Faith Works 10-12-19

Faith Works 10-12-19

Jeff Gill

 

Making adjustments on the field

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For those who've found my last few columns depressing, I do apologize!

 

My intention has not been to sound negative, but to be candid about some changes that are not so much happening as have already happened around us, and to be honest about how these social changes are impacting church life.

 

While my niche here is to speak to people of faith in all sorts of settings, I know the biggest chunk of readers are involved and active with local churches. My own calling as a congregational minister, a parish pastor, means I'm particularly attuned to what's going on in those circles. And I think a little candor about some changes and their implications, while possibly painful at first, can get us to a healthier spot.

 

Any time of year, but especially during an Ohio autumn, it can be both tempting and risky to engage in football metaphors. Especially because while that's popular with some, it can really turn off quite a few others . . . but I hope you'll bear with me.

 

As any casual observer knows, there are upsets in football, pro or college. "On any given Sunday" is a catchphrase of the NFL that you never know when a struggling team can catch a winning team by surprise, and end up with a win. (This should give hope to Browns fans, anyhow.)

 

And in the college game in particular, you might see a highly rated team bobble a bit in the first quarter, but then come storming back to win by a landslide. It's said that the coach has "made adjustments." Making adjustments is, I'd argue, the big difference between a good team and a great team, and it might even be the main distinction between a winning and losing record. You prepare all week in one way, and then the opponent comes out with a new formation or a surprising spread, and if they're running right through you, or stopping your entire offense, you can't just keep doing what you practiced. If it's not working, you make adjustments, right?

 

Or you can yell and scream and shout and tell them to do better while doing the same thing, and maybe it will change. Probably not, though. You drop back another linebacker, you shift the blockers on the sweep or pitchout, you make adjustments and find out what DOES work against the team you're actually facing, not just the one you had up on the blackboard in the locker room.

 

My point these last few weeks has been to suggest that churches, like many other institutional expressions of ideas or ideals or hopes, can be slow to make adjustments. If it worked last week or last year or last decade (or half century ago) then it should work now. Three yards and a cloud of dust worked for Woody, right?

 

Until it doesn't. If you keep running the same play, and you don't make three yards, but get stuffed at the line of scrimmage, or even start getting thrown for a loss, you need to mix it up. Change the patterns. Make adjustments.

 

Many churches are still running "three yards and a cloud of dust." If it worked back in the 60s and 70s, if it stopped working then it's because the players weren't executing, because the line isn't blocking right, or the ball carriers need to step it up, right? Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe our blockers are simply going where the defenders ain't; perhaps the tackle is being made even as the handoff is happening, and we're losing ground. Time for a shift.

 

It's great advice, except there's no single answer that explains "make an adjustment." You have to size up the opposition, your own strengths, and adjust accordingly. There's also resistance to adjustments in church life because of an assumption that our ways are timeless, and our truths are enduring. That's true of the Gospel, friends, but is it equally so about our worship and welcome and invitations?

 

A good old phrase is the theological equivalent of "make adjustments": in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity. Congregations can struggle with what's essential to their witness, but is architecture or order of worship an essential? Can there be liberty in how we present and communicate and even market ourselves to a wider community, whose means of communication have changed drastically over the last few decades?

 

And as we experiment with our adjustments, let us show charity, caritas, love to each other as we make mistakes, and get up, and try again.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's made many mistakes. A partial list can be obtained at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 10-10-19

Notes from my Knapsack 10-10-19

Jeff Gill

 

Greek Revival and humane renewal

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Ann Lowder recently stepped down as executive director of the Robbins Hunter Museum after a baker's dozen years of service.

 

Thirteen lucky years were good for the Avery Downer House and the museum which Robbins Hunter, Jr. bequeathed to the community. We will miss her, but she's earned a little extra spare time to pursue her grandchildren and other interests.

 

I got to meet her soon after the village bicentennial in 2005, and we had much to talk about around the characters of both Granville and of that remarkable architectural gem – previous Robbins Hunter Museum directors, and Robbins Hunter himself, whom she knew.

