“God is a God of order…”
May 9, 2004
Today was Youth Sunday. For those of you who aren’t Presbyterian, you must know that once a year, the youth of the church are “supposed” to be given control over the Worship Service; organizing, leading, etc. It can be an exciting or completely aggravating time. This year, it was looking like our students were not going to take the lead in getting into it, unless just a few weeks ago. They got excited about sermon possibilities and especially about the music. They didn’t want to do “the same old boring Youth Sunday worship songs” and so they even busted out David Crowder’s “O Praise Him” - and very well I must add (we had a girl learn how to play drums in 3 weeks and did an AMAZING job). Here is a picture of them leading worship. However, this morning after the first service, the “drama” began.
You see, I gave our secretary the Order of Worship before I left for Illinois, but the youth had decided they wanted to do the service backwards (beginning with the Benediction and just working backwards). They wanted to be different, to show that you could worship in different ways, that we didn’t always have to “go by the book.” After the first service, my pastor looked at me and the woman who works with me and said, “Can I see you two in my office…?”
He began by telling us how much he loved the service, the sermon (which 6 different students participated in), the music…everything…except….the fact that we did it backwards. He said it was completely “disorderly” and “God is a God of order!” It was like a “freak show circus” and we were going to upset many people, and the service was going to have incredible negative repercussions within the congregation. He said he wanted to walk out and he could not worship because it was “so different.” I didn’t hear *anyone* from the 1st service say they were bothered by the order of worship, and one gentleman even mentioned how he was especially challenged by the service, how things were different, and was incredibly moved by the worship and the messages of the students.
I was upset that my pastor felt the need to “micro-manage” this Sunday’s service, and wondered why the youth even are in charge of putting together Youth Sunday if they are going to be told that they need to change things. I said to my pastor, “Yes, God may be a God of order, but aren’t we kind of putting God in a box here…I know we’re Presbyterians and we are supposed to do things “decently and in order” - but God is not just a God of order…God is spontaneous…” - but he just insisted that God was a God of order! And this worship service, being backward, was not appropriate at all.
He asked what we were going to do, and I replied, “Well, it seems we have no option here. But I’m certainly not going to walk in there and tell them they have to do it completely different.” So we brought the students in, he complimented them and then suggested that we needed to rethink doing the service in the “correct order” - the students responded with the same questions I did (Why are we even in charge of this Sunday then? Why can’t the congregation handle one Sunday being different?) Eventually, my pastor left the room and the decision was up to us.
I told the students that I was on their side (which, I suppose some of you may say was *not* honoring the role of the pastor, by going against him in front of my students…) and that it was the congregation’s problem if they couldn’t handle the service being different. But, I so wanted the congregation to hear the strong and moving message of the students, that we may have to simply “give in” to this so that they will in fact hear the message.
We did, and people were incredibly moved by the service…so, all in all, it turned out okay.
But…my question (and maybe this is directed especially to you PC(USA)ers out there) - but at what point does God being a God of order get out of control? Do we see that God is a God of order…? Yes. Is God *only* a God of order…? Have we simply turned God into a God of order because that is how we want God to be? Because we are more comfortable with a God of order. Quakers certainly don’t believe in the same God of Order that my pastor does. So, how does this work…?
Just ran across this article, talking about this very issue. This is from the first paragraph.
Tags: Disorder, Order, Order-of-Service, PC(USA), Worship, Youth Ministry“I just wanted to comment on the use of the Biblical statements, “God is a God of order” and “Let all things be done decently and in order.” Recently I was discussing I Cor 14:40 and the surrounding passage with a pastor. I was trying to make the point that a particular expression of Christianity was violating God’s order for worship when this godly pastor gently stopped me in my tracks. “Are they violating God’s concept of order–or your concept of order? Are you imposing your own ideas about order on the passage?” That certainly gave me much to ponder. I recall, many years ago, being presented with the argument that any non-liturgical service violates I Cor 14:40 because non-liturgical worship is not orderly enough. I also recall hearing about a pastor being dressed down for violating this Scripture because he chose, one fateful Sunday, to veer a bit from the “Order of Worship” printed in the bulletin. Is this definition of decency and order what God intended?”
