Until about three weeks ago, I was a stranger to comedy radio. Now I drive down the road in hysterics as I listen to 30–60-second bits of a given comedian’s best improv. People probably think something is wrong with me because I’m often still laughing when I get out of the car. So when I saw the title of Sarah Arthur’s latest article, “Daring to Improvise,” I was expecting something funny; a lighthearted and entertaining article about having to create things on the spot during chaotic youth group meetings or fumbling for words while discussing the awkwardness of teenage life. Instead I was met with a much deeper argument for a solid theological concept that gave me joy and made my insides shout, Yes! This is how the body of Christ is supposed to act! Arthur’s examples of communities that dared to improvise gave me hope that there are places in this world where perhaps even God thinks, This is how it’s supposed to be.
The beauty of Arthur’s article is that the art of improvisation as a theological idea is not new. What she’s getting at, I think, is a solid practice of Christian faith that is evidenced in her stories of congregational life, with examples of both success and failure in the process. With a spin that is both fresh and refreshing, what Arthur describes as the art of improv is actually the work of relying on the energetic movement of the Holy Spirit to create new paths through unexpected turns in our shared journey of faith. When her pastor committed suicide, Arthur noted that “to simply regurgitate the tradition…would not have been enough.” There are times when simply regurgitating tradition is completely appropriate. These are ordinary times, or perhaps times of discontentment, when simply showing up and participating in routine practices is exactly what is needed to be faithful and to continue to adhere oneself to one’s tradition. In times of crises, routine practices can help carry us through, but they can seem lacking in the face of despair, grief, turmoil and uncertainty. What gives our faith shape is this art of improv, which is the human part of being open to the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit, who does anything and everything except what we expect. The tragedy of 9/11 was perhaps the first time that advice I had formerly accepted as the wisdom of my elders began to seem small. To be sure, their advice through the angst of adolescence was sound and true, but that September, as I began my senior year of college, words that had previously brought me peace began to feel like platitudes. My brother, who at the time wrote for a newspaper in Newark, looked out his office window to see the towers fall. When he left for home after a full day of reporting on the tragic event, his car was covered with a thick layer of ash. He left his car sitting in that parking garage for days because he couldn’t get past the idea that his car was covered in part with human remains. The platitudes I knew were not enough for either one of us. They were far too small.
The following year I encountered a friend who confided to me that her brother, who had disappointed the family by coming out of the closet and moving from Pennsylvania to L.A., had contracted HIV. She wanted guidance from her only religious friend, but I had nothing to say. I felt as if my faith had failed me—not God, but my faith—and indeed, it had. I had not yet developed the art of improvisation or honed the skill of letting the Holy Spirit do work that I would not even be able to conceive of in the first place. Realizing that I didn’t have all the answers was frightening. I sought to grow deeper spiritually, erroneously believing I could somehow recover the confidence that all things are explainable with faith. I providentially started seminary not long after I had the epiphany that I don’t know everything. The first year felt like trying to take a drink of water from a fire hose. Questions only begat more questions rather than the answers I was sure seminary professors would pass on to me, as if I were joining some kind of secret society.
I began to understand that, rather than having an index of answers, the key to right faith was employing the right tools to explore important questions. My intolerance for pat answers and platitudes began to take root, and I found myself pushing back, thinking sarcastically (and with a liberal dash of arrogance), “as if Jesus has a formula for how to respond to crisis.” Sooner or later, life circumstances will indeed illuminate places where our faith and our traditions are too thin, where even the scripture verse we’ve always relied on fails to bring us peace. If we are unable to, as Arthur writes, “disagree when [our faith is] not robust enough,” we’re dead in the water. But how do we get there without another tragedy that suddenly requires us to “block or accept”? Arthur’s solution is for “our youth to be deeply familiar with the narratives, grammar, rituals and practices of their faith tradition such that they can draw upon it in order to act in the critical moment.” She’s right, of course, but what does this mean to the over-scheduled youth director, a parent volunteer and to a congregation?
The practicalities of implementing Arthur’s solid assertion require both solid leadership and participation. Pastors (on any level) are tasked both with teaching and modeling the disciplines of faith, as well as providing opportunities for practice. I know a church in Parkville, Missouri, that holds a prayer service every Wednesday morning before the workday starts. A friend of mine who is a Catholic youth worker takes her confirmation class on a liturgical tour of the sanctuary, beginning at the front steps of the building, so they can become more and more aware of the spiritual significance of both the building and acts of worship. A nearby church serves communion at every service. Another requires annual participation in local mission work in order to communicate the importance of serving as an integral part of faith.
At Youthfront, our staff practices the offices of daily prayer. Every day, bells ring at 11:40, signaling us to the prayer room, filled with icons and lit with candles. Together we recite ancient creeds, worship in song and pray. We end our worship with the Gloria Patri and then break bread together. Midday and lunchtime refresh my soul and remind me to place-share with struggling members of the Youthfront community. We carry this throughout our ministry, practicing the offices of prayer with students in the Youthfront School of Formation and with youth of all ages at summer camp.
What blows my mind every year is the number of campers who report that their favorite part of camp was not the blob or the waterslide, paintball or ATVs. Their highlight was morning, midday and evening prayer. I am overjoyed to be part of a ministry in which even young people find life and hope in routine practices.
Spiritual disciplines are not meant to be boring or separate from our routine but a life-giving part of it. When we practice our faith in this way, those routine practices will indeed serve as a deep well to draw from when we are called upon to “act in the critical moment.”
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