Passing Through

7 Do's and Don't's of Welcoming Guests to Your Congregation

Melody Maxwell has some good thoughts here on some ways to welcome and not welcome folks who are new to your church.

As an introvert, and someone who does not appreciate new things nearly as much as others, it is important to be considerate of folks like that who may feel that way as a guest.

Here are the bullet points and my short comments.

1) Do have knowledgeable greeters and clear signage.
This can be frustrating being in a new building and have no idea where to go and what your inner church lingo means...especially if you have a clever/catchy/relevant name for a specific ministry. 
Is it a place I want to go, or is it only for the really young, really old, widowed, or toddlers? If there are still places/ministries, that people don't know what they are or who might be interested, after seeing it or hearing about it once or twice, maybe the sign or description needs to be more clear.
2) Don't automatically sign me up for your mailing list.
This is fair.
3) Do you have a website with updated information?
An easy to navigate updated website seems very important in these new times. Especially if we want folks to look and see if a church's beliefs are lined up with Scripture, as well as things as simple as what ministries are available. Teaming this with number 1 above can be helpful. Basically, clear communication for the uninitiated.
4) Don't make me stand out?
I used to cringe at the whole, "if you are a visitor raise your hand, or stand, so we can point it out" thing. I would never raise my hand, and it is possible, in some cases, I would not return if I had gone there alone.
5) Do encourage church members to be friendly.
Some people are naturally better at this. It seems silly to have to point this out, but my disposition is to stay in my own head, so it is helpful to be reminded. Just like we never outgrow the Gospel, we never outgrow the reminder to be friendly toward people who are not our friends.
6) Don't be pushy.
I think people are more sensitive to this than in the past, but most folks bristle at the car salesman pitch, so don't be one in church. Seems fair.
7) Do realize this may be hard for me.
One reason I am a church member is that I am not interested in joining a new church and all that being the "new kid in school" entails. Again, some folks like this, but I think their are many folks who don't. 

I thought the post was a good one to remind us of things we mostly know, but it can be good to remember.

Christian Integrity or Hypocrisy?

Truth be told, as I first began to read this blog post I thought that James White had written it.  Of course, it turns out that I was mistaken and that this was a re-posting of a piece that had more or less been Canerized at a different website.  I would like to comment--and hope to do so as a follow-up piece--but the article itself is enough to think about and chew on for a long time:

Mark Driscoll, Ergun Caner, and the Scandal of Evangelical Integrity | Alpha and Omega Ministries

By the way, if the careers of the likes of Jimmy Swaggart, Peter Popoff, or Charlton Pearson can survive or be revived after media scandals or dissolution of their ministry, why can’t Caner just fess up, lie low for a while, and wait for his public career to be brought back from the dead?  Oh, wait: somewhere along the line I think I answered my own question.

Side by Side...

...in Sunnyside.

Richmond Hill

There are no Sliders here.

St. Jerome

Hopefully the final version of this post due to weaknesses of Blogger: Click the picture while your browser is in full-screen mode and you can read more than just the watermarks above.

7th Avenue

Love and the Inhumanity of Same-Sex Marriage

Jonathan Leeman over at The Gospel Coalition offers a great look at why those who are Christians cannot support something like same sex marriage (SSM). This post is for believers who should be faithful to the Bible.

To support it publicly or privately is to "give approval to those who practice" the very things that God promises to judge—exactly what we're told not to do in Romans 1:32...
I am saying this for the sake of you who are Christians, who affirm the authority of Scripture, who believe that homosexual activity is wrong, and who believe in the final judgment. I don't mean here to persuade anyone who does not share these convictions.
My goal in all of this is to encourage the church to be the church. What good is salt that loses it saltiness? Or what use is light under a bowl? Rather, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Be sure to read on:

More and more commentators are saying that we have passed the tipping point on same-sex marriage in the United States. Almost daily another politician or public figure stands before a microphone to declare his or her support. It feels like the dam has burst; the paradigm shifted.

