Jul. 9, 2010

I like old people. Some of them like me too. Some do not. I remember one guy who, because of my music, told someone else that he wanted to punch me in the face. But, as it turned out, he wanted to punch most people in the face. I don’t think he was a jerk because he was old. He was just a face puncher. He was probably a face puncher when he was 21.

Back to the old people that are nice. I often wonder what life is like for them. A lot of things that seem like very old history to some of us who are younger didn’t really happen that long ago. The Great Depression for example. How does the memory of such a time effect someone today who actually lived through it? How about the segregation of African American people in the US? There are some African American people alive today who were made to sit on the back of the bus, didn’t use that fountain, and had a “special” place in the theatre (there are, unfortunately, far worse examples that could be used). There is an African American man who lived through this sitting outside my office as I type. He is not a face puncher. Such memories shape a persons life and story (they can shape our stories too if we have ears to hear). There are less dramatic events as well. The stuff of everyday life - raising children and sharing life with the one you love, for example. These involve lovely moments (the kind seen in movies) and mundane moments (the kind not seen in movies) like changing diapers, doing dishes, and reading together on the porch at night, which happens to be my favourite of the three. All of these things, big and small, become a part of a person’s story. One thing that all of these events have in common - people. Our lives are inevitably shaped by those around us. Our families and our friends, they were with us in our moments, the bigs ones and the small ones. They wept with us when we wept. They rejoiced with us in our joy. Our stories are intertwined.

So, here is something to consider. What is it like when your children, whom you poured your life into leave your home and make their own, possibly even far away (apology to our parents inserted here!)? What is it like to outlive your spouse? I remember seeing an elderly person that I loved watch one after another friend pass away from “old age”. How on earth does one deal with such sorrow?

That being said, most of the old people that I meet aren’t downers. In fact, I often find deep faith and hope in them. Many are strong yet tender. I like to be around people like this. They’re inspiring. I also don’t worry about getting my face punched around them. But while I admire them, I’m also concerned about them.

I wonder sometimes if much of the church in it’s effort to be “relevant” has forgotten about the elderly. Or worse, has for the most part stopped caring. I heard recently of someone brag about how this super cool (and now very huge) conference they attended started off by having an age limit making sure no one “too old” attended because they were setting their “demographic”. There’s another very influential church that I know of that doesn’t allow you in their choir if you are over a certain age. The reason has everything to do with marketing, of course. If we can’t use old people to sell clothes or cars than how can we use them to sell church? This doesn’t mean that they can’t come to “our” church, it just means that they’re not needed. What is needed, we believe, is what will appeal to “this generation” or whoever our “target audience” is (I have as of yet to meet anyone with a target audience of, let’s say 60 - 85 year olds). Church marketing people call these “entry points”. These experts tell us that this has a lot to do with music. Now, most old people I know don’t have a huge problem with new music. I didn’t say that they like it all, just that they don’t have a huge problem with it. Most of the elderly care very much about “this generation”. They may not always understand them, but they can’t dislike them too much because their grandchildren are a part of it. But, as they grow older and lose people with whom their stories are made, how does it feel to lose the soundtrack to the story too because it has become irrelevant to the people we are trying to reach.

A few nights ago I attended an incredible R&B Opera called “I Dream: The Story Of A Preacher From Atlanta”. This preacher from Atlanta was, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr. I will write about this incredible experience soon, but let me jump to the end of show for now. After everyone took their bow, the cast broke into “We Shall Overcome”. We all linked arms and sang along. It was incredibly moving. How much more moving was it for the older African American people who were there? The song was not just about a story they watched, it was in fact about their story. To sing ones national anthem can be a moving experience, too. But sometimes it is more moving than others. For example, I grew up singing the Canadian national anthem everyday at school (in French and English no less). We junior higher’s didn’t tear up each morning as we heard it. But, I remember the flag being folded at my Grandfather’s memorial service. The old men, once soldiers, seemed to have a different place in their hearts (perhaps “guts” it a better word) for our anthem. It wasn’t that they liked this song because it was old. They were moved by it because it was a part of their story. Sometimes I wonder if in our attempt to be cool, we have become like junior higher’s singing the national anthem - bored by the same old song. At the same time, there are older saints who have been through the battle and feel certain songs deep in their gut in a way that we perhaps can not yet understand. While I believe that “traditionalism” can be a problem, I am starting to understand that lack of tradition is as big of a problem (if not bigger). Perhaps it’s not just the old that I’m concerned about forgetting, but also the dead. Is that not part of the fear of the old - the fear of being forgotten? When the flag was folded at my Grandfather’s memorial it was not just the memory of the living soldiers who fought and lived that moved those who attended, but also those who gave their lives. The old songs that were sung or played reminded us of this. I wonder what our church services tell our old people about their part in the body of Christ now? What does it tell them about how we will feel about them after they are gone? Have we received any of the gifts that they have left for us?

G.K. Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy says:

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father”.

I am not saying I’m doing a great job of this. This coming Sunday we will not be singing any hymns so I feel like a bit of a hypocrite. But, there are not a lot of Sundays that go by that we don’t sing a hymn or two. I don’t sing them out of obligation, I sing them (for starters) because they are good songs. I sing them because they have deep meaning to some of the saints in our church who are every bit as much a part of the body as the college kid sitting close to them. I sing them because I realize that my story is a part of a greater story. This story started before I was born and will go on after I die.

I’m a huge advocate of new songs, by the way. I am a song writer and have the privilege of writing songs that are used to help us join our voices together in worship. As a worship planners, my wife and I seek out good new songs and in various genres written by other writers as well. What I’m getting at is this - I am nervous that in our attempt to use worship as a marketing tool (I get a little nauseous even writing that) we have, a) left one part of the body saying (or at least feeling) “because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body” (I Corinthians 12:15) and b) have not helped the church ("this generation” in particular) recognize that their individual story is a part of a much greater story (Meta-narrative).

Tradition is much further reaching than music, but since many of our churches don’t participate in other various forms of tradition (saying the creeds, observing the feasts, the public reading of scripture as an act of worship), I felt that this may be a good place to start.

To church planters with a predominantly young congregation this entry may seem irrelevant. But I’m not writing primarily about “style” and “worship conflicts”. I’m writing about tradition. What are you doing to show your young congregation that they are rooted and grounded in something greater than themselves?

To conclude this really long entry, I would like to quote a brief passage from the novel “Jayber Crow” by Wendell Berry. Jayber at this point in the story was the church custodian and he recalls this experience,

“One day when I went up there to work, sleepiness overcame me and I lay down on the floor behind the back pew to take a nap. Waking or sleeping (I couldn’t tell which), I saw all the people gathered there who had ever been there. I saw them as I had seen them from the back pew, where I sat with Uncle Othy (who would not come in any farther) while Aunt Cordie sang in the choir, and I saw them as I had seen them (from the back pew) on the Sunday before. I saw them in all the times past and to come, all somehow there in their own time and in all time and in no time: the cheerfully working and singing women, the men quiet or reluctant or shy, the weary, the troubled in spirit, the sick, the lame, the elders, the young married couples full of visions, the old men with their dreams, the parents proud of their children, the grandparents with tears in their eyes, the pairs of young lovers attentive only to each other on the edge of the world, the grieving widows and widowers, the mothers and fathers of children newly dead, the proud, the humble, the attentive, the distracted - I saw them all. I saw the creases crisscrossed on the backs of the men’s necks, their work-thickened hands, the Sunday dresses faded with washing. They were just there. They said nothing, and I said nothing. I seemed to love them all with a love that was mine merely because it included me.

When I cam to myself again, my face was wet with tears”.