Five Approaches to Worship
A few weeks ago, visiting with a couple after our church service, I had someone say to me, "So you guys have a contemporary service. We prefer traditional."
This took me aback because I certainly wouldn't categorize our church this way - we do have some "contemporary" elements in worship, but also recite creeds, have corporate prayers of confession, use an organ and sing the Doxology and Gloria Patri. I tried to explain some of this, to talk about how we don't really like that contemporary/traditional distinction, and then asked what they meant in their comment.
The response: "Well, you have a guitar." Which, apparently, was the binary along which all churches divide.
Often it is the categories we use that define us. The less precise those categories, the more trouble we often have in moving through the world. Nowhere is this more obvious than our discussions about worship. As I've discussed before, people's obsession with a single set …
This took me aback because I certainly wouldn't categorize our church this way - we do have some "contemporary" elements in worship, but also recite creeds, have corporate prayers of confession, use an organ and sing the Doxology and Gloria Patri. I tried to explain some of this, to talk about how we don't really like that contemporary/traditional distinction, and then asked what they meant in their comment.
The response: "Well, you have a guitar." Which, apparently, was the binary along which all churches divide.
Often it is the categories we use that define us. The less precise those categories, the more trouble we often have in moving through the world. Nowhere is this more obvious than our discussions about worship. As I've discussed before, people's obsession with a single set …
