Part of me wonders why we are even still discussing this. The other part knows It will never go away. As long as we have churches we will be fighting the same battle and asking the same questions. So instead of giving my argument on the side of why we should worship one way or another I thought I would give a few suggestions on how to help bridge the gap.
1. Realize God doesn’t care. No there were no guitars or keyboards in the bible. But the fact is that there were no organs either. We need to realize that the instruments we use and types of songs are our preference, not God’s.
2. Understand we are all different. Different types of services meet different needs. Do you have one Sunday school class for everyone? Probably not. We need to understand that just as we learn in different ways, we worship differently.
3. Acknowledge others worship style is just as valid as yours. Just because someone else worships different than you, doesn’t make them wrong, and doesn’t make you right.
4. Worship together. We have two styles of worship but one of the best things we do is to worship together on occasion. We have done this two ways. First we have done some services that utilize elements from both the traditional and contemporary service. Second we have combined services but left the basic elements the same, dependent on the location. This has helped to introduce members to the other style of worship.
5. What’s contemporary now is traditional tomorrow. I have already seen that what we used to call contemporary has become the tradition in many churches. What used to be innovative is now predictable. In fact I could argue in some churches the “Contemporary Service” is more traditional than the “Traditional Service”. And now we even have “Emerging?”
So those are some of my suggestions. What ways does your church help bridge the divide between contemporary, traditional and other worship styles?
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I could not agree more. Well said.