There have been a lot of words written by people a lot more knowledgeable than me in regard to the state of the "mainline church". For me it pretty much boils down to this. Traditional Sunday morning worship with stale liturgies is dead. I'm bored with it. My kids have always been bored with it. My wife is bored with it. Here's a news flash: God doesn't want his people to be well-dressed Sunday morning zombies. Hear me out on this. I know that there's still a large population of Christians who hold traditional worship near and dear. It still speaks to them and it facilitates their relationship with God. It still has a place. I respect it and those who practice it. But....
The pews at many of these churches are largely devoid of people under the age of 40. There's an alarming shortage of teens and Gen-X'ers. Contemporary worship services are an option but many of these fall flat and come across as nothing more than sing-a-longs with "it's all about how good Jesus makes me feel" lyrics and cheesy pop musical stylings. Been there, won't be doing that. So where does that leave me and countless others?
We need worship that is interactive. Worship that embraces the mysteries of Jesus and his message. We need to readjust our focus. It seems that modern Christians are more concerned with being "saved" than putting the teachings of Jesus into practice. Our worship needs to embrace His teachings. The radical agenda of Jesus needs to come the forefront. His message of love and forgiveness is the one thing that can truly save this world. His message is lacking in the version of Christianity that the religious right has co-opted but that's a post for another day. I want worship that doesn't make us feel good about our wealth. Worship that doesn't rationalize our role as modern day Pharisees. I want to confess my sins, say the creed and mean it. I want to partake of the sacrament of Holy Communion and have it mean something. I want to learn and I want to sing. I want to do this with and for other people who are yearning for the same thing. I don't want to be a Sunday morning Christian. I want to follow Christ.
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5 comments:
Could not agree more. We need to provide a worship service format that is conducive for younger audiences but DO NOT need to sugar coat it with all this feel good stuff. Jesus came to earth with specific instructions and we need to hear about them.
We also have to be the people who become involved with the 'younger' generations and help to mentor them and keep them connected.
Not only conducive to youngsters but for those of us who are turned off by what the church has become. That includes old guys like me and not quite so old guys like you. I want to see people at church from every walk of life, every age and every freaking demographic imaginable.
Then again I'll settle for a couple of sinners like me who are simply looking for Jesus.
Funny -- my brother came home for Thanksgiving and was telling us about the house church he attends. Man, the concept has a lot of merits and it was not the first time my wife and I had talked about it. It just seems to me that the church (at least ours) can't stop bickering over the minor things. Nothing turns people off more than a church that does can't pull together. It really feels like we have two congregations. Ahh maybe I'm rambling and it has to be that way to suit the older and younger generations but you lose the sense of the 'body of Christ' and you sure don't portray it to the outside world.
YES!
Stick with me. That's what this blog is going to be about - at least for the immediate future. We need to get past all of the modern church crap and get busy following Jesus.
FYI, I quit council and stepped down from my post as Worship and Music chair at my church and no longer attend Sunday morning services there because of these very issues. I'll probably work that into a post at some point because it's relevant to the discussion.
Come join us during Advent (see the sidebar) for something completely different.
You know, the funny thing is that worship is a verb whose object is God. I hear worship used as a noun by most church people to describe a benign weekly activity undertaken without much thought or intentionality. What if we talked about worshiping God in a different waythan we are used to talking about it. what if we talked about it in terms of loving God, in terms of adoraton or in terms of a need to encounter the divine mystery as often as we can? but what do i know?
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