Liturgy from the Hope Renewed Conference, November 2, 1998 at 8:30 pm
The Other Late Late Service community were invited by the conference organisers, the Evangelical Members Union of the Uniting Church in Australia, to conduct worship for the conferees on the opening night of the conference.
The worship leads conferees in a lament based on the quotation in the conference information brochure:
“We have become the first completely post-Christian generation in the history of our culture. Our generation does not know God. Yet this is a generation that yearns and searches for spiritual reality. So far it is not finding it in the church. (Hahn & Verhaagen in “Reckless Hope”)”
Background reading used in preparation: Amos and Lamentations
Responsive Prayer:
L1: Let us join in a responsive prayer based on Amos Chapter 3, verses 3 to 8:
We will allow time for everyone to read each slide; then we will read the verse in green and we invite us all to respond by reading the lines in purple. However, if you do not want to respond, please feel free not to.
L2: Do two men start travelling together without arranging to meet?
We celebrate our meeting as the “Hope Renewed” conference.
We look forward to travelling together this week with Jesus.
L1: Does a lion roar in the forest unless he has found a victim?
We have heard the lion roar in the forest of our world.
We have heard the cry of the victims of our time and we ourselves cry out.
L2: Does a young lion growl in his den unless he has caught something?
We acknowledge our rejection by a post-Christian generation.
L1: Does a bird get caught in a trap if the trap has not been baited?
We acknowledge that it is not possible for a whole generation to not know Jesus without our complicity.
L2: Does the war trumpet sound in the city without making the people afraid?
We acknowledge the uncertainty born of profound change.
We have smelt the fear across the nations and acknowledge our own fears and uncertainties.
L1: Does disaster strike a city unless the Lord sends it?
Can ‘Hope be Renewed’ without confessing that we thought we had the”answers” when we needed to know the questions?
Can Hope be Renewed when we have sanctified our programs and institutions?
Can Hope be Renewed without seeing you in the suffering of change about us?
L2: When the sovereign Lord speaks, who can avoid proclaiming his message?
When the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,
when acid rains and greenhouse gases contaminate the atmosphere,
when the more experiences are provided for our happiness the emptier life becomes…
L1: renew us,
destroy us,
L2: renew us,
destroy us,
L1: renew us!
renew us!
renew us!
renew us!
Download the Entire Liturgy: a lament for a post-christian generation
Comments (4)
hey dude. i was hoping for a shared book/DVD out of all this and other stuff. are you just going to keep blabbing it all online?
…………..
AND you ought to say some more about how this was received!
Enjoying your bloggage.
A quick word regarding the lament. The statement “Our generation does not know God” raises questions for me:
Does post-Christian equate to a-theist?
My experience is that this is not so, that it would be accurate to say that our generation does not know God as he was revealed to the apostles, but that it would be inaccurate to say they know God not at all. On the contrary I have seen an explosion of teachings on God in recent decades - just not God as I know God through Christ. Did Balaam not know God just because he was not under the covenant? He did and our generation does. I’d assert that our generation knows the unknown God of Acts 17. God is known but not KNOWN.
I’d like to lay down the challenge that in a pluralistic society we need to be wary speaking of God generically and be clear that the God we worship is trinitarian and incarnational; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob we know as YHWH; the God penultimately revealed through Jesus and not any God/dess you can consume off the shelf. Semantic confusion is the handmaiden of the perenial, generic, “God”.