From the Editor: The work of our hands

I am on sabbatical from Northwestern College—my other school when I am not at IWS. I am living this semester in the Pacific Northwest, where Karen and I are working alongside Pastor Jon who is committed to reclaiming the orality of scripture. For starters, every Sunday Jon speaks his sermon’s scripture text from memory.

We arrived at this church around the same time as Noel, a young worship leader fresh from doctoral coursework (not at IWS, but another fine seminary). Last week I sat in Noel’s office in conversation about presenting the Bible in worship—in particular, God’s Word as testimony, story and drama. I explained that it was natural that I would spend my sabbatical at this church because reclamation of biblical forms often requires one particular starting point: memorization.

“I think this is how my seminary mentor would respond,” said Noel. “He would argue that there is a serious danger in presenting the Bible from memory in public. The memorization itself may be a distraction. People will notice how fascinating and unique it is that the passage has been memorized. But they might stop paying full attention to the scripture. In other words, the form of presentation might obscure the content.”

“Here’s my dream,” I said. “I dream of the day when presenting the scripture from memory will no longer be unique. I dream of people from the culture at large saying, ‘Isn’t it fascinating that Christians place such a high value on Bible memorization? If you go to one of their worship services, you always hear someone speaking whole passages from memory—and not just the pastor or the worship leader. No. Everyone in the church seems capable of speaking straight from the book.’”

I asked Noel, “How will our people catch this vision unless they see it modeled in the church’s most public and formative gathering—the worship service? And how will it be modeled unless the church’s leaders lead the way?”

We do not want scriptural content to be obscured. We want the form of a presentation to support the content. And we want the opposite as well. We want the content to be presented in an appropriate form. What can we learn by reclaiming the forms in which the scriptures were created? What can we learn by following the practices of a people who wrote God’s law upon their hearts?

Before I left Noel’s office, I said, “I’m going to meddle. I offer you this challenge. In your worship planning, are you willing to have at least one verse spoken from memory every Sunday by you or someone on the platform?”

Noel said, “I’m there.”

As pastor of worship and discipleship, Noel will sometimes preach. Yesterday Noel preached his first sermon at this new church. His text was the final seven verses of Jesus’ high priestly prayer (John 17:20-26). He looked us in the eye and spoke the words that Jesus prayed for us. I must admit that I was distracted a bit from the content of Jesus’ words because I was so thrilled that Noel was speaking them from memory. I expect that, after a while, my experience with Noel will be the same experience that the rest of this church has had with Pastor Jon. Jon said to me, “When I first came here eight years ago, people would often say, ‘It’s so fascinating that you speak the scripture from memory!’ Do you know how often I hear that now? Never.”

Today, I got up early and went out to a local coffee shop. As I flipped open my laptop, I glanced over at the next table and noticed a kindly gentleman grinning at me. “I’m Paul,” he said. “I saw you present the Psalm in church yesterday. I’m involved in our pastor’s scripture memory project. When I started, I struggled to memorize a single verse. Now I have whole chapters. It’s changing my life.”

Jeff's book, The Storytelling Church: Adventures in Reclaiming the Role of Story in Worship will be released and available on Amazon any day now.