Why Sunday Morning May Not be Our Finest Hour?
Last week I spent some quality time in my native (warm and
sunny) California, far from my new digs in the Midwest. It
was refreshing and delightful in every way. Not so much
because of the weather, but because I got to talk with
colleagues and friends about the state of worship in America.
These are smart Who’s Who folks with vast experience in
church growth and practices.
Their remarks, in part, might be summed up in these six
questions and amalgamated answers:
1. How are we doing when it comes to the effectiveness
of worship every weekend?
“We are both failing and succeeding–succeeding because we’ve never worked
harder at growing our churches and bringing people in to ‘have a taste’ of the Christian
faith. We’re failing because we are losing many believers out the back door because
they think our emphasis on marketing is wrong.”
2. Do you believe modern worshipers are givers or takers?
“The fact that we’re trying to give our congregations exactly what they want musically
suggests that they are takers, but a young and enthusiastic group of new leaders are
taking congregants of all ages into expansive ‘giver’ explorations of missional opportunities.”
3. Are we going to move from the “Big Box” church mentality as was predicted
a few years ago?
“We have already moved away from it in many ways. Multisite worship is huge in America
and thousands of churches have moved out of the comfort of their huge sanctuaries into
shopping centers and schools around the country. Home churches, too, are just about to
regain some of the strength they had in the 70s and early 80s. While this information isn’t
new, what is new is some recent statistics showing that we were not all equally prepared
for the economic implications of losing folks from preexisting church facilities.”
4. Is our worship the same, better, or worse than it was 20 years ago?
“All three is probably the answer. It’s the same because we are still worshiping God and
He hasn’t changed. It’s better because it has been revitalized in several ways–at least in
the Evangelical church. It is worse because, given all the tools we have at our disposal
in worship services, we still lack creative and imaginative ideas in a huge segment of
our churches.”
5. Is excellence still a value in our churches?
“To the extent that ‘excellence’ is often seen as perfectionism, performance or some
other pathological behavior, it has lost favor in the modern church. It has, however,
another connotation which is often ignored but absolutely needed in the church–that
is intentional, well-prepared, and unwavering passion for proclaiming and gaining the
richness of God’s kingdom. We need to restore the values that treasured the ‘first
fruits’ point of view in preparing worship experiences.”
6. Is the church and its worship practices more attractive or less attractive to
nonbelievers than it was, say, 25 years ago?
“If you’re talking about the so-called ‘attractional church’ being, in reality, more
attractional–it may be. Certainly the emphasis on families has engaged an increasing
number of ‘soft’ Christians who were slipping away from the church. Music, casual
dress and colloquial talk style have probably also helped. There is, however, a distinct
lack of separation when it comes to the uniqueness of God and the secular world. If
worship is too much like a town meeting or Amway convention, then our understanding
of a sovereign God runs the risk of being trivialized out of our churches.”
There’s probably nothing surprising here for most of you. The most frightening comment
coming from one of our interviewees, however, was that our worship services, “…might
be the single least effective tool of building solid Christian believers.”
Doug Lawrence is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and advisor. He helps
churches assess and improve their skillfulness in creating engaging worship experiences
by utilizing his more than 35 years of “deep trench” worship leadership in prominent
mainline churches. This article originally appeared at http://www.churchcentral.com.
Reprinted by permission.