Here is the final cut of the film that Beau and I made. Beau's music has been properly mixed and I made some adjustments on the editing. Posted below is a reflection on this piece of art.
Beau and I began to dream about what an art piece might look like if we were to combine some of our gifts and talents that we had previously been given the opportunity to cultivate. I knew that Beau was a gifted musician and I informed Beau that I liked to dabble in post-production editing and film. We dialogued about what a short film might look like specifically for this class. We reflected upon ecclesiology, modern art, postmodern art, Jesus, and eventually landed upon a shared passion that both of us possess. Worship. We wanted to create a modern day icon not only about worship, but also for worship. We envisioned a creation of a window to heaven for this class and also for our own local church bodies. As we continued to dialogue we soon realized that the problem would not be coming up with material to put in the short film, but rather to narrow our ideas into a film that would be less than five minutes long. We narrowed by recognizing a shared passion for embracing the beauty of worship within different traditions. The idea was made complete when we decided to attempt to articulate the richness of worship within different traditions as all five human senses are engaged.
The Protestant American Church does not do well in engaging all five human senses. There is very little space within protestant worship for the visual. Through the interpretation of John Calvin, and his focus on the hearing of the Word of God over and against visual mediums within worship, protestant churches are filled with barren walls. This has also been the experience of Beau and I within our own respective churches. Services are filled with words, but often lack the language of visual imagery. Especially the language of art. Beau and I both agree that art has a place within the liturgy of our Sunday morning worship and we felt that a film, with the primary medium of the visual, could be a beneficial step in moving in more of a positive direction with using art in worship.
In order for this piece of art to be efficient in moving our own local church bodies in a positive direction, we knew that the piece would have to be aesthetically pleasing. George Steiner defines aesthetic. “Embody concentrated, selective interactions between the constraints of the observed and the boundless possibilities of the imagined.” Thus we wanted this film to capture the imagination of the viewers. As I edited the various photos together, I could feel the limits of each individual picture. Yet from talking to others who have already seen the film, and as I observe the film, I can literally feel how the intertwining of all of the different aesthetics of the piece, the movement, the words, the music, the texture, the effects, and the individual pictures call viewers into a state of imagination. While the individual pictures were very limited in their ability to aesthetically capture the viewer, the while of the project captures a piece of the cosmic story and calls viewers into a deeper state of imagination. This is beauty to Beau and I. Beauty calls people into a state of imagination.
We feel that the idea of beauty calls us to a series of difficult questions. What is beautiful? Is beauty truly in the eye of the beholder? Or does beauty have a consistency within its ethos? In his book Visual Faith, William A. Dyrness writes…
“An examination of some of the biblical language fro beauty reveals that beauty is connected both to God’s presence and activity and to the order that God has given to creation.“
It our belief that this piece, Sensing Worship, was and continues to be connected to God’s presence and activity and thus contains beauty. We also believe that this piece is beautiful because of the order that it contains. The consistent rhythm of the song, the movement of images, the steady communication of the lyrics, and the focused message of the art all contribute to its beauty. While God’s activity and order do not encompass the totality of its beauty, the art is connected to God and possesses order and thus has components of beauty within it. This beauty then leads not only to imagination, but also to action.
Our desire in creating this film was to open a window to heaven. The transcendent space that is offered through art exists for more than just the space of transcendence. This space is sacred as it calls us into action. It is the hope of Beau and I that Sensing Worship will call people to a new depth of understanding and practice in worship. We hope that this film inspires both worshippers and those who plan worship to take more into account each of our God given senses. Engaging these senses will better allow God to connect with worshippers and will give the Holy Spirit space to call people deeper into love for God and love for neighbor. Ultimately we hope that this window to heaven acts as a catalyst in creating space to allow people to worship deeper into spirit and truth, which will then lead to the expansion of the Kingdom of Heaven in all of the communities that surround each of the respective viewers.
In a world where we are increasingly surrounded by films created for the sole purpose of entertainment and for creating a financial profit, we deeply desire for this film to do more than simply entertain. I don’t think that I could say it better than Rookmaaker in his book Modern Art and the Death of a Culture.
“They depict as true a world which is limited and superficial, one without God, without the deeper questions in man’s heart, without real matters of life and death, for life and death are reduced to sentiment, or adventures, or crime and violence or cruelty, without any sort of judgment passed.”
We especially love Rookmaaker’s thought that many films do not capture the deeper questions within the heart of humanity. For it is in the questions that we journey deeper into Truth. What Beau and I find most interesting is that answers aren’t necessarily the end point of the journey of questions. We think that the deepest levels of Truth and reality are often found in the process of living out the deepest questions of humanities heart. Thus our hope is that this piece of art calls people not to concrete answers, but to conversations and to spaces where questions about worship, reality and God can be lived out.
So as we continue to have consistent conversations with people in our respective congregations about worship, we hope that this film may enable people to live deeper into their questions not only about worship, but ultimately about reality, which we believe is best encountered in God. As worship leaders, Beau and I have learned that people are consistently frustrated with Sunday morning congregational worship. While there are many factors to this frustration for the average worshipper in America, we feel that a significant portion of this frustration comes because of our handicapped senses in the average protestant worship space. Protestants have not been freed to release all senses in worship and have been trained to highly prioritize only listening to the written Word of God. We have also been trained to numb all other senses in order that we might best be able to hear the Word. George Steiner brilliantly wrote in Real Presences “that when it speaks of music, language is lame.” Might we add that when it speaks of worship, engaging only one sense is lame. Ultimately when only a one sense is engaged to encounter the ultimate reality of God, the encountering is lame. And if our articulation of God and reality is lame, then the natural outflow of worship will also be lame.