Whether or not same sex marriage is a political fait accompli, I don't know. What concerns me in the present hour is the temptation among Christians to go with the flow. The assumption is that the nation no longer shares our morality, and that we must not impose our views on others and blur the line between church and state. Besides, we don't want to let any political cantankerousness get in the way of sharing the gospel, right? So we might as well throw in our lot. So the thinking goes.

How hard Christians should actively fight against same-sex marriage is a matter for wisdom. But that we must not support it, I would like to persuade you, is a matter of biblical principle. To vote for it, to legislate it, to rule in favor of it, to tell your friends at the office that you think it's just fine—all this is sin. To support it publicly or privately is to "give approval to those who practice" the very things that God promises to judge—exactly what we're told not to do in Romans 1:32.

Further, same-sex marriage embraces a definition of humanity that is less than human and a definition of love that is less than love. And it is not freedom from religion that the advocates of same-sex marriage want; they want to repress one religion in favor of another.

Christians must not go with the flow. They must instead love the advocates of same-sex marriage better than they love themselves precisely by refusing to endorse it.

I am saying this for the sake of you who are Christians, who affirm the authority of Scripture, who believe that homosexual activity is wrong, and who believe in the final judgment. I don't mean here to persuade anyone who does not share these convictions.

My goal in all of this is to encourage the church to be the church. What good is salt that loses it saltiness? Or what use is light under a bowl? Rather, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Deeper Understanding of Humanity

I believe Voddie Baucham is exactly right to say that "gay is not the new black," and that we should not formally equate sexual orientation to ethnicity or sex as an essential component of personal identity. It is amazing to me that recent legal battles simply take this equation for granted without holding it up to the light and looking at it.

There are several assumptions behind the idea that a person with same-sex attraction might say "I am a homosexual" in the same way someone might say "I am a male" or "I am black." First, one assumes that homosexual desires are rooted in biology and therefore a natural part of being human. Second, one assumes that our natural desires are basically good, so long as they don't hurt others. Third, one assumes that fulfilling such basic and good desires are part of being fully human.

All the talk about "equality" depends upon these foundational assumptions about what it means to be human.

Marriage then becomes an important prize to be won for people with same-sex attraction because, as the oldest and most human of institutions, marriage publicly affirms these deep desires. Everybody who participates in a wedding—from the father who walks a bride down an aisle, to the company of friends, to the pastor leading the ceremony, to the state who licenses the certificate—participates in a positive and formal affirmation of a couple's union. It is hard to think of a better way to affirm same-sex desire as good and part of being fully human than to leverage the celebratory power of a wedding ceremony and a marriage.

Make no mistake: The fundamental issue at stake in the same-sex marriage debate is not visitation rights, adoption rights, inheritance laws, or all the stuff of "civil unions." Those are derivative. It is fundamentally about being publicly recognized as fully human.

Biblically minded Christians, of course, have no problem recognizing people with same-sex attraction as fully human. There are members of my church who experience same-sex attraction. We worship with them, vacation with them, love them. What Christianity does not do, however, is grant that fulfilling every natural desire is what makes us human.

Christianity in fact offers a more mature and deeper concept of humanity, more mature and deep than the person engaged in a homosexual lifestyle has of him or herself.

It is more mature because Christianity begins with the frank admission that fallen human beings are corrupted all the way down, all the way in. A child assumes that all of his or her desires are legitimate. Adults, hopefully, know better. And a mature understanding of fallen humanity recognizes that our fallenness affects everything from our biology and body chemistry to our ambitions and life loves. Same-sex attraction is but one manifestation. This is why Christ commands us to go and die, and why we must be born again. We must become new creations, a process that begins at conversion and will be completed with his coming.

Also, the fact that Jesus is Lord means his authoritative claim on our lives reaches all the way down, all the way in. We have no right to stand before him and insist upon our definitions of masculinity, femininity, marriage, love, and sexuality. He gets to write the definitions, even when they go against our deepest desires and sense of self.

Rooted in biology or not, there is a difference between gender, ethnicity, and "orientation." Orientation consists primarily of—is lived out through—desire. And the fact that it involves desire means it is subject to moral evaluation in a way that "being male" or "being Asian" are not.

