Worship Umami: Looking for Balance and Savouriness in Worship By Means of Focus, Emphases, Team-Collaboration, and Gospel

2020·13.8 MB·English

by  MARKUS ZOBEC

WORSHIP UMAMI:
LOOKING FOR BALANCE AND SAVOURINESS IN WORSHIP
BY MEANS OF FOCUS, EMPHASES, TEAM-COLLABORATION, AND
GOSPEL

A THESIS-PROJECT
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF
GORDON-CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE
DOCTOR OF MINISTRY

BY
MARKUS ZOBEC
MAY 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Markus Zobec. All Rights Reserved.
CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi
ABSTRACT ix
Chapter
1. THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING 1
2. BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION 25
3. LITERATURE REVIEW 55
4. THE PROJECT 121
5. CONCLUSIONS AND OUTCOMES 143
Appendix
A. NGE TEST 167
B. LITURGIES 169
C. THINKHOUSE PROJECT MANUAL 176
D. MEISTERTASK SCREENSHOTS 180
E. PRAYER EXAMPLE 183
F. SURVEY QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH 186
G. ORIGINAL SURVEY OF BOTH GROUPS IN GERMAN 190
H. ENGLISH TRANSCRIPTION OF SURVEY 235
I. SURVEY RESPONSES FROM GENERAL GROUP 275
J. SURVEY RESPONSES FROM THP GROUP 309
K. RESPONSES TO OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS (ALL) 351
L. RESPONSES TO OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS (THP) 370
BIBLIOGRAPHY 377
iii
VITA 384

iv
ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURE A Color-coded four-fold Gospel-structure 67
FIGURE B Thanksgiving Continuity Highlighted 68
FIGURE C Detailed color-coded four-fold Gospel-structure 125-126
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my wonderful wife, Julia Deanna, for her immeasurable
support throughout the pursuit of my studies and ministry in general. You are my
favorite theologian. In marriage prep I quote you more than Chan and Keller. During
the last four years you were a constant source of encouragement. I know some
stretches of time during the last years have been especially tough. So is the time I
am writing these acknowledgements. You repeatedly carried more than you should
have. Please know: Without you I would never have finished. And thanks for coming
to the church services I designed. I know you have a choice. Not really? Okay, you
are right. Well then, thanks for being so nice about it. Truly, out of all people in this
world, I love you most! From our first encounter at age thirteen you have been and
will remain the Christian role model I always look up to. We are our own little
ThinkHouse project. But after twenty years of marriage we might as well call it an
established and time-proven LoveHouse program.
I would also like to thank my five amazing children Emma Minou, Davy
Jordan, Nelly Ellen, Jesse Mo, and Jamie Tobin. You not only accepted my absence
in body and mind, but you were gracious about it. Well, maybe not Jamie. You guys
are the best! Making you laugh is one of God’s greatest gifts in my life and often my
Guidea for the day. As is always and forever winning all wrestling matches you
instigate! Hey, you are getting better. Keep trying (in vain). I love you!
In addition, much credit for the success of this thesis-project goes to my
deacon for church services, Janno Both, whose energy, love for church services
(music in particular), and proclivity for excellence and detail is unsurpassed. Yes,
you get on my nerves sometimes. But I put it in record here: Every now and then you
vi
are right. Much of what our church services are today, they are because of your
involvement. There is a lot of “I” in this present work. When talking about designing
liturgies it should have been a bold “we” and sometimes an italic “you”. I am looking
forward to the next years, my friend! Digital smooches and viral hugs to you. We all
know you need them! Hey, don’t post this on Instagram. And remove my pictures
while you are at it.
I will be forever indebted to the first ThinkHouse team and its leaders Jasper
Klemm (WorkShop), Rolf Wessels (WordAble), and Janno Both (BeatSite). You guys
are a creative, dedicated, and flat-out lovely bunch. Thank you so much for getting
this project going. Eighteen months in, it still looks like it has a future. Maybe we
haven’t actually seen the best of it yet?
I am also very grateful to all our staff and our team of elders at Paulus-
Gemeinde, of which I am one blessed member. You largely ignored the dark circles
under my eyes and lied about my appearance as well as you respectively could.
Some of you should stop lying though. Not just for theological reasons. No, some of
you are really bad at it. And a few of you are scary-good. Sisters and brothers, thank
you for caring, asking questions and telling me to go to bed.
I also want to thank all my teachers at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
The residencies inspired me. One may have even saved my pastorate. Please, keep
nurturing “passionate, reflective practitioners”. Yes, David Currie, I had to look up the
phrase in my notes, sorry. But I am not sorry to have read your book The Big Idea of
Biblical Worship which sparked my interest in working on focus in liturgy. Without
you, Dave, this particular thesis-project would not have originated. If that is a good
thing or not, I will let you be the judge.
vii
Also, there have been many influential theologians and game-changing
encounters with people like John Mark Hicks, Earl Lavender, Lee Camp (all
Lipscomb University), Joel White (FTH Gießen), Jossy Chacko and Stéphane Hofer
(both Empart Inc) who all have a special place in my heart and shaped me in more
ways than I probably know.
Last but not least, I want to thank my parents Anni and Martin Zobec as well
as my late mother-in law Deanna Kaye and my father-in-law, Bill Wilson, who did not
have much to do with this thesis-project really - unless you count in all the dozens of
years of sacrifice and love they poured out into our lives, yes, even after we have
turned into adults. Like the invisible Gospel-structure, your support was and is largely
unseen, but is umami-felt at every level. Thank you! But some of the support, like a
good emphasis-liturgy, came in very concrete and hands-on ways. I am talking
Euros. Thank you for that as well!
viii
ABSTRACT

Worship services are rarely adequately valued and theologically reflected. Not
even by those who lead them. But as can be observed in Scripture and in church
history, worship services are indispensable to the life of faith. They should be
prepared with much care.
The aim of this thesis-project is to evaluate four goals for worship services: (1)
the Guidea: bringing focus. (2) The team-approach: introducing balance, creativity,
and quality. (3) The emphases-liturgies: adding distinctive components. (4) The
Gospel-order: providing the invisible backbone.
I will discuss what was discovered from both the perspective of congregants
and team members.
ix
CHAPTER ONE
THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

The Problem
The title of this thesis-project might raise some eyebrows. Worship umami,
what is that? Well, umami has, since the beginning of the 21st century been
recognized officially as the fifth taste, next to sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Only
recently, scientist have discovered the receptors for this taste on the human tongue.
As a matter of fact, umami receptors sit square and prominent in the center of our
tongues. And even though science did not for a long time have a scientific backing
for what exactly umami was and is, the principle of umami has been used by cooks
throughout the world for centuries. Umami occurs naturally in most long-simmered
dishes that are made from a combination of vegetables, water, and especially meat.
The long protein chains in the meat are breaking down into their various
amino acid building blocks, glutamate chief among them. … Also present in
meat stock is inosinate, which when combined with glutamate creates a
perception of umami much greater than the sum of its chemical parts.1

As we will later see, Pollan uses the same words to describe umami as
Alexander Schmemann uses for worship: The transportation of something “much
greater than the sum of its parts.”2 And that is exactly what corporate worship
liturgies are able to accomplish. By themselves the distinctive parts of worship might
be individually helpful, tasty so to speak, but put together in a way that brings forth a
balance and umami (savouriness), they produce - to keep with a cooking metaphor

1. Michael Pollan, Cooked (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014), 168-169.
2. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood,
N.Y: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1973), 25.
1