The Bird & Babe Public House

We offer pithy pontifications by the pint-full, and the best brain-food this side of Blogsford. There's no cover charge, and it's all you can eat/drink (although we strongly encourage moderation). Like any other pub, we always appreciate a good tip.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Skateboard Church

Yesterday in my Theology and Culture class, we watched a video about a "skateboard church" in the U.K. in which the worship consisted of skateboarding and bmxing on ramps, and which the pastor likened to liturgical dance.

I’m trying to keep an open mind about all of this, but it seems like one of the key elements of the “church gathered” has to do with the corporate aspect of it. If this is so, how do a bunch of separate skaters and bikers avoid the individualism implicit in the act of skating/bmxing? In other words, while these activities seem to be an excellent form of personal worship (like Eric Liddle’s running), they seem to present problems when applied to corporate worship. And what of the priority of word and sacrament in the divine service, which goes all the way back to the birth of the church in Acts?

It seems like the idea being put forth by this church is that, as opposed to having a heavy skating ministry within a church, the service is actually composed almost entirely of skating. If I am mistaken, and this really is a church with an Acts-type service interpreted through the lense of skate culture, then this isn’t really very revolutionary. Churches have been doing this type of thing for years.

Another question that arises is this: What happens to this church when these kids lose interest in skating? I personally skated in Jr. High and High School, but I have since left that hobby, and picked up and dropped many other fads over the years. Is this church destined to be a transient church, which only has a limited amount of time to disciple young people? What type of impact on the culture will this church have, or will it be forced to constantly follow the culture wherever it leads?

It really seems like this church is doing the reverse of “being all things to all people” and instead being one thing to one people. And what if this formula were used in other recreational “cultures?” For example, I love college football. How do you create a church for people who love college football? Would it be appropriate for me to invite a bunch of guys over to eat nachos and drink beer in front of my TV on Saturday morning as a form of corporate worship?

Any thoughts?

8 Comments:

Blogger Paul Johnson said...

wow you blog has got me wondering maybe it is a bad idea to center the things we do in church around the things that we do for fun. wait i just had a revelation... wait... maybe we should center everything else we do around what goes on in church? naw no one would think that was any fun. nevermind.

September 26, 2007 8:35 PM  
Blogger steve said...

People create churches like this because traditional churches dont seem to be able to offer anything meaningful.

In the absence of the meaningful and transformative, people will pursue distraction.

The question churches should be asking is why is what we do not meaningful or transformative in people's lives.

September 28, 2007 2:02 PM  
Blogger Leeton Lawdoc said...

On personal vs. corporate worship... isn't it possible that a gathering of repentant and gospel-informed skaters/bikers could develop novel forms of corporate skating/biking (whether in Euro/orchestral-style formation or in Afro/Jazz-style improvisation) as acts of counter-subcultural sanctification and/or subcultural redemption/transformation? Is the tradition of skating/bmxing really any more "implicitly individualistic" than say our vocal solos or our instrumental offertories or our endless choruses replete with "I/me" pronouns but devoid of "we/us" pronouns?

On the "priority of word and sacrament"... it seems like this activity (like other liturgical dances) is at least intended to be a kind of sacrament: a concrete representation of an abstract spiritual reality. If so, it matters most how clearly the gospel is being portrayed (if at all) by that sacramental vehicle and is reinforced by word.

On the missiological question... isn't "being all things to all people" limited being one "thing" (language, [sub]culture, tradition) to one "people" at a time? Paul was a Greek to Greeks and a Jew to Jews, but only one of those modes at a time (not both at once).

On college football... your analogy breaks down a little in that you're comparing active participation in skating with the passive-spectator sport of watching football on TV (rather than playing it). Admittedly, the alternative of playing-football-as-corporate-worship remains questionable; your skepticism of using recreation as the rubric for a "missionary worship service" is well-taken.

October 01, 2007 10:30 PM  
Blogger DrewDog said...

Let me briefly answer Lawton's issues in order (I'm in the middle of class right now!):

1. I agree. And I think part of the answer is to not have vocal solos, I/me stuff, etc.

2. By sacrament, I am referring to the fact, that the main point of gathering on Sunday in the Ancient church was to partake of Holy Communion. You may or may not agree with that, but this is my position.

3.I was responding to my professor's own words that the church needs to find ways of being all things to all people. Also, it is noteworthy that a place like Redwood Chapel can include: Skaters, businessmen, trekkies, mothers, grandparents, stock brokers, janitors, doctors, etc. But this skater church has a much narrower scope. It seems to me that one is much better at diversity (like the Kingdom of Heaven) than the other.

4. As you noted, my point wasn't to compare an active sport versus a passive one, rather to address the issue of using hobby as a rubric for identifying the corporate worship of a church.

K, my break is up and I gotta run! Please forgive ambiguities!

October 02, 2007 1:01 PM  
Blogger Puntastic! said...

I wonder if an even better question to ask is whether or not we should model the church after the things of the world? I seem to remember a former pastor (probably steve) saying something like that. Of course, interaction with different subcultures (such as skaters) is important, but I would find it extremely uncomfortable if that took the place of corporate worship in order to appeal to a relatively small segment of society.

October 03, 2007 12:03 AM  
Blogger steve said...

Not only is it a small segment of society. But also one that is not stable through time. People arent born skateboarders and remain one their whole lives...except for Tony Hawk. So this church is necessarily one that people will grow out of. Where do they go next?

The church should endure through time and unite various groups, not be ephemeral and segmenting.

A father should take his son to church and be able to say that his father took him to that church.

October 03, 2007 8:03 AM  
Blogger Mark "T-Hill" said...

In theory, a person could skate to the glory of God, or to the Glory of themselves. However, it seems to me that axiom here is not whether the parishioners of this church can they glorify God with skating, but does what they do at church make them feel good or not? ("If it doesn't hurt anyone, conjures happy feelings, and keeps me entertained, then of course it's worship - just so long as it has a Christian stamp on it.")

If the goal of the church was to reach an un-reached group (thrill seekers) by offering that group what they sought inside the church (thrills) then they definitely achieved it. Yet by my definition of "church" they have also achieved the status of "Christian Skaters Club." (A high and much sought after status by many a youth-group/christian camp - only rivaled with the Church of Latter Day Surfers.)

October 07, 2007 9:58 PM  
Blogger FacioDesign said...

I'm part of the church that you're talking about, and I'd like to say a little about it.

As a community, we have many different ways of worshipping. We have a band and sing corporately, we have artistic nights where we create things with our god-given talents, and we use the ramps as worship, because basically we try to do everything for the glory of God, and we don't want to exclude God from a large part of these young peoples lives.

When some of the guys and girls do tricks for the first time, I see God smiling because they're doing it all for the audience of one.

I strongly believe that if our church wasn't like this, there would be a lot of young people who would never get the chance to meet God.

The impression that I got from the original post was that we have 2 hours of skating every Sunday evening, but that isn't the case. Please take a look at our Youth Congregation website for further information on what we do.

With regard to what happens when these kids lose interest in skating/BMXing; well we'll see what God tells us to do next and go from there.

June 10, 2008 12:47 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home