Culture and Church Part: Deux

Today I had another encounter with my friend at the gym. Let's call him "Dave"...because that's what his mom calls him.

These posts would be far too long if I dissected our conversation in one piece so I'll take a couple of posts to do it.

One of Dave's gripes about 'modern church' is that to him it is not respectful to God. The loud music, people getting excited, wearing street clothes, etc. are just disrespectful to Jesus.

To me, the ultimate way that we can respect God is to do what He tells us to do.

In John 21 I think we get Jesus' heartbeat when he asks Peter, "do you love me?" Peter of course replies "You know that I do." To which Jesus responds, "Then feed my sheep." This is a powerful exchange in which Jesus is saying, if you love and respect me then you will show it by loving people. Jesus doesn't respond by saying, "If you love me then show it by cleaning up, bowing your knee and singing me a hymn." He simply says, "Love people" He says we show our affection, thankfulness, and respect for Him by making our lives about others.

That is what we try to do here.

You may feel it is harsh, but I told Dave; "The difference between you and I is that you are all about Dave and what makes Dave happy and I am all about doing what it takes to reach lost sheep."

Yes, we are still good friends.

I just think it would be incredibly disrespectful to Jesus to tell people to go to hell because we were hung up on tradition.

What do you think?

Culture and the Church

I had an interesting and heated discussion with a friend today in the gym. He was telling me about some things going on in his life and I asked him if he was still attending church. He said no.

He said he was looking for something more "fundamental". I asked him what he meant by that and got out of him that he really meant 'traditional'. Then it came out that what his real problem with church was is the music.

His take is that (so called) Contemporary music is not honoring to God. It is a step toward being 'worldy'. He believes that people in churches are deceived by Satan himself to use the 'worlds music' in church as a means to dishonor God. Music in contemporary settings is too "emotional" and not worshipful or respectful.

I explained to him my take as follows:

1. It's not the world's music. It is God's. All of it.
   
2. Yes, music has an emotional component. God gave us emotions, sometimes to be used to lead us to worship Him. Music has an intrinsic way of doing that. Maybe that's one reason God created it....hmmm.
   
3. I trust the leading of the Holy Spirit in the way we conduct services. So far He hasn't chastised me on our music style.
   
4. It is not fair to lump all 'contemporary' models into an entertainment theology...especially when you have never been to one.
5. Paul and Jesus both instruct us to be a part of the culture. Not giving in to sin, but not segregating ourselves either. Music style is a cultural thing. It's my belief that we are in a city of culture and need to engage and be a part of that culture in order to reach it...not fight against it.
   

There was much more to it but that's the nutshell.
I was probably a little harsh on him by saying this, but I felt we are good enough friends that he could take it and he did...I told him that the difference between he and I was that he seemed to be more concerned about himself rather than lost people.

One caveat...we all need to be careful not to operate in the opposite direction. Just because a church is traditional does not mean it is ineffective. It means it is engaging a different part of the culture and is a necessary thing. The problem for me in this conversation was that I was being told that what we were doing was dishonoring to God.

Let me also say that I don't think that the music that we do in church is always the best way to worship. It is one way, not THE way. Sometimes it is too happy-clappy. Sometimes it is too theologically shallow. But sometimes it hits the mark and people are drawn into a conversation with God through it and their lives are changed. And through that we are part of redeeming the culture back to Jesus.

What are your thoughts on music in church?