Process: Extemporaneous 2 & 3

ex·tem·po·ra·ne·ous: (1) : composed, performed, or uttered on the spur of the moment

In early March I had the opportunity to take a pilgrimage of sorts.  I traveled 8 hours northeast to Herrnhut, Germany.  In 1722, persecuted Bohemian Christians who had fled Poland were given this land and safety by Count Zinzendorf. This first settlement was named Herrnhut, "The Lord's Watchful Care."  They are considered the first protestants and their efforts pre-date Martin Luther by over 100 years. The United Brethren, or who are known as Moravians in the US, have an amazing history of missional and incarnational living.  Their story slowly unfolded itself over several days as I visited many still very active sites, including their meeting hall, a local museum, archives and God's Acre, the Brethren graveyard.  I had a long chat with a local woman whose family has been in Herrnhut for many generations and went to a noon-time local prayer.

This video is an in camera-edit but I made some adjustments to the audio - it was just unwatchable.  What you are seeing is the first Moravian meeting hall, which had to be rebuilt after the war.  They purposely never thought of it as a church - church happened in daily life.  That's why the room is white with no decoration.  Nothing, my guide told me, is sacred in the room, including the green podium at the front of the room, and is meant to be used for all kinds of community activities.  The benches are arranged tightly together to reduce the room between the brothers and sisters and are near to the podium to reduce the space between the congregation and the speaker.  The second half of the video is God's Acre.  Again, no headstones.  Nothing must call attention to oneself.  Zinzendorf was obsessed with the unity and the priesthood of the believers and thought about it and wrote about it and gave his life for it.  

Click below for Extemporaneous video 3 

 

From Herrnhut I traveled to nearby Leipzig, a post-industrial city with many interesting juxtapositions of abandoned, modern and traditional German style architecture. There I visited St. Thomas Church, a Lutheran church where Bach was Choir Director for nearly 30 years and where Martin Luther once gave a Pentecost sermon.  The video above is my extemporaneous look at that experience.  (It's okay to laugh - I did)

Just by way of observation, I loved getting to visit these two very different spaces - the Moravian meeting hall in Herrnhut and this Lutheran church.  I couldn't help noticing the way that theology affects the way in which we come together as believers so profoundly.  Of course, I know this from my some of my history classes when I learned about the different periods - Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, etc. - but the immediacy of these two experiences produced a 1000 jumbled thoughts in my head. About what our gigantic stadium churches with jumbo trons speak about us and about the space in which Scott and I would most accurately represent the way we see God. And, most importantly, could this way take shape in a way that was not divisive?