Is It Time For a Change?

 I am not an expert on pop culture or what is the latest trend in music or the arts. But I have a feeling that we are a rock and roll Fellowship trying to reach a hip hop generation. It is natural to use what we know to reach out. But what if what we know went out of style with our parents and we are looked at as irrelevant and out of touch?

When the hippies got saved under pastor Mitchell he proved that even though he was not into their scene he was open to their methods. All he did was apply biblical guidelines to what the young people wanted to do and it worked.

Time has moved on and the sixties is ancient history in a streaming new world. I see video or hear soundtracks and I wonder why I don't recognize any of the music. I have been out of touch since the early 1970's. And we have raised our children to abstain from worldly music. So we have modern religious radio who is playing music that went out of style decades ago.

The Gospel is timeless. It works wherever it is preached. But the use of music to attract young people to hear the Gospel is not working and hasn't worked for a long time. It almost seems that we put too much value on an old tool that once worked but is almost useless today.

Does anyone in our Fellowship have a sense of what will work today? Does anyone have the courage to buck tradition and try something new?

Anniversary Remembered

 If my wife were still alive we would be celebrating our 48th wedding anniversary today. I miss her. I am grateful that this day can come and go and there are no more tears or sadness or melancholy on my part. I have moved on in life. My broken heart has been healed. Thank God!

Pray For Our Song Leaders

 "Then he said to them, therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old." Matthew 13:52

Every pastor knows that there needs to be a balance to his preaching. You cannot preach on the same topic every time. You cannot keep using the same story or the same illustration or the same testimony every time. People who notice you doing that will no longer hear what you have to say.

I want to suggest that in our song service this is a good guideline to follow. There are those who think that the old wine is better and there are those who think the fresh new wine is what we need. Why not give them both something to cling to? Sing the old songs for the old saints and sing enough new songs to keep the church from become stale. Do not expect that everyone will love every song that we sing. They may not know why but they can tell when something is wrong.

"For the ear tests words as the palate tastes food." Job 34"3

Pray for our song leaders. Being able to sing in tune and stay on tempo is only the beginning of his ministry. He has to orchestrate the song service in a way that brings the maximum number of saints into a worship experience that connects them with Christ.

Pray for the sound crew. That they can do what needs to be done in a way that works for the greatest number of people. Make the sound of the song service be pleasing to us and it will be pleasing to God as well.

Learning To Walk Again

 In John chapter 6 we read the story of Jesus walking on the sea to catch up to his disciples. I want to point out something obvious to me that some modern churches have lost sight of. The Bible clearly says that Jesus and then Peter walked on the sea.

"So when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near the boat; and they were afraid." John 6:19

Jesus did not run to them. He did not dance on the water. He did not swim to them or roll around on the sea. He walked. 

"For we walk by faith, not by sight." 2Cor.5:7

The Christian life is a long walk. Our worship ought to mirror our life. Dancing or exuberant actions do not keep in line with a walk of faith. Worship is an act of faith and gratitude, not an excuse to let it all hang out and give vent to our emotions.

Some churches need to repent and return to the heart of worship. They need to turn on the lights and fire Jezebel the worship leader. You do not have to be fleshly to be relevant. Worship is to turn our thoughts toward Christ, not to express our emotional feelings. True worship in Spirit and in truth is attractive to the lost.

No one can run forever. There may be dancing in Heaven. But we need to learn how to walk no matter how we feel. Walking was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us on Sunday morning.

Water Baptism Service

 We had a great service last night. We do not have a place to baptize in the auditorium. We se up a small stage and a metal trough outside in the parking lot for water baptism. It works fine. We had 14 new converts baptized last night.

I told a friend about this and he said that in his travels he has never seen a baptistry in any of the big churches that he has visited.  Prescott might be one of the only new buildings in our Fellowship to build a baptistry behind the platform.

We do what works in our circumstances. And we do what we have always done once we prove that it works. That is human nature.  No one wants to live on the cutting edge all of the time. Innovation always runs into resistance from the established order. 

I am grateful for the new converts who were baptized last night.

Growing Older In Our Fellowship

 I have written before that you cannot go forward while looking backward. I am not dismissing the value of history to give context to our lives and our church. History and heritage are valuable and important. But history tells us how we got here, it does not tell us what to do next.

A pastor's job is to lead the flock of God forward. To look to the regions beyond and to lead us to our promised land. To do that a leader must know God and he must not be afraid of growing old. 

One thing about time is that it never stops moving forward. We change with time. Some things we do better with time. Some things we find our abilities diminishing with time. Growing old together is a good thing as long as you do not expect your spouse to remain as they are forever.

Pop culture in every generation is a fantasy world of the young and the beautiful and has zero connection to the real world. A visual world of pop entertainment paints a false picture of what to look like and how to solve problems.

My prayer is not just that a new crop of young leaders will rise up to lead us forward. It is that our existing leaders will be wise enough to lead us to the Promised Land. That just like the aged apostles of the first century, they will never stop preaching to us the whole counsel of God in Christ. Amen.

Life must be lived to the end. Pastor Mitchell and his wife did that. Will we?

Relevant Or Reverent?

 Since worship is so important I am feeling stirred to write about it again. I read that worship wars are basically between two groups of people. There are whose who view worship as relevant and there are those who think that worship ought to be reverent. The relevant crowd wants music that is hip or cool or modern. They want music that a visitor will understand and appreciate. The reverent group wants worship to be Christ-centered and God focused and life changing.

Are we there to worship Christ, or to worship music? Is worship about how I feel or is it about who Christ is and what he can do? Are we trying to sell music or are we trying to make disciples? Do people come to church to attend a concert or to be transformed by the Word and the Spirit?

One more thought. Some think that we need to make worship relevant to make sinners and visitors want to come in. I think that worship is something that the church does and is focused on what pleases God and to honor the one who saved us by His grace. For me worship is is not evangelism, it is worship. Sinners will find true worship attractive and appealing and they will not be turned off just because it is not like what is in the clubs around town.

The style of music is a personal preference and it can change. We need to be careful not to elevate preference to the level of principal or law.