Here is what's often missed: neither the fact of the desire, nor its possible biological basis, gives it moral legitimacy. Don't mistake is for ought. We understand this quite well, for instance, when it comes to the behaviors associated with some forms of substance addiction or bipolar disorder. The biological component of these maladies certainly calls for compassion and reams of patience, but it does not make their attendant behaviors morally legitimate. To assume they do means treating human beings as just one more animal. No one morally condemns a leopard for acting instinctually. Yet shouldn't our moral calculations for human beings involve something more than assent to the biochemistry of desire? We are more than animals. We are souls and bodies. We are created in God's image. To legitimize homosexual desire simply because it's natural or biological, ironically, is to treat a person as less than human.

All of this is to say, Christianity not only offers a more mature concept of humanity, it offers a deeper concept. It says we are more than a composite of our desires, some of which are fallen, some of which are not.

Remarkably, Jesus says that our humanity goes deeper even than marriage and sex, and certainly deeper than fallen versions of them. He says that, in the resurrection, there will be no marriage or giving in marriage. Marriage and sex, it appears, are two-dimensional shadows that point to the three-dimensional realities to come. A person's humanity and identity in no way finally depends on the shadows of marriage. Dare we deny the full humanity of Christ because he neither consummated a marriage nor fathered natural children? Indeed, wasn't the full humanity of this second Adam demonstrated through begetting a new humanity?

There is something inhumane about the homosexual lobby's version of the human being. It is inhumane to morally evaluate people as if they are animals whose instincts define them.

And there is something inhumane about the homosexual lobby's quest for same-sex marriage. It is inhumane to call bad good, or wrong desires right. It is inhumane to equate a person with the fallen version of that person, as if God created us to be the fallen versions of ourselves. But this is exactly what same-sex marriage asks us to do. It asks us to publicly affirm the bad as good—to institutionalize the wrong as right.

Christianity says that we are not finally determined by ethnicity, sex, marriage, or even sinful desire. We are God-imagers and vice-rulers, tasked with showing the cosmos what God's triune justice, righteousness, and love are like. The Christian message to the person engaged in a homosexual lifestyle is that we believe they are even more human than they believe.

Deeper Love

Christianity offers a more mature and deeper concept of love, too. Love is not fundamentally about a narrative of self-expression and self-realization. It is not about finding someone who "completes me," in which I assume that who "I am" is a given, and that you love "me" authentically only if you respect me exactly as I am, as if "I" is somehow sacred.

Christian love is not so naïve. It's much more mature (see 1 Cor. 13:11). It recognizes how broken people are, and it loves them in their very brokenness. It is given contrary to what people deserve. We feed and clothe and befriend them, even when they attack us. But then Christian love maturely invites people toward holiness. Through prayer and disciple-making, Christian love calls people to change—to repent. Christian love recognizes that our loved ones will know true joy only as they increasingly conform to the image of God, because God is love. This is why Jesus tells us that, if we love him, we will obey his commands, just like he loves the Father and so obeys the Father's commands.

Christian love is also deeper than love in our culture. It knows that true love was demonstrated best when Christ laid down his life for the church to make her holy, an act which the apostle Paul analogizes to the love of a husband and wife and the husband's call to wash his wife with the word (Rom. 5:8; Eph. 5:22-32). The Bible's central picture of gospel love is lost in same-sex marriage, just like it's lost when a husband cheats on his wife.

The progressive position might call the orthodox Christian position on gay marriage intolerant. But Christians must recognize that the progressive position is unloving and inhumane. And so we must love them more truly than they love themselves.

Public Square and Idolatrous Religion

What then shall we say about the public square? Shouldn't our understanding of the separation between church and state and religious freedom keep us from "imposing" our ideas upon others? Why would the church being the church affect our stance in the public square among the non-church?

What people can miss is the distinction between laws that criminalize an activity and laws that promote or incentivize an activity. The laws surrounding marriage belong to the latter category. The government gets involved in the marriage business—to the chagrin of libertarians—because it thinks it has some interest in protecting and promoting marriage. It sees that marriage contributes to the order, peace, and good of society at large. Therefore, it offers financial incentives for marriage, such as tax breaks or inheritance rights.

