Jun 23 2008
Some Observations on Visiting New Churches
Having just arrived in a new city, one of the first tasks at hand is finding a new body of believers to worship and fellowship with. This can be a little intimidating, and in fact, this will be the first time that my wife and I can literally “go anywhere we want” (meaning, we have no prior connections or obligations to any particular body of believers here).
Since early in my life, I’ve been a member of the PCA and have attended PCA churches. There’s many things that I really love about the PCA and their style of worship. I am thankful for the gospel-centered focus that every PCA church I’ve attended has had (which, unfortunately, is often neglected in favor of “relevance” and “accessibility” by many mainstream churches today). While there is a large amount of diversity within PCA churches, they tend to be generally more liturgical, formal, and theological. So, this is, of course, the form of worship that I feel most comfortable and at home with. Of the three PCA churches I’ve attended in my life, I think that each one has been progressively slightly more formal than the previous. When I say formal I’m talking about things like; use of responsive readings, hymns vs. contemporary music, style of preaching, church architecture, etc.
This most recent Sunday I was invited by some good friends to visit their church with them and share lunch together afterwords. I enjoyed attending a small, local Bible church with them on Sunday morning. The music was contemporary, the setting was informal and small, they had a multimedia presentation, drums, guitar, the whole bit. I loved it.
I think that part of why I enjoyed the service so much was because it was so different from what I’ve had previously. I know that my heart is sinful and so can become dead to any form of worship given long enough exposure to it. I have no doubt that after participating in this style of worship for any length of time I would become lazy and apathetic in my worship, and that a highly structured, liturgical, formal service would likely be a balm to my soul.
Following the service I was talking with my friends over lunch about worship and the church. I was only half joking when I said I wished that I could attend a church where they radically altered their style of worship every six months! I’m not sure where my wife and I will end up attending church (and I must wait for her to return home from international travel before we make any kind of decision anyway), but wherever we go, we will be part of the body of Christ and enjoy fellowship with believers, and that’s an amazing thing!
Hmm, The last several years kind of experienced something like what you were talking about, while at college I went to PCA and whenever I was home I went to my home church which has very vibrant contemporary music service. I’m not sure what to think about all this, but I resonate with what you are saying.
Also, I think I used to be a little idealistic about church, but after a while I realized that these people (worship leaders, etc) were just people like me doing there best to lead the congratulation in worship. I’m sure there is a place for thinking about aesthetics and perhaps even criticism, but at the time I was focusing so much on those that I sometimes was neglecting what we were doing (worshiping God) and I wasn’t really thinking of how I could love my neighbors who were serving me.
It’s complicated and confusing, yet something we should think about, but I guess in doing so, we should always worship God and love our neighbor first.