 

Avery House Antiques has a near-legendary history in this community, but those were raucous and cluttered days when that business was in the heart of the village. Today the grounds and interior are peaceful and orderly, as well as welcoming, and that's in no small part due to the personality as well as the leadership of Ann.

 

We started talking early on about Victoria Woodhull, whose memorial was one of Robbins Hunter, Jr.'s last additions to the Greek Revival gem on Broadway, his way of saluting the national bicentennial coming in 1976, so he honored the first woman to run for President of the United States by putting her figure into a clock tower, at the top of the hour gliding out to regard the state of the nation from her balcony.

 

Some weren't sure that this was an animated monument that suited a Greek Revival masterpiece, but Ann saw her way clear to restore and renew not only the clock, but our local appreciation of Victoria Woodhull, bringing both local and national speakers in to share aspects of her remarkable story.

 

And it occurred to me, as we honored Ann Lowder's story, that in many minds was the recent premier of the "Downton Abbey" movie. It's set in 1927, and that happens to be the year in which Victoria Woodhull died at the age of 88. We often talk of her first 44 years in the United States, but the fact of the matter is that she lived another 44 years as a grand lady in a manor house at Bredon's Norton, just up the road from Tewkesbury Abbey where her only other memorial can be found, behind the high altar.

 

Dowager Countess Violet at Downton Abbey is 85 and unwell in 1927; the very real Victoria Woodhull was in her last decades a fascinating mix of both her and Lady Cora, the American bride of Lord Grantham. Woodhull didn't marry a lord, but she came close, and got a house filled with servants and a role in an abbey that, from a distance, doesn't look too far off of Highclere Castle where the TV show and movie was shot.

 

Ann, I noted at her retirement fête, combined the strength of Mr. Carson the head butler, and the grace and humane gifts of Mrs. Hughes, the housekeeper, in how she brought the staff and board and volunteers and guests of the Avery Downer House together for so many wonderful events.

 

But for most of us, she will always be our Lady Mary, beautifully greeting one and all as we came to see what the Robbins Hunter Museum had to share next. We honor her best by carrying on!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's looking forward to the next 170 or so years of our local history! Tell him what you're looking ahead to at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-5-19

Faith Works 10-5-19

Jeff Gill

 

How changes will change church

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For the last two weeks, I've been attempting to outline some major social changes that, in my opinion, have a major impact on church life not just in Licking County but across the United States (and Canada, for that matter).

 

These aren't things which I'm attempting to forecast or predict, but I'm letting y'all know are happening right now; in most cases, have been happening and are continuing to gather in intensity and scope. Where it will all end is another question – I could just refer you to the book of Revelation, but that's a slightly longer-range forecast than I'm engaged in here.

 

As I've already said, I'm not going deep, and I'm not describing it all, but I am trying to sketch what's rocking and unnerving congregations even as many are unclear about what external factors are creating the internal stresses. And I want to wrap this series up with two areas which are somewhat more subtle, but I think even more momentous for how they have and are changing the lives of gathered faith communities.

 

Entertainment is usually a dirty word when applied to worship and a church organization. As in "that's entertainment, not prayer and praise" et cetera. People use the label "entertainment" to condemn worship styles they don't like and youth programs they don't approve of (there's a whole column series right there).

 

But as both a congregational minister and historian of sorts, I have read lots of old newspapers, including much of the run of this fine publication coming up next year on its bicentennial, since Benjamin Briggs founded the Advocate in 1820. And as I read Ohio newspapers from earlier centuries, and church newsletters from even just decades before, I have to point something out: churches and Sunday worship, both the morning and evening services (remember evening services?), were for most people for a very long time the one form of, well, entertainment they received. They had the Holy Bible and Pilgrim's Progress at home, and they heard music each weekend in church. It wasn't meant to be a concert, and yes, militia companies and other groups would occasionally put together a band, but the one regular musical offering and spoken presentation, telling stories and weaving in current events, was in worship.

