Pastors or Performers?

I've been wading my way through some back issues of The Christian Century, mostly while pedaling furiously on the stationary bike at the gym. Recently I read a feature article from April 2009 about former performers who have become ministers. Titled "Stand and Deliver: Performers in the Pulpit," it focuses on four people who were professional performers -- a stand-up comic, a radio play-by-play man, an opera singer, and a five-time winner of the WV State Liars Contest.

Each of these performers-cum-pastors is asked to reflect on the relationship between their former gig and ministry. Perhaps unsurprisingly, each stresses practice as an essential part of preparation for preaching and leading worship. Also, each comments on the mechanics of public speaking and performing that are in many ways interchangeable.

However, I found the article more frustrating than informative. This is probably mostly due to the length constraint of the article, which allows for only so much detail. In no way do I fault the author, Jason Byassee, who is one of my favorite contributors to the magazine. (For several years, he was an associate editor of The Christian Century; now he directs the Center for Theology, Writing, and the Media at Duke.)

Part of it was encapsulated by this summation of their four perspectives:

For all of their differences, these four performers highlight some characteristic failings of preachers and worship leaders. They don't practice enough. They don't smooth out the wrinkles in the service. They don't realize that professionals practice in order to be more spontaneous. They don't make their presentations interesting enough.

To some extent, I imagine that this is true. There are a number of poor communicators in ministry -- some because they lack certain natural ability that others are blessed with, some because they don't see the point of it, some because they are simply lazy. Many sermons would benefit if the pastor practiced more, or paid more attention to the mechanics of public speaking.

However, I think there are two underlying assumptions in these interviews that drive me nuts. One is about the need to "smooth out the wrinkles in the [worship] service." It is true that a poorly planned or led worship service can feel aimless and plodding, maybe even a complete waste of time. But I think that there is often meaning in the so-called "wrinkles" of worship. Worship is an organic experience that is meant to be lived out and experienced fully; these comments seem to imagine it as a 60-minute block of time to be programmed.

The most trenchant criticism in the article of almost every pastor, including me, comes from the radio broadcaster who says that "a lot can be communicated -- warmth, welcome, information, in 15 to 20 seconds if one thinks it through and says only what needs to be said." I agree entirely with this, and have worked -- and will continue to work -- to take out unnecessary talking in the service. Still, this overlooks the simple fact that people absorb information in different ways and that repetition is necessary to reach a broad audience. Also, not everyone instantaneously understands what can be a highly technical vocabulary -- in either sportscasting or religion. Just because I can describe a religious concept in 15 seconds in a way that is crystal clear to me and other pastors does not mean that it is an adequate explanation in worship or preaching.

Further, and this is odd for a pastor who used to be a play-by-play guy, worship is an organic experience (or at least it should be). It is not static. Things happen that no one could have planned -- especially true when there are children present, but happens regardless of who is there. In this way, worship can be very much like a basketball game, where similar situations can be informed by very different contexts. A free throw shot ten minutes into the game counts the same (1 point) as one shot in the final minute, but the context of the shots is very different. The same can be true in worship. A prayer is a prayer, but the context can be different. Meaning develops throughout a worship service. Sometimes you can plan for this as a pastor/worship leader. More often, though, it happens beyond planning through the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. Then, the minister's job is to react to what the Spirit is doing amongst us, describing it, imagining its implications, wondering at it -- not unlike sportscasting.

Second, the article insists that pastors need to pay more attention to being interesting. This is undoubtedly true. Some pastors go through the motions and they write sermons and prayers with no concern for who will/might hear them. This is poor communication par excellence. But I wonder if the performers-turned-pastors imagine that ministers have a responsibility to make the material interesting. Pastors -- and I fall into this trap occasionally, though not nearly as often as others -- frequently apologize for our attention to centuries-old writings, whether from long-dead theologians or dusty old Biblical authors. We all seem to imagine -- or worry -- that the material is inherently uninteresting or irrelevant because it is so old.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The material, which is filled with unvarnished truth about life, is inherently interesting. Lost behind the stately language of most respectable religion is an R-rated soap opera, filled with more dramatic tension, naked emotions, sex, lies, murder, chases, war, famine, love, charity, etc. than any novel ever written. The only reason its uninteresting is either because we blithely choose not to actually read what's in the Bible (and that attitude could fill a book, or several) or because we imagine that it couldn't be that interesting (this is church, after all, so there can't possibly be any sordid, seamy, violent goings ons). Pastors don't have to make the material interesting (which is why my job is so much better than so many others -- we're not selling ice to Eskimos) -- IT IS INTERESTING!

Anyway, for some reason, this article stirred my juices more than usually happens, so I thought I'd share my reflections. If you're interested, the issue is available in the church library, along with other previous issues of The Christian Century for you to borrow and read.