Trapped Words

In Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 book, “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” he retells the story of Prince Modupe’s encounter with the written word in his West African days:

“The one crowded space in Father Perry’s house was his bookshelves. I gradually came to understand that the marks on the pages were trapped words. Anyone could learn to decipher the symbols and turn the trapped words loose again into speech. The ink of the print trapped the thoughts; they could no more get away than a doomboo could get out of a pit. When the full realization of what this meant flooded over me, I experienced the same thrill and amazement as when I had my first glimpse of the bright lights of Konakry. I shivered with the intensity of my desire to learn to do this wondrous thing myself.”

Since its beginning the phonetic alphabet has allowed individuals to replace their ears with their eyes. We no longer need the author of a story to be present. Nor do we need to have others present. Learning eventually evolved from a community event, shared audibly by many, to a private experience rarely shared with anyone. The rate of this evolution has increased dramatically since the invention of the printing press to the point that it is nearly impossible to function as an illiterate person in our world. But wait—something surprising has happened. In the past one hundred years the Industrial Revolution, the mechanical and electronic age, and now the internet has changed the rules again and our society of individual readers is mesmerized and panicked all at once.

There are images everywhere. Once a culture of readers we now can’t wait to log on, tune in, download, and pay-per-view. We join a million other watchers as a man on streaming video attempts to give a cat a bath and we follow that with the latest protest cam of riots in London, Greece, or the Middle East. It’s all intoxicating stuff, and as McLuhan rightly stated nearly fifty years ago, it really isn’t the content, it’s the medium that has gripped us. Our laptops, flat screens, tablets, and phones rule the day. It’s a funny thing though; even as we come together around our favorite content we do it as individuals. We are separately together, and for me as a worship leader and God’s servant, that is where the mission field lies.

I have made two observations about worship services recently. The first is the return to traditional services by young families. I was perplexed by this at first until I realized that a generation that grew up in an image saturated world wanted two things: honest simplicity and as little of the previous text oriented culture as possible. The stain glass windows tell the story of faith; the best pastors are story-tellers (who create audible images shared as a group but are interpreted by individuals), and even the choir is a type of tribe—singing the story for listeners. What about the Bibles and hymnals? Honestly, most won’t turn to the passage and read it and I’ve watched entire congregations who, even if they bothered to look up the song, simply will not sing. This is not to say the experience is not real or even fulfilling. I believe for many the experience is deeply moving because the grace and presence of God inhabits our gatherings. For worship planners, however, it’s disconcerting if you don’t recognize the culture shift. The second observation is a similar shift in contemporary services. Text on a screen feels familiar to most contemporary service congregants now but I’ve noticed that even in these services the move has been away from sermon outlines and scripture texts to images and artwork that convey meaning quickly that can also be interpreted individually. And just like the traditional services, it’s not unusual to see a majority of the congregation members unmotivated to sing. In many modern traditional and contemporary services the organ, choir, band, and leader/singers have become the proxies of the congregation’s voice and it seems to be enough to let the pros handle it in the same way we appoint pastors to preach, elders to serve communion, and committees to make decisions. Most church members seem to have delegated themselves right out of the best parts of the service and church life in general.

Singing is tribal. When we are actively participating as part of a group most of us will sing along even if we don’t have much of a voice. I find it illuminating that the early church was often known for its generosity and its voice. They went about singing spiritual song and hymns. They participated and that is the key for those who intend to plan worship services in the future. Enough with the tidy professionalism we seek in order to impress our visitors. There have to be moments in the service where people are allowed to, metaphorically speaking, finger paint. You remember finger painting don’t you? It was messy, and some kids had no talent, but everyone got their hands dirty. I don’t remember ever feeling left out during a finger painting class. I remember sharing my work (awful) and laughing as we shared a moment of community goofiness. Have you read the book of Acts? These were goofy people. They spoke in tongues, had visions, got healed, sang in public, shared meals including a recurring meal based on the death and resurrection of a crucified Savior. As the gospels were written the whole experience was trapped in words for us. We need only read it, speak it, and participate in it to release the story anew.

God trapped himself in flesh that we might know him better. He trapped himself in words that we might understand him better. He traps himself in our hearts that we might share him better. It’s time for us to release our trapped God. Get out that dusty translation because Prince Modupe had it right when he excitedly proclaimed that, "Anyone could learn to decipher the symbols and turn the trapped words loose again into speech." As we do that let's engage each other in our worship services first; then we just might succeed at engaging the world. Jesus was speaking to us today when he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free." You're free to go, Church.

Copyright February 2011, John P. Van Dusen
The painting "The Prison Courtyard" is by Vincent Van Gogh