So sad....

Finding a church here in our new community might be quite a challenge. The girls and I think that The Church’s methods need to reach out to the non-church-raised community. The methods need to change….but not the message. That means we don’t mind if the pastor takes a cup of coffee up on the stage with him, doesn’t use a pulpit, sits on a stool, wears casual clothes, and makes full use of the power point board (As far as I’m concerned “The Word” is still “The Word” whether it is on a screen, said orally, or in a book form. Doesn’t matter.) My husband, however, is a little more of a traditionalist. He feels more comfortable with church goers a little more “dressed up”, a real pulpit, and your typical service.
We have all just come out of a church in Georgia that struggled with “The Battle of the Worship Music”. Many in the “contemporary” crowd thought singing any hymns was a giant step backwards and an immediate turnoff to the “non-churched”. Many in the “traditionalist” crowd thought the new praise songs were not as adequate for worshipping God and the younger generation would never learn the old hymns – that we were losing our history. Both had good points….both were wrong. From attending both kinds of churches, I have learned that it is more in the spirit of the people singing. I’ve seen small churches singing only the traditional hymns (even straight out of …*gasp*…hymnals) with powerful Spirit-led enthusiasm and obvious love of God. I’ve seen large churches that did not even own hymnals led by Christian rock bands or praise teams that definitely were worshiping God with all their hearts.
But what we experienced today was just so sad. It was a large First Baptist Church in one of the nearby communities. Its building was beautiful – gorgeous stained glass windows, shiny gold chandeliers, clean modern bathrooms, plenty of parking space, a spacious lobby filled with well-dressed ushers greeting us. The bulletin portrayed the usual amount of activities of a Baptist church complete with reaching out to the hungry for the holidays. The people inside were all well-dressed, polite…..and totally uninterested. Hardly anyone would even sing! There was not a joyful noise in the entire congregation. With quiet straight faces they watched their choir and quartet’s performance. After the special singing there was a polite smattering of applause. Even worse is what I observed on the faces of one and all during the singing and sermon…utter dullness. You could almost hear their thoughts saying “When will this be over with and I can get on with real life.”! With the exception of the worship pastor who seemed to be trying his best to get some kind of emotion out of the congregation, even the people leading seemed to be just going through the motions.
There are some pluses to being able to visit around to other churches. The things we see and experience can be brought back to our new church home….when we find it! It is fun to see how diverse people worship God – to observe in person that, although the methods and people differ, the core message can be the same. There are minuses also, though. It is easy to become a church “connoisseur”…to sit there and critique absolutely everything the church does. (“Hmmmm…they should throw in a dash of praise songs and a pinch of small group interaction.”) But today, as we drove away from this church, we all agreed – the traditionalist and contemporary set alike – we’ve never seen a more bored group of people.