Let's Give Up...Worshiping Intellectualism
there's more to spiritual growth
Hello, fellow travelers on the journey! It’s week six of my Lenten series!
We here at Hold My Chalice are a motley bunch from a variety of religious faiths, but there’s something quite lovely about a season where we consider what no longer serves us and how we might prepare ourselves for what’s next. So this Lenten season, we are considering seven things we say or do or believe in our congregations that no longer serve us, and maybe we can give them up.
Kimberley Debus
This week: Worshiping Intellectualism.
Oh friends.
We do love ideas, don’t we. We on the liberal side of religion love to know things, explore things, debate things. We (rightly) believe science, admire great thinkers, engage in good literature and art.
Some of us are educators. Some of us are well educated.
And some of us believe that what is most important in a worship services is that “it makes me think.”
Well… yes. I would say we all do want you to think, and we want you to consider ideas, meaning, and ways of being beyond the sacred hour we spend together.
And.
That sacred hour is not a lecture, not a debate, and certainly not a TEDTalk.
Sure, many services include some teaching - in fact, the Presbyterians call their preachers “teaching elders” because there is a way in which we who grace your pulpits are using some of this time to teach about our faith and how to make it relevant in your lives. And yes, some services can be a bit more ‘teach’ than others; right now, at the congregation I serve, I’m spending time this spring preaching about Unitarian Universalism’s foundational theologies, so there’s some teaching of the history and context, as well as the tenets of the theology. But these services aren’t lectures; they’re also a time to be spiritual beings together, nourishing our spirits together, considering our personal beliefs and calls to our work in the world together.
Worship is about something more - it is spiritual growth. And as I have learned, it is connected to emotional growth. In fact, spiritual experience IS an emotional experience, and it’s that emotional intelligence that gets bypassed in favor of the lecture full of citations and quotations.
Good worship leaders long to give you the tools you need to enter a time out of time, a space unlike any other, where - for just one hour out of 168 - you can let go of the busy-ness of life and constantly being a human, doing… and rest in simply being the gorgeous human being that you are.
And I’d say, of course you know this, except when I look at congregational surveys and ministerial search records, y’all say you want ‘intellectual sermons.’
Do you, though?
Because you keep calling ministers who are bringing a spiritual experience - joy, inspiration, solace, comfort, healing, energy. They make you happy and you sign contracts with them.
And then you say ‘their sermons aren’t intellectual enough.’
Um….what?
Those preachers and service leaders are trying to feed your intelligence. But it’s not just book smarts, it’s emotional intelligence.
It’s spiritual intelligence.
You want book learning? Subscribe to Great Courses, or take a class, or spend your days in the library. (All very worthy activities, of course.)
You want a more grounded, holistic intelligence? Let go of your need for worship to be a lecture, and be present to what is offered to help you grow. Imagine how much more meaningful that sacred hour will be if you do.
