THE WILDFIRE LITURGY by Michael R. Brown, Fine Arts Division Indiana Wesleyan University The two great differences between parents and grandparents are compelling, significant, and, perhaps, providential. Good parents help children to become better adults while good grandparents allow them to fully enjoy their childhood. Paradoxically, parents are also responsible to rear and discipline their children as subordinates while grandparents treat their grandchildren as equals, oftentimes as co- conspirators. These qualities were evident in my Christian upbringing as it is with my own children and their grandparents. It is amazing how my highly disciplined parents have radically changed into libertine grandparents. This phenomena was most apparent with my Granddaddy Scarborough. Granddaddy was a towering man who was thoroughly committed to Christ and his family. He was a true patriarch. During my second grade summer my mother was having complications with the pregnancy of my youngest brother so my middle brother and I stayed at Granddaddy's house for an extended period before the new baby arrived the last of July. We had a summer that was simple and wonderful in a way that I wish all children could experience. We dined on Granny's fine cooking, caught and killed snakes (we unfortunately had no sense of ecology, we lived by the motto that "the only good snake was a dead snake"), picked cotton for Granddaddy (we were paid by the pound-one week I made $1.05 and that was only after hiding several large rocks in my pickings) and played. In the evenings Granddaddy would take me to church. We all went on Sunday and Wednesday, but during the rest of the week Granddaddy and I would go to brush arbor meetings and sometimes tent revivals. He would treat me as if I were the most important person in the world I thought he could walk on water. The brush arbor meetings were my favorite because of the open air, the fresh smell of cut pine boughs, the feel of the sawdust on my bare feet and the tremendous spirit of the people. I can not remember the sermons, the faces, or the people who were there but I do remember the simplicity and honesty of the services and the spirit and wisdom of my grandfather. He talked with me as an equal and somehow in a rare and special way he made me understand, remember, and appreciate the important aspects of the service. The attendance at the services was important yet secondary to the talks to and from the service. In the days before bucket seats and seatbelts I could stand next to Granddaddy with my arm around his neck in his pickup truck safely tucked behind his broad right shoulder and absorb his love and wisdom. The concepts of faith, family, learning, love, and respect are forever intertwined in my consciousness because of these experiences and remembrances. The beginnings of my establishment of faith and the appreciation of the importance of worship were initiated much earlier than these trips with my grandfather. My parents always had my brothers and I in church when the doors were open. The pattern of worship was set very early. In fact, my first outing after leaving the hospital was a worship service. The educational process for worship was begun from the cradle. On one occasion during a service an unfamiliar family arrived and began to shout and worship in a way that even as a small child I perceived to be out of the spirit of the service. In fact, the spirit seemed to go out of the service instantly, particularly with my parents and other regular attendees. The meeting ended sooner than normal and as we headed home I knew that something was wrong. When I asked about those visitors my parents told me not to be concerned because what I had witnessed was wild fire. Wildfire was the only description given yet it was all I need to understand the situation. I understood very clearly that wildfire was not the pure fire of the spirit of God but the carnal spirit of man. Even though our services were generally very spirited it was clear that the wildfire people were more interested in being seen and providing some self-induced excitement to the service than to be in worship. The advantage of Godly parents and grandparents for the Christian does not provide for the inheritance of salvation, greater spiritual discernment, or a higher calling but it does provide a knowledge and experience base for the appreciation and understanding of worship. This would seem to be supported by the adage "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6). Mine was a television/electronic media free childhood. The ideals of worship presented in my childhood were free from the glare of the all seeing camera, simplicity was valued over the spectacular, and the number of worshipers and their monetary contributions was not calculated for the financial bottom line. The sociological setting for worship that typical undergraduates have experienced is much more complex than my homespun experience. Within this complexity, Christian educators and institutions must grapple with the electronic media/entertainment factor in contemporary worship. It is our current wildfire liturgy. Many students come to college with an intellectual capacity that is a mile wide and an inch deep. This educational shallowness is expected to some degree in all but the highest echelons of students entering college and, for many, can also apply to their understanding of worship. Theologically and spiritually, the most churched student may have been fed a limited diet of televangelism or the local church equivalent, fun activities, contemporary Christian pop music, car washes and ski trips that reflect little bible study and knowledge, prayer time, and personal commitment to Christ. In the intellectual, the theological, and the spiritual spheres of Christian education we have an obligation "to meet students where they are". This tired and overused cliché does have an important place in remedial studies, learning centers, and tutorials. We would not, however, expect students to be continually participating in these areas throughout their educational journey. In worship we should have the same compulsion for religious growth for our students as we do in academics and witness their progress from the milk of the word to the meat of the scriptures. The concept of college chapel or convocation is an ancient one, tried and true, as a part of university life. Modeling of what worship is, in all its myriad forms in the collegiate setting is perhaps almost as important as providing and convincing students of the importance and privilege of personal worship and adoration of our Creator. If we can integrate our faith to no higher spiritual plane than the average banal contemporary Christian rock tune or a little feel-good gospel chitchat we cheat our students of opportunities for spiritual growth. There must be a place in Christian higher education for greater expectations of biblical understanding, spiritual depth, and a lifestyle of holiness. Our personal or our denominational parochial views, traditions, and prejudices should not limit the scope of our collegiate worship times. As much as I cherish the honesty of my simple upbringing, I also have been blessed by the opportunity to worship in a variety of settings. During a ten year period a sizable portion of my employment was generated as a professional brass player. Through church performance engagements, I experienced the high praise of the Catholic and Episcopal Mass, the clarity of the Lutheran chorale, the exuberance of black gospel services, and the strange bliss of a Korean Pentecostal service where I could not tell when the pastor and the congregation were speaking in an unknown tongue or the language that was unknown only to me. These opportunities provided a broad education and appreciation of the many and varied ways people adore God. Admittedly, my own worship experience limitations prior to these times caused some initial discomfort and a bit of attitude adjustment, yet I learned to appreciate and admire the various forms and styles of worship. There was questioning of some of the practices encountered and some healthy questioning of my own beliefs and practices as well as a deeper understanding and appreciation for my worship heritage. We must challenge students with alternatives to worship practices and we, nor they, need fear any setting as long as it elevates the name of Jesus. Students may find a deeper understanding and commitment through a mode that is new and fresh to them. The models that we choose to provide for worship should differ sharply form the contemporary ideal that seems to provide a semi-sanctified version of the Tonight Show. To believe that students can not respond or commit to the wooings of the Holy Spirit without the trappings of the entertainment media shows far too little faith in our students and, what is more frightening and important, in our professed view of the power of the Holy Spirit. The commitment to worship and worship education in collegiate life can take the high road of providing settings, speakers, music, and organization that is varied, beautiful, and consecrated and not an imitation of popular culture. As Christian educators we need not compete for the attention and interest of our students with the world by trying to compete with the entertainment industry. We will only degrade the message and lose the competition. The liturgy we choose should be Christ centered and not media based. We can only quench the self- indulgent and temporal wildfire fueled by the world by drawing near and adoring the eternal light of the world.