It’s good to hear someone else in support of what I’ve been recommending for a while now. That is, being flexible with worship styles, having a variety, not being afraid to do something drastically different from one week to the next. I haven’t been a big fan of the attitude that “contemporary” churches have taken, being basically let’s serve the majority. I admit here that I’m not into “contemporary” churches’ attitude of let’s just serve the majority. I admit here that I don’t like “contemporary praise” music. However the church usually says that I’m supposed to just like it because of the lyrics, and that I can worship God through it even if I don’t like it. I think that it’s sad that probably by many criticizing this music is considered close to heretical. So in a very small way, I understand the idea of not fitting in. I think of describing it to people this way: pick a type of music you don’t really care for. I’ll pick on country music (though I don’t have a big problem with it myself), because many people claim they can’t stand it. So can you imagine what you would feel like if the church you attended played country music every week? Wouldn’t you have a hard time “getting into” the worship, even if the lyrics were good?
I guess my point is that we are going to have to do more than hoping we get some people in who don’t look like us but who act like us. We are going to have to change and be changed by people who are outside our own culture.
I am glad to say that I attend a church who recognizes these issues, and which desires to do something about them. Our worship team has occasionally done something outside of the box, which to me is real cool. We still have room for improvement of course—90% of the time it is still pretty much the same thing, but I do understand that there is logistical difficulty in doing something that you’re not familiar with. For example I readily admit that I’d have little idea how to play bass in a gospel group.
