Church unplugged: seekers and finders - humor - Column

Christian Century, July 13, 1994 by David A. Hoekema

NO ONE is sure who first brought up the idea of giving up the "seeker service" concept. Whoever it was, it didn't catch on right away. Nobody was ready to rush into another big change. Why throw the whole rig into reverse when we had just got going in this direction? That was the way Frank had put it.

Everyone remembers exactly when Piggery Avenue Church revved up its diesel and started off into the contemporary world. That's the way Pastor Jerry started talking when he came back from that conference in Dallas. Practically every other church in Grand City had already taken the plunge, but the pastor wasn't sure it would work for us. So when a member of the council offered to pick up the tab for the conference and the airfare--no commitment, no promises, just check things out and see what you think, he had told the pastor--Pastor Jerry packed his bags right away.

And the Fifth Annual Hallelujah Jesus! Praise and Worship for Today's Church Conference and Computer Fair had really opened his eyes. The only thing standing between us and a really dynamic, growing ministry for the '90s, he told us the Sunday after he got home, is our sentimental attachment to the baggage of our childhood, which just doesn't work for our unchurched neighbors. Why should we sing those slow, listless hymns with language so stilted we couldn't explain it to our friends, let alone our kids? Why should anybody have to sit through a long doctrinal sermon? We've got to get off our guilt trip, update our language and our music, and let a little joy into our worship! It was hard to argue with that.

So out went the old hymnal, the organ, the choir, the preaching robe. Inside of a month, Pastor Jerry had found some musicians to make up a band, and there were big TV monitors in front to show music videos of Christian musicians--the "video prelude and postlude," said the bulletin. Pastor Jerry stayed out of the pulpit and did his preaching in little segments, walking around with a cordless mike, no tie or jacket, a big cross on a chain around his neck.

And it worked, more or less. We had more visitors those first few weeks than we had seen since that service where the high school cheerleaders did a liturgical dance. A couple of times, maybe, the musicians got carried away. Using a Jimi Hendrix lick as a lead-in to "Jesus, I Just Want to Praise You Some More" wasn't such a great idea, and that drum solo during the offertory last January was about five minutes too long. But you live and learn.

But the funny part was how all the visitors stayed just a few weeks and then didn't come back. And Florence said she recognized most of them as visitors who had been over at Poke Street Church a couple of months before, and Trudy said now that you mention it she saw them all at 17th Baptist of Grand City last fall. Somebody said they weren't really unchurched but church nomads. Sort of like shoppers who turn up at all the supermarket openings.

And when it really came down to it, there were still pretty much the same people in church every Sunday, minus about ten families that didn't like any of the changes. And then at a council meeting Ed asked the question that stopped everybody in their tracks. Why are we pretending we don't like church? That was the way he put it. We do like church, and we don't need to be coaxed into coming back by a lot of jokes and guitars. We like hymns, and here we've given up all of our traditional hymns, good and bad, in exchange for contemporary music that all sounds the same.

But I'm not sure anything would have changed if it hadn't been for what happened two weeks later, on Easter Sunday. The church was filled, things were hopping. The pastor's intro was one of his best--he had everybody laughing about the four-year-old who thought the disciples found the Easter Bunny in the tomb. The musicians had worked up a new arrangement of "Thank You Jesus for Being Such a Really Great Kind of Savior," and everybody was getting into the singing. They were just doing the lead-in to the third verse, where the bass guitar kicks in big, and the keyboard player lets loose with that "F-16s in formation" effect. It was really thrilling. But then it happened. The power blew.

It didn't happen all at once. The bass guitar sort of slumped into nothing with a big ka-wumph. The keyboard and organ and drum synth set kept going for a few seconds. The lead guitar and rhythm guitar and the pedal steel kept going a little longer. But the lights were off, the stage mikes were all dead. The sax and horn players kept going for a few bars, and so did the two drummers on acoustic drum sets, but then they stopped and looked around, kind of embarrassed, like somebody caught laughing at a funeral.

And then nobody knew what to do. Pastor Jerry motioned for everyone to quiet down, and suggested that we go on to the next song--a good one for singing without the backup, and an old favorite, "We're So Glad Jesus That You're Not Dead Anymore." But everybody mumbled and looked around like they didn't want anyone to hear them singing. And with the slide projectors down hardly anyone remembered the words.