College Boarders Service

Each term we run a boarders service at Nelson College.
This term we are theming around the Da Vinci code....
Using the theme to talk about the simple and some what secret message of Jesus - Love God and your neighbour. I say simple and secret because it seems that we often overcomplicate the whole thing in the name of Good Theology, when at it's heart the gospel message is love God, Love each other and everything else is a bonus.
I think the over complication is part of the reason why Brown's book is so popular - other than being reasonably good pulp fiction. The average person here's that God is the creator and sustainer of all things, but reveals himself in a guy whose major message was Love God, love your neighbour, and we look at that and say can it all be that simple....
Well it is that simple, unfortunatly the practical realites are such that simple things can be complicated - It isn't easy to love God, and it sure isn't easy to love my neighbour. Therefore we try to find another message - soemthing more obtainable and easier to complete. Or we reject the message completly....

In true Nelson college boarders service tradtion we are playing the Mary J Blige version of the U2 song One... Showing some comedy skits about the da vinci code, having a 3 part message and of course hymns...

The hymn thing has caused some debate, The college wants some singing as part of the service (tradition) the few christians that attend (probably 15 -20 out of 200 plus kids)want up beat youth worship stuff, I think they are of the opinion that if we can get these non Christians into worhsip then they will be converted.
My take on it is that we are doing this service for NON Christians - in fact this is the only christian input that many of these guys will ever get.
Our goal then is not to give the Christian kids a chance to worship but to try and instil aspects of the Gospel story that they can remeber and maybe they will interact with either in their time at college or later in life. In general the average punter who attends is not going to interact in worship (many don't even know what it is or why you would do it anyway). So for me I will always try to do three things, capture their (1)attention, (2)entertain, and (3)inform.

(1) We try to capture their attention through the different media we use in conveying a message. Jesus used stories events from their world - and we attempt to do the same from their world, movies, music, events... (last week there was a streaker at the Boys college rugby game, we have been asked not to mention that... I thought it was a great opportunity to talk about purity...) Last year I played a clip from the movie HELLBOY, to show why Jesus needed to die - becuase without outside help we may want to do the right thing, but we are unable due to our sinful nature - Hellboy being a demon who wants to be good. From the show of hands i asked for it seems hardly any of the Christian kids had seen it - I wonder Why... But I think in the context it made a lot of sense to the non christians. I think the way we mix it up playing the likes of Good Charlotte or Foo Fighters next to more traditional stuff helps keep them awake.
(2) at the same time these snippets, music etc entertains...
(3) Informing is hugely important too which is one of the reasons we use hymns,
firstly I think it captures and honours some of the college traditions and hence informs them of whose shoulders they are standing on. I also want to honour the college story as well as the chrisitan story. Hymns also reflect some of what those who have never set foot in a church before expect church to be - and in all honesty inform these people of what they can expect if they enter a church - which will tend to be for weddings or funerals.
Hymns are also a lot easier to sing than some of the youth worship stuff that is around. You simply belt them out rah rah rah style, no harmonies - there drunken pub song like tunes, or rugby ground chants....
Lyricaly they make more sense (we are careful what we use)many of the modern stuff is either about loving Jesus (to a non christian hormonal teenager that just sounds gay) or subversive - "well it sounds like I'm singing about my girlfriend but it's really Jesus". And if they make more sense they may tell them something about God too.