My wife handed me this postcard from one of our larger churches. She looked at me, her head tilted, surprise a smile as she waited for my reaction. I looked at it trying to figure out what she wanted me to see. Was it a presentation of "Scrooge" like they put on at Summit? It didn't look like it. What could it be?
A few seconds went by... Silence.
Then I see it... And I screamed. Out loud.
Stare at the picture in silence, count to thirty and then scream in fright, and you may understand the absurdity of the moment. I realized what I was looking at was a "Singing Christmas Tree." Faribault did a singing Christmas tree. The first year they borrowed the contraption from a church up north. The second year, they decided to build their own tree. It took up the majority of the large platform requiring building of extentions. It reached almost to the top of the vaulted cieling. Once built it had to be used every year. As obscene as it size was the effort, argument and stress that went into what they thougth was their main way to fufil the great commission. I can only recall a few even coming forward, and I know there wasn't follow up.
The tree makes me angry. It got me started looking to be a relational church rather than one wrapped up in its programs and politics.
All those feelings came rushing back when I saw the tree forming the triangle on the lower half of the postcard. I screamed. I tore the card in two and my wife threw it away. I pulled it out of the trash to share it with you.
i kinda like how the white line tear thru the card captures your sense of angst :) - and we have one of those infernal things here every year, too. lives, families go on hold for preparation for this thing. sheesh.
ReplyDeletewe went to one that had real animals and these light show comets that flew across the ceiling. It was a spectical no doubt, but does its lack of artistic maturity mean that it is not community building? More people were gathered at these shows (you had to pay and there where like 4 or 6 sold out shows) then might have come to gether otherwise. Is the objection to the type of community that it builds? I suppose even TV builds a type of community but one based on unsound values. It is not a 'community' that buings souls together but it is a community that unites ideas. I think that this is the main concern I have about this kind of 'Christian Art' not only that it is a flakey kind of art. I have quams about that aswell but that as 'christian art' it aims at the wrong thing.
ReplyDeletePeople may well say "but it presents the message"... yes but if it presents it in a comercial way, if it makes salvation something it is not then it is telling the truth like it is a lie.
Ok, this is a bit unfair however. how deep can we expect a singing christmas tree to get?
That may depend on the skill it has to sing...there is mystery in the power of music. but the whole production is limited in the depth department from the outset. Is this terrible? I dont know. spectical may have a place in life. as long as at some point or in some place in our person we call it such.
maybe we just need to chuckle at the cookie cutter metal sheets that send all white comets across the stage of our churches. and marvel at the ability of 30 ft evergreens to sing and grow in a dessart.