In other words, institutionalizing same-sex marriage does not merely make government neutral toward unrighteousness; it means the government is promoting and incentivizing unrighteousness. The 2003 Supreme Court decision to overturn laws that criminalized homosexual behavior, by contrast, need not be construed as a promotion or affirmation of homosexual behavior. The irony of the progressive position on same-sex marriage is that it cloaks its cause in the language of political neutrality, when really it is just the opposite. It is a positive affirmation of a brand of morality and the whole set of theological assumptions behind that morality.

To put this in biblical terms, institutionalizing same-sex marriage is nothing other than to "give approval to those who practice" the things that God's word condemns (Rom. 1:32). And behind this moral affirmation, Paul tells us, is the religious "exchanging of the immortal God for images" (Rom. 1:23). To establish same-sex marriage, in other words, is an utterly religious act, by virtue of being idolatrous.

For the Christian, therefore, the argument is pretty simple: God will judge all unrighteousness and idolatry. Therefore Christians should not publicly or privately endorse, incentivize, or promote unrighteousness and idolatry, which same-sex marriage does. God will judge such idolatry—even among those who don't believe in him.

God Will Judge the Nations

Let me explain further. Both the Old Testament and the New promise that God will judge the nations and their governments for departing from his own standard of righteousness and justice. The presidents and parliaments, voters and judges of the world are comprehensively accountable to him. There is no area of life somehow quarantined off from his evaluation.

Hence, he judged the people of Noah's day, Sodom and Gomorrah, Pharaoh in Egypt, Sennacherib in Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, and the list goes on. Just read of his judgments against the nations in passages like Isaiah 13-19 or Jeremiah 46-52.

It's not surprising, therefore, that Psalm 96 and many other passages make the transnational, omni-partisan nature of God's judgment clear: "Say among the nations, 'The LORD reigns.' . . . he will judge the peoples with equity" (Ps. 96:10; also Ps. 2; Jer. 10:6-10).

Does the same principle apply in the New Testament era? Yes. The governors of the world derive their authority from God and will be judged by God for how they use their authority: Caesar no less than Nebuchadnezzar; presidents no less than Pharaoh:

• Jesus tells Pilate that Pilate's authority comes from God (John 19).
• Paul describes the government as "God's servant" and an "agent" to bring God's justice (Rom. 13).
• Jesus is described as the "ruler of the kings of the earth" (Rev. 1:5).
• Kings, princes, and generals fear the wrath of the Lamb and hide from it (Rev. 6:15).
• The kings of the earth are indicted for committing adultery with Babylon the Great (Rev. 18:3).
• Christ will come with a sword "to strike down the nations" (Rev. 19:13), leaving the birds "to eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty" (v. 18).

God will judge all nations and governors. They are politically accountable to his standard of justice and righteousness, not to their own standards. To depart from God's righteousness and justice—for every government in the world, Old Testament and New—is to incur God's wrath. 

The fact that we live in a pluralistic nation in which many do not acknowledge the God of the Bible makes no difference to God. "Who is the Lord that I should obey him?" Pharaoh asked. The Lord demonstrated in short order precisely who he is. The fact that Americans believe a government governs "by the will of the people" makes no difference either. A Christian knows that true authority comes from God, and so he or she must never promote and incentivize unrighteousness, even if 99 percent of the electorate asks for it.

This does not mean that Christians should enact God's judgment against all forms of unrighteousness now, but it does mean that we Christians should not publicly or privately put our hands to anything God will judge on the last day. Yes, politics often involves compromise, and there are times when Christian voters or politicians will be forced to decide between a lesser of two evils. And for such occasions we trust God is merciful and understanding. Still, so far as we can help it, we must not vote for, rule for, or tell our friends at the office that we support unrighteousness.

Does this mean we can impose our faith upon non-Christians? No, but endorsing same-sex marriage is another kind of thing. To endorse it is to involve yourself in unrighteousness and false religion, and an unrighteousness that God promises to judge.

