Differences in Opinion (aka Worship Wars)

I go to church every Sunday. I have probably not missed going to church more than a dozen Sundays in my life. I was blessed to be raised in a family was attending church was important. But it was different then. Church was something we talked about, but faith was a private matter, a motivator to do good things.

I remember our church in my hometown. It wasn't very large, as I recall. My family would go to church, sing songs out of the book, and then we would listen to the preacher talk for what seemed like hours. There was one service, and it probably happened at 11:00am. As I recall (it's been a really long time) Sunday School was before church. I know it was downstairs, and I can almost smell the musty, moldy room to this day. (Nobody argued about the songs we sang then.)After church, we would either eat lunch at home, or we might drive about an hour to see my grandparents. (They are both gone now, and I miss them.)

Susie and I have moved a lot. Everywhere we have gone, we have found a church. Some good ones, some really good ones. I think without our connection to the church, we might have had a very difficult time with all the moves. We have attended mostly Independent Christian Churches, with the exception of our time in Raleigh. In Raleigh we attended a Baptist church, with perhaps the best preacher I have ever heard. His name is Stephen Davies, and God has remarkably ordained this man. We never asked "what kind of songs do you sing?" We just found a church and plugged in.

It seems that is has only been in the past fifteen years or so that these distinct differences in worship style have been allowed to permeate our churches. Maybe it has been longer, I don't know. I do know this, that (my opinion) we have allowed "contemporary worship" to move beyond worship to entertainment. We spend thirty minutes singing songs, most of them scripture based. I don't like most of them. Not because they are not scriptural, I just don't like them. But what I really struggle with is the entertainment atmosphere that is created in church. Dark lights, guitars and amplifiers, drums...you know. I think church has become too relaxed...too informal. I don't mean we need to go back to wearing suits and/or dresses. We just need to acknowledge the holiness of where we are and what we are trying to do.

Susie loves contemporary worship. I love traditional worship. Our solution is to go to church twice. Once to the "traditional service" for me, and then to the "contemporary service" for Susie. Please don't presume that all I am talking about is the music. I refer to the attitude the permeates the service. The traditional service has an attitude of respect, while the contemporary service has more of an attitude of entertainment. I think we need to meet somewhere in the middle.

That's enough, except for one thing. Can we please quit asking God to come and be a part of our worship? God has invited us to approach his throne, and we continue to ask him to approach us. I really think that most of us, me included sometimes, would rather God became like us instead of asking us to become more like Him.

Worship is more than music, I agree. But it seems like the music is what drives most of the conversation about worship, wouldn't you agree?