Posted in 
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
May 10th, 2004 at 1:19 am
I’m new to the PC(USA). Our youth are doing the service in 3 weeks. We’re getting the serious micromanagement from the contemporary worship leader who won’t let the kids lead worship if they aren’t perfect and polished. The worship committee gave me permission to do whatever I wanted & the elder for worship told me explicitly that he would /like/ for us to mix things up a bit. But, we won’t, because the worship leader can’t handle it.
We discussed this at youth group quite a bit. The youth decided that even though they have the “right” to do worship however they want and they would “like” to do it their way, the service is ultimately for God and they would rather give up some rights in order to move the focus away from the disagreement and back to the worship.
I have to admit. I was pretty proud of the youth for coming to that decision. It’s just too bad they were in a position to need to make it.
Oh, well. Lasting change is slow change, or something like that.
May 10th, 2004 at 1:20 am
Oh, and in my case, at least, I think it all has very little to do with theology and very much to do with an unrecognized need for control.
May 10th, 2004 at 1:24 am
Man I wish I was there. Is it really “control” when someone else can impose their coercion? I for one see that you “honored” by disagreeing with your pastor. Silence is not what God desires.
May 10th, 2004 at 8:40 am
I took the ordination exams last September and there was a question which included a vinette similar your Youth Sunday Experience. You may find the opening of Chapter III of the Book of Worship (in the Book of Order) interesting:
W-3.1002a: “The Church has always experienced a tension between form and freedom in worship. In the history of the Church, some have offered established forms for ordering worship in accordance with God‚Äôs Word. Others, in the effort to be faithful to the Word, have resisted imposing any fixed forms upon the worshiping community. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) acknowledges that all forms of worship are provisional and subject to reformation. In ordering worship the church is to seek openness to the creativity of the Holy Spirit, who guides the church toward worship which is orderly yet spontaneous, consistent with God‚Äôs Word and open to the newness of God‚Äôs future.”
When we take our ordination vows we say that we will uphold the constitution of the church, which the Book of Order is a part (on a side note, this is one of the major struggles of the church now, as some are saying the constitution doesn’t matter and congregations and pastors are doing as they please). Coming from an “evangelical” non-denominational background (basically southern baptist-esqe) and into the PC(USA) during college, I have appreciated the “balance” in the constitution and church documents, the balance between the “tradition,” and the “new” provided by the church’s sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and by being “always reformed and reforming.”
To make a long story short, the PC(USA) provides lots of room for a new, unexpected service on occasion. If the church was going to change the service permenantly, there are provisions to have the session look at the witness of the service, and the pastor has the final call as a representative of presbytery. And, if they think it is time to change (and ALL PCUSA SESSIONS SHOULD BE DOING THIS NOW!) sessions have the authority, err… the responsibility to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying!
My 2-cents…
May 10th, 2004 at 12:17 pm
I love the fact that you’ve taught your charges how to think for themselves, to be creative!
My own personal opinion is that God brings order out of chaos, as he did in Genesis and in Corinthians, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that God is a God who strictly designs the Order of Service. Our OOS is aimed to meet the needs of the sheep God’s given us. Perhaps your pastor has more insight into what that might mean than he let on; perhaps he was stuck in a box. I simply don’t have the information to be able to evaluate that.
You allowing your leaders to make that decision was a wise move, and honoring a system that they disagreed with was a difficult choice.
In my own church, and especdially in our small groups, we try to mix things up just to remind folks that God works in whatever we do. We do run home groups backwards from time to time. Less often with Sunday service because we want to provide a place where those on the fringe experience God, and generally speaking worship connects them, the sermon challenges them, and spirit-led minstry time meets some needs. That general order works well.
Keep up the challenge! Keep making your leaders think! And, allow the HS to work within those over you - that’s generally more effective than argumentative confrontation anyway ;-)
May 10th, 2004 at 12:22 pm
Amen, Ed! The Book of Order is a wonderful document. For some reason, it doesn’t play well with Presbyterians (in my experience). Interpretation, interpretation, interpretation. Thanks for bringing up W-3.1002a, I will be bringing it up tomorrow at staff.
May 10th, 2004 at 1:57 pm
hooray to you and your students for speaking up. we went through a similar situation last fall (the united methodist church’s youth sunday is the sunday after thanksgiving - when most people are still out of town…) first of all, we (the counselors) did not want to have a youth sunday because we did not feel that our group was ready for such an undertaking. we have over-committed kids as it is, and offer up huge praises when they show up on sundays and fridays - making them plan an entire service seemed way too much to ask. our pastor finally agreed that SHE would work with the kids, and we would not have to use any group time for planning. soon after i was appointed “liason,” and had to attend each of the meetings. the largest number of kids we had at these meetings was 3, and one of them was to be out of town on youth sunday… after much un-needed and unwanted stress on all ends, the kids totally pulled it off. but they used many of our pastor’s ideas, and so we pushed for it to be called a “guest” service, rather than youth sunday, as we didn’t feel our group was represented.
we vow to do a real youth sunday soon. hopefully when most of the congregation is present so they can see what amazing kids we (they) have.
oh - and i suggested that our kids do the service backward to shake things up a bit. It didn’t happen, and i’m not exactly sure why.
sorry for the extra long comment, but i want to give you props for standing your ground, and realizing when it is time to back off. great pic of the youth band, and that crowder song is one of the best. i hope people were moved to tears!
May 10th, 2004 at 3:26 pm
I agree fully with you, Adam, that God is God of both order and spontaneity. And I agree that worship can (and should) be done in different ways so that people might experience the fullness of ways of being in the presence of God. And I am especially appreciative of your honoring the leadership and intellect of your students, and not speaking for them or down to them or countenancing the pastor doing so.
What I’m wrestling with (as a “senior” pastor who just two weeks ago delegated Youth Sunday to one of my staff members to oversee) is how one might have avoided it getting to this point. I think ultimately I place the blame with the pastor, but not entirely. It is not really “micro-managing” for the pastor to want to exercise leadership on the order of worship. It is however “mismanaging” to be surprised by something in the first service and insisting it be changed for second. If he was that concerned (just basing this opinion on your presentation of the facts) about order, he might have been more specific in his conversations with you in advance. One of the things I said to my youth ministry assistant early on (perhaps evidencing what Ed calls “an unrecognized need for control”) was: “I will trust you with a great deal. Please be creative and boundary-pushing and crazy. But please don’t surprise me. Just let me know what’s coming so when it’s something that I’m going to hear about, I know it, and–on rare occasion–might give you something to think about before it happens.”
In sympathy with your pastor, I will say that the pastor really *does* have more to be concerned with than the youth about the overall impact of a worship service. If there are consequences, they will be the pastor’s responsibility to deal with them. It sounds to me like the potential fallout was a bit overdramatized, but it still is in the pastor’s purview. And it is not an entirely bad lesson in church leadership to see that there is more to worry about in planning worship than the service itself–sometimes pastoral concerns and dealing with people’s comfort level has to be part of the planning process, too.
So: If the pastor had been completely hands off and then between services decided to insert himself, then I think shame on him, and I share your frustration. But if you and the pastor had been working on this and at the last minute you and the youth changed something without telling him–well, then, I at least understand his frustration. Maybe the whole thing will function well as a learning experience for all–pastor, youth director, and youth alike.
May 10th, 2004 at 11:21 pm
Go Adam! Good for you for defending their side!
I think God is definately a Spontaneous God! I think that God likes to have fun and do things differently occasionally and I think God is no betond do the unexpected to get someone’s attention. I think you can back that up scripturally (Jonah, Moses, Joshua, Daniel…).
God doesn’t always use conventional means to get people’s attention. And I think sometimes, being PC(USA) myself, that our church goes way over board in traditional ways of doing things.
If everything that happens is always expected it becomes a matter of routine. It’s not noticed or thought about nearly as much because it is nothing out of the ordinary. Thus, often times if your really want to get a message out you have to do things differently than they have ever been done or they will simply become a part of the meaningless cycle of things.
I give you a lot of credit for talking to Pastor C and actually telling him what you thought. He’s a good guy just a little stuck in tradition. Sometimes breaks with tradition are good, and he just needs to learn that. I don’t really agree with him in getting upset, but then again there are a lot of areas where he and I will never agree…
April 10th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
In doing some research on “Order of Worship” I happened upon your post from a couple years ago here… As Youth Minister I applaud your giving creative control to your students. There’s no better way to develop essential tennants of leadership within your youth than letting them lead. And I think a regressive-worship service is a commendable idea… (caveat) within the right audience. For a typical PC(USA) congregation and traditional worship service, it’s probably not a good idea. You’re likely to make some of your older members fall out of their pews. But, as a Youth and/or Young Adult service - fantastic. I’m glad things worked out in the end, and that your youth accepted your Pastors concerns and honored his wishes.
God Bless,
Dan Boles