Faith Works 2-19-22

Faith Works 2-19-22
Jeff Gill

What about birthing classes?
___


Various questions have been asked of me about my idea that worship services are describable as "birthing classes and funeral rehearsals."

Now, I didn't say that's a comprehensive summary of the totality of what Christian worship is or should be, just that I thought it was a useful template to use, imaginatively speaking.

If someone else wants to say "worship should be communion with the Living God" I won't dispute the point; if another argues "Christian assembly on the Lord's Day should be about turning hearts toward heaven and lifting up Jesus" I'd smile and say "Amen!" to you. Each is an attempt to find a model in words how to sum up and guide the ever-challenging question of leading worship, something both my wife and I have done in a variety of settings from Scout camp shorelines to rented middle school auditoriums, let alone a variety of church buildings, over many years. Worship is not something that can be summarized easily . . . any more than God can be, come to think of it.

But the more I think about my off-hand phrase, the more I like it. It kind of grew out of a post I've done multiple times over the years, after first taking our son to Disney World, and seeing a discreet sign over by the Mad Tea Party: "First Aid & Lost Children." For a long time, that was a phrase I would mention in congregational leadership and in social media as a working summary of what church is at its best: "First Aid & Lost Children." An effective congregation, I'd still say, should be a place where the spiritually hurting can hope to find a kind of first aid for the soul, and where those who feel lost and without a loving parent watching out for them can find a refuge, and maybe even be reconnected with the love they once knew.

That's for faith communities in general (and for the nonce, I think it's a nicely ecumenical description, too, not just a Christian model), but it's not quite as descriptive and prescriptive for worship services. I didn't spend much time thinking about that, just a mental placeholder to note I didn't have a neat summary phrase that worked as well.

My phrase "birthing classes and funeral rehearsals" I think has it's roots, as perhaps too much of my thinking does, in the writing of Wendell Berry, and specifically the closing of his blank verse poem "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" (trust me, you should read it if you haven't, easy to find online). Two words: practice resurrection.

"Practice resurrection" might do better in two words what I propose in five, but it's a bit opaque. I'm still claiming it as wisdom, but the fleshing out of it ended up with first "birthing classes" and needed the logical bookend of "funeral rehearsals."

If you've never been through a birthing class, male or female, the main thing to remember is that the leaders want you to be prepared to welcome new life into your own. And they want to be honest with you: it won't come easy, you need to breathe, and you need to accept what comes while working with what's happening. Our natural impulses are not always our friends when birth is ready to occur, but with a modest amount of coaching, the pregnant woman and even the hapless male (or friend, as was true for some of the couples when I was in a birthing class) can make it through.

New life is what we all say we want, but that's not the same as saying we're ready for what it means to let new life be born, or to accept the changes new life brings into our life as it was. Birthing classes do spend a great deal of time on breathing: because that's one of the simple things we need to remember to do when life is changing dramatically, just remembering to breathe. And there's a fair amount of conventional wisdom and outright truism that needs to be shared, because now we're hearing familiar phrases in the context of — now this means us.

Does this description sound more like birthing classes, or preaching and prayer in worship? Stay with me, and I'll get to the second part, too.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's practicing resurrection every day. Tell him how you've learned to rise up and go forth at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.