It is a difficult thing to step outside the established ways of life of a group, community, work or church environment. We find it easy to sink into a rut or a routine and trudge along in the same paths our leaders, parents, pastors, bosses, and other authority figures have traversed. But what has happened to our sense of adventure, the spirit of discovery that has driven mankind to great accomplishments.
From the discovering of our country by Christopher Columbus, to Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon, tremendous feats have been accomplished by those who were not willing to settle for status quo. Does this sense of adventure and discovery not apply to our spiritual lives as well...?
As individuals and as a corporate body (aka the Church) I have felt myself and many people close to me have settled into a nice, comfortable, Christian routine. We go to church on Sunday, listen to a pleasant topical message, tithe our 10ish %, go to small group on Wednesdays or the Single's mixer on Friday night and call it done. At some point along the way, (I couldn't exactly tell you when it happened) I became enraptured with a simple question..."why?" Why do we do the things we do in Church today?
Why do we start our services with worship?
Why do we typically only have one person who teaches/preaches every Sunday?
Why do we stand for worship and sit during the preaching?
Why do we pray silently rather than out loud?
Why do we send the teenagers to Sunday school instead of staying in the "main" service?
Why do we raise or clap our hands during worship?
Why is communion so important?
These are just a very small sampling of the many, many questions I have been asking. As I have started exploring to find the answer to these questions I have found that some of them have strong Biblical reasoning backing up the practice, others I have found no Biblical substantiation for at all.
Now as a disclaimer, I am not suggesting a nihilistic approach of throwing out the established order and creating something entirely new. What I am hoping, is that you might take courage from my story and begin asking your own questions. Allow yourself to step outside the box, begin not only asking the questions, but looking for the answers.
"Why?" is a great question to ask.
ReplyDeleteIn high school, my family started a 2 year long search for a new church to call home. That time was spent asking many questions about WHY churches (all considered Baptist) worshiped, preached, separated, took communion in the way that each did. Why did I feel offended by the way some churches did something? Because I was used to and comfortable with communion being done differently. We had to get comfortable with the answer to the "Why?" question being, "because there is no formal foundation in scripture that details how this should be thus it can be done in many ways." It was a great 2 years experience and brought my family together in unexpected ways.
Great post Mr. Jewell.
Read Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna, it'll answer most of your questions and concerns...
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