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April 23, 2008
Missional Worship
I had this talk from Doxologist streaming while I worked today. It got me thinking about how is our worship at New City Fellowship missional? How are we engaging with the culture around us instead of just being a Christian ghetto?
We might seem pretty out there to some people, but our worship is fundamentally made up of Christian traditional styles. Yes, traditional. Black tradition, African tradition, Praise and worship tradition, New City tradition, etc. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with Christian traditions, but how are we as disciples of Christ making our worship understandable by non-churched people?
Are we engaging with 18-30 year old males who are mostly absent from the American church in general? Is our worship music feminized and touchy-feely? Do gang members, video gamers, indie kids, goths, gays, facebookers, bloggers hear our music, do they hear our worship and not get blinded by cultural and religious idols that we have given more real estate in our worship service than The Gospel?
Am I over analyzing? It can at least drive us to prayer. Can we just pray about being contextually relevant with grace without compromising the gospel? Lord, when will our church explode with a wave of people who never darkened the door of a church before who suddenly receive the gospel with power?
Church Musican , Following Jesus , Multi-Cultural Ministry , Prayer Requests , Worship | By Kirk Ward | 4:13 PM
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Comments
Kirk, I am always torn by trying to be contextually relevant when it comes to worship. Yes, that is an absolute when it comes to the broad strokes of worship, worship styles should reflect the values of different cultures. And, in that way, our worship at New City works very well, encorporating the worship of many cultures. It also reflects our convictions that we need to bring the glories of our cultures together before God and to share with one another.
I suppose what I am getting at is that I am leery of catering too readily to current cultural trends to make one's worship more relevant. I use the analogy of baseball sometimes. There is a certain amount of pressure to change the game to make it more exciting, same deal with the Americanization of soccer. However, perhaps a better way of looking at it is that those who really want to be a baseball or soccer (football) fan will learn about the sport and come to appreciate it and not vice versa of having the sport accomodate their proclivities.
Does that sound harsh? I do not mean it to. And I realize that there is tension involved in making these decisions.
Posted by: Neil E. Das at April 24, 2008 10:20 AM