In fact, same-sex marriage itself is the act of wrongful governmental imposition. Martin Luther wrote, "For when any man does that for which he has not the previous authority or sanction of the Word of God, such conduct is not acceptable to God, and may be considered as either vain or useless." And God has never given human governments the authority to define marriage. He defined it in Genesis 2 and has not authorized anyone to redefine it. Any government that does is guilty of usurpation.

Since same-sex marriage is effectively grounded in idolatrous religion (see Rom. 1:23, 32), its institutionalization represents nothing more or less than the progressive position's imposition of idolatrous religion upon the rest of us.

I am not telling Christians how many resources they should expend in fighting false gods in the public square, but I am saying that you must not join together with those gods. There is no neutral ground here.

Embrace and Stand Fast

Churches should embrace their brothers and sisters who struggle with same-sex attraction, just like they should embrace all repentant sinners.

And churches should stand fast on deeper, more biblical conceptions of love by loving the advocates of same-sex marriage more truly than they love themselves. We do this by insisting on the sweet and life-giving nature of God's truth and holiness.

In our present cultural context, Christian love will prove costly to Christians and churches. Even if you recognize the Bible calls homosexuality sin, but you (wrongly) support same-sex marriage, your stance on homosexuality will offend. A people's strongest desires—the desires they refuse to let go of—reveals their worship. To condemn sexual freedom in America today is to condemn one of the nation's favorite altars of worship. And will they not fight for their gods? Will they not excommunicate all heretics?

But even while Scripture promises short-term persecution for the church, it also, strangely and simultaneously, points to long-term praise: "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation" (1 Peter 2:12). I'm not sure how to explain that, but I trust it.

Three More Thoughts on the Gay Marriage Debate

Pastor Kevin DeYoung offers some good thoughts and deals with some "compromises" some suggest in light of the SSM discussion. DB

I don’t intend to write on this every week, but the controversy is not going away and Christians need to be engaged, so perhaps a few reflections every now and then may prove helpful. Since last week’s post, I’ve been thinking about three more questions Christians may be asking.

1. Why don’t we just separate the religious and civil dimensions of marriage? The premise behind the question sounds promising at first. “Let the state do whatever it wants with marriage. The government can have its own licensing arrangement and the church can solemnize whatever unions it chooses. Won’t things be simpler if we let each institution do what it wants?” Well, on one level we already have this arrangement. Churches can hold all sorts of ceremonies. Your pastor can “marry” a dog to a cat or perform a commitment ceremony between a rock and a tree. The government doesn’t care, but it won’t give you a license and it won’t call it marriage. If the church wants to get out of the marriage business altogether, the government won’t object, but that doesn’t look like Christian conviction, or even compromise, more like total capitulation.

Then, someone may ask, why not take government of the marriage equation and leave it up to individual worshiping communities to decide whom they will marry and what constitutes marriage? Even if our politicians were entertaining such a notion (which they’re not), it would be utterly impossible and completely undesirable. No-marriage is worse than messed-up-marriage. From taxes to estates to child custody, the state has a vested interest in overseeing the legality of marriage. They will not give that up, and it would be an unholy mess if they did. Imagine the chaos if every church or synagogue or mosque handled marriage on its own. Eight people playing cards every Friday would call themselves a church, ordain someone as a minister, and start doing marriages on the side. Hormonal teens with a conscience about sex before marriage would quickly get married one night so they would no longer have to “burn with passion.” Child custody would often be a nightmare. Divorce would be easier than ever. Everything that marriage is supposed to protect and promote would be undermined. We need some institution that is nationally recognized and has the means to enforce its own laws? Whether we like it or not, that institution in the modern world is the state.

2. As long as we, as Christians, can have our view of marriage, what’s the big deal if the government allows for other kinds of marriage? Again, the question hints at an attractive ideal. “Let’s call a truce on this culture war stuff. The world will define marriage one way and we will define marriage according to the Bible. The state has to be neutral, right? People just want Christians to be tolerant of other views and other ideas on marriage. Where’s the danger in that?” The problem is that all the cultural arguments for “tolerating” gay marriage are not-so-thinly veiled arguments against the supposed bigotry of those who hold to a traditional understanding of marriage. What do you think the equal signs all over Facebook mean? They make a moral argument: those who oppose gay marriage are uncivil, unsocial, undemocratic, un-American, and probably inhumane.

