626 - Welcoming the Stranger: A Public Theology of Worship and Evangelism

Welcoming the Stranger: A Public Theology of Worship and Evangelism
By Patrick R. Keifert
Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1992. 176 pp. $11.95.

The church growth movement, of late, has been busy churning out liturgical innovations that serve to "contextualize" and "inculturate" Christian worship in response to current cultural trends-thereby providing us with "seeker oriented" liturgies that "repackage" old worship styles into friendly talk-show formats, drama teams, Scripture choruses, and something called, God help us, "entertainment evangelism." Now comes this book by Patrick Keifert setting forth a concept of liturgy and evangelism that directly challenges the presuppositions that are responsible for such liturgical modernizations. Bravo!

It is obvious that Keifert is familiar with the church growth movement. He quotes its gurus (Shaller, George, Wagner), uses its vocabulary (statistics, studies, patterns-and strategies, strategies, strategies!), and even presumes the pragmatic value of numerical growth (he notes, without comment, that he once was a consultant for a church that wanted to grow because it was having "budgetary problems" [!]). Still, the theological and biblical underpinnings for Keifert's understanding of both evangelism and worship directly challenge assumptions of the church growth movement, providing a more theologically cogent and defensible basis for liturgical reform in response to modern culture.

The first part of the book challenges two well-known tenets of church growth ideology: homogeneity and intimacy. Keifert uses the metaphor, "welcoming the stranger," to counter both the exclusiveness of homogeneous congregations and the way intimacy in worship

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alienates newcomers. Most of us, like the author, have visited churches for worship, only to find ourselves excluded from liturgical involvement: The worship style seems odd, the service bulletin is hard to follow, the hymns are unfamiliar, and so on. We are strangers-which means that we are prohibited from participating in true worship: experiencing and responding to the gracious self-giving of God with thankful praise.

Since the evangelical thrust of the church is to welcome strangers, Keifert argues, the currently popular family model of worship-worship as intimate, warm, and personal-often puts off newcomers. The "ideology of intimacy" actually creates distance, not involvement, because strangers cannot become family members without conforming or fitting in. Visitors are not familiar with the established patterns of intimacy. More important, the family model tends to turn worshipers away from an evangelical engagement with the world (public worship) and toward an escape from the painful realities of the world (private worship).

Keifert wants to restore the public dimension to Christian worship, that is, to prepare liturgies that create space for strangers, that respect the distance that necessarily exists between persons in public encounters. Worship planners must provide a worship environment that offers not familial intimacy for the in-group but open hospitality for the stranger.

What is this liturgical hospitality? What does it look like? The second half of the book addresses this question. Unfortunately, Keifert's answers are not entirely satisfying. His best example, curiously, is found not in his book, but in an earlier article in Word and World. While on sabbatical leave in Tübingen, Keifert sang in a church choir. At each rehearsal everyone greeted each other with formal handshakes, even though all of them had been friends for years. At first Keifert regarded this as a quaint, formal custom. Then he came to realize that it was a public ritual for including the stranger: "Through the handshaking I was ritually granted public space."

The most concrete suggestion Keifert makes for including the stranger in worship is to provide two different liturgies each Sunday, one for members of the congregation who are accustomed to the liturgical and biblical traditions of the church, the other for strangers who are unfamiliar with both Bible and ritual. No clear picture is provided of the liturgical content and style of these two services-the former is "rich" and "complex" and the latter is "simple" and of a "singular focus." Nor does the author address the larger issue of potential problems associated with multiple service approaches. He asserts that the services must be linked "in a way that ensures that they do not produce two separate congregations," but offers no methods. The theological risks involved are far too many-and too serious-to be dismissed so casually.

Throughout this part of the book, the reader will likely experience a

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shortfall of details illustrating the author's various liturgical "strategies." Still, his evangelical concern for liturgical reforms that seek to reach persons who are alienated from and unresponsive to traditional liturgical forms is valid, and his biblical and theological arguments are compelling. He promises a future volume. Perhaps it will provide a more detailed look at what such liturgies could be.

Paul B. Brown

Memphis Theological Seminary
Memphis, TN