c. scott andreas

This evening, I read an article at Church Marketing Sucks called “Ditching Sermons for Drama.” It’s about a church in Pittsburgh that is abandoning the sermon as a communicative medium in favor of drama (in totality), and calling themselves “emergent” by virtue of this fact.

This is certainly an ambitious undertaking. I suppose that my perspective on the idea might be conditioned by the very many poorly-constructed or executed church dramas I’ve seen. I would love to see drama redeemed as a didactic form — and I imagine that it could be a beautiful, excellent thing when used by those well-versed in its intricacies.

I’m also a little concerned by the manner in which Hot Metal Bridge portrays pastoral teaching and leadership…it’s as if these are elements that are no longer accessible to (proto-post-)modern congregations. Perhaps approaches such as this underestimate the potential of their members?

But perhaps I’m underestimating churchgoers’ capacity (and potential) to consume drama with a critical eye. Maybe this congregation pays close attention to these dramas and analyzes them not unlike Shakespeare. This analysis is an absolutely critical step if drama is to be a subtle form of teaching that does not beat people over the head with overt concepts and themes. Can we be counted on to take this step? Or are we more likely to consume it passively, much like a film or TV show, amusing ourselves to death?

I find many of Brian McLaren’s perspectives refreshing and some challenging, and in a very productive way. But I’m not convinced that he (nor most emergent thinkers/writers) would argue that being “emergent” necessitates an abandonment of traditional teaching methods; though both content and form shift to new media, why must current approaches be abandoned? Should this be considered an accomplishment?

If it works for them, excellent and congratulations. But it seems that it would be difficult (if not impossible) to compress a teaching to a medium reserved by our culture for the purpose of entertainment (or occasionally, fine art).  I’d be interested to see what congregants take away from this.

Finally, I’m a bit troubled by the Post~Gazette’s characterization of emergent:

“Hot Metal Bridge is part of the emergent church movement that rejects rigid orthodoxy and strives to use hip language and culture to draw in young Americans who stopped, or never started, attending church.”

“Emergent” (by virtue of the postmodern paradigm and the very nature of words themselves) is not a monolith. But this description does not resemble the emergent I know. It’s not about the rejection of orthodoxy, but realizing that orthodoxy is far more generous than we may have thought.

-csa