{"id":31,"date":"2007-03-18T21:52:50","date_gmt":"2007-03-19T01:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/godandculture.wordpress.com\/2007\/03\/18\/the-worship-oxymoron\/"},"modified":"2007-03-18T21:52:50","modified_gmt":"2007-03-19T01:52:50","slug":"the-worship-oxymoron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/the-worship-oxymoron","title":{"rendered":""And out came this calf…"*"},"content":{"rendered":"

A revolution is happening in church worship according to an analysis of three Detroit area megachurches by David Crumm, religion writer for the Detroit Free Press. Under the headline New Script for Worship: Americans Use Talents, Creativity to Reshape Religion<\/a>, <\/em>the article examines “the rising power of self-expression” in worship.\u00a0 Seems what prompted Luther to nail his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenburg wasn’t his anger at the Church’s drift from truth and doctrine after all.\u00a0 Rather it was his “individualistic streak” which is now being patterned more than 500 years later in your local megachurch through a consumer principle known as “crowd sourcing.”<\/p>\n

Self-expression is on the rise in the United States and so is participation in religious faith. Are the two related?\u00a0 I suppose it depends on what you mean by “religious faith.”\u00a0 Sweden has the highest levels of self-expression and yet one of the lowest levels of “religious faith.”\u00a0 Why\u00a0have self-expression and religious faith intersected in the U.S. church? Because the Church Growth Movement, and its expression in the megachurch, has redefined the expectations of Christianity to meet the demands of a consumer culture in the United States. Sweden, evidently, hasn’t figured out how to do that.<\/p>\n

The church in modern America also knows something the ancients evidently didn’t: the power of the church isn’t\u00a0solely in the Holy Spirit’s\u00a0calling and gifting, at least not in America.\u00a0\u00a0The Holy Spirit needs the\u00a0assistance of\u00a0“the freedom of self-expression” characterized by “allowing ordinary people to shape the future of congregations” through their “religious self-expression” and “religious choices.”<\/p>\n

Today’s followers of Christ can sit\u00a0disobediently on the sidelines, feeling no pressure to serve, unless and until the perfect niche opportunity comes along where they can express themselves.\u00a0\u00a0One member of Kensington Community Church <\/a>in Troy, Michigan testifies that he was a “Chreaster – You know? Just Christmas and Easter…just sitting on the fence waiting for a good opportunity.”\u00a0 He found\u00a0that “good opportunity”\u00a0when KCC started a\u00a0new church in Clinton Township where he could get plugged in to the\u00a0electronics ministry.\u00a0 (Well, at least I think it’s an electronics ministry because he says something about\u00a0enjoying working with electronic gear.) I’m not suggesting that what the technology people contribute to worship isn’t important. What I’m criticizing is a philosophy that excuses the exercise of your spiritual gifts simply because the slate of available opportunities for service don’t excite your self-expression.<\/p>\n

The message is loud and clear: if you<\/em> can’t\u00a0serve in ways that reflect who you<\/em> are and in ways that offer you<\/em> fulfillment, and in ways that are fun, you are excused from serving until the church finally gets its act together and creates a niche that fits your <\/em>personality.\u00a0 After all, the new worship is all about your self-expression<\/em>. The mandate to “take up your cross” is conditioned on the church you attend having a place for you to express yourself.<\/p>\n

In this “new worship” the key to church growth is to get people excited about expressing themselves.\u00a0 Stop putting people into classes, a pastor featured in the article suggests, teaching them all these beliefs we want them to swallow.\u00a0 Quit telling people they are expected to serve. Even though the New Testament puts a high priority on “teaching and admonishing one another,” that’s so First Century! The Apostle Paul didn’t have to compete with Cedar Point. Or MTV. Or the local megachurch.<\/p>\n

Seems people aren’t excited about that old “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” kind of Christianity, either.\u00a0 Never mind that it was the founder of Christianity who said all that stuff about self-denial.\u00a0\u00a0When Jesus spoke those words he wasn’t aware of the power of “crowd sourcing.” (Well, he was<\/em> aware of the power of crowd sourcing in one sense: “Give us Barabas” comes to mind.)\u00a0Jesus was naive enough to believe that the power of the Holy Spirit would be sufficient to build a church that the gates of Hell could not prevail against, even if the crowds chose the wide\u00a0gate and the broad way that led away from His Church.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But when Jesus spoke those words he wasn’t aware of the Internet. Or the electronics ministry.\u00a0Or the priority of “family time” on Sunday morning versus the command to “remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.” But not to fear; these modern\u00a0fully devoted followers of Jesus have his back!\u00a0How could Jesus have known that today’s consumers would find sacrifice and self-denial unpalatable and less than fulfilling? Today’s church leaders are relaxing the rules of the founder in light of recent developments in sociology.<\/p>\n

In today’s contemporary church you can be a twice a year church attender, call yourself a follower of Christ, and sit on the sidelines until\u00a0a “good opportunity”\u00a0that matches your gift assessment profile comes along.\u00a0 And when you get to heaven you can say, “Lord, Lord, have we not done many wonderful works in your name.” And you can follow the crowd straight to hell.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nThe terms self-expression<\/em> and worship<\/em>\u00a0are fundamentally at odds.\u00a0 Fundamentally at odds in the same way they were fundamentally at odds when Aaron and the Israelites decided they’d express themselves by creating and worshipping a golden calf while Moses was in executive session with God Almighty.\u00a0 On the return from Sinai, Moses and Joshua could hear the crowd sourcing<\/em> and the self-expression<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They thought an enemy was slaughtering\u00a0God’s people! It was. And it is.<\/p>\n

*Exodus 32:24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A revolution is happening in church worship according to an analysis of three Detroit area megachurches by David Crumm, religion writer for the Detroit Free Press. Under the headline New Script for Worship: Americans Use Talents, Creativity to Reshape Religion, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}