I am definitely under the impression that a church’s aesthetics/style, whatever you want to call it, should flow organically from the actual people that make it up. If we’re seeking to be genuine in our corporate worship, then I can’t see replicating some other church’s formula. This is how my brain works: our “gathered worship” is expressed through our style. That is to say, the actual worship is the obedient adherence to what God commands us to do. Exactly how we do that is up to us, as long as it’s faithful to scripture. With me so far?
Soooo… if we place a value on a certain way of doing things and claim that it’s more “Christian” than some other way, that’s religion. Religion with maybe a touch of idolatry. This, by the way, is not a “worship wars” problem for me. This is a “why in the world are we trying to be like other churches when we’re a totally unique body?” problem.
Anyhow, all of this programming and formulating has led to a Christian Culture that has become accepted practice and I believe it’s robbing our church bodies of freedom to express their own personality in faithful worship. That creativity that God put in us is a reflection of his incredible, infinite depth of creativeness [Gen. 1.27 & 2.19]. I mean, if God weren’t creative, we wouldn’t be here. God is genuinely glorified when we are creative. We’re testifying to His own nature. So, why rob ourselves of that opportunity?
What do you do when a church body has been so entrenched in “Christian culture” that they don’t even know of an identity outside of that? I think this is a worthy question. And it’s certainly a question I don’t have an answer for. I’d like to know what you think. A great part of our gospel freedom that God has given to us is our freedom to express our worship in a way that’s true to the way God uniquely made us [1 Cor. 10.31]. That’s one big thing that sets us apart from other world religions. Also, as protestants, many of us have heritages full of people that have fought for our local congregational autonomy (to varying extents). Let’s not wait for a couple generations to pass before we either work this out of our system, or allow it to become indistinguishable from truth.