Thus, as we attempted to do in Sensing Worship, we must consistently engage all senses in worship in order to better engage reality. This articulation will better lead to order and to beauty and to imagination and then to action. If we do not engage all five senses in worship we will be left with lame worship. And lame worship will then lead to a lame sense of beauty, which will then lead to a lame sense of imagination, which will then lead to lame action, which will naturally communicate with the world that we worship a lame God who has a lame love for humanity. Deep within, the average worshipper in America knows that God’s love for the world is not lame. May Sensing Worship be a window into heaven that calls people to better encounter God and to better distribute the depth of God’s love for the world.
While often reading through the New Testament over the past year, it seems clear that there were many different communities attempting to work out their understanding of orthodoxy. It also seems that as they chose, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, God blessed. For instance, LEADERSHIP...Within the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy, there were leadership structures that were being put into place due to the ritualization and institutionalization was happening as the church grew. Those structures of leadership were different when compared to the structures of leadership in Acts (where elder is used as a Jewish or Jewish Christian leader) or in Philippians where the episkopos (overseer or bishop) and deacons (servants) were addressed in the first chapter of the book. Or how about WORSHIP... It is impossible to harmonize the Gospels with Paul when it comes to the tradition of communion. The table fellowship of Jesus was marked with openness throughout his ministry. Through a literary lens, it is clear that the last supper was a final expression of this. This doesn't match the "closed" table that Paul preaches... But poor Paul... People kept getting drunk at the agape feast before the Eucharist...No wonder he wrote, "For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves." Let's consider SPIRITUAL GIFTS... There are numerous lists of gifts in different places in the New Testament... You guessed it... they are different. The truth is that there was no single orthodoxy when it came to leadership, worship, or spiritual gifts. Even deeper, it doesn't seem that there was one orthodoxy of belief either.
Okay... For as much as people are giving "Christian" music a hard time, I have to admit that I have been looking forward to August 28th and the release of Shane and Shane's new CD for a long time. After buying the album on ITunes and listening to it, I am feeling neutral. Whitney and I enjoyed a couple of the songs, laughed at a couple of the songs, and thought that the majority of the songs were mediocre. All people that reported on iTunes loved the CD and gave it 4 1/2 stars. I would give the CD 2 1/2 and Whitney gives it a 3. If you like Shane and Shane I feel like you should probably get the CD... If you have never listened, I would suggest going elsewhere for your next music purchase.
I have been helping Dr. Spittler, the former provost at Fuller Seminary, move his library out of his office. Dr. Spittler hasn't worked at Fuller since 2002, but the seminary has graciously given him a space on campus for the past 5 years. Recently Dr. Spittler was asked to move out of his office due to space restrictions on campus. He has a remarkable amount of books, what he called "40 years worth", surrounding the walls of his office. On my part, moving the books has taken some sweat, and on his part has taken tears. I stood and talked with Dr. Spittler today after we ran out of boxes to continue with the project. Tears filled his eyes as he was reflecting upon his life and work that was represented within the metaphor of his personal library. It was an intense moment as we spoke of the changing world that we dwell within. As Dr. Spittler was tearing over the lament of the boxing of his books, I have been reflecting that those moments of boxing his library probably also stood for a bigger shift with implications not only for the individual of Dr. Spittler, but also for the world. 
Bryan and Katie got married two weekends ago in Michigan... I got to attend their beautiful wedding in Detroit. Be sure to give them a congrats on Facebook!
A fellow staff member of mine at GPC quoted Moltmann in an e-mail to me this afternoon...
Whitney and I were walking through Paseo Colorado, a local outdoor mall in Pasedena, and I saw him from afar!!! His eyes twinkled, but he seemed more clean cut and skinny to really be him. As he approached I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at him and smiled. He stopped as well, looking at me as if to say, "What the hell are you looking at?". Whitney saved the moment, ran up to him and brilliantly asked him, "Are you Al?" He politely smiled and said yes. Then we awkwardly walked away.
I have been processing the times that I have recently had with family over the past week and I think that the whole of my contemplation hinges on a conversation that I had with Lindsay late into the morning. While much of my studies has been bent towards the idea of being agents of the pursuit of heaven here and now, I have often been left, especially on Monday's (Ecclesiastes Monday), asking the question, "Where is heaven?". So as I have reflected upon the intangibility of heaven, especially in light of difficult circumstances within life, it has been a healthy exercise for me to remember that everything isn't as it should be... Or else, it would be, well... heaven. So as Lindsay and I talk, we are contemplating the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven here and now, and recognize that heaven (or the reign of God) is certainly near in the moments. Lindsay then began to talk about "limited time", and we remembered that in 24 hours we would once again be in much different places. We knew that we would be sad, and we recognized that there is something inherently wrong with being far away from family. The natural next question then filled the air... Would heaven still be near in those moments of distance? 
Be sure to check out Jeff Bonhiver's blog that he just started. He is interning with me at GPC and he will be sure to keep us up to date on the latest and greatest from the world of worship and theology... I added him to my list of links under GPC/Fuller peeps. (I stole this picture off his Facebook!)
Mini Putt