If you believe homosexual behavior is wrong and gay marriage is a contradiction in terms, you are fast becoming, in the public eye, not simply benighted but positively reprehensible, like the last slave owner who refuses to get on the right side of history. I understand that Christians tire of the culture war, but it’s not a battle we started, and if (when?) we lose the debate on homosexuality we will lose much more than the gurus of tolerance let on. David S. Crawford is right:

The tolerance that really is proffered is provisional and contingent, tailored to accommodate what is conceived as a significant but shrinking segment of society that holds a publically unacceptable private bigotry. Where over time it emerges that this bigotry has not in fact disappeared, more aggressive measures will be needed, which will include explicit legal and educational components, as well as simple ostracism. [Humanum, Fall 2012, p. 8]

Many Christians are about to find out there is nothing in the modern world quite so intolerant as tolerance.

3. Will all of this spell disaster for the church? That depends. It could mean marginalization, name calling, and worse. But that’s no disaster. That may be the signs of faithfulness. The church is sometimes the most vibrant, the most articulate, and the most holy when the world presses down on her most. But only sometimes. I care about the decisions of the Supreme Court and the laws our politicians put in place. But what’s much more important to me—because I believe it’s more crucial to the spread of the gospel, the growth of the church, and the honor of Christ—what happens in our churches, our mission agencies, our denominations, our parachurch organizations, and in our educational institutions. I fear that younger Christians may not have the stomach for disagreement or the critical mind for careful reasoning. We’re going to need a good dose of the fundamentalist obstinacy that most evangelicals love to lampoon. The challenge before the church is to convince ourselves, as much as anyone, that believing the Bible does not make us bigots, just as reflecting the times does not make us relevant.

This is not a minaret.

Daughters of Jacob

Somewhere in this picture is Church Alive Community Church.

The Mason-Dixon Line

Drive-In Church

In the Bowery

St. George

How "Traditional" is the Traditional Service?

I don't agree with everything the Internet Monk says, and I have never been to a "Traditional" service since that is usually where the old people go (no offense- I will there soon enough). That said, I wonder how much truth is in this?
Do we really just play more hymns for the older folks or is there more to our distinction between traditional or contemporary? I don't really know, but I think Spencer makes some interesting observations.

iMonk Classic: How “Traditional” is the Traditional Service?

22OCTby Chaplain Mike

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
from July, 2007

Note from CM: This piece from Michael Spencer is five years old. During that time, I have been worshiping mostly in a Lutheran church where these observations don’t apply. I’ve been a bit out of the loop on what has been happening on Sunday mornings in the non-liturgical evangelical world. So, I’ll need you, our readers, to help us all get up to speed. How do iMonk’s observations still apply, and what’s been happening since he wrote these words?

* * *

Here in Kentucky, where the worship wars/generational church division is everywhere and spreading, many churches are attempting to navigate the rocks of a potential church split by using multiple services.

I’ve been associated with multiple services since 1984, when I joined the staff of a large church that had both an 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. service. Most of my ministry friends are involved in multiple service options and an increasing number of them are doing a “traditional” service early, and a “contemporary” or “blended” service mid-morning. I’m aware of churches doing contemporary first, or even on another day (or evening,) but the contemporary service is increasingly the “lead” service in the Baptist churches I am aware of that are trying to navigate the various divisions that are tearing many churches apart.

This Sunday I found myself at one of the larger churches in our state, a leading traditional SBC church in a downtown setting. This is a church that did well in the heyday of the SBC up into the 1980′s, but has found the waters more challenging since. A large group of younger members split from the congregation several years ago to start a Purpose Driven church plant. This only delayed the inevitable generational and stylistic stress that a church with large numbers of senior adults and an interest in reaching younger families will feel.

The most recent approach- and one that appears to be working- has been to put the “traditional” service early and to make the 11:00 a.m. service a contemporary service later.

So what do we have here? I attended the “traditional” service (an excellent time of worship where I was warmly welcomed) and here’s the scorecard, with “T” for traditional and “C” for contemporary.

