It is clear to every pastor, church musician, and theologian that we lose young people after high school, when they entertain the notions of sin for a while, then finally finding a job, settling down, finding a spouse and getting married. When they have their first child, they start listening to their parents and find a church. So what happens in those 15 years in between?

I find myself in a region of the country that is, to my eyes, either atheist or fundamentalist, and much heavier in the former. I have no problem with fundamentalism, socially, either, I just don’t enjoy their patterns of worship as much as I enjoy the liturgy of my youth. I still love Setting 2 (in the Lutheran Book of Worship) the most. I grew up with it.

I see the only reason that the youth do not join churches, attend worship, or anything else in those 15 years, is that the church loses them in their youth. We teach them the wrong things! We teach them to value praise music with its empty theology and great beat, and when they first experience suffering, and when they outgrow their childhood faith, they find God and religion uncomfortably restricting, and they embrace the ‘reality’ of our new world on the internet, in chatrooms and in clubs…

How do we, as composers, liturgists, creative pastors, etc., connect to kids who are into hip-hop, alternative, pop, country, when forming new worship resources for the church?

Do we write a liturgy in each style, and pray that congregations will choose one genre and stick with it? I think the solution is in the congregations themselves. If you give a child a chance to have input, they will work themselves on finding new music. If you tell them to be in a praise band, that is what they will do. If they like country, why not encourage the students to work on that. Or if they like jazz, to work jazz into worship?…

The problem is, how do you INTEGRATE old and young within the church, WHILE still having worship that the young like?…

There are many issues involved:

1) Church musicians — traditionally, there are organists, and in ‘modern’ congregations, there is a band. What about the under-disclosed talent in the church? I guarantee, in every church, there is a banjo player. I’m not saying that the banjo belongs in every church, but why not?…

2) The ‘traditions’ — because of such strict traditions in the church, the only modern music allowed in most congregations is the music called ‘contemporary’ by Baby-Boomers. It is from the 1970s, hardly contemporary any longer! And when those churches realize that, they form a band, hoping that the band will amuse itself, and not disturb the ‘contemporary’ or ‘traditional’ services…

3) The liturgies/music available — more modern music is simply not available from any centralized source. Augsburg hasn’t opened its doors to independent artists and composers yet. They stick with the tried ‘contemporary’ of the 1970s. I have heard that they are trying to change that… We will see in the coming months/years…

I think the reason that so many people connect emotionally to two elements in their lives: music and liturgy (or ‘church’) is that those two practices make us exposed, naked and vulnerable, though safe in the context of the congregation.

My music tears me open at the seams, and shows everything I’ve got! That’s also why it’s intensely emotional for me to take praise and criticism both — this is the filet of my soul waiting for the spices of judgment!

I think youth connect better than any of us to things like music and faith, but we don’t trust them to think for themselves, so we often closet the doors they discover. I had many doors closed, as a child — in school, in church, all over… Luckily, I had parents and art/music teachers that taught me to look out the window when the door was closed!…

And even so, I didn’t feel comfortable stepping into the shoes of an artist until I was halfway through with college — it’s an exposed, difficult path (with little monetary reward:)…

My response within a discussion for Dr. Gilson Waldkoenig’s Music and Culture class at the Lutheran Theologial Seminary at Gettysburg, about authenticity in worship:

On Authenticity in Worship: Are we being “Authentic” when we reach out to new kinds of music?

With all this talk of Authenticity, I had another idea…

______’s points are fantastic, and I have had very similar experiences… We have all taken part in an all-white service that was a bit jerky when moving to the beat of an African-American spiritual!…

But I wonder what is on the other side of that?… I know that my parents, for example, don’t cringe, as I do, when their organist launches into another rendition of some spiritual at dirge pace, with the intensity of Wagner on a bad day… They love it! And they love the contemporary services that put that gospel feel into the music that doesn’t really deserve it, and where it doesn’t quite belong!

Why do we white Swedes and other pales of European descent like singing African songs, African-American songs, as well as all kinds of other odd musics from around the world, etc?… I think there’s an element of praise sneaking back up on us from afar. We are creeping back towards those Great Awakening singings where people would faint and shout… But just a little… Not too much:)

Worship should be diverse — there should be two sides to the coin… There should be the liturgy/music that is comfortable, and that that is uncomfortable…, but exciting, and stimulating. Something that brings us back to calm, to home, to peace. And something that stirs up the waters!

We Lutherans tend to prefer the placid keyboard sound of Marty Haugen, and not the fiery sound of the steel drum worship band in NYC. We prefer just using the green and blue books, soon the ‘new’ red book, because it’s safe. It’s what the others are doing…

I think we should all stay safe. Wear our helmet… tie a rope around our waists… Make sure someone is spotting for us. And then jump! Knowing that we will come safely back home in a few minutes…

I teach German at the university here — and last week I, again, decided to pull a Robin Williams (you know, where he made the kids stand on their desks, and rip pages out of their books in Dead Poet’s Society…) — and I did the following:

I first scared the Dickens out of the students, by telling them how the test would be really really hard, but that the whole goal was learning — and if they learned on the test, they would ultimately be fulfilling my goals for them… And then I had these poor students, only 6 weeks into German 111, write 5 pages of essays, conjugate 20 verbs fully (enough to make any hand tired), along with several other ridiculously hard tasks… And, when they were all terrified of the results, and exhausted from the effort, I told them to rip up the test. And they did. Immediately, the tension was broken, and the room erupted in laughter and smiles. All of the students went home happy that evening.

