Growing up Church of Christ I was taught that the 'five acts of worship' were the Lord's Supper, the Offering, Prayers, Scripture reading, and Singing. I capitalize them because it was thought that these were five almost sacred acts, much like the 7 sacraments or the 5 steps of salvation. In reality, however, it was more likely that Churches of Christ were known for a symbolic interpretation of the Lord's Supper, baptism in a baptistry, preaching, topical sermons with lots and lots of Scriptures, singing without instruments and with song books and a song leader, and overt masculinity in the public worship and leadership of the church.
I mention all this because years later most Churches of Christ are still like this. But not all. Being on vacation today we went to the late service of a larger suburban Church of Christ. I knew that they advertised this service as being 'instrumental' and I wanted my kids to experience a slightly different experience than what they were used to. As such, then, it was a bit hard for me as I am firmly in middle age. I'm also one of those analytical/deconstructive people who look to pick out differences from what I know, much like those kids' puzzles where they ask 'what are the 10 differences between the two pictures of the bear on the log flue?' I really want to worship and praise God and learn from the lesson, but part of me was thinking too much about what was happening.
I am not speaking about these things in terms of judgment. I've come to believe that there are different varieties of worship that are valid, even if not everything is good. Many of our debates in the church have been more about style than they are about Scriptural truths. But I do have preferences, especially when so many of the things we have done are Good, and often when we try to change things we get out of our lane. It's like taking somebody who is excellent in making cinnamon rolls and asking them to become a barbeque master. Generally speaking, my experience is that we are terrific usually when we are singing together out of a songbook as a congregation. But we aren't as good with guitars, with powerpoints that have words on the screen, with singing the same praise 'new' praise chorus a dozen times that the worship leader just learned the week before and the congregation has no idea about the melody. It's not that we have to be bad at these things...but it's that we struggle to be good.
So this congregation today had a few guitarists warming up as we came in, and they soon began singing a more familiar worship song. It wasn't anything unexpected, except that the leader of the band and singers was a woman. I would guess that it is easy for many of us traditionalists to accept a band than it is a woman leading that band. Throughout the service she would occasionally read Scripture or encourage people to sing or once (strangely) chide the congregation for drawing on the green envelopes.
Communion wasn't all that different than normal, though there were women who came front to pass trays down the aisles. Not sure that's a problem Biblically, because isn't passing trays an act of service, and hasn't our hypermasculinity told us that women are there to serve? But then for some that would be a problem still, because women (according to many men and women) are meant to be not seen nor heard. A woman also led the prayer for the offering tray. But a man preached the sermon, a topical sermon about the Holy Spirit that was solid and filled with a lot of Scriptures, and a man made the announcements and a man (presumably one of the elders) spoke of prayer concerns and led the final prayer.
My son enjoyed the service; in particular he liked the songs and the fact that the communion wafer was already pre-cut. My niece, who, rarely goes to church, noted that the songs were OK but whoever was running the powerpoint projector wasn't keeping up and many of the words on the screen never matched whatever it was were supposed to be singing. That's often a problem I have noticed in churches that have gone away from songbooks...if you don't know the songs (about half were unknown to me), you'd better at least know the words, and if the words on the screen are wrong, you're kinda left in limbo. Of course, it's a holiday weekend so perhaps the normal people in charge were not there...but it's still not the most singer-friendly way for those of us there who want to praise God. My wife, who's likely far more conservative about these things than I am not based so much on Scripture but based on how she is used to things, wasn't the biggest fan. In particular, as music played during the communion, she leaned over to me and said that it felt like she was at a wedding and we were there to be entertained.
In the end, the reality of whether this was a Good service was whether it a)honored and glorified God and b)edified thoes who were there. The first, I think, was done...God was at the center of the sermon, the songs that we sang, and the attitude of those who led. I don't know that there was anything that unBiblical, though some would find things they don't like based on their understandings. The second was likely true as well for most, but weak people like myself were likely thinking too much through the service for our own good. Are we edified if we are thinking about whether everything is proper according to our traditional perspective of how things ought to be?
More and more in the future we will likely see churches adopting new styles like this. It gets us away from the traditions that we fought for as vitally important all those years. But that's not always a bad thing...sometimes we need the Spirit moving us forward from where we have always been. Yet for late adapters like many of us in Churches of Christ, that comes with a lot of growing pains. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.