 

Traveling performers might come through once a year or so, but until radio and movies and television and earbuds came along, for a very long time church had an unintentional but very real monopoly on visual and aural entertainment. As media became an equally unintentional competition, Christendom still pervaded popular culture enough that it didn't quite feel like competition. But over the last century, and even more intensely in the last twenty years, church is competing and faith is struggling against direct competition for worldview and mindset and tastes and expectations in terms of, well, entertainment. And in a consumer culture, that has implications.

 

If I lost you on how entertainment culture has shifted to change the landscape for delivering a worship and congregational experience, the other topic may find you even more bewildered, but bear with me, because this I suspect will make sense to quite a few. We also, in the life of the church, have seen our former near-monopoly on fundraising change in some very dramatic ways.

 

Again, this was never (as far as I can tell) intentional, but on the American frontier and in early Ohio if there needed to be funds raised to do good and better humanity, the hub was the local church or churches. Those dollars flowed through congregational life, and both directly and indirectly helped maintain the local church while going to causes and families and missions and such wherever else.

 

Today, what checkout can you go through – even self-checkout interrogates you electronically! – and not be asked to give to some charity? And I hasten to note I am NOT implying there's a nefarious purpose there, either: all that money, I'm fairly sure, goes where they say it does. But you now associate the good feeling of giving and your empathy with that cause with [insert major retail outlet here].

 

Giving is by card and by text and by individual choice; group efforts, even non-church ones today, are struggling. That consumer culture again is prevailing in people's hearts and mind; for church life, our former near-monopoly on the concept and impact and practices of philanthropy has long ago ended, but the ripple effect into our contributions and budgets is only recently being wrestled with, by our boards and organizational officers.

 

What does it all mean? Stay tuned, friends…

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's still figuring all this stuff out himself! Tell him what you think it all means at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

 

Faith Works 9-28-19

Faith Works 9-28-19

Jeff Gill

 

What's not so new, but not familiar either

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Last week I was inviting you, the reader, to think with me about some of the changes that are impacting organized religion and traditional worship.

 

The shifts away from membership as something personally meaningful, of weddings moving to non-church venues, and even funerals going to unique and unusual locations are all "outside the church" changes which have some pretty big implications for the usual way things have been within the average congregation. If marriage and family farewells have long been a place where frayed or lost ties to a faith community can be renewed, that's not as likely to happen if most such services don't even have a member of the clergy involved.

 

Some of these social shifts more directly show up inside the church building, and during the worship service itself.

 

Singing is . . . well, it's hard. I hear lots of colleagues decrying contemporary worship because getting away from hymnals and going to screens and words up above a stage means no longer having four-part harmony notes in front of the worshiper.

 

Except how many can, or do sing one of the non-melody lines? And as someone who has led singing at Scout camps and other outdoor activities for years, I can say with some certainty that group singing is just not a thing anymore. Karaoke is a thing, but rarely does the whole group get up on stage to sing along. Just getting a tableful of family to sing "Happy Birthday" can be a challenge. We listen, ironically, to more music than has been available at any point in human history to date, but we don't much sing it. We like to listen.

 

Where that leaves us in congregational hymnody I don't know. I'm blessed to serve in a place where members love to sing in the choir (or play in the handbells), but I hear often about how the struggle to keep a choir has ended in other churches. I have a deep connection to the old hymns, but that's less common even among church goers.

 

And while people like to listen, they have high expectations on audio quality. Think those headphones, and then think about your aural experience in a worship space. It's not always said exactly this way, but basically people expect to be surrounded and I would say even overwhelmed by the sound . . . or they will say it's not loud enough, or it's not clear, or something like that.

 

It was not until 1945 that my congregation even had electronic amplification; for many churches, a very basic microphone and public address or PA system was the norm until around 2000. Today, the expectations are that any speaker, any music, any sound in worship be amplified. A hundred years ago, if you didn't have a loud, clear voice, you couldn't get ordained to preach. Literally. So that's a fascinating, two-edged change.

 

But it's closely paralleled by a second expectation alongside of sound quality: sanctuary temperature. I don't know of any clergymember my age or older who doesn't think this has gotten worse in the last few years.