It’s the same with our church body. We need to break that code that locks our wrists… ‘Shock’ people with something new (and terrifying), and watch them learn… They will be disgruntled, upset. ‘We’ll never do this again’ they say… And many churches won’t.

But we need to tear up the exam at that point. Let them leave with their pants on — tell them it was all a joke. It didn’t really hurt, now did it? It wasn’t for keeps — we don’t need to change forever… They will return to their comfort zone… But, each time the reistant congregation ventures out, it will be less afraid…

And each time, they can be reassured that the tradition is still there when they return… It’s like going away to camp — at first, the homesickness sets in, but soon, the joy of the woods takes over!

But eventually, there must be a place where tradition and modernity in liturgy meet. That’s what I’m working on finding in my own music:), and I think many others are as well…

In her amusing and frank blog, The Dude Abides, Cathleen Falsani talks about her book “The God Factor.” She gives me a lot of hope that Barack Obama could be the next president of the United States. That is the way things go, isn’t it — like a pendulum? I think we deserve a serious swing! President Bush and his cronies have so alienated and abused their constituents that I think we could ‘even’ have a midwesterner, and a black liberal as president! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

The reason I believe Kerry didn’t win wasn’t because of his charisma. He had plenty, as did Gore. But not the right kind. He wasn’t a Baptist. The only victories the liberals have had have been from dyed-in-the-wool Christians, Clinton and Carter… Can’t we learn our lesson, and find a Christian liberal that could stand up to the intensely oppressive right-wing regime? Barack, after reading Falsani’s blog entry, seems to be the perfect candidate!

Here is Falsani, from her blog, quoting an interview from a couple of years ago that is in her book, The God Factor.

Here’s one of my favorite things Barack told me from that chapter in The God Factor:
The God Factor

“The most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I’m talking to a group and I’m saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I’m just being glib or clever.

Is that the power of the Holy Spirit? I asked him.
“I think it’s the power of the recognition of God, or the recognition of a larger truth that is being shared between me and the audience. That’s something you learn watching ministers — what they call the Holy Spirit. They want the Holy Spirit to come down while they’re preaching, right? Not to try to intellectualize it, but what I see there are moments that happen within a sermon where the minister gets out of his ego and is speaking from a different source. And it’s powerful. There are also time when you can see the ego getting in the way, where the minister is performing and clearly straining for applause or an amen. And those are distinct moments. But I think those former moments are sacred.”

Obama is a real force to be reckoned with!

I wrote Mountain Vespers in 2001, and recently released a new audio recording, and updated data CD for the service. The following is a response I wrote to Dr. Gilson Waldkoenig at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg’s class, opening up a series of discussions that will be taking place this week on their servers. I will hopefully get permission to publish some of their comments here, as well as my own.

Below is one of my initial essays, this one about the creation of Mountain Vespers, and my vision for its mission and future, as well as the meaning of the service. Dr. Waldkoenig was also interested in my reasoning behind writing a bluegrass liturgy. My response to that is encased in the surrounding telling of my tale.

***

MOUNTAIN VESPERS

Mountain Vespers began as a response to the worship that I was exposed to every day at the place I lived, worked and worshipped, Holden Village, in the wilds of Washington state (You are all heartily invited to visit — it is a wonderful, idyllic, Lutheran retreat center that you will quickly fall in love with. www.holdenvillage.org).

Every evening of the week, the entire village, staff and guests (in the summer upwards of 500 people, and in the winter as few as 50-60) gather together for evening Vespers. There are readings, performances, prayers, hymns, sometimes following a liturgical pattern, and other times not. But every Friday evening was devoted to ‘Vespers ‘86’, a setting of the Evening Prayer by Marty Haugen, who was a musician in residence during the winter of 1986, and first ‘tested’ his Holden Evening Prayer service at the village during that time. I have a very sensitive musical ear, and love my ipod, because I can set it to shuffle, and be assured that I will not hear the same tune twice (with 10,000 tunes loaded into the gadget). After a full year, I tired of Haugen’s service, just as others grew accustomed to it, and loved it because they knew it so well. A friend suggested that I write an alternative.

So, I did just that. I dug into the Vespers texts, and wrote an alternative to Holden Evening Prayer. Mountain Vespers has been in constant use at Holden Village ever since, and is being used by hundreds of congregations across the country.

