Preaching, Diversity, & Hybrid Churches

Recently, I had the honor of posting two blogs on the FiveTwo.com site. FiveTwo is all about sharpening sacramental entrepreneurs to start new spiritual communities. I've been working with FiveTwo at the local and national level since 2010 and enjoy being a regular contributor to their blog. 

My two blogs covered the very important topic of how to work with, and preach in, a multi-ethnic setting. My proposals were to aim for hybridity -- in our understanding, preparation, methods, and delivery. 

I offered, "Hybridity doesn’t begin in the pulpit. It starts with deliberate efforts to build “third spaces” where the multiple cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicities in your community can come together to mix socially, borrow culturally, and learn from one another spiritually. Hybridity, at its best, should not favor one culture over the other, but instead should emphasize equilateral exchange. This should be evident not only in your pulpit (we will get to this later), but in our staffing, our programming, our discipleship, our outreach, our choir, our altar guild, or our Monday afternoon social sports teams. We have to build hybridity into our churches from the ground up, together."

Here are the links for the two blogs:

• Preaching, Diversity, and Hybrid Cultures
• Remixing the Pulpit

There was some significant pushback on this article. In fact, there were three specific critiques. While I hope to address these criticisms in subsequent, unique, blog posts, I want to take a moment to identify and briefly address them here:

• One commenter challenged that the liturgy (as conceived by confessional Lutherans) is universal. To this, I openly wonder -- is the liturgy truly universal? Has it not been adapted? Changed? How does it exclude and create boundaries? Furthermore, is a universal liturgy the goal? Should there not be a certain degree of contextualization? In the end, my discussion of hybridity is about contextualization, not universalization. Thus, the commenter and I are talking cross-purposes and aiming at different ends. 
• Another interlocutor accused me of undermining the "office of preaching" and Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession. For my non-Lutheran readership, I am sorry; this is particularly pedantic for you. I started to address this challenge on Twitter and intimated that hybrid preaching does not necessarily undermine the "office of preaching" as conceived in AC XIV. Having a creative team to help plan a preaching series, community exegetical work, and multiple preachers can all be guided and directed by an ordained and properly called pastor. Just as we have (LC-MS Lutherans and others) built upon the pastoral office to include commissioned positions (DCE, DCO, Deacon, Deaconess, teacher) so too we can invite multiple people into the process of preaching under the auspices of the regular call of the pastor who leads the process and not undermine that office. 
• Finally, another commenter asked me to provide an "ideal hybrid service." Again, in reference to the first point above, I think this is missing my point. Hybrid services are inherently contextual. They are based in interpreting your local community and applying Scripture and confessional theology into the neighborhood you find yourself called to bless and serve. I can't give you a "ideal" hybrid service. That's the work I propose you do. You'll have to be the one to "keep your look in the book and your feet in the street." (Thanks Rev. Greg Seltz for that one!) In my article I put forward particular postures that can aid this process, but that's about as far as I can go. One of the beauties of our synod (again, the LC-MS here) is that we walk together as a synod, holding to central theological postures, but we are locally diverse (at least, at our best). We do not need, and indeed are reticent, to enforce conformity from the top-down. This call for contextualized, hybrid, structures, services, and preaching is an extension of the heart of our synodical, congregation-based, polity. Furthermore, it also underlines our sacramental, tangible, and flesh-and-blood-here-and-now-faith-in-the-streets theology. 

With all this said, I invite you to read the original pieces (HERE and HERE), share them, comment on them, and become part of the conversation. 

From Transaction to Transfiguration

If you're involved in ministry, in a professional or lay sense, this post is for you. 

In it, I take you from supermarkets to your inner spiritual life to illustrate the ways in which we can move from a ministry defined by cold exchange to deep change, both for us and those we come in contact with. 

So read on, contemplate, connect and begin on a "trajectory of transfiguration."

*Read the post at FiveTwo.com 

Applying the Golden Circle to your Ministry

What if great organizations succeed by first attending to WHY they exist, then HOW they go about their mission, and then finally, WHAT they do to accomplish that mission? What if your product didn't matter as much the purpose and process behind it? It may sound like common sense, but what if you took this idea and applied it to the church? Does your ministry's music style matter? What about your website? Is the product the point or does something deeper draw people to dive in?

*Follow @Kchitwood on Twitter

In this post, I talk about Simon Sinek's "Golden Circle" proposal and how it explains that Apple Computers succeeds not because it produces the best tech product, but because it inspires consumers to buy into their story, their meta-narrative, their “why.” So goes the story with the Wright brothers who had zero funding and zip notoriety. Their competitor was the affluent newsmaker Samuel Langley. The Wright brothers beat Langley to be first in flight not because of what they had or how they did it, but because they had the belief, the creed, of the promise of flight.

How does this apply to your ministry? Click here to read more at FiveTwo.com

Why our preaching should be more like a sitcom

“That’s like me blaming owls for how bad I suck at analogies.” – Britta, from Community (TV series)

Community is a TV show following a group of students and professors at a community college in the fictional town of Greendale, Colorado. The show is a treasure trove of pop-culture references, playing off tropes in film and television, showcasing a willingness to make fun of itself and pile jokes upon jokes in a single episode for one crescendo of a punch line (called “meta-humor”).

It’s a critically acclaimed show and its creator Dan Harmon combines density and depth with relevant humor to craft a compelling story. In Community, he is able to impressively construct compact narratives for multiple characters in a single 22-minute episode and make everyone laugh as he weaves his tale. He is a genius storyteller.

This is exactly what our preaching style should be like.

*Read the entire piece at FiveTwo.com