 

Folks, I hate to do this, but I remember vividly going to church as a kid in the summer when the little windows at the bottom of the stained glass were all that opened, the funeral home fans with the picture of Jesus or Last Supper on one side were all waving in every hand, and you heard dogs bark outside and trains pass, but you didn't close those narrow panes for nothing, because it was already hot enough to steam a sauna full of Finns inside. It could be beastly in church during the summer, but we dealt with it.

 

Writing this led me to pull out my copy of Jacob Little's history of Granville and the Presbyterian church there, where he describes the controversies over stoves in church. The first ones brought in by individuals in 1831 were vigorously objected to, but even that hardy old Puritan said "Our Church being without stoves, there was less interest in public worship in the winter." At Rev. Little's request a collection was taken and church stoves for heating were installed at the end of 1832.

 

Which means we probably have 187 years of complaints about the church being too hot, or too cold, in Licking County. Are those concerns greater or not? I can't really say. What I do know is that it comes up, often.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; yes, he's heading somewhere with all of this, continued next week though it is. Tell him where you see these thoughts going at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 9-26-19

Notes from my Knapsack 9-26-19

Jeff Gill

 

So much music but give me more

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Granville has a stellar reputation around education, and Greek Revival architecture, and general atmospheric charm, but I'm not sure we're as well known for music as we should be.

 

Like so many of you, I was fascinated by the PBS series "Country Music" by Ken Burns and his creative team, tracing the intertwining of African and European instruments and styles into the culture of the American South and the mixing of ethnicities and technologies to produce gospel music, western styles, bluegrass, Texas swing, and so much more, all under the overarching label of country. The hillbilly, honky tonk narrative of country doesn't have deep roots in Our Fayre Village, but that same complexity and mysteriously intertwining storyline does touch down along Broadway.

 

There's a few ancient instruments at the Granville Historical Society showing the musical aspirations of the 1805 settlers, and the earlier Welsh pioneers loved their vocal assemblies, the "eisteddfod" gatherings that persist into the present day. We've got precious historical photographs of a high school marching band around 1900, and tales of the "Halfway House" next to the Dugway where more elemental music ruled the nights.

 

We've got twenty years now of the HotLicks Bluesfest right downtown, and newly arrived in the area the Ohiolina Music Festival last weekend at Infirmary Mound Park just south of the village.

 

My first encounter with Granville's music scene was on a Tuesday morning in Slayter up on the Denison campus, many years ago, and that region-wide gathering of bluegrass musicians just jamming around with each other, and visitors invited to sing along, softly or with vigor as the case may be. Now, Denison has had a bluegrass concentration to major in for their students for a decade, and their Bluegrass Ensemble plays anywhere from festivals on the road to the Candlelight Christmas Walking Tour on Broadway.

 

Denison supports both campus and community in participation with their choruses and other musical ensembles; you can also find soloists and bands playing in restaurants along the village streets and at the Granville Inn, with national reputations or local reknown. The high school offers both bands and choirs, an orchestra and a fair number of individual acts both in house and out around the community.

 

This is a community that loves music. We show up, even when thunderstorms threaten, for "Concerts on the Green," once on the lower campus of the college and now out behind the Bryn Du Mansion, thanks to our Granville Recreation District.

 

But there will be a return, now that the Eisner Center construction is completed, at least for this autumn, with a special "Fall Concert on the Green" on Saturday, October 5^th at 5:00 PM. On the Fine Arts Quad along West Broadway, the lower campus of Denison, we'll get to hear "Rock This Town" which is bringing us their take on the swing revival, emulating the Brian Setzer Orchestra. 

 

So much music. The holiday concerts at Granville High School literally sell out, where so many schools and communities work to just get a decent audience for their kids. We love our local musicians more than we do the ones who come from far away, and the Vail Series regularly fills Swasey Chapel for globally significant artists.

 

This is a music loving community, and the soundtrack of our village is complex and various: one of the many reasons I love it here.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he has his own set list that plays in his head even without earphones. Tell him your favorite music at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.