Mar 04 2009
Posted by Gary under Uncategorized
Seeking Parabolic Harmonious Oscillation In the Church
by Gary Shockley
I’m not making this up! Really! There is such a thing as parabolic harmonious oscillation and I’d like to see more of it in the church! Can you figure it out? It’s a fancy physicist’s term for the movement of a swing. Leonard Sweet, nationally acclaimed author and professor, introduced this to the church in a workshop several years ago. Parabolic Harmonious Oscillation (even more fun to say aloud than read) is simply doing two things at the same time—leaning back and kicking forward. Try this sometime! You can’t make a swing move from a dead stop unless you lean back AND kick forward.
In the formative days of the first church I planted I inundated myself with resources about creating a “seeker-friendly” environment in worship. I visited some of the “Mecca-churches” out there that cutting-edge new churches like mine were emulating. Stripped of icons, symbols, and “churchy” images (like the cross) auditoriums were built to ease the unchurched into the kingdom without offending them. From the get-go I thought this was weird. I have to admit, though, the apparent success of such post-modern places made them hard to argue with. But I still thought it was weird. Don’t things like sacraments, symbols, liturgies and such embellish the faith stories we tell? Without such ancient markers we’re left with a storybook that contains no pictures. I hate books with no pictures!
I’m glad the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way again. More and more new church starts, “contemporary” services and emergent-style worship venues are leaning back more heavily into the symbols, rich liturgies, and traditions of the ancient church and, at the same time, kicking forward many of these traditions in more culturally relevant ways. HopeSpring Church in central Florida made a decision early on that the sacrament of Holy Communion would be shared each Sunday morning. A few people bulked at the idea at first but were quickly won over. The sacrament serves to remind this newly formed congregation “who” they are and “whose” they are. By serving the sacrament at the beginning of worship rather than the end allowed all the children of the church to participate and conveyed a subtle message—as God’s children we can only move forward as we lean into our past. I heard someone else describe it this way, “our past is an anchor that isn’t left behind us holding us in place—instead it is an anchor we cast out ahead of us and draw ourselves toward.”
Parabolic Harmonious Oscillation—here’s an image you can keep in mind as you’re establishing your new church or re-visioning your existing community of faith. Swing on!