Part of the story that I didn’t explain is the personal part. I have a very odd life, and have experienced some great hardships in my 27 years. My bio, etc. is at www.kentgustavson.com/bio, if you want to read more, but I’ll tell a different take on it here.

I created a program in conflict resolution for teens in Jerusalem, living in Bethlehem, and very much hopeful and excited for the outcome. I had worked for 3 years with Seeds of Peace, (www.seedsofpeace.org), and had hundreds of contacts in the middle east. Then the Intifada began, and a good friend/favorite student of mine was beaten to death while wearing his Seeds of Peace t-shirt in a peaceful demonstration gone bad. He ran to help a friend, and was instead dragged into the woods, and beaten to within an inch of his life with the butts of the young Israeli soldiers’ M-16s. Asel himself was an Israeli, but had the wrong color skin, as did the others who died that day. He died in the ambulance, because it was required to go to another area of the country for treatment, and was not allowed through because he was an Arab. His ambulance stood at the checkpoint for 30 minutes as he died of bleeding.

That was a lot to handle for a young man who had been so hopeful for ‘peace.’ I was persuaded to come home, and, disillusioned, I retreated into the mountains, to Holden Village. I wrote, worked and hiked, trying to recover. Then, I began to work on Mountain Vespers, based in the faith I was discovering and forming as I found a God who knelt down near his friend Lazarus’ tomb and wept.

I left in March of 2001 to visit my parents, and had a wonderful time visiting them, telling them of how I was recovering from my disillusionment with the world. My father and I left for a hiking trip in the mountains of Arkansas for 3 days while my mother flew to a conference in South Carolina. My mother got off the plane in Atlanta to an attendant that told her that my father and I were in critical condition in the ICU at a hospital in Springdale, Arkansas. My father nearly died that day. He lost 95 percent of his blood. And my childhood died again that day. As did my twenties. I became an old soul on March 11, 2001, 6 months before 9/11. I heard my father’s screams next door in the ICU as the paramedics pulled the fencepost out of his chest. I was laying alone on a cold table in the ER with my wrist dangling, hearing my father die. And for the first time, I knew the pain of Asel.

I knew what pain was like. I knew what it might be like to have your son beaten to death. It is not something you can recover from. To read more about Asel’s life and death, please visit www.slider17.com (that was his online nickname as a 17 year old). And I discovered Christ that sat next to Lazarus’ tomb.

It was in the hospital, waiting for my father to come back to life, that I finished Mountain Vespers. And it was in the year after the accident, when I extended my stay at Holden Village, that I learned to be a composer of faith. I created music that expressed the feelings I had within. And I created a text that tied me to the deep tradition of my family.

I dedicated the service to my father, and to Holden Village. Because I was alive, and because I wanted to praise with a shout and a song.

I remember my mother and I singing “There is a Balm in Gilead,” and seeing her break down in tears. Uncontrollable sobbing. Because we didn’t know if they could piece Dad back together.

***

I have grown immensely in faith, and in musical ability since 2001, but the same concept continues to live in my music. We die to our old selves when we become true believing worshippers of God. Paul talks about it. So do countless theologians, including my personal favorite, C.S. Lewis. And, out of all of our suffering, we are surprised by joy. The resurrection starts to make sense.

My father and I go on bike trips of 2-3 hours now, when I visit home. He is recovering still. An amazing thing for a 61 year old man to feel the vitality come back to his bones, nerves and muscles. But he has been reconstructed. Reborn. Given another chance to live, love, learn. And he has the same wonderful mind that has made him the best pediatrician possible for nearly 40 years.

***

Mountain Vespers, again, was not written as a Bluegrass Service. It is a testimony to my faith, and the faith of my parents. It is an exercise in tradition that emerged from my deepest soul, out of pain, and out of a new-found joy and faith. It is the story of my coming of age.

I am the first composer to set to music the “Holden Prayer of Farewell,” a prayer that comes from the LBW, but has been adopted by Holden Village, and is recited by heart by all members of the community when a good friend leaves to go out into the world… My arrangement of the words goes as follows:

“O God, you have called us, to ventures where we cannot see the end, by paths never yet taken, through perils unknown. Give us good courage, not knowing where we go, to know that your hand is leading us, wherever we might go. Amen.”

That prayer means more to me than any other text in the entire world. And those are the words that kept me through the terrible days following our car wreck. My friends from Holden Village sent me cookies and stuffed animals, happy I was alive. They prayed for us every day.

That is what Mountain Vespers is about. It has nothing to do with Bluegrass.

My vision is that I hope both Mountain Vespers and Light into the World find lives of their own, enriching the lives of congregations, and telling a story. Worshippers will find their story. Bluegrass musicians, contemporary musicians, singers, congregants, all will see their own stories in the words. Or maybe they will simply sit back and listen. And we will all be connected by faith in that experience.

I will never make a living at liturgical composition. But that’s not what it’s all about. I have an opportunity to share my faith, my hope, and my little window into the liturgy. I craft words and tunes to help others sing their songs of joy, reconciliation, sorrow, redemption… What an honor!