Worship Space- T (The church sanctuary is typical for a downtown SBC church built in the mid-twentieth century. It has been renovated, but it’s very traditional.)

Instruments-T Piano and Piper Organ, both played very well.

Liturgy- C (Very informal. No call to worship, no scripture readings, no Doxology, lots of walking around, ministers chatting informally. A reading of the Prayer of St. Francis was the benediction.)

Music- Interestingly, the tunes were traditional, but the lyrics were all new, so this comes off as T/C, I suppose. A solo was in the “T” category, though just barely, while a robed choir did a very contemporary chorus.

Video-C (A dramatic video clip preceded the sermon, but the screen was retracted during the sermon. No projection used at all during the sermon, which appeared to me to be a concession to the concern of some people not to replace the Bible with projection.)

Printed Material- C (A Bible between two tennis shoes was shown on the cover art of the order of service. A “Fill in the blank” sermon guide was given to everyone. Both appeared to be pre-packaged.)

Sermon- C (A prepackaged series. Verse by verse teaching, but anything requiring exposition or theological explanation beyond the basics wasn’t there. Good, practical, well-illustrated, but extremely conversational, considerably more than Rick Warren, who probably was the author of the outline.)

Invitation- C (Speaking in terms of traditional SBC invitations, it was almost a non-existent event. Good for them.)

* * *

What’s my point? First, it appears to me that the “traditional” service was pretty contemporary. In fact, if the traditionalism I was seeing is typical, then aside from the instruments and the actual music, there was little that could be called traditional other than the fact that the music and instruments weren’t offensive to those in the older generations. I believe the contrast with the contemporary service would have been more the absence of certain elements rather than the presence of anything.

Second, “traditional” apparently doesn’t mean much in the way of modest liturgical order, scripture lessons, sung responses, less conversational tone, traditional choral music or other components of traditional worship as this type of SBC church would have done it in the past. This was a service that would have seemed very informal 30 years ago.

Third, it appears to me that “contemporary” and “traditional” are not real choices, but options on a line where we’ve already capitulated to much that is contemporary, and now we’re deciding how much the band can encourage dancing in the contemporary service.

As a post-evangelical hoping for real reformation in the SBC, I lament the loss of real choices I can see in these developments. My hosts told me that the traditional service is growing, and I can see why. But I have to wonder if it occurs to anyone that we might not just be wanting something “less contemporary.” Perhaps someone is longing for real tradition, more tradition and the actual reverence for God and reality of God that comes with the best fruits of tradition.

The “traditional” service is still waiting to reappear in most churches. It’s been obscured by the church growth focus, revivalism and wrong ideas about worship and evangelism as much as by the Purpose Driven movement, the Seeker Sensitive movement and the emerging church. I believe there are many people who are seeing a side to the “contemporary” direction of their worship that reveals its inherent tenuous, shallow, trendy nature. They will show up at the “traditional” option.

Perhaps the real innovation for most churches would be to re-embrace the best of their own tradition and the Christian tradition together.

Around the Corner

And East 29th is not West 29th.

The Afterlife of Churches, Part 2

Here are two more examples of what could happen if the leadership of your church congregation does not become seeker-sensitive enough, or does not remain gospel-centered enough, or if the congregants simply move away or die out.  It could be that a college campus will be built around your former place of worship, and also turns it into a college admissions office:

Such is the case with the former Bridge Street Church and the Polytechnic Institute of NYU in Brooklyn.  Yet something far worse and dastardly could happen.  Take a look at St. Ann’s Church at 120 E 12th Street in Manhattan:

It looks normal enough, right?  Now take a second look.  Coincidentally NYU is part of the larger story here; they have dorms directly behind the facade of what used to be St. Ann’s Church.  Meanwhile, according to Wikipedia’s article on the subject it also served as a theater and a factory before finally being largely destroyed altogether.

All of this seems lamentable because while it may be cheaper to simply worship in people’s homes instead of shelling out money for a dedicated church building, a case can be made for the multi-faceted usefulness of church buildings.

No, thanks