulation. Where is the line? If we hope to instigate ‘epiphanies,’ what is appropriate and what is going too far?

Art that ‘goes too far’ might resemble image exploitation, using pictures that are mostly composed for ‘shock value.’ It might also involve unbalanced emotions—excess sadness or joy, extreme violence (as in The Passion of the Christ), exceptional stories with melodramatic details.

Worship events that ‘go too far,’ might involve spiritual manipulation in the form of misused scriptures—theologically squeezed for preferred interpretations. Manipulation in worship also takes the form of activities that allow for only one kind of participation, with the illusion of options. For instance, imagine a time of public confession in which people are invited to share at will, but are forced to sit in extended, uncomfortable silence while no one chooses to stand up and share. In this example, we are not attempting to manipulate individual emotional responses—as with manipulative art—but instead to humanly create a ‘spiritual environment’ that may not be what the Holy Spirit has in mind for the moment.

In all of these cases, we are hoping, striving for epiphany. Epiphany at any cost.

I don’t make it a habit of manipulating epiphany in worship, but I do recall one event in particular that perhaps may have crossed some lines. One of the first times I led a team in creating a large-scale Stations of the Cross event, we saw some very strong emotional responses by the worshipers who came. If one were to have stood at the exit—where the last chronological station was positioned—one would have witnessed a high percentage of people exiting with visible tears. I happened to speak to one woman as she was leaving. She said that when she first arrived to attend the event, she became angry.

Our team hadn’t foreseen such a large number of people showing up for this open house-style worship event. Because we were only allowing a few people in at a time to control the pace, nearly everyone who gathered was forced to wait outside in the frigid air for 20 min or longer before actually being allowed to enter the building and walk with Jesus to the cross and tomb. This woman said the cold waiting had brought up all kinds of anger in her. “How dare they make me wait to worship!” “Why didn’t they plan this better?!” she thought. By the time she had made it through the stations and been very graphically reminded of Jesus’ suffering via video, drama, images, recorded storytelling, and interactive art, she had realized her anger and felt “guilty” for the way she acted before.

I remember being quite satisfied (not in front of her) that our curation had caused such an epiphany in her heart and mind. However, upon further reflection, I’m wondering how much we—intentionally or not—manipulated her through our set up and the content of this event.

What do you think? Did my team manipulate emotions by making people wait in the cold before being reminded of the “real” suffering of Jesus? Or, was this physical experience of waiting an appropriate way to engage the whole person, beyond simply the intellect?

How much, as worship curators, are we allowed to ‘press the buttons’ of worshipers toward their own spiritual enlightenment? Or, is this too much like playing Holy Spirit?

Can you share with us a worship event or singular moment in which you may (or may not) have crossed the line between appropriately using art and manipulating worship?

Image © iStockphoto

Categories: Leadership

What are your creative plans for Advent this year?

by Eric Herron | November 28, 2011

The first Christians had to “wait” for about 400 years before they observed their first Advent season.

A council in Spain in A.D. 380 decreed that “From December 17 until the day of Epiphany which is January 6 no one is permitted to be absent from Church.” This is a precedent for the season of Advent at a time when Christmas itself was still unknown in Spain. By the fifth century, a forty-day season of preparation for the Epiphany was being practiced in parts of Gaul. (This paralleled Lent and began about when Advent now begins.) Rome eventually adopted a four-week Advent before Christmas.

James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship, 3rd ed., 62.

Our modern Advent celebrations beckon us to gather up all of our creative-powers. The four weeks of celebration are rich with latent expectation, desperate to be given voice. As worship curators, we are in the unique position of helping people recognize and express their expectations. Expectations about how each of our own lives intertwines with the Incarnate.

When it comes to this, the first season of the Christian Year, what do you do? What are your creative plans for Advent this year? If you are seriously behind and still in reflection/brainstorming mode, maybe this question is better for you: What have you done for Advent in years past? Is there a ritual, visual, song, or something else that reappears each Advent in your church?

Share with us your favorite past (and present and future) Advent curation in the comments of this post.

And now, the Poll you’ve all been waiting for…

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Categories: Q of the Week

Failure to Risk

by Eric Herron | October 18, 2011

Years ago, I was part of a creative design team for my church. It was our assigned task to come up with the content for three services. We were a “worship curation” team before the term existed.

Our team consisted of several experts, in drama, secular music, worship music, and theology. We were all silly creatives. Those weekly meetings were always something I looked forward to for their free-association brainstorming sessions and frequent episodes of unbridled laughter.

I wish I had a catalogue of all the wacky things we came up with and never tried. We were constantly pitching new ideas to each other and in that kind of environment of freedom and trust, no one was afraid to share an unfinished, unpolished thought or to present an idea that seemed risky.

What would I categorize as “risky”? Risky was a dramatic sketch based on a current TV show with cultural content that some would think didn’t belong in church. Risky was speaking on a biblical theme or scripture that many people would find offensive as it pushed harder than usual on their own comfortable lifestyles. Risky was inviting people to get up from their seats and move around in a way that was not typical for our gatherings. Trying something — anything — we had never, ever tried before always felt like risky business.

In our environment (a young, growing church without many ties to tradition) those risky ideas were often tried. The way this came about in our meeting was, first someone would make the suggestion. We would laugh at the daring involved. There would be more discussion about it and soon a consensus would form: Was the team up for it or not? Sometimes, by the end of the discussion only one person — usually the person who had the idea — would still be serious about trying it. Instead of squashing the ego of the lone ranger with a nod to democratic protocol, we invented what we called ‘the silver bullet.’ Once a quarter, you were given a ‘silver bullet.’ You used your silver bullet when you were the only one on the team that believed in a risky worship idea, and wanted to try it despite the questionable potential for success and high possibility of failure.

One silver bullet moment that comes to mind was when someone had the idea to write (or adapt, I can’t remember) a skit based on the concept of ‘the frog in the kettle,’ presented to us at the time by George Barna’s book of the same title. Apparently, if tossed into a pot of already boiling water, a frog will immediately hop out to avoid the danger. However, if you place a frog in a pot of cool water and slowly raise the temperature to boiling, you’ll be eating frog’s legs for dinner. Can you detect the spiritual/cultural correlation? One of our team members proposed a scenario in which two actors dressed as frogs would sit in a large pot, having a casual conversation, completely oblivious to the imminent danger. Good concept. A bit of a strange presentation for the context. The script – which was very funny when rehearsed came across as rather morbid in performance. The actors’ pauses for laughter were instead filled with awkward silence. It came off like a dark, Lynchian piece instead of the light-hearted skit it was supposed to be.

A failure? We said so at the time. In hindsight, the freedom to risk and fail in our creative pursuits – even in the ‘serious’ environment of worship – fostered frequent successes. And, by “successes,” I mean worship moments facilitating deep connection with the Spirit, whether joyful, poignant or any point in between.

Categories: Leadership

Confessions of a Religious Tourist

by Ryan Marsh | September 23, 2011

Two international trekkers from our community had recently returned from hiking in the Himalayas and brought home gifts they had acquired on their adventure. They presented our community with a shiny “singing bowl” (which rings out for minutes when you ding it) and a strand of multicolored Tibetan prayer flags.

Throughout the season of Easter our community had been writing prayers on small colored papers and pinning them to twine strung throughout our worship space. The result of the growing prayer installation closely resembled the flags brought by the world travelers. All we were missing was the wind to blow the papery rows of petitions about, and Pentecost could not have been a more perfect culmination of this season.

The children led us in procession from our worship space to the community garden out back, where we tied the prayers of our community from one bean teepee over to a sweet pea trellis and then finally over to an arch. The plan was to hang the Tibetan prayer flags alongside the prayers we had created, but before we did this, a member of our community, Christa, pulled me aside. “Ryan, I don’t think you know what’s written on these Tibetan prayer flags. It’s not simply ‘peace, love and harmony.’ They are prayers to other deities that are not the Trinity. I don’t think it’s right to do this.”

Christa had lived in Northern China before moving to Edmonds and joining our community and knew a lot about Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism. I felt unprepared to care for her concern while also honoring the people who had brought the gift, so in my insecurity and anxiety I deflected by inviting her to share her experience and perspective with the two trekkers. Which she did, respectfully, while I made myself busy barbecuing. I checked in with the trekkers later on. “Oh, I wasn’t offended at all,” one said. “Actually, if you remember, you were the one who had asked us to bring back the prayer flags.”

How could I have forgotten?

The next day, I wrote an confessional and apologetic e-mail to Christa and the trekkers:

I was being a ‘religious tourist’ who intended to remain superficial. Then, when I got scared of being exposed, I passed the buck. Obviously, this is terrible leadership. I’m sad about that. If any conversations occurred yesterday about ‘what might it mean to be a Christ follower in a pluralistic world,’ or if anything positive resulted, it was because the Spirit of God is with us. Please forgive me.

All three individuals were gracious to me, and generous conversations did follow.

Our community may not have seen tongues of fire rest on our heads during the Pentecost service, but the Spirit moved in ways I didn’t expect – through a fumbled liturgy, open communication, and forgiveness. As curators of worship, we don’t get everything right all the time, especially the more we are willing to risk, and yet, Lord willing, something beautiful still emerges.

Categories: Leadership

Can you share a story about when work and worship overlapped?

by Eric Herron | September 5, 2011

Humans lack integrity. Not only do we fail at being the same person in public as we are in private, we also fail when it comes to interweaving the many things we do.

We work. We rest. We play. We worship. Rarely do these things overlap. If they do, it is accidental. We have our calendars with dates and times for everything under the sun. Unlike the exhortation in Ecclesiastes, this kind of schedule segregation can be a bad thing. Why? Well, because, we are supposed to be whole. Just as we are supposed to be seamlessly the same person in secret and in public, we are also supposed to live – work, rest, play, worship, etc. – from a sense of wholeness, a sense that there is a something greater connecting the different things we do.

This week on Clayfire Curator we want to look a little more closely at two specific aspects of our doing that are often starkly delineated: Work and Worship. There is a time to laud and a time to labor. A time to sing and a time to slog. A time to exalt and a time to exert. Or, so we say with our actions. But, what does God say about this?

How should our careers relate to our religion? How do our jobs coincide with our spirituality? Is “mission” the only thing we ought to bring into our work or can we also bring worship?

An answer begins to formulate when we consider worship beyond ritual acts that are done in a specific place at a specific time. Then, a second question arises: What does this mean for worship curation? Doesn’t the worship curator curate in the context of meeting? Yes. And. Why limit ourselves to this?

Give us some feedback on this in the comments of this post. And, if it’s not too much work, cast your vote in the related poll…