Thirteen Words

I mentioned to Jared Ribble, from Nashville, in an email, how inspiring I'd found my visit there. And how helpful the DMHO DVD is - seeing those boys take a style of music I love, use it both presentationally and really worshipfully, make it an evangelistic tool, and do it really wholeheartedly and passionately - it is something that has genuinely touched me.

After all, I have felt for the last year that we need here to find a mode of evangelism that recognises our prime calling as a church: worship. We are not simply proclaiming Jesus in a vacuum, we are proclaiming Jesus and calling people to follow him as a part of his family here. So the way we proclaim Jesus has to resonate with who we are here. There has to be an integrity between the call and the life that follows.

The difficulty is, of course, that I have no model for making worship the main mode of evangelism in a church. I mean, evangelism is either about Alpha, a supper and a small group discussing stuff (which is great, and which we do), or it is the Billy Graham model - a meeting with a speaker. You can tweak the meeting (put it in a pub, have music, have theatre) but essentially everything is there to service the speaker and his (usually his) message.

If we do worship, there is a problem. Worship is for insiders. Outsiders, non-believers will be uncomfortable. Excluded. It isn't seeker friendly.

Yet it is what we are called to. How can God get it so wrong with us?

Jared replied to me that DMHO find themselves on a different trajectory. Having spent years doing church concerts/events/worship services, they are now convinced that in order to reach the unchurched they have to

Compete with the quality and presentation of a mainstream pop act

and that

Putting on a “churchy” big band show will have less effect on a non-believer than a show that competes in the secular market, but still has the message of the gospel.

Well, this made me stop and think. One of the enormous joys of my trip over the last couple of months was seeing other people's work and letting it evaluate my own. In many ways, this was one of the greatest gifts of those weeks. (The greater was simply meeting people: people beat the work they do every time for me!)

I love the fact that DMHO is undergoing a bit of a re-invention in order to pursue a vision of "reaching the unchurched". After watching both DVDs of the band which Jared gave me, I understand more of the problem of the band feeling like a "niche within a niche" that Denver spoke about with me. It's not just that with their previous show they're limited to the Christian market - it's a swing band in the Christian market; in the States, swing is pretty much right up there with all the other "novelty" acts. And I see that in order to get the message of the Gospel out to a secular, unchurched audience using all available gifts and talents, the quality, presentation and style of a mainstream pop act is the way to go for DMHO. I get it.

Incidentally, the incessant entertaining showmanship stuff that seems an integral part of the swing band scene in the States is simply almost absent over here. It's great to watch at first, but I see why they would find that this militates against them being taken seriously as a musical outfit. (By contrast, swing bands over here are almost dour, sitting stock still as they play music that cries out to look like it's fun, in order that we understand the musician playing it is a 'serious' jazz man...)

But our swing worship stuff is aiming a little differently to DMHO, I guess, because we're a church, not a music outfit, and because as a church worship comes at the centre of all we do - so that means we simply have to seek how to make our evangelism worship-centred too. We're not working away from that goal, but towards it.

Cos here's the big question: who are we aiming at with this form of outreach? For us, here, the answer comes like this. A worship event with our big band is almost a kind of "church-lite". Not always on a Sunday morning, so visitors don't feel like they have committed themselves for ever. Not always Communion, which most of our Sundays are. It must be musically great and really enjoyable. But also, vitally, and actually this is the hard thing, it must really be worship - so that in the midst of the family of the church, the guests (who are probably already becoming part of our extended family - by friendships and relationships and because of our various programmes with families and the elderly - though that means they usually won't be coming to us on Sundays yet) begin to see what our family is all about and begin to be drawn in further. Real worship is engaging. It can't be faked.

The challenge for us is to ensure that it is real and not just entertainment.

So we have different challenges. But I am growing in confidence with it for this reason: I don't for a moment believe there is only one right way to do evangelism! I see what DMHO does and love it because I see a heart and a way of using music that gives me confidence to go with my own heart. I am so grateful for that. The context, the vision, the outworking - wow, DMHO's is so different from my calling it is like chalk and cheese. But that heart, that passion, and a little of the gifting - this inspires me big time to push the boat out a bit with something I think maybe the Lord's gift to us here too.

Does this make sense?

We did a meal on Maundy Thursday, with me singing with our jazz quartet. Lots of guests. A family member of a regular church member came, and then came again to our main worship service on Easter Sunday, and after that service found me and said, "that was really inspiring!" A girl who has started to attend in the last few months (so I have no idea if she is yet really converted) brought a family member - who then also came on Easter Sunday - with two more of her family in tow, and they were overwhelmed with what was a fairly standard service for us.

Worship is our core value. So it becomes our core outreach. How dull am I that I am just learning this obvious truth!

I guess we have to find ways to make special event worship attractive to get people in; then (as I said to Jared in a coffee shop in Nashville, but you can find this at the top of this page any time) those 13 words I try to live by come into play, and indeed find a new resonance, a deeper meaning and a startlingly new take for me: my job is to worship God - His job is to grow the church.