worship curation [5]: creating a public

worship curation [1]: opening up a series of reflections
worship curation [2]: the making of a world
worship curation [3]: negotiating newness
worship curation [4]: curating beyond the canon

a museum director's first task is to create a public - not just to do great shows, but to create an audience that trusts the institution

so says pontus hultén in a brief history of curating. this struck me quite forcibly for the simple reason that most of the people i know involved in curating worship at least in the alternative worship tradition (?!) are most interested in the creative process. i include myself in that. the processes of articulation, imagination and continuity are energising. dreaming up ideas and working out how to make them happen out of few resources, both alone and in a group of artists is like breathing air - easy and we don't have to think about it too hard. but there are a lot of events and installations and so on that are wonderfully creative and take my breath away but there is only a very small group who is fortunate enough to find this gold mine.

it's true you've got to do more work to engage in this kind of worship - it requires more than sitting in a pew and singing some songs and listening to a sermon. and i think there's something about taste - [good taste obviously!] - it's a marginal pursuit for arty types who like the leftfield rather than the mainstream. these are probably scripts we play in our minds as to why events are small. but i think it's probably that the kinds of people creating this worship simply don't get round to or think about creating a public.

i had a meal with someone new to ealing recently who was involved years back in abundant, a huge christian network and club in london 15 years or so back run by my younger brother steve and others. for that they used to have reps in every church they could think of, send out fliers and campaign like crazy. so the first question this person asked about grace was how people in other churches might know about it, did we have promoters, how did we advertise locally... i mumbled somewhat embarrassed that we didn't really do a lot of that. we had a web site, an e-mail list, an annual flier (but even that doesn't get used properly), blogs (and some of those are not bad). but it was clear to me that we haven't prioritised creating a public (or a tribe if you have read seth godin's tribes). don't get me wrong we do have a public, but it's smallish...

that's it for this post - it's one thought, one blind spot i think in many people who are curators of worship or artist-curators. maybe it's time to apply the same creative energy and process to this as to the construction of a wonderful worship experience/event?!

Comments

[LauraHD]

Do we think that our worship is attractional in and of itself? Do we enjoy the smallness and intimacy of our congregational size? Do we see ourselves as The Other who need to be welcomed and included? Are we just still a bit rubbish at and embarrassed by talking about faith and engaging with and inviting people?

[steve taylor]

what abundant does sounds like simply targetting Christians ie people who already get (some of the) story? how is that missional?

if we want people outside the church, then we're competing with huge amounts of $ spent on clubbing, entertainment. it's a whole new network.

steve

[cheryl]

this is such a big issue for us... clubs here don't spend massive $ on advertising... most indy music, which would be our best comparison, is advertised very locally with posters, by networks etc. I don't think we're up against money, but we're up against reputation, and are searching for that elusive wedge that might give us a tipping point. And we're still working out a way to be honest about what we're inviting people to, that doesn't trick them into coming to something they would not otherwise choose to come to, and in a way that actually is inviting.

[and probably we're still searching for the confidence to say that we can hold our own against all the other saturday night options..]

all wisdom gratefully received...

[jonny]

i am not suggesting for a moment that church is solely about events or being attractional. i hope my post on curating beyond the canon and reflecting on art moving into public spaces suggests that. i also think haveing small communities is good and some things need to focus on that. our communities need to be guests in other spaces, get stuck into other things, go to other peoples parties and so on. of course...

...but if we are curating events/installations/art spaces/worship services then creating a public is a surely worth some effort and thought and a public that is beyond our existing circle if it is a small circle!

it can seem like other things have big budget and i agree steve - some do. but a lot don't - it's more doing the hard work of communication and putting creative energy into it i suspect the way cheryl describes things in melbourne. i don't have answers to this - i just feel the statement confronted me about a weakness of mine and perhaps many of us, though i am sure not all. the line 'we're doing it for ourselves' that people trot out as a notion of authenticity i understand and have used myself. it's also not wanting to see people as somehow a target market or like we have some big agenda - the honesty that is so important. but it also can be an excuse for not communicating that there is some wonderful treasure to be found. the pendulum could do with something of a nudge in the other direction.

abundant did have lots of christians but it created a social environment where lots of people brought friends - there was a huge fringe. i know some of those friendship networks still exist and can think of people who came to know christ through those networks. not sure if you know pete's book 'youthwork and the mission of god' but abundant was a healthy model of inside out (nucleus and fringe) in pete's language which is an attractional model of mission rather than his other model which is about going into a completely new community to grow something there - that tends to be what people mean by missional, but bothy are valid approaches to mission.

[LauraHD]

Good comments people.

> ...but if we are curating events/installations/art spaces/worship services then creating a public is a surely worth some effort and thought and a public that is beyond our existing circle if it is a small circle!

My point exactly, even if my questions were clumsly put. I do agree with you - let's try and nudge that pendulum. Now, how?...