It it not uncommon to hear the Sunday worship is that place where we go to get "fed" for the week. It is the time in which we learn and worship and are nourished for the coming week.
I have written in the past about worship needs to be more like skiing, less like football and more like soccer and even worship as going up musical stairs.
All of these metaphors have been helpful for me to discuss and think of worship, but the metaphor of being fed has never worked for me.
The only time I can imagine "being fed" is when I cannot feed myself - when I am really young and really old. Even when I order food at a restaurant, I am not being "fed", rather I am given food but I do more than just sit as another feeds me.
So when I think of worship as a place where I am "being fed" I think of a time in which I am unable to do anything and someone else (or something else) does all the work and I just sit there - unable to do anything but spit out or consume the food.
When I hear of people talk of worship as a place where they go to "get fed" I cannot help but desire to wonder at what point do we need to drop this metaphor?
My senior minister asked if I had read The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch. It has been a while (December 2010) but I pulled off my kindle my notes and came across this little gem in light of worship:
"[People] come to "get fed." But is this a faithful image of the church? Is the church really meant to be a "feeding trough" for otherwise capable middle-class people who are getting their careers on track? And to be honest, it is very easy for ministers to cater right into this: the prevailing understanding of leadership is that of the pastor-teacher. People gifted in this way love to teach and care for people, and the congregation in turn loves to outsource learning and to be cared for. I have to admit that this now looks awfully codependent to me."
Just to clarify, codependency in this context is not a great thing.
I have written in the past about worship needs to be more like skiing, less like football and more like soccer and even worship as going up musical stairs.
All of these metaphors have been helpful for me to discuss and think of worship, but the metaphor of being fed has never worked for me.
The only time I can imagine "being fed" is when I cannot feed myself - when I am really young and really old. Even when I order food at a restaurant, I am not being "fed", rather I am given food but I do more than just sit as another feeds me.
So when I think of worship as a place where I am "being fed" I think of a time in which I am unable to do anything and someone else (or something else) does all the work and I just sit there - unable to do anything but spit out or consume the food.
When I hear of people talk of worship as a place where they go to "get fed" I cannot help but desire to wonder at what point do we need to drop this metaphor?
My senior minister asked if I had read The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch. It has been a while (December 2010) but I pulled off my kindle my notes and came across this little gem in light of worship:
"[People] come to "get fed." But is this a faithful image of the church? Is the church really meant to be a "feeding trough" for otherwise capable middle-class people who are getting their careers on track? And to be honest, it is very easy for ministers to cater right into this: the prevailing understanding of leadership is that of the pastor-teacher. People gifted in this way love to teach and care for people, and the congregation in turn loves to outsource learning and to be cared for. I have to admit that this now looks awfully codependent to me."
Just to clarify, codependency in